I was incredibly lucky to be selected to represent my Game Design program at George Mason University. This meant that I got an all-expense paid trip to GDC 2011 – the Game Developer’s Conference. I was overwhelmed by how awesome of an experience it turned out to be. The first two days I got to attend all-day workshops. Level Design in a Day on Monday and then on Tuesday I went to Android Developer Day and Writing for Games.

The Android Developer Day was sponsored by Google and I walked away from GDC with a Motorola XOOM tablet! Epic! I enjoy developing games and applications for the mobile platform and can’t wait to make my first game for the XOOM tablet. I played with it a little bit so far and let me tell you; it’s cool.

So I came away from GDC with a deeper insight of the game industry and hopefully some contacts I’ll keep for the rest of my life. (I’m excited I get to meet up with some of my new contacts at PAX East this weekend! Come say ‘Hi’ when I’m demo’ing Brink!) But I wanted to share a few tips I learned with everyone interested in the industry.

Tips for Networking:

• Check out: Darius – Effective Networking in the Game Industry : http://tinysubversions.com/effective-networking
• Have business cards!
• Follow up with the people you meet within a week.
• Students: Be persistent, but not annoying. (This goes for cold-calling as well.)

Tips for Portfolios:

• Don’t show all of your work. Pick a handful of your best pieces.
• Tailor your portfolio work towards the studio you are presenting to.
• Let your work speak about the variety of skills you have.
• For Websites:
  They want to:
• See AWESOME work on the first page
• Be able to right-click and save your images
They don’t want:
• Fancy flash work – keep the website simple and the focus on your work (ie. they don’t want images of your work flying across the screen)
• To have to click through many layers of menus to see your work

Tips for Early Career:

• Get Involved IGDA, Open Source Tools / Engines, Community Games, Global Game Jam
• Get Networking Networking = Opportunities, Networking = Advice, Networking = Friendships
• Listen. Learn Every Lesson You Can (From Anyone You Can)
• Take The Time To Complement People In critique – always start with the positive, make the positive genuine, be as specific as possible with negative critiques. Let people know that they are appreciated
• Know A Little Bit About Business Things to consider learning about: stock vs. stock options, vestment, 1040 vs. 1099, implications of owning stock, stock holder agreements, and implications of allocated vs. unallocated stock
• Know Your Own Goals
• Match Your Goals to Your Company’s Goals
• Never Stop Learning!

For anyone wanting to break into or learn more about the game industry I highly recommend attending GDC! Make it a vacation! Workshops, networking, seeing what’s new and upcoming is exciting and rewarding! Plus learning about everything from Limbo’s puzzle design to the art direction on games like Dead Space 2 definitely, at least in my book, beats out non-gaming holidays!

Feel free to contact me if you want to hear more about what I learned at GDC!

GAM3RG1RL

Lauren @ www.laurenmclemore.com