Yenni Desroches

Name: Yenni Desroches

Twitter: @yennijb

Gender: Female

Nationality: Italian American

Birth date: 12/01/1988

Title: Board of Directors for Boston Festival of Indie Games
Some games that you have worked on: 

Project Resurgence (Nectar Games Studio, Unity/PC, Producer/Consultant)

After the Storm (Fablevision Studios, Web, Associate Producer)

Cave Bro (Fablevision Studios, iOS & Android, Associate Producer)

Solar Skate (Fablevision Studios, iOS, Associate Producer)

Maritime Gloucester (Fablevision Studios, Touch Table, Associate Producer)

Mayan Mysteries (Fablevision Studios, Web, Android, & iOS, Associate Producer)

Disney Fairies: Hidden Treasures (Episodes 1 & 2) (HitPoint Studios, Windows 8, QA Associate)

ADERA (Episodes 1-4) (HitPoint Studios, Win 8, QA Associate)

Bejeweled 3 (HitPoint Studios, Win 8, QA Associate)

Plants vs Zombies (HitPoint Studios, iOS, QA Associate)

Seaside Hideaway (HitPoint Studios, Facebook, QA Associate)

Words In Space (HitPoint Studios, iOS, QA Associate)

Guardians of Magic (HitPoint Studios, iOS & PC, QA Associate)

iAMFAM (HitPoint Studios, iOS, Web, & Android, QA Associate)

Cappella (HitPoint Studios, Web, QA Associate)

Industry Islands (Kognito Interactive, Web, Producer Intern)

At Risk (Kognito Interactive, Web, Producer Intern)

The Witcher (Atari Inc., PC, Marketing Intern)

ArmA: Armed Assault (Atari Inc., PC, Marketing Intern)

ArmA: Combat Operations (Atari Inc., PC, Marketing Intern)

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi (Atari Inc., PS2, Marketing Intern)

Test Drive Unlimited (Atari Inc., PC, Marketing Intern)

You Are Empty (Atari Inc., PC, Marketing Intern)

Fantasy Wars (Atari Inc., PC, Marketing Intern)

Dawn of Magic (Atari Inc., PC, Marketing Intern)

Website: yennidesroches.com

1-What did motivate you to become a game developer? 

I wanted to do something with 3d art after enjoying the cad portion of an architecture course. While in college I switched to game design, and then producing. I enjoy the creativity and watching something go from plan to complete.

2-What does inspire you creatively? 

Happiness, love, animals (dogs especially)

3-If you had unlimited resources to make any game you wanted, what kind of game would that be? 

Episodic narrative driven RPG

4-What was the biggest challenge of your career? In which game? How did you overcome it? 

Biggest challenge in my career was getting laid off mid project while at Hitpoint Studios working on Disney Fairies Hidden Treasure, but since my contract only had 2 weeks left, I asked if I could stick around to see out the end of the contract instead of breaking contract....Sitting at my desk for 2 weeks while half the rest of the studio packed up their stuff was very difficult, and I didn't overcome it, I more existed through it, and then became very depressed afterwards. GDC luckily was the next week, so that perked me up quite a bit seeing all my CA family/friends.

5-What do you usually do for raising the possibility of success in your projects? 

Ensuring that everyone on the team has personal needs met for family, activity, and space. An unhappy team will rarely succeed and still be a team.

6-What is the most helpful piece of constructive criticism you ever received? 

Your art lacks passion, you should change majors. I think you should be a producer (told to me freshman year by a professor, took me 3 years to realize he was right)

7-What are the advantages/downsides to working in games?

The biggest are:

Advantage: Sense of accomplishment

Downside: Time/overtime/crunch

8-What is your best advice to a beginning game developer?

Make sure this is really what you want to do, and be ready to be put through the ringer for it. Be ready to do things you don't want to, to reach for the job you do want to do.

9-Which skills are the most important for a game developer in your field/position?

Producers are people managers, you need to have empathy, but also be able to be tough when needed.

10-If I want to become a great dev in your field, what games should I play, what books should I read, and whose work should I follow?

Play them all, Read them all. Absorb as much Media and History as you can, the more obscure the better. Find historians, authors, architects, paleontologists, doctors, etc that you like, and follow their work. Don't just look at games or books, Media in all forms from any point in time is important.

11-What changes do you want to see in the game industry?

Equality for diversity, less layoffs because projects are done, we need a industry that we can grow up and grow old in, not one fueled by youthful dreams. We need sustainability.

