Luke: it's because I joined before it started I was too too eager that's what it is

Tasha: and I'm going to push five.

Matthew Ibbs AI: spoil the question so I have redacted it. Yours sincerely, the editor.

Matt: You can't have joined before it started.

Luke: You told me three seconds, so it hadn't started.

Matt: I was already in here when you joined.

Luke: Yeah, all right.

Matt: You

Tasha: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to today's episode of Dulcet Tones, where we argue who is right and who is wrong. We were clearly right, Luke was clearly wrong, but we're not going to argue anymore because we're done with that.

Luke: I don't know why. In the case of caring less, I care less.

Tasha: a one-off protest way too much.

Matt: I think so. I care less. I care way less. No, I care way less than you.

Luke: No, I care less. If there was a trophy for caring less, I would have it in my hand and I'll be on number one podium.

Matt: If there was a competition which would necessitate a trophy, I wouldn't turn up at all because I don't care.

Tasha: Gentlemen, the fact that you're still talking about this means that you care.

Luke: I saw that coming Matt and I just let you roll with it because it was going good.

Matt: You Thank you. So you're a professional.

Luke: Thanks. You're welcome. I thought he deserves that one.

Matt: Thank you. That's a good one. We do. Got a real.

Tasha: We have a real question today. I want to know what the question is and who is it from because what?

Luke: a real question.

Matt: Well, hashtag spoilers. ⁓ It's from a young gentleman ⁓ called Andrew Wilson Sleight. And I'm not going to spoil the question, but he messaged me on LinkedIn and said, I have a question for you guys. If you would please have a look at this for me. was like, yeah, dude, okay, fucking. blew my mind. Apparently we have a listener. I, I, first, ⁓ hashtag last, hashtag only. But he's, ⁓ he even like, I don't know if you guys actually check any of the content that we put out, but he did genuinely comment on a episode as well. This is very exciting.

Luke: Awesome. Hashtag first.

Tasha: Aww.

Luke: Fantastic. That's cool.

Tasha: Share screen, share screen, I wanna see.

Matt: share screen I'm gonna go look it up go to my youtube channel and just look it ⁓

Luke: Yeah, yeah, get an extra view, Tash.

Tasha: For goodness sake, Can you see the kind of producer I am doing my bidding?

Matt: I'm not your dog's body! Do it yourself!

Luke: Bring bring bring that shit up Jamie

Matt: Yes, do it. You do it. Oh boy. So yeah, go check that out. Like seems like a nice dude. He messaged me and then all of like it's real as well. Like I'm not even making it up. It's genuinely real. It's very exciting. It's yeah, I mean, all we need to do is.

Luke: I will, straight after this. Good. It's a sign of things to come.

Tasha: Which one did he comment on?

Luke: He needs to his friends and family and grandparents and stuff.

Matt: Yeah. ⁓ boy, that's a great question. Which, which.

Luke: She's still trying to get you to do a bidding for her, Matt.

Matt: Yeah, I see that. I think it's the one, it's one of the ones with the comment on it. Seasonally, I think it's seasonally autumnal jumpers.

Tasha: Thank ⁓ for goodness. ⁓ there is there is another great one guys. I personally have to stay away from live service and free to play nowadays. I'm too susceptible to giving up money or time.

Luke: Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt: Yeah, there you go. And another great one, which means that he's watched others. This is very exciting. I'm so excited.

Luke: That was a good episode, even I'm proud of that. That's amazing. We have a loyal watcher.

Tasha: Oh no, he watched the first episode. He watched the first one. Great podcast guys, loved it. Already a fan. did, yeah, you did fail. Guess the game's extra hard as both these games were showcased among the main shows. Oh, that's our previous big convention.

Matt: has watched the second one. Yeah. Well, now you're sort of ruining the question, Tash, that he sent in.

Luke: Wow, thanks Tosh. ⁓

Tasha: ⁓ but you told me to read the comments, man, you didn't shoot screen. This is all on you. ⁓

Matt: No, not not out loud like like inside voice in your head

Luke: in your head voice internalize it

Tasha: Yeah. In your head, in your head Look mate, you told me to go find the comments myself and read them and I did If you don't want to share your screen and keep your secrets then don't tell me to do shit or more

Luke: So I had an acoustic version of that song the other day and it was really nice. It just guitar, really, really calm. And I was going...

Tasha: What don't I share my own? Don't I share my own? ⁓

Luke: No, just zombie. Yeah, that was good. Go and check it out.

