Breaking into the industry

Noemi Pischedda is a concept artist working at playtra, an independent game studio based in London. She gave us a lecture about her route into the games industry, her role as a concept artist at this studio, as well as her job as a freelance artist.

At playtra, the first project she started working on was their game 'Grid Force' and her primary focus within this role was the character design. She expressed how this role was not fulfilling for her and over time she lost interest and drive, so through discussion and problem solving with the studio, they were able to find a new role for her. That role is creating comics for video games. This was really enlightening to me as it shows how considerate and comfortable the indie games industry is and that I shouldn’t feed into my fear of getting stuck doing something I don’t enjoy.

Before finding her place in the games industry, Noemi worked as a freelancer for 10 years, illustrating books amongst other odd jobs. Her skills in illustration and character design made her a great fit for the role and her portfolio helped to make her work stand out and accurately show her potential. She went through the application process, highlighting the key stages and this has informed what I need to do to find my place in the industry:

Research – Learn the pros and cons to working for each small company you look at. Work out what their values are. Do they value failure? Do they give opportunity for individual growth in the company?

CV – Use this to showcase your soft skills through experience at other professional workplaces.

Portfolio – Quality over quantity. 3 amazing projects is better than 7 average ones.

Personal – Make sure the portfolio for each application is targeted to the role.

Showcase – Consider including a showcase reel or short documentary.

Further advice given was to keep your personal portfolio up to date throughout the employment, constantly document your work where it can be seen and sustain your social media presence by consistently engaging with your personal audience.

"Getting the right people and the right chemistry is more important than getting the right idea"

This quote highlights the importance of finding the right community of people to work with, and that usually happens to be within small independent studios. This is because every person in the studio will bring something different as we all have completely unique backgrounds and experiences. Diversity within the company is great for this reason as the team is more likely to be rich of open-minded individuals who find value in collaboration and shared ideas.

An important thing to remember about working for a small company is that there is nobody to tell you every little thing you need to do and remind you of your deadlines and task lists. There is a significant level of independence required. Communication must be handled and encouraged by yourself. This extends to communicating with sources outside of the company. Freedom within a workspace is incredibly important to me and my time on this course has allowed me to learn how to work both independently and collaboratively with great success.

As a game designer, I can most definitely see myself working for an indie game studio like playtra. I have the skills and I want to work for a studio that aspires to make a positive social change on this planet; creating games that do good. From Noemi’s talk I was able to recognise how I have already become familiar with industry methods and have the right skills to break into the industry, such as my ability to work in a team, adaptive communication, and a true ambition to create positive change.

To prove that I am ready to start a role like Noemi’s, there is some work I need to carry out. I will begin creating a portfolio online. This has been difficult in the past because I struggle to find pride in my work. But this year, I feel very positive about the game I am creating. I have begun working on my social media presence and semester two will provide with plenty of development content to share online, which will also allow me to develop my confidence and communication ability.

If I want to work in the games industry for an indie studio, I need to research places that have the same intentions and ambitions that I do, develop a portfolio of work that shows what I have to offer, and start sharing my work on social media platforms.

To conclude this reflection, this talk has been incredibly helpful in providing me with the advice and information that I need to soothe my concerns about finding my place in the industry. It showed me that there is a role for everyone, but it might not necessarily be the first thing you are hired for... It has also left me with some important homework to do. This includes working on my online image and beginning to research companies that have the same intention and ambition for change, as I do.

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