Bonus: Tell us a funny story from your adventures in game development.

My first game project I ever worked on was in college. Freshman year we're in a class that put us in groups of 4 or 5, and we are supposed to make some sort of game in flash. Somehow our point-and-click escape the room game, which had 3 levels, managed to have each of those levels be a 15gb fla file. It barely ran on the computers in the lab lol

Andrew Greenberg

Name: Andrew Greenberg

Twitter: @hdiandrew

Gender: Male

Nationality: USA

Title: Executive Director

Company: Georgia Game Developers Association

Some games that you have worked on: 

Mall Tycoon

Fading Suns

Emperor of the Fading Suns

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

Warhammer 40K: Final Liberation

Website: www.andrewgreenberg.com

1-What did motivate you to become a game developer? 

I was a reporter writing about lawyers, and got rather tired of that. I started writing about vampires, and found them a better class of people, and have just kept going.

2-What does inspire you creatively? 

The world around us is an endless source of inspiration. From political battles at the highest levels of power to the bizarre nature of human interaction, there is always something going on that can be a character, situation or game mechanic.

3-If you had unlimited resources to make any game you wanted, what kind of game would that be? 

One that really explored what is involved with accumulating and utilizing power, in a modern-day setting, with real-world sources.

4-What was the biggest challenge of your career? In which game? How did you overcome it? 

The biggest challenge was always in keeping a company going to turn out good games.It is an ongoing process that requires working with the best people you can, and ensuring that those relationships stay strong.

5-What do you usually do for raising the possibility of success in your projects? 

Get a good team.

6-What is the most helpful piece of constructive criticism you ever received? 

If things are not working, end them quickly and cleanly

7-What are the advantages/downsides to working in games?

The advantages are the endless opportunities for creativity. The downsides come from everything that pulls us away from those.

8-What is your best advice to a beginning game developer?

Start with something you know you can complete and build from there

9-Which skills are the most important for a game developer in your field/position?

Patience, an ability to interact well with others, and a knowledge of one's own limits (as well as a desire to raise them)

10-If I want to become a great dev in your field, what games should I play, what books should I read, and whose work should I follow?

All of them.

11-What changes do you want to see in the game industry?

Better communication between developers around the world.

Bonus: Tell us a funny story from your adventures in game development.

Very few are printable. At www.siegecon.net, I always find that the funniest and most enlightening game development discussions come at the Scotch tasting party ...

Timothy Johnson

Name: Timothy Johnson

Twitter: @atlgamedev

Gender: Male

Nationality: USA

Birth date: 22/03/1978

Title: CEO

Company: No, You Shut Up Games

Some games that you have worked on: 

Thred

Adventure Time: Legends of Ooo

Adventure Time: Library of Doom

Adventure Time: World War Wizard

Mike The Knight: The Great Gallop

OddSquad

The Secret Castle

Zombie Room AR

Website: http://www.noyoushutupgames.com

1-What did motivate you to become a game developer? 

I always wanted to make games but I lived in Atlanta and there were few opportunities and the barrier to entry was high. As the internet became more ubiquitous and access to knowledge about engines became easier I stepped closer and closer to it.

2-What does inspire you creatively? 

It depends on the day, but mostly it involves deep reflection on things that I care about, usually by poking holes in it and destroying it logically. From there I spin off into untaken directions. It's crazy fun.

3-If you had unlimited resources to make any game you wanted, what kind of game would that be? 

I don't need unlimited resources, in fact that would be the worst thing that could happen to me. Limit my resources, limit my abilities. That's where true ingenuity and creativity lie.

4-What was the biggest challenge of your career? In which game? How did you overcome it? 

Biggest challenge was overcoming poisonous people with higher positions of authority. I won't tell you where or the circumstances, but I overcame it with cold calculated reason. 

5-What do you usually do for raising the possibility of success in your projects? 

Listen to the ideas and opinions of others, but don't let it pivot you from your goal. Also, boil the idea down to one sentence and then write it on the wall in big block letters. Judge all of your decisions by this sentence.

6-What is the most helpful piece of constructive criticism you ever received? 

I can't recall. I've gotten a lot of constructive criticism, but nothing sticks out as being profound. 

7-What are the advantages/downsides to working in games?

It's the entertainment industry, meaning it can be feast and famine. Also, the whole indie movement has both progressed gaming and harmed it. Due to the continually lower barriers to entry the mean quality overall is being depressed. It's a problem that will correct itself, but now is a difficult time.