Matt: Oh, I see. Don't tell me to read the comments of our videos on the YouTube channel. It was whatever Tash said it was. I've written it down somewhere for later. Yeah, we're just going to read the fucking comments, But like, oh, were you?

Luke: So that was the question.

Tasha: Yeah, like go read the comments yourself. ⁓

Luke: ⁓ I was trying to get back on track. Yeah, for a change, right? Yeah, it's consistently me breaking the track. Yeah. I know I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the central one this week, guys. So welcome to the podcast. I think it's because you've got one listener, I want to be more professional. We should, we should. Like the field of dreams.

Matt: Okay, how's that working out for you? Yeah, it is weird. That's a departure for you trying to get us back on track. Yeah, all right. Because we have a listen now, we should probably up our game somewhat. Okay.

Tasha: You I'm a dissentful This is for you listener.

Matt: This is for you, ⁓ Andrew. We're gonna be super professional.

Tasha: Mm-hmm try to be. Yeah, I'm trying guys. Where was your head?

Matt: OK.

Luke: Yeah, so, yeah, you're right. I think that's a good topic to chat about. What happened was...

Matt: That's a good topic. What was it again?

Tasha: off.

Luke: Wait, it's alright Tash, me and you talk about it, fine. Just ignore him. You'll hear it in the edit. You'll hear it in the edit. Yeah.

Matt: I need to know what it is so that I can edit this later.

Tasha: No, right. OK, so hot topic, hot topic, hot topic is relocation. In today's day and age where companies are removing the option of working from home and remote options, is relocation for a job a viable and sustainable option and is it affordable, especially now considering salaries are dropping by at least 20 to 40 percent?

Luke: And during COVID, we were all sort led to believe that actually we can all work remotely. It's fine. We don't need to go back to that. And then COVID finished. Yeah, we proved that we could. then COVID finished, everyone was like, all the companies were, oh, hang on, we're paying lease on this building. We need to get you back in. Plus for some arbitrary reason, we believe you're more productive being in the office. No nonsense. So a lot of companies have gone to the three days a week in the office. We're hybrid. Like, that's a good thing.

Tasha: We proved that we could. You're not. Or fully in office, no working from home. You need to relocate for your job. you salaries. I saw this. Yes, they are removing the remote working option. They've been pushing it that hard. But in today, so you've got a whole bunch of redundancies going on, right? Which have meant that

Luke: or fully in office. so. ⁓ plus the salaries.

Matt: I believe that is something that Ubisoft are bringing back.

Luke: Mmm. Yeah, you're right, Matt. Yeah. Yeah.

Tasha: companies that are still hiring have reduced their salaries. So if you're a senior earning potentially upwards of 90, you're now going to be earning minimums or maximum 60k. So you've dropped by about 40 grand. right. So a good 20, 40 % of your salary gets dropped in this day and age. the we must, we want you to relocate to our city. And we'll help. We'll give you a relocation bonus, however much that is, if it's actually sustainable. So you now need to uproot you, your family, your whole life, sell your house or rent out to relocate to a new city for a job that you don't know potentially is going to work not for a much lower salary.

Luke: Mmm. Such a risk. Yeah. Or get a job that's in another industry that's less risky.

Tasha: Is it worth it? Exactly.

Matt: I mean, it's gonna be obviously, a lot of this stuff is gonna go down to the individual, like, are they willing to take that gamble in an industry where at the moment, the security just is not there. So,

Tasha: Mm.

Matt: much is a person going to want to disrupt everything to stay in the industry versus like you're saying Luke the option which is to you know jump to a different industry which may be less risky but not necessarily especially tech at the moment which is nothing is kind of guaranteed

Tasha: Yeah.

Luke: Yeah. And it's really, it's really hard to get a job at the moment. I spoke to someone, I applied for a producer role at a company and I've got a contact there and I messaged him saying, I haven't heard anything back. It seems quite odd. And he said, Luke, we had 750 people apply for that role and we made it ⁓ a policy that we can't get back to everyone because there's just too many people applying for it. And he said, honestly, between me and you, I still think we hired the wrong person, but we'll find out. So, so they're rushing it. They got too many people to process and all that sort of stuff. And it's, it's really tricky.

Tasha: Mm-hmm. ⁓ Yeah. It's right now, this industry is really tough. Like we did have what was it called the year of the employee where you could even the employee had the power during COVID and you had all the companies banging down on your door to hire you. You didn't actually have to apply for jobs. It's now switched around, but it's switched around so harshly because of the redundancies in every company saying no or hiring increases that it's like You feel like you're in some sort of golden handcuffs and now you are beholden to your employer because holy shit they're the only ones willing to give you a job.

