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My name is Chris Bray.
I'm the studio head at Stardock's Baltimore studio, and
a senior producer there.
I'm going to give you a little bit of background on my path through the video
game industry, and a bit of career advice.
So, over the course of my
experience I've worked on about 12 shipped titles across XBox.
XBox 360, Playstation, PC, even an iOS game.
So a little bit of everything.
I spent a good portion of the first part of my career on console and
at Stardock for the past four or five years focusing more on PC strategy games.
So I graduated from Michigan State in 2003 from the Telecommunications program.
I had a cognate,
I don't know if they still call it them that or Minors, in Studio Art.
I had started off in Computer Science Major and
switched over in a year and a half.
That is one thing that I wish I had would've either double-majored or
double-minored and taken a few more Computer Science
classes just because that background is really, really good to have.
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Even artists and pretty much anyone across the industry.
It's just really,
really valuable to have and it's actually something I've come to enjoy.
After the fact, the little bit that I picked up, I was also heavily involved in
Spartasoft, doing projects outside of just our normal coursework.
Which again, as competitive as the game industry is, is very very important.
One of the first things that I got to do that felt like little bit of a break was
the IGF Independent Games Festival student showcase, at GDC, so
we made a break dance fighting game with myself and
a few other guys from Spartasoft, one of which Casey Mekoff is now at Microsoft
in their, one of their games divisions.
And we brought that to GEC and got to interact with
a lot of people in the industry, and that sort of thing, which is very cool.
So I would say that's a plug for [INAUDIBLE] and get involved and
do things outside of just your standard coursework.
I had interned at Image Space for a summer during college,
worked on Nascar thunder 2004 for EA as an art and production intern.
The, my boss there is actually now
the senior producer executive producer of the next massive head game which I
bring up because it's just as important to know that the industry's very small.
And from your first job and your first networking ,first interactions
with the people in the industry,those connections that you're going to make
are going to be with you throughout for the rest of your career ,really.
So after I graduated from Michigan State In 2003,
I worked at a small multimedia company for six or
seven months before landing my first industry job at Red Storm Entertainment,
which is an Ubisoft studio that works on the Tom Clancy games: Ghost Recon,
Rainbow six that sort of thing, which was actually.
My dream job.
I've been playing those games since forever and if I could've picked
any studio where I wanted to work at it would have been that one.
So I was really, really lucky in that regard.
It took a very long time for me.
Well it felt like a very long time.
The job industry can be tough and
obviously the game industry's very, very competitive.
I applied to probably 50 or 60 different game studios, all sorts,
any position I could find reaching out to people what ended up getting me the job
at Red Storm was, reaching out to somebody not for a specific position, but
they were involved in the IGDA, they worked at Red Storm,
they did a mock phone screen with me.
And, then after doing that, just to kind of help me out, and after doing that they
referred me to another position and that whole process took six months just to get
hired there so be patient, be tenacious, and work hard.
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Don't get discouraged early on if you don't get replies from your first couple
interviews.
After being at Stardock for eight years, nine years,
something like that, at Red Storm I came to work for
Starkdock first as a producer on sole empire.
We did a mobile title and then some of the strategy games.
And then moved to senior producer, and I went to their Baltimore Studio
to act as studio head in addition to senior producer.
So, that's why I am now.
And that's kind of my path to the industry.
As far as career advice again, the game industry is very, very competitive.
So just kind of doing the bare minimum and sending your resume
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to make it and it's also competitive even after you get into the industry.
A lot of people have to move around for different jobs, there can be layoffs, and
it's definitely not the easy choice of a career path.
So you really have to be obsessed and know you're going to love it to make it.
Other stuff just, you know, always.
It's a casual industry but
the professional take the opportunity to network a lot of the times.
Just a lot of people I've talked with,
their first jobs has been meeting with people.
Stay home Humble.
You can play 1,000 games before you get into the industry, but
until you really have the experience building them, you just have to listen and
learn from people who are more experienced than yourselves.
Even after you have ten plus years experience in the industry.
And lastly, your degree alone.
You have amazing educational opportunities afforded you at MSU.
Your degree alone is not going to get you a job though, right,
you have to- really when we're looking at people to bring out to star dock,
or when I talk to other people in the industry of what they're looking for,
it's It's, the experience is a lot of it, but
not just, it doesn't mean, oh, to begin entry-level job,
you have to have two years, that catch 22 of two years experience before that.
But it, here's, with Unity, [INAUDIBLE] all of the amazing tools that
are available these days, freely, take advantage of that,
and use the time you have now to really learn and
make examples of what you can do and show what you can do to potential employers.
That's all I have, so thanks a lot.
Brian WinnAssociate Professor
Casey O'DonnellAssociate Professor