8-What is your best advice to a beginning game developer?

Don't specialize, ever. Are you a designer? Go pick up a book on LUA or JS and start scripting. Are you a c++ graphics programmer? Learn more about the art of design or the overall infrastructure architecture.

9-Which skills are the most important for a game developer in your field/position?

C++ is a must. So many devs are coming out with very little knowledge. They're all learning node.js or some other functional stack. I know that's out of fashion, but that doesn't make it less true.

10-If I want to become a great dev in your field, what games should I play, what books should I read, and whose work should I follow?

John Carmack, Will Wright, Gareth Bourn. Find a game you love, find out who made it, find out what they read, what they follow. Do that.

11-What changes do you want to see in the game industry?

It would be great if people thought games were worth spending money on again, but that goes back to my earlier point about the mean level of quality currently being depressed. 

Bonus: Tell us a funny story from your adventures in game development.

Working on a prototype for The Sims and accidentally reclassified toilets as refrigerators. It was equally gross and hilarious.

Joe Cassavaugh

Name: Joe Cassavaugh

Twitter: @PuzzlesByJoe

Gender: Male

Nationality: USA

Birth date: 17/9/1957

Title: CEO/Designer/Engineer

Company: PuzzlesByJoe (indie)

Some games that you have worked on: 

Clutter 1-5 for myself (to make a living). 

Mah Jong Quest I, II, and III (for iWin)

Recon (Logical Battleships), Rack'Em, FitTris, GapWar and a bunch of other experimental games that made very little money.

Website: www.PuzzlesByJoe.com

1-What did motivate you to become a game developer? 

I've loved Puzzles since I was in 1st grade (1963). Been programming (for business) since 1981. In 1993 decided to switch from business to games and never looked back. I love to create a computerized/game-version of either existing puzzles or totally new concepts. 

2-What does inspire you creatively? 

Solving problems inspires me when I work for someone else. Making my own choices/decisions on a product that is "mine" inspires me on my own games. Believing that what I'm working on has potential to make money (and have 10,000s of people playing it) also inspires me. Making randomly generated puzzles also inspires me. Taking something hard-coded or hand-generated and figuring out how to ramp it in difficulty and provide variations and provide the randomly generated levels...inspires me to create games that people will want to play over and over again.

(Like Mah Jong, Solitaire, Mine Sweeper, Free-Cell, Candy Crush.)

3-If you had unlimited resources to make any game you wanted, what kind of game would that be? 

It would be an exceptionally difficult brain-teaser game (possibly called A-Ha) with no instructions. (It might also be called the Cube). It would be infinitely re-playable. 

4-What was the biggest challenge of your career? In which game? How did you overcome it? 

Two things:

1. Creating guaranteed solutions algorithm for any Mah Jong layout (including special tiles (as well as triple and quad matching mechanics)).

2. Creating a game targeted specifically to appeal to Hidden Object Game players, without being a standard Hidden Object Game itself.

In both cases, the biggest challenge was overcome through perseverance, hard work and some luck.

5-What do you usually do for raising the possibility of success in your projects? 

When I went indie, I picked a distribution channel where I knew I didn't have to worry about my own marketing. In that channel, I knew that I would get at least 100,000+ eyeballs downloading the game...and if I had a good enough conversion rate, I'd be ok. That was the PC Casual Download market. I knew if I created a game that met certain criteria it would get exposure on at least Big Fish Games and iWin. I also knew I could "please my audience" (The HOG crowd) and do alright there. I did just well enough to warrant a sequel...and since then I've done all sequels because that was the best way currently to guarantee ongoing success. 

6-What is the most helpful piece of constructive criticism you ever received? 

"No one will ever buy just a collection of puzzles." - This is correct on one level and totally wrong on another. On the correct level, it opened up my eyes to all the things beyond basic game mechanic that need to be done right in order to have a successful game. On the wrong level, a lot of people that are interested in "puzzle games" - often don't care a lot about the Story, Music or even Art....if the puzzle itself is compelling enough. And with Clutter IV, I proved that at least in the casual download market, people will in fact buy "Just a collection of Puzzles".

7-What are the advantages/downsides to working in games?

To paraphrase Wesley in The Princess Bride. Working in games is difficult, anyone who tells you differently is selling something. The biggest challenge in working in games is getting paid what you're worth.

I'm Indie because I no longer wanted to be a "hired gun" for someone else. I wanted to take my own risks and create original-IP that I owned.