Luke: Yeah. Plus you've got the younger generation coming through to the industry, which is great. I think it's awesome, but they're the older generation and might not be looked at as favorably as they once were. So I think there's a level of ageism as well in that. Um, and they might look at a CV and think, well, that person's going to want more money than we can afford. Let's get someone in younger. They're going to be a fresher eyes, get on bed with the team. That's not necessarily true. Yeah. And not good. Yeah. So, so some assumptions being made at the.

Tasha: Mm. Mm hmm. hmm. We're not necessarily good, though. Perhaps. Yeah.

Luke: the CV level probably incorrect. Maybe, I saw something on LinkedIn earlier, maybe AI is being used to filter out people that are older perhaps, which would be quite scary.

Matt: figure that out you know you don't put your course ⁓

Tasha: If you're CV, yeah, was gonna say if it's a my experience in the years or if you've left your date of birth on the scene. No, I haven't.

Luke: the amount of experience you have in your CV. Okay. No, I haven't, but you can see that I was working in 2000. They're like, okay, he's older then.

Matt: Yeah, he's older than someone who got their first job five years ago, so yeah.

Tasha: Yeah.

Luke: Yeah, exactly.

Tasha: Yeah, exactly. So it's a, is it, is it worth it now? I don't know anymore. Like I have relocated from my job and I am getting on and I'm kind of finding my way, but I don't have a family to uproot. I've taken my salary cut where it has eaten because I need a job, need to live. Couldn't live off my redundancy money forever. So I've done it. And don't get me wrong. I've been, I'm happy in the city that I'm in now. Like I've made friends, I've got to build up my life again. But it's still not without its rest. A lot of my stuff is still in storage because I'm in a flat share. It's a month of cost and I'm flat sharing with my coworker, but my colleague, which I now consider a good friend of mine because they're also relocating from Ireland, which is a much more difficult situation. Fair. But.

Luke: That's cool. That's a monthly cost. ⁓ cool. Hmm. Hmm.

Tasha: I can also understand why this is not feasible for a lot of people. And the fact that we don't offer the option to at least for the first six months of that job to work remotely and prove you can do the job that's right for you is beyond me. Once you get past that six month, you will say, OK, we would like you to come to the office now. You've passed probation. Could you consider relocating now because we'd like you in office?

Luke: Hmm.

Tasha: But the fact that we've already proven we can work remotely during COVID to force people back into office is literally an exercise of proving we need a building when we don't.

Luke: It's just frustrating. Yeah, and also what I liked about COVID was it made me think, ⁓ maybe I could work for an American company. Maybe I could work for a French or German company, a company that speaks English a lot, but not all the time. maybe I'd be happy to learn another language, or if I can work remotely, work from a home office. I thought that was a positive that was gonna come out of COVID, obviously, despite all the nonsense that there was COVID.

Tasha: ⁓ Yeah. I'd love to work with them. We seem to have taken several steps backwards there, which is sad because it felt like we were moving forwards in the world.

Luke: Yeah. I thought so, alas, money and leases and traditional mindsets.

Tasha: Mmm. There was a company that I know, Hawaiian companies, one of my favorite wine companies, that used to have a big mass of HQ. And during COVID, they couldn't sustain because they couldn't have people in office. And they were just paying this lease in an empty building. And when COVID emptied and they decided to come back into office, realized people were the same level of product as at home as they were in the office. So in order to cut their costs, got rid of the office. and let their staff work from home. Yeah.

Luke: that works if they haven't got a lease. And a lot of companies had leases that were tied to like five years and they realized that no one in the office meant they can't get tax back or they can't warrant paying for it, et cetera.

Tasha: Mm-hmm. Yeah, like there's going to be elements of this I haven't considered for each building, like how long the lease term is, how much they've invested in stuff. But if you can get away with not having an office or offering remote options, you are opening yourself up to so much more talent, so much more better quality, happier workers. And you're not going to feel, whatever your salaries are, they are what they are. But you're not going to be

Luke: Mmm. Hmm. Hmm.

Tasha: changing someone's cost of living by forcing them to uproot and move to a new city.

Luke: Yeah. But you do get those, sometimes those company owners, those CEOs that were in the office themselves, because maybe they want to get away from their family, but they're in the office and thinking, well, hang on a minute, if I'm in the office, you should all be in the office. They kind of get that sort of stuck in their head and then they force a policy on. It's like, okay, all right. Yeah. That does happen as

Tasha: Sure, yeah. Hmm, interesting takes.

