Author: Rasmus

Nerd and immigrant who uses words, pictures and sound to tell stories.
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2022 Was a Rebound Year

It’s good to look forward to what’s coming next, set goals and get excited for the future. I am not even being sarcastic, despite not being a proponent of actual resolutions. But first, let me take a moment to reflect on the year that has passed. 2022 was the year when the world tried spinning back up in earnest, and in large parts failed to do so. This applies to me personally, as well as in general. As the pandemic lessened its grip, there was a lot of jumping the gun to get “back to normal”.

We are not there. At least, I hope 2022 is not representative of the new normal. It doesn’t feel like it. More transitional, like a rebound year, if you ask me.

Losses

I lost 3 old friends over the span of a quarter in 2022. We weren’t all that close anymore, but we used to be, and their passing hit me harder than expected. These guys were all around my own age and died of natural causes. Cherish your friends, even those you don’t see very often. Send them a note.

I changed jobs 3 times in 2022, which is at least twice too many. Even as a longtime contract worker, it’s too much stress to go through. It doesn’t help that I was fooled by a consulting company. Their lure was to build a gaming industry arm of the business, but it was a ploy to get a business plan made. Within a week after I delivered, they decided it was too expensive after all, canceled the project, and let me go.

Those events required a hard rebound, mentally. I am not looking for pity, however. We all have bad situations happen, but how we react to them determine whether they can be turned into a win.

Wins

One of the biggest wins of the year for me, was that it only took a week to land a new job after the fiasco with the consulting company. At the time of writing, I’m working as producer on Age of Empires 4, shepherding the Xbox port of the game. It’s a great gig, and an honor to be associated with such a respected franchise. That said, I would really like to make this my last contract gig. Being employed a maximum of 18 months at a time is not ideal.

Another big win was launching Above the Fold out of Early Access on Steam after almost 4 years in development. It happened with less fanfare than planned, in large part due to coinciding with the events previously mentioned, but it felt great to officially finish the game and “set it free”. There is an update in the works, but no launch date on that.

Completing a project always leaves a gap, followed by increasing experimentation and eventually, new projects come out of it. This renewal is well underway already and will continue to set the tone for the first part of the new year. In fact, I’ve already started working out prototypes for a new game.

So, as I look forward to the year ahead, I look for building out fresh ideas and inspiring relationships; a welcome challenge. I want 2023 to be a year of strength and creation.

Want to join me?

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Apprentice in the Gaming Industry

Sorry to be blunt, but traditional college degrees are rarely important in the gaming industry. Whether you’re a producer, an animator, engineer or community manager, there are plenty of jobs where a degree is optional. More important than the degree itself, will be any projects you can show off to a potential employer. Real world experience has high value, especially if you have shipped something.

Studying game development in a school setting is one step removed from actual game development and usually comes with a hefty price tag. For those reasons, I don’t think the diploma is a good investment.

I would argue that developing and launching games is a trade better suited for an apprenticeship model. Not just for the student, but in an industry infamous for crunch culture and burning people out within a few years, it’s a step towards a more holistic approach to doing business long term.

For students, the more hands-on experience you can get, the quicker and better you will learn. Not just technical skills, but also process related and interpersonal ones, like how to run meetings, working within budgets and deadlines, and taking ownership in a real-world scenario.

Being in production, you’ll always be ahead of any textbook, and the stakes will always be higher. So you learn fast.

In real-world environments, you’re faced with a blend of new and established tools, proprietary software and depending on the studio, a chance to work with cutting edge and unreleased tech. The bigger the studio, the more of this there usually is to learn.

In my first real industry job, I had to work around hardware that was still in development (the Xbox One and its Kinect attachment). This was tremendously challenging and equally exciting, in part because of the level of secrecy involved.

The 3-Year Model

So how do apprenticeships work? If you’re not familiar with the concept, think of it like a boosted version of an internship. One that involves real work, a salary and benefits (and zero student loans), stretches over a few years and leaves you with a well-rounded education – maybe a job. It traditionally culminates with a graduation project that really showcases your acquired mastery, also known as a masterpiece.