And that the biggest advantage of doing games. If you can create your own IP, especially digital-IP (like an original game)...then no one is making money off of your sweat. 

It's also more fun than doing business programming (even if you do work for someone else).

8-What is your best advice to a beginning game developer?

1. Start creating a game.

2. Finish creating a game (and return to step one).

In the meantime, read, read, read some more....and keep perfecting your craft (whatever that is).

It's difficult to get into the games industry right out of college. If you're a programmer or artist take any job that will let you "perfect your craft". While you're doing that, work on games in your spare time. Once you've perfected your craft, then use your talents to get a job in the industry.

9-Which skills are the most important for a game developer in your field/position?

Judgment. Create a product that appeals to a market that already exists and keep your audience in mind. Games are fundamentally entertainment (before any other criteria), so keep that in mind. You're not making a game for yourself, you're making it for them.

Start using Unity or Unreal (someone's engine that you know will be around in a few years).

10-If I want to become a great dev in your field, what games should I play, what books should I read, and whose work should I follow?

Jesse Schell's - The Art of Game Design - A Book of Lenses. Play games you like. (To me, that is the Bible of game design).

Depends on what you want to do.

I don't consider myself "a great dev" and I don't aspire to be one. I do consider myself a fairly successful indie studio of size one, who's managed to stay in business for 5 years and I have not needed to do any 2nd or 3rd party work. My model doesn't work for everyone, but my story is an interesting one, and I'm one of the few indie game devs that's willing to share my numbers. Young developers can definitely learn quite a bit from knowing the details of my story.

11-What changes do you want to see in the game industry?

Would like to see the monopoly that is the App Store broken up. Don't think it will ever happen, but it is the biggest thing that prevents mobile games from finding an audience. I don't really understand why it's tolerated.

Bonus: Tell us a funny story from your adventures in game development.

It's not quite a story, it's my mantra and it goes like this...

...Working for myself, I still have good days and bad days. But the absolute worst day I've ever had working for myself is still slightly better than the best day I've ever had working for someone else.

Here's the shortest funny story I know about being in the games business - 

1. The stupidest thing I ever did, was go indie and make the first Clutter game.

2. The smartest thing I ever did, was to decide to do the sequel to that game.

Robin Hunicke

Name: Robin Hunicke

Twitter: @hunicke

Gender: Female

Nationality: USA

Birth date: 15/03/1973

Title: CEO

Company: Funomena

Some games that you have worked on: 

The Sims2

MySims

Boom Blox 1&2

Journey

Luna

Wattam

Website: www.funomena.com

1-What did motivate you to become a game developer? 

I wanted to build programs that told stories. I started off as an artist and aspiring poet, became an AI researcher, and eventually began working in Games because I loved the people, projects and potential of the medium.

2-What does inspire you creatively? 

Film, food, friends, fashion... lots of things. :D

I love living. When I need to think big, it's a trip, a hike, a long bike ride or time in the garden. When I need to laugh and brainstorm, it's cooking dinner and drinking with friends, or camping and singing around a fire. When I need to believe that we can do anything, it's out to dance, see music or catch a film. When I need to feel introspective - curling up with a great book or taking a trip to the museum. And when I need to remember why I do it all - I spend quality time with a great game. :D

3-If you had unlimited resources to make any game you wanted, what kind of game would that be? 

I am making the games I want to make right now - for which I am very grateful.

4-What was the biggest challenge of your career? In which game? How did you overcome it? 

My largest challenge, always, is accepting my limitations and taking the time I need to see the big picture. It's very easy to get lost in the details of work, problems at hand. I will forever struggle with developing the strength to step away from my "to do" list.

5-What do you usually do for raising the possibility of success in your projects? 

I talk openly about our dreams, challenges and ask for help and support. Being honest about how small and fragile Funomena is can be humbling - but it's essential, I think, to connect with our future fans.

6-What is the most helpful piece of constructive criticism you ever received? 

Listen more, talk less.

7-What are the advantages/downsides to working in games?

Games are an interdisciplinary endeavor that require constant problem solving and thinking on your feet. That's the core attraction and challenge for me. :D

8-What is your best advice to a beginning game developer?

Be honest. Don't make promises you can't keep. If you say you will do something - do it. If you can't get something done, admit it and re-negotiate your commitment. Meeting the commitments you make is key in building trust with everyone around you.

9-Which skills are the most important for a game developer in your field/position?