Matt: So games industry hot topic hot topic hot topic talk it talk it games industry hot topic relocation relocation ⁓ viable affordable sustainable is it really any of those things getting people to move ⁓ city to be in the same place as the company or should we really be leaning into remote

Tasha: Tokik. Tokik. Tokik. ⁓

Luke: Talk it.

Matt: first I was just actually as a little kind of like aside I was working with a company that were I think they do have a small office somewhere but they are remote first and they all seemed absolutely delighted

Luke: That's That's good. And they're hitting milestones, I bet. They're getting the deadlines.

Matt: I can't talk too far out of school but they seem like they've got the shit together.

Tasha: Yeah. I'm a big fan of the we are remote first companies.

Luke: Good. Good. Hmm. Yeah, it makes sense. And all you have to do is you have to prove you're delivering to budget, quality, et cetera.

Matt: Alright. Yeah, which is not that hard to do, like to prove like, you know, if you've got milestones and you hit them, you're probably doing okay.

Luke: Prove it. Yeah.

Tasha: Yeah.

Matt: All right, we have to move on ⁓ to next segment, which is games production. What is it really? Is this a masterclass from first principles what games production is ⁓ and isn't? Market saturation and discoverability. Thousands upon thousands of games are now released every year. So the 18,000, 20,000, something like that. This makes discoverability tough, especially for indies. What kind of producer do to help here?

Luke: Good question.

Matt: now. This one was sent in by me.

Luke: Back in the day, awesome, thanks Matt from the past. Back in the day, you would go on a sort of sales tour with the salesman and present the game and expose it and do all those sort of things and get the numbers in from the various shops and distributors and stuff like that. So I think it was easier back then. I know that's not answering your question, but I think it was easier back then to get that sort of hype train going. So it's now about,

Tasha: ⁓ Thank you, Matt.

Luke: Lots of videos, lots of teasers, lots of getting people talking about it. Having like social media managers, having community managers, building a community around a game or an upcoming game. Steam wishlist is a big one that does well. And you can use that as an indicator for the amount of people that ready for this game to come out. And then you try and improve those stats as time goes on. It's, I think it's a lot more guessing than it used to be, which is weird considering we've got so much power at the internet. But I think before you could estimate getting more of a return because the shops say we will take such and such many copies. So you're like, okay, we've guaranteed that many copies from those shops. But now it's like, cross your fingers, Steam wishlist is 10,000 or whatever sort of numbers. Everyone's going to play it, are they? No, it's probably like 10 % of those players. So it's tricky.

Tasha: It's a different game now, like... Yeah, it's a different game now like you've got all your social media, your digital interactions, and that's where your mainstream income is now going to come from. But how you generate that, I still think game expos, game events are relevant. Like you've got your big events, you imagine going to something like a radar event. So I know it's all music, but it's also based around games, having your own little station and pocketing that crowd as well. That matter of foot traffic, you've got, if you can have a really well presented first level of the game and tell what it is, the amount of people that will

Luke: Mmm. Mm. Mm.

Tasha: be like, ⁓ this is Twitch, Yeah, absolutely.

Luke: Yeah, and YouTube influences and stuff like that as well. So people that play games a lot, get them involved. Yeah. People on Twitch getting them involved as like a first time user play like beta testers, getting them to talk about it in Twitch, have a sort of closed beta, get a lot of people on it, hyping it up. Those things really help.

Matt: The hell?

Luke: It's different if it's a first person, sorry, if it's a single player experience, that's very different.

Matt: All these things, yeah, absolutely right. can't disagree with any of the things that you guys are talking about here. But what is it that a producer can do to help in these situations?

Luke: big part of those things and...

Tasha: Find out when you need to do the best with they say you a demo or something ready by X date or you have a streamer that wants to present this on this date work to what that is it's almost like working to an alpha prototype but okay we need a full first fully first playable level of all its bells and whistles so then you see right okay so it's like a vertical slice okay let's get this ready organize that you can list out everything you need get your resources in order know whenever if it's fallen get you hit your due date and make sure you're planning backwards. Backwards planning everybody, this is my due date, is when I'm ready to fall, this is my hardening week. This is what we need ready by then because this is when we're demoing.

Luke: Yeah, and then them sort of closed doors demos are useful as well. Get the press involved, get people talking about it, show them what it is, get some screenshots.

Matt: So a closed ⁓ door demo is when you sort of invite media types right into a room and then make them play the game and make them enjoy it. You will talk about it, yeah. You will copy and paste this press release.

Luke: Correct, yeah, get them talking about it, yep.

Tasha: Mm-hmm.

Luke: You will enjoy it. You will love it and you will talk good things about it. Yeah.

