Clear As Mud

Building Community for Your Game with Dave Branco (GDWC)

“Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much” – Helen Keller.
Dave Branco, the Community Manager for the Game Development World Championship, shares his journey from working in finance to taking a bold leap, moving halfway around the world to Finland to pursue a career in the game industry.
We discuss the importance of creating a positive and engaged community around your game, using creative early marketing strategies to promote your game, and the trends Dave sees emerging from the most successful games submitted to the GDWC.

Brad Myers- Lead Character Artist At ProbablyMonsters

Brad has worked as a 3D artist since 2008. He has been a character artist on multiple games in the Call of Duty franchise including Vanguard, Black Ops and Cold War.Brad delves deep into the process of creating characters from a technical and order of operations perspective that shines a light on what it takes to make character models for one of the most high profile franchises in the world. 

Pierre Burgoni- FX Division Art Director at Digic Pictures

Have you ever watched one of those CG cinematic trailers for a game online and wondered how it was made? Well, look no further. Pierre has had a hand in creating trailers for the Assassin’s Creed franchise, Rainbow 6 Franchise and working on the cinematics for Call of Duty Vanguard. 
 
We get into all that and more in this episode of Clear As Mud. 

Ian Saterdalen- Lead Producer at Mythical Games

Ian has what every producer needs and not what every producer has- the personal touch! Throughout his work at Mythical Games, Zynga, Bioware, and 343 Industries, Ian puts his team first by getting to know them personally and professionally which in turn dictates his production style. 
We talk about he does this, his experience with crunch and the trials and tribulations of production in the industry.

Seth Hall- VFX, Tools, and Pipeline Technical Artist at Riot Games

Seth has worked in VFX on the film and TV side on Spider-Man 2 and Buffy The Vampire Slayer. On the game side, he’s worked on Star Wars- The Force Unleashed, the Battlefield franchise, the Dead Space franchise, Dante’s Inferno and was also on Amy Hennig’s canceled Star Wars game before the plug was pulled.
He's had an incredible career. This episode is fittingly technical given Seth's technical background. We dive into these subjects and a whole heck of a lot more in a full to the brim Clear As Mud. 

William Gauthier- Freelance Game Designer

William’s career has been built around working on mobile and casual games for companies like Ubisoft and Zynga, but now he’s at a bit of a career crossroads in the sense that he wants to work on independent titles in different genres.
We dive into the reasoning behind his career change, the challenges of marketing himself to indie developers and in a rather sweet story, how he created a project at a game jam to propose to his girlfriend. 

Giovani Magana- Sr. Environment Artist At Respawn Entertainment

Giovani worked tirelessly, working two jobs and attending school to realize his dream of working in 3D art. After eight years of giving himself unconditionally to his craft, he broke into the industry at Skydance Interactive.
This led to him working at Sony's Santa Monica Studio on God of War: Ragnarok and now for Respawn working on Jedi Survivor. Hear how he proved that no matter what stage of life you're in, nothing beats unbridled resolve.NOTE: Mild spoilers are discussed in this episode relating to God of War: Ragnarok.
 

Darren Yeomans- Studio Director At Atomhawk Design LTD.

Darren has worked in the game industry for over 30 years as an artist, an outsource teams manager, and now a studio director. 
We talk about the differences between working in the industry in its nascent stages compared to now, Darren’s experience working on 50 Cent: Blood In The Sand, and how Atomhawk has established itself as one of the premiere game development outsource studios in the world having worked on games in the FIFA series, Halo and PUBG.

Fabio Corrirossi- Technical Director at Third Kind Games

Fabio had to teach himself programming in order to carve out a career in the industry. He had no idea how to make games or what a game designer actually did. But curiosity, ambition and determination led to him diving fully into the world of engineering to realize his dream.

Aaron Hamilton Cook- Producer At Bioware

Aaron takes us through how he works collaboratively with a team and touches on the core events that shaped him as a producer. We then walk through a hypothetical game pitch that Aaron breaks down and delves deep into how as a producer, he would make that game become a reality.