Let’s imagine an apprenticeship that runs over 3 years. You start out making slightly less than a typical junior position but still more than a paid intern. At first you won’t be contributing as much as learning, but in the final year you should be on par with, or slightly above a typical junior salary.

In the first year, you’ll focus on the basics. Sit in on meetings, work under guided supervision, mess around in the different tools, learn about budgets, timelines, testing and release. You will do mostly low level work at this point, but still actively contribute to the making of a game. After year one, you’ll have a good big picture overview of the industry, the studio, title and your role within that environment.

In year 2, you dive into the discipline you are looking to specialize in. You get ownership of smaller projects, where making mistakes won’t halt production. Making mistakes is expected and part of the learning process, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be expectations and real deadlines as well.

In the 3rd and final year, you pick one major feature to fully own alongside the work you are already doing – this is your masterpiece. The apprentice and their mentor set the final scope together, but it should highlight a “specialty” skill as well as other skills covered during the apprenticeship. What that is depends on what you do, of course. An animator will have a different goal than a producer.

At the end of the apprenticeship, the apprentice becomes a master and technically graduates out of their job. Ideally, the company has spent 3 years training a perfect new hire but even if they don’t convert the apprentice, that person walks away with 3 years of industry experience, no student loan debt, and hopefully at least one shipped title to their name.

Where do I start?

If you’re a newcomer hoping to get into the industry, the options are very limited. To my knowledge, there aren’t any studios or publishers offering apprenticeships. I have seen interns get hired into junior positions, but it is rare. If you know of anyone with an apprenticeship model, I would love to know about it.

If you run a studio or are a publisher in the gaming industry, I would strongly urge you to consider something like the model I have proposed. Do the math, and take the benefits to your company culture into account. It’s an investment for sure, but a worthwhile one in my opinion.

Adopting apprenticeships industry-wide would require a lot of leg work and for some, a shift in mentality. It would take time and people with greater expertise than myself to iron out the details. There are legalities and Human Resources to consider, and I am certainly not an expert in either of those. But I do believe that a well-structured variation of the apprenticeship model is better suited for the gaming industry than what we currently have.

Apprenticeships could also be developed with the support of unions, which are perfectly suited to help define win-win apprenticeship models. We need more unions across the industry, but that’s another topic for another day.

Would you take on an apprentice? Would you want to learn this way? For me, the answer is yes to both questions.

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Impressing 12-Year Old Me

Any time I do something big or important, I think of myself as 12 years old, and I ask what the younger me would think of what I am doing now. If the kid would be impressed, it was the right decision.

The reason I do this, is because I still carry many of the same dreams and am fascinated by the same things my younger self was into. And at 12, I still had a bit of the innocent naïveté of a child, without the awkwardness of being a teenager but with a well developed sense for right and wrong. I suspect others probably can relate to this as well.

So, it’s really a technique to try and stay true to my core, not be afraid of lofty dreams, and to keep seeking adventure. I think returning to that kid also acts as a way to avoid getting too jaded or caught up in life’s endless list of complications.

At 12, I was really into gaming. Especially roleplaying games and video games. I was also into organizing stuff back then, taking charge. Fast forward 35 years, and I am a producer in the gaming industry. Kid-me, from a decidedly blue collar family in tiny Denmark, would have his little mind blown. That’s a clear win, and the most direct tie back to my childhood. Most of the time, it’s much more subtle.

A common one I use, is “would kid-me trust this person?” It’s a pretty good bullshit-meter, because my default position was always not to trust adult strangers. And in continuation of my thoughts on donating work to other people’s projects, I absolutely use this technique as a measure, before making any sort of commitment. If kid-me disapproves, it’s an automatic pass.

In essence it helps me to be less constricted by outside expectations, and instead focus inward on what matters to Rasmus.

It doesn’t work for everything, of course. Specifically, it doesn’t work for things kids just don’t care about. Like choosing an accountant or cleaning your room. Kid-me never approves of those things, so I make sure to get him a small reward whenever it gets done anyway. Which current me is thankful for.