Tasha: Correct. Mm. ⁓

Luke: It's funny because those things have always happened, but they're now more important than they were before. Whereas before you could take it or leave it sometimes, but now they're much more important.

Matt: What role does, maybe not, know, obviously print media is dead, but what role do these websites still have in this, getting the information out there? Because there's so many websites and so many games, but how do you get them interested in what it is that you are doing?

Tasha: Target your big ones and your main ones, right? Their websites. I imagine you have to get buy-in there as well. So having that ready, talk about it, pay for a space or some advertisement space, make sure it's concise, precise, make sure it gets across the message that you want. It's nappy. Attention spans are shorter these days, so make sure it fits within that. Attention spans are shorter these days,

Luke: you have to pay.

Matt: Sorry, what was that last bit?

Luke: so funny.

Tasha: We'll roll with it. Matt here is a perfect example of what happens to hold brain rot from your doom scrolling.

Matt: You

Luke: Ahem. That's Matt's face as he's going.

Tasha: hahahaha

Matt: So then, if you've gone.

Luke: But yeah, I was just gonna say early demos is a really good way of doing it. So even if you're doing first playable type demos, get people involved, show it off, do some videos, get streamers involved before you do the next set of releases and stuff like that. Yeah.

Tasha: Yeah. Trusted websites, trusted events, big ones like GDC and such are going to be big hitters. ⁓ Develop, ⁓ develop light, coming soon. Thank you.

Luke: Mm.

Matt: Nice plug. Okay. But down to down to brass tacks, right? Like from a producer's point of view, and you're saying there about like backwards planning. So we know that this thing is coming up. So therefore we have to aim for that particular date, which means that here are some gates, milestones, etc. But but what else? What else can a producer do to help the game and the game studio? Get this right?

Tasha: Hmm. Be aware of it. Like legit, pass backwards planning, taking considerations, talking to marketing teams, your social teams, your community managers, making sure contracts have gone out or making sure people are on top of it. That's it. You know, this is all you've got. Yeah.

Luke: And you're that hype, creating that hype behind it, building communities around it, around the experience, getting streamers involved, trying to create a community as early as you can to create that hype, even if it's just screenshots sometimes. I know Eve, Eve famously done that for years, talked about what the next release is going to be, talk about the story behind it, talk about the strategy behind it, do dev diaries, dev diaries are really good as well.

Tasha: Mm hmm.

Luke: talk about how we develop, what we do, get people to buy in on the way the game is being developed, not always just the game.

Matt: And so is this ⁓ something that the producer is going to be an active part of or is this essentially a collaborative job between the producer and the community managers?

Luke: Yes.

Tasha: I'd say collaborative. Yeah, it's to be a collaborative role. You couldn't do this on your own.

Luke: active yeah No. Yeah, the producer should be responsible for it or sorry, but accountable for it, not necessarily responsible. I'm doing race in my head then, like actually, yeah.

Matt: doing racy matrix. Racy matrix, not a racist matrix.

Tasha: Races. Racies. Racies! Races. They're going on their own.

Luke: That's a different topic for a completely different podcast. Yeah, racy's.

Matt: ⁓ races. We're going on the races.

Tasha: going on the races.

Matt: Yeah. Okay so in summary if you are releasing a game this year and you want to try to stand out you're competing for attention in a saturated market space, especially tough for indies. You either have to get a huge injection of cash from somewhere to invite journalists into a locked room demo session so that you can then get them to love your game and tell everybody else to love it too.

Luke: Hmm.

Matt: Or you create hype, you start a community, you get help from a community manager or do it yourself. And the producer's role in this instance is to be accountable for it, did you say?

Luke: Yes, accountable.

Matt: accountable for it. ⁓ Help that help the communication between the devs and indeed the community managers to the community manager knows exactly what it is that they are managing a community of build that height and make sure that those relationships are in place and also from a producer's point of view this ⁓ backwards planning. So what are the dates? What is it that you're trying to achieve when you were trying to achieve it by and how do you build it from that perspective.

Tasha: Yeah Yeah.

Luke: And also how do you react? So you may put a demo out there and everyone says, it's awesome. The chances are 50 % are going to say they like it. 50 % are going to say, this isn't what I thought it'd be. It would be great if it did this. I really like that bit, but, so you should be able to allow that time to tweak these things and improve these things.

Matt: ⁓ is Marathon a good example of that? They released Alpha maybe six months ago and they've made, they made considerable changes to the game based on feedback that they got from that Alpha. Yeah, but then Bungie have infinite money.

Luke: Mm. Mm. Mm. Yep.

