Making It Big In a $20 Billion Industry

People who work behind the scenes in the world of video games aren’t household names, but that doesn’t make their job any less enticing. Those who work long hours and sacrifice a lot of time to create games out there have admitted they do it because they’re gamers first.

Ubisoft Gamer, Clint Hocking

Clint Hocking works at Ubisoft in Montreal and currently juggles his duties as creative director, scriptwriter and lead level designer for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory . Clint openly admits that he “was a little lucky and in the right place at the right time ,” after a friend e-mailed him a link for a job opening at Ubisoft. “ I've heard terrible stories of how some of the best designers in the industry took years to get their foot in the door, but lucky ones like me sent in one resume, and bang! I was in ,” Clint says. “ I would say that the stories of struggle appear to vastly outnumber the stories of the lucky ones like me, but who knows? In the end, there are a lot of people who want to be game designers, and who are sure they would be great at it. But the fact is that it's just as difficult and technical as being a graphics engine programmer.”

Clint earned a diploma in visual fine arts at Langara College in Vancouver , along with a master's degree in creative writing at the University of British Columbia . Clint also attributes his experience as a writer and producer in independent films as “something that probably looked pretty good on my resume .”

“Way back when I was in school, there weren't many schools offering courses in game design, or even in 3-D art or graphics,” Clint says. Of course, that's not the case today. Within a few hours' drive west of the Ubisoft campus, students have their option of Max the Mutt Animation school or The Art Institute of Toronto , while a few hours' drive to the east are the Centre for Arts and Technology and Nova Scotia Community College – both in Halifax.

Clint adds “ …the most important thing I learned in school was ‘how to learn,' and in my mind, that is the real value of an education as far as becoming a game designer is concerned. It's a career that will ask you to learn five years' worth of new things every six months, and you have to be prepared to absorb that information.”

Electronic Arts Gamer, Justin

For Justin at Electronic Arts , the world's biggest gaming company, the road wasn't as smooth, especially since he left a multimedia school in his first semester to go job-hunting. After canvassing all his teachers, who were industry veterans, he attended recruitment sessions hosted by local companies. It was there that he landed a job as a local game developer in Vancouver . His next six years were then spent trying to convince his bosses to use his ideas in their games. Now, he's in his third year at Electronic Arts as an associate producer, working with an eclectic mix of people.

“The difference for me, when I look to staff my design team, is the life skills. Can you negotiate? Can you boil down crazy ideas into workable solutions? Can you recognize a good idea – even if it came from that guy who chews with his mouth open – and run with it like it's your own? ” Justin says. “ it's all about loving games, loving creativity, and being able to put your head down, and putting a good idea on paper, in enough detail that the smart and talented folks can make it happen.”

When Justin started, the gaming industry was a lot different behind the scenes as well as in mainstream pop culture because the size and scope of games, in terms of money and design teams, were a fraction of what they are now. He also thinks current growth in the industry can provide many opportunities for anyone with a creative mind and strengths that range from Web design to creative writing.

“It's a tough job to find, but it's getting easier ,” he says. “ I started as a gamer, and 10 years ago, my company didn't have ‘designers' – just artists, engineers and producers. Now, there are courses to take specifically in game design, not to mention stuff like the Internet – something I hadn't heard about when I started.”

Although Justin didn't complete his multimedia program, he's the first to acknowledge that the fact that he was hired anyway was a fluke. Completing your program is key to success, because instructors are usually industry veterans with helpful contacts you can network, and also because companies such as EA Games routinely recruit from schools such as these. In B.C. alone, there are at least four multimedia training schools, with the Art Institute of Vancouver and a campus in Burnaby , the Pacific Audio Visual Institute , and the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts . The best advice for up-and-comers is to research your options well, give it 100%, and complete your program.

EA Alumni and Graphic Novelist, Brooke Burgess

Brooke Burgess began his journey towards writing a best selling graphic novel, Broken Saints , via the gaming industry. It started with his first real job as a young teenager – as a supervisor at an Arcade .

“I used to watch the kids come by and get their escape in the games ,” Brooke says, “ That's the thing about video games; you can control what's happening during the game, unlike in real life.”

Brooke left the arcade to attend the University of Windsor and studied Journalism with a Masters in Communication. An excellent student with top grades, he wasn't happy. He opened up a small video game store at a time when Play Station was just released and Nintendo was growing in popularity, which lead to a chance encounter with an executive producer from EA Games.

In only four years Brooke had moved up the ranks in EA to become a game producer himself, yet the artist and writer in him still wasn't satisfied. “I felt increasingly dissatisfied,” Brooke reveals about his distaste for the corporate world, “I even tried to get myself fired. It wasn't easy considering I was getting the sort of paycheques that could buy you a car, and then I had to go back to eating noodles for every meal of the day.”

Brooke left EA looking for a higher calling and decided to travel, leaving civilization in his quest to find what was missing, and ended up living with tribesmen from different cultures for almost six months.

He finally found his answers and decided he would use pictures, drawings, and animation to help his audience better understand his story. He teamed up with a couple of creative friends, and after a lot of hard work they ended up with Broken Saints – a best-selling graphic novel with a social message (think Sin City, Hellboy, Elektra ) that later went on to have a huge cult following and was later released as a critically acclaimed animated DVD.

If you're thinking of creating your own video game or writing the next big graphic novel, Brooke has some advice for you . “Write something important ,” He urges. “ Do something with purpose in life. Make sure that you felt like you made a difference.” And most importantly, “Be proud of what you do.”

For getting into the business now, both Clint and Justin cite their education as a key factor. “Having a broad general education is pretty important because you can develop better creative tools ,”Clint says. “You never know what kind of game you're going to work on, so knowing a little bit about everything is only going to help.”