Interested People Are Interesting

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From the course by Michigan State University

Business of Games and Entrepreneurship

642 ratings

Michigan State University

Business of Games and Entrepreneurship

642 ratings

Course 3 of 5 in the Specialization Game Design and Development

As well as a form of art and entertainment, games are about business. Whether you want to work at a game studio, start your own business or make games as a hobby, recognizing the dynamic landscape of the videogame industry is critical to finding your place. This course will introduce you to game production, project management, teamwork skills, and how to position your game ideas and yourself in the broader marketplace. By the end of the course, you will be able to develop an impactful portfolio of game work to get noticed and/or develop an effective business plan to bring your game to market.

From the lesson

Pitching Your Game and Yourself

It may seem a bit cliché, but the idea that perception is reality is perhaps doubly important in games. This doesn't mean that style rules over substance, but that they ultimately both have to exist. That can be a hard thing to hear, that how you present something (including yourself) is as important as what you are saying. This is why in this module we want you to think about presenting yourself or your game and how to best position it or you to get a job or interest people in your project. We're not asking you to write this time, so get ready to pitch!

Getting a Job...9:50

Perfecting the Resume8:41

Finding a Game Job9:33

Interviewing8:17

Interested People Are Interesting6:57

Meet the Instructors

Casey O'Donnell
Associate Professor
Media and Information

[MUSIC]

Welcome back.

We've been talking about interviewing, right?

And so

one of the key things that I like to talk to people about is asking questions.

And the way I frame this usually is that interested people are interesting.

And what I mean by that is that if you show interest in something

that somebody else is working on, they're gonna find you more interesting, right?

Interested people are interesting, right?

If you can pay attention and listen and get somebody else involved

in that interview process with you, you're gonna seem more interesting to them.

So, let's talk about asking questions at an interview,

because that's really important.

Because the reality is that every single person you talk to is gonna say,

what questions do you have for me, right?

Those of you that have a lot of work experience,

and have interviewed, you know this question's coming, right?

What questions do you have for us?

And the worst answer to that question is I don't really have anything.

I don't think I've got anything.

Because if the interviewer asks you that, and you say no, you're gonna look dumb.

So now that I've said it's super important to be able to ask questions,

let's talk about questions you don't wanna ask.

Because I know the saying is that there's no such thing as a stupid question,

in an interview there is, right?

Don't ask questions about money unless it comes up, not on your part, right?

You don't wanna ask self-centered questions, right?

So if you're asking about, well, how much time off do I get?

What is overtime pay like?

How much sick leave do I get?

That doesn't help them think of you as an employee that's gonna come in and

be excited about working.

That gets them thinking about you as an employee that comes in and leaves, right?

So don't do that.

Don't ask questions that could be answered from the website, right?

That actually demonstrates that you haven't been paying attention, right?

You haven't been interested.

You're not paying attention to what they're doing, and

you don't know anything about them.

So, it's critically important to not do those things.

And I know those are questions that we have,

particularly if we haven't prepared for an interview.

We're gonna have those basic questions.

But the things about money and time off, that stuff can come later

when it's part of the conversation that's brought up by the employer.

Doesn't need to happen when you're trying to impress them.

Let's talk about the end of the interview.

One of the most important things that I encourage people to do,

particularly in game development, is ask for a business card.

Why would you do that?

Why do you think I would say ask for a business card?

Because a business card contains a human's email address,

not just hr@gamecompany.com, right?

Because that one fills up all the time with lots of people sending their resumes

out, and if you've made it that far, that becomes a contact, right?

That's somebody that may be down the road even if you don't get that job,

when you see them at the game developers conference, or you see them

somewhere else, maybe it's a local group meetup and you're like hey, right.

It was really great chatting with you the other day.

You know their name, you know their email address.

It's really helpful.

If they don't have one, ask for their name and email address, right?

Hopefully, you wrote their name down when you started talking to them or

even before.

Maybe you sort of looked up the things that they've worked on.

Think back to the very beginning of some of these Coursera classes where we said

go look at game designers or people who make games and

the kinds of games that they've been credited on.

Go look and see what those people have worked on because they're real people that

have worked on games, and

if you know more about them, interested people are interesting.

I saw that you'd worked at this other company on this game and I was a huge fan.

Can you tell me a little bit about the process or

what you thought was fun about that project, right?

That's a question that's gonna leave a really

glowing impression on somebody, right?

They're like, you actually looked me up and that's super exciting, right?

We all like being recognized for things that we do, right?

Always send a thank you.

That becomes the reason for why you go that email address.

But, you're saying thanks for your time.

And, in games, there's so much time and everybody has meetings and so

time is really precious.

And acknowledging that hey, right, it's difficult to get this far, and

thank you for giving me your time and for the opportunity.

That means a lot to people.

If you're curious about that just go Google interview thank you letter,

right, for how you should structure it.

It's pretty easy.

And the reality is, be human, right?

Say hey, it was great, I enjoyed chatting about x and y, and about the position, but

don't always expect a response from that.

Again, it's okay.

The last thing you want to do is send a nasty email, and

if you get the rejection, that's okay.

As I mentioned before, right,

the distance to Kevin Bacon in the game industry is one.

And so if you're a total jerk to that person and

then somebody comes along and says, hey, this person is interviewing for this job.

Do you know anything about them?

And they say, yeah that person was a total jerk.

They sent me this nasty email.

That doesn't help your cause.

So, let's talk about conclusion, right?

So, you can go after internships, right?

Go after them early and often, and you're not always gonna get them, but your

main goal is to gain as much technical skills in your area as possible, right?

If that's a designer, it's writing scripts, or

as in scripts, not like scripts that people narrate, right?

Gameplay scripting within Unity.

If it's an artist, it's working in Illustrator, or Photoshop, or

3D Studio Max.

Your goal is to acquire those technical skills and

demonstrate them by making stuff.

Now, the other thing is even if you don't get the job,

you're making connections, right?

And make those connections as often as you can, right?

And be super cool about it, because people talk, and pay attention.

And when you post that nasty thing on a forum and

suddenly somebody recognizes that name that's not a good thing because it

is a tight knit social group and you're trying to get into it.

There's a reason people call getting into

the game industry breaking in cuz it's difficult, it's hard.

But you can do it if you have that portfolio and you present yourself well.

[MUSIC]

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