Tasha: Hmm.

Matt: I mean, I'm not saying I'm not trying to detract from what they achieved in that time, but they do have the time and the resources to be able to do things like that that might be outside the realms of other devs.

Tasha: .

Luke: Yeah, but it's allowing some capacity to improve things and change things. There might be times where you put a demo out and it absolutely bombs and people say, it looks great, but it plays awful. at that point, you're like, I'm so glad we put a demo out because we were heading down the wrong path and it was going to go nowhere. So you're ultimately wasting money if you don't do it. So that's a really good way of looking at it as well.

Tasha: Yeah. Yeah, you want to get your your focus group together.

Matt: All right, got a we got a real question from a real person ⁓ from ⁓ now, depending on whether the ⁓ segment makes it ⁓ makes the cut or we or may not have talked about Andrew. Andrew, our one ⁓

Tasha: No, what?

Luke: It's great to meet you, Andrew.

Matt: It's great to meet you Andrew. Andrew sent in this question. ⁓ How do I break the no gaming experience catch 22 ⁓ Andrew's transitioning from 11 years in corporate software testing back to the games industry and wants to know how to rise above the average applicant when his professional experience isn't specifically in game dev.

Luke: So here's some ideas, here's some thoughts. Before you get a job as an artist, you often have to work on your own portfolio. You have to able to prove what you've done and prove the things you're doing, things you do on the side, things you do as hobbies, your passions, your style, all that sort of stuff. So when you go in for those interviews, talk about art, the artists take it seriously and listen and think, this person's really talented because of these things, these things, the passion is this. With testing and that sort of stuff, you should do the same. You should talk about, played this game and I wrote a review. Maybe you put it on a website. Maybe you talked about it on Reddit. Maybe you've got some hype around it. Maybe you put a YouTube video together or maybe you wrote something that you were really proud of and it's several pages that you didn't share. Being able to put that sort of stuff together and that thought process of analyzing something, breaking it down, finding bugs, finding issues, and then writing this possible solutions to things that you found is powerful. If you just go in there and say, love games, Prince of Persia is my favorite game because I like jumping and climbing. I found four bugs. It's not passion. That's not enough there.

Matt: So uncanny because that's how I got my first job in the games industry. Almost.

Luke: Is it? I had to write a page of bugs found before I officially got the job. Did you not do the same, Matt? Because we started around the same time. Yeah, yeah. It was a page on a piece of paper with a pen.

Matt: I did, yeah. Yeah, yeah, they just sat down in front of a ⁓ build of, I can't remember what game it was, but they sat us down in front of a build of a game that was kind of like midway through development and said kind of like, find what? Find bugs. I was like, okay.

Luke: Mm. Find bugs. Yeah, I got the same. And a piece of paper and a pen. And then depending on what you write, on whether you got the job.

Tasha: ⁓ My was slightly different. So ⁓ I have a degree in computer animation digital art. I always wanted to go into games and movies. ⁓

Matt: Yeah. ⁓ cool.

Luke: Mmm.

Matt: Look at me! I've got a degree!

Tasha: I do. Anyway, but I didn't go into games. ended up ultimately working in telecoms and starting off project management there. I got, went down and done my print two sets as well. So I've done that. But mine was actually my cover letter. No, it was far, far less exciting. ⁓ But.

Matt: Was that Prince of Persia 2?

Luke: Hmm.

Tasha: Anyways, ended up kind of doing a really shit CV, but my cover letter was very much, I am a project manager. I'm looking to change careers and come back into games, really go into games because I currently work in telecoms, but games is where I'm passionate because I like the creative, like the story elements. I like seeing how it comes together. All of that stuff that drives me why I want to be in games was in my cover letter. And I just needed to tell them to take a chance on me. So ultimately,

Luke: Mm. Mmm. Yeah, that's good.

Tasha: the Axis animation was my first job within a sort of like tangential role. So started as a production coordinator for them, working on the Gears of War 5 cinematics and the Elders Guild Return to Semis at Isle trailers. And that's where it ended up. So it's more like the video with VFX pipeline video film production type idea. But then that was only like a six month, five, six month contract at the time. And I kind of went I'm either going to take this five month contract, something comes from it, or I'm going to stay in telecoms and I'm going to be unhappy. So I went and took it, you know, yeah. And it was, it was a risk. Like I ended up not keeping that job because the contract was over, but it did open up my way to get into Ubisoft. Who again, we're like, well, there's someone here who's got more experience than you. Definitely worked in games before. However, we like your honesty. We like how direct you are. We like that you want to learn and work with us.

Luke: Mm. Take the risk. Good.

Tasha: So yeah, but ultimately the thing that got me my job in Access was because I had a computer animation and digital art degree, so I understood the pipeline.

Matt: So what's your advice for Andrew based off that experience?

Tasha: Legit in your cover letter, I guess for me if it's production specifically because I don't know how you do have a portfolio for production other than this is what I've done in teams and this is how I've increased productivity Why games what drives you? What what do you enjoy? ⁓ Yeah like What brings you joy? working in a games Team or what you think would bring you joy, but I've seen the games released because these aren't

Luke: where your passions are.

Tasha: short slogs, are long hauls, there's a lot of problems, there's a lot of stuff to iron out. Like, why do you want to leave the comfort of your secure stable nine to five job for the wild wild west?

Luke: And that's the right word. That's the right word. What is your why? What is your why? Why are you doing this? Why do you want to get involved in this? If you can spell that out and explain it, then you're to have people listening. Similar to what you said, Tash, I interviewed, I think it was about five or six associate producers for a role once. But the person that we gave the role to was the person that was the most passionate, the person that had the most backing to her sort of statements.

Tasha: Mm-hmm.

Luke: The other people that we were interviewing had done the role before. So it was a risk taken on, but she was so passionate about what she wanted to do, where she was going. And she'd done stuff on the side for free. She looked at it as a hobby. She understood it. She cared about it. I was like, I'm blown away. She's awesome. She needs a job. She needs to get involved in this. This is the right place. And we did hire her. She was fantastic. those people, those hiring managers do exist as well. They're just waiting for people to be passionate. And now is an even trickier time. So you have to go times a hundred on how much passion you're willing to put into cover letters and stuff.

Tasha: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because you're no longer just competing with people who are fresh or competing with seniors and experienced and because we are also out there looking for jobs in this country. So your why has to be strong now.

Luke: Yeah. Yeah, and yeah, you're competing with hundreds of people.

Matt: Yeah, I think there was something I wanted to kind of build upon from what you were talking about there as well, Luke, which is like getting involved in indie projects, even if they're unpaid. Like if you can, like those people who are building games for essentially nothing will be crying out for people to help them with the testing aspect of it. So I do think that that although it is a time sink, it is

Luke: Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Matt: worth exploring that as a way to bolster your game dev and game testing credentials so that when it gets right down to it, you can go up there with a background of software testing and how you have segued into the games space by working on indie projects. And you never know, you might get lucky. You might get like, you know, to work on one that takes off and gains some kind of notoriety. Yeah.

Tasha: Yeah. Mm. Yeah. Yeah.

Luke: that pops, And that's the way I see it. It's a time investment rather than a time sink. It's a time investment because any experience is useful.

Matt: . Yeah, thank you. That's a very good correction. I appreciate it. This is how I learn.

Tasha: I mean a good way of doing that actually if you're not aware of how to get into these indie studios or whatnot is joining a local game dev group or a game jam. There's a with game jams on it that you can go and be a particular role on and it will show you the intensity of a pipeline in shorter space of time but it'll expose you to game jams and game development. That's probably a good place. I know these websites exist. I suppose if you want a list of those, drop us a message. can provide that list. But game jams, you work for... There's a lot in Leamington as well. Yeah. Find a local, I was going say find a local game dev group as well. Cause I'm pretty sure most countries, most counties will have game dev groups. Leamington certainly has it.

Luke: Yeah. I know there's a lot of those in Guildford, there's a lot of those in Brighton, and there's a lot of those in London. So if you're in one of those three, ⁓ there you go. So there are some pods of a lot of activity. The other thing, yeah, go on. ⁓

Tasha: look out for game dev groups and become a part of that and get involved.

Luke: The other thing to touch on what Matt was talking about is that some of these studios or developers are offering profit sharing. So if the game does well, you would get a percentage of profit as well. So you're literally investing your time towards an investment of a success.

Matt: Yeah, I think there's two that spring to mind actually based off that, which is Astrarium and We Tatti Studios. I think they're both set up in a very, yeah, good name. Yeah, they're both set up to be that kind of thing. So they're worth looking into as well. I know that Vaughn is just releasing, Vaughn from Astrarium is releasing a game on mobile next week. I think that he's built with that of idea in mind. And I think that We Tatti

Luke: Mm. Mmm. Mmm. And then as a sort of parallel to that, there's also web 3 games being developed all the time that are involved in crypto and stuff like that. And so you could get some outcomes from that. There's a lot of web 3 games being developed. Some are good, some are not so good, but some are popular and still not that good. Yeah.

Matt: Yeah. Yeah, well, there you go. All right, Andrew, I very much hope that that at least begins to answer your question and helps somewhat. So yeah, some good suggestions there, Luke and Tash. Thank you very much indeed. All right, let's move on to the next thing. And the next thing is... I dub thee. So we round it all off by trying to name the episode based on the conversation that we just had. Let's call it, let's just name it Andrew in honor of the person that sent in our listener. Andrew. We dub thee Andrew, because I was quite taken with, I'm up for that definitely. So don't get me wrong, Andrew, this is not a slight on you.

Luke: Let's call it Andrew. ⁓ one listener.

Tasha: Andrew.

Luke: Andrew. We dubbed the Andrew.

Matt: at all but Tash you said something earlier that said that I wrote down which is we've gone from golden handcuffs to being beholden and I wrote golden to beholden. Not a very good rock band.

Tasha: I that, Golden to behold and yeah. No, it sounds like our... What is it? The break-up song. It's a break-up song. is?

Luke: That works. So sounds like a rock band as well. Yeah, an 80 year old rock fan. Pop Dan. Wow. It's a breakup song.

Matt: Ooh, is that a breakup song? Yeah, okay, blimey.

Tasha: Golden to behold him, yeah that is your break up song.

Luke: ⁓ wow. It's deep.

Tasha: Thank you.

Luke: Haha.

Matt: What are we doing then? are calling it? Anything else anyone wants to pitch? All of the above.

Luke: Let's call it all of the above.

Tasha: Andrew, golden to beholden. Andrew, it sounds like we're breaking up with you or not, we promise we love you.

Luke: No, it's not, it's not you, it's us.

Matt: think it doesn't work. It doesn't work. We've got to pick one. It's got to be one or the other. OK. We're going to call it Andrew.

Tasha: Okay.

Luke: Andrew. ⁓ Andrew and move on.

Tasha: of the Andrew.

Matt: the Andrew. Okay, moving on to the next right. ⁓ is yeah that's everything thank you ⁓ all that's left to do is thank luke tims ⁓ natasha natani and you the glorious listener for tuning in andrew ⁓ feel free to reach out to us on the email address below ⁓ it will be in the show notes and it is game prod pod at proton.me we'll be back next time with more hot topics more production challenges more true or

Tasha: That is it for today. Thank you. All is well good. Thank you. Thank you Charlie. Thank you for listening. I'm Andrew. Feel free to reach out to us on the email at the bottom of video. It will be in the show notes and it is again from Andrew.

Matt: much much more see you next time bye we gotta do the intro

Luke: Thanks, Andrew. Bye.

Tasha: Bye!

Luke: ⁓ god. And end.

Tasha: HA! We did not do true four plays.

Matt: I know we didn't. I cut it because of the aforementioned technical issue.

Luke: I know, it's good isn't it?

Tasha: Okay. Fine.

Matt: Also, we were late starting, so God, can you imagine how long we'd have run? I was explaining this to Tash while you were fixing your microphone and headphone problems that I wrote some absolutely amazing, like, fake games, and then Gemini deleted them. And I went to Gemini going, where have they gone? And it went, where's what gone? was like, get fucked, you piece of shit. I will kill you. Yeah.

Luke: Yes.

Tasha: Thanks.

Luke: Hahaha! That's brilliant. Gemini loses data. Stop the press.

Matt: It's like, yeah, fuck, yeah. Yeah, I was inconsolable for about an hour.

Tasha: The next episode is Gemini get fucked

Luke: That's awesome.

Matt: He has like a shit cat. That's the episode title

Luke: Everyone will wonder where's that come from? There's no context. There's no context. It's like a shit cat.

Tasha: Yeah, it was like a shit cat.

Matt: There's no content. Who wants to do the intro?

Tasha: I thought it last time. I thought it last time and the time before.

Luke: I think Tash does. I can't remember five minutes ago, Tash. There we go.

Matt: Alright, I'll do it.

Tasha: .

Matt: Welcome to episode seven of Game Prod Pod, where we are going to be talking relocation, relocation, relocation. Is it viable, affordable, or even sustainable for games companies to try to entice you to move to the city where they are based so you can return to the office? ⁓ We're going to be about about how you can utilize your producer or your production team to help you promote your game in a saturated market. We're going to be talking about creating a testing portfolio. We get a question sent in by our one listener. ⁓ And that's it. That's it. It's a relatively short episode. What can I tell you? We started late.

Luke: We love you, Andrew.

Tasha: We did.

Luke: It was good. We enjoyed it.