Listening and letting people come to solutions on their own. Most of the time, there are good ideas inside people's heads... you just need to encourage them to come out. This is true for producers, designers and business leaders.

10-If I want to become a great dev in your field, what games should I play, what books should I read, and whose work should I follow?

See my answer about inspiration. Just live a full life and follow your heart. Have friends and relationships. Be loved and love others. The rest follows.

11-What changes do you want to see in the game industry?

I want more people from different/diverse cultures and backgrounds and perspectives to be successful making commercial game and interactive experiences. Diversity is the key to reaching more people, and is a virtuous cycle of expansion.

Bonus: Tell us a funny story from your adventures in game development.

A long time ago I was still in graduate school, studying robots, when I met Will Wright. After a talk he gave, I waited to talk to him and peppered him with questions. After patiently enduring me for about 10 minutes, he said... "You sure sound like a game designer."

:D

Sometimes, your curiosity and passion will make you look dorky, act silly or over-excited... but it's not always a bad thing to be enthusiastic. I left graduate school to work on The Sims2 and it changed my life. Be excited and ok with who you are. It will take you to amazing places.

<3

Jesse Schell

Name: Jesse Schell

Twitter: @jesseschell

Gender: Male

Nationality: USA

Birth date: 13/06/1970

Title: CEO

Company: Schell Games

Some games that you have worked on:

Toontown Online

Lexica

DisneyQuest

Pixie Hollow

I Expect You To Die

Water Bears

Orion Trail

Website: http://jesseschell.com

1-What did motivate you to become a game developer? 

I've always loved magic, and anything that seems magical. Games are a powerful kind of magic, and so is technology. Putting the two of them together creates all kinds of fascinating new magicks. All this led me to start creating my own games at an early age. You can read about one of the games that influenced me most here: http://press.etc.cmu.edu/content/mines-minos-jesse-schell

2-What does inspire you creatively? 

Everything. The world is full of magical things. You can read about some of my inspirations here: http://thingsifinished.com

3-If you had unlimited resources to make any game you wanted, what kind of game would that be? 

It would be a VR MMORPG. I love MMO games because of the depth and the social interaction. Combining those things with the deep immersivity of VR is the kind of experience I've been waiting my whole life to make.

4-What was the biggest challenge of your career? In which game? How did you overcome it? 

The biggest challenge of my career was my decision to leave Disney and go independent. It required quite a bit of bravery from both myself and my family, but we did it, and it has worked out well.

5-What do you usually do for raising the possibility of success in your projects? 

Work with excellent teams, and use best-practice project management techniques. You can hear many of my thoughts about that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y92-vkyHKbY

6-What is the most helpful piece of constructive criticism you ever received? 

I revel in learning new things, and when I was younger, someone very close to me pointed out my tendency to act like a know-it-all. I had no idea that I was being perceived that way -- it was quite a shock. I have worked to curb that tendency, but most of all, I took away the lesson that when people behave badly, they often have no idea that they are doing so.

7-What are the advantages/downsides to working in games?

The main advantage to making games is that it is exciting and really fun to make games! You work directly with positive human psychology all the time, and that can be very rewarding. The downside is that it is a very challenging business, and it is easy to get your ego crushed.

8-What is your best advice to a beginning game developer?

Make as many games as you can -- and work with as many people as you can.

9-Which skills are the most important for a game developer in your field/position?

Critical thinking about games is very important, and this comes through practice. Teamwork and diplomacy are also important, but *listening* is the most important skill for any game designer... Listening to your team, to your players, to your game, and to your self.

10-If I want to become a great dev in your field, what games should I play, what books should I read, and whose work should I follow?

Play the games that interest you most. Read everything. Don't worry about following the work of others. Focus instead on writing every day, and creating as many games as you can.

11-What changes do you want to see in the game industry?

I am hoping that better ways appear for players to pay for games. Right now the business models are very chaotic, and to create great things is a terrible risk. I am hoping business models can stabilize somewhat.

Bonus: Tell us a funny story from your adventures in game development.

Once, we made a pitch to a publisher for a certain game, and they liked it, but they wanted us to do it in too short a time, so we said "no thanks." The publisher said, "Well, in that case, are you interested in this other project?" and it seemed more doable, so we took it. Turns out it was much harder than we thought, and the project was in some peril. At GDC, I met the head of another studio who looked glum. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that she took on the title we passed on, and that it was way over budget. I told her I sympathized, as my project had similar problems -- she asked what game it was, and when I told her, her eyes got all big -- she had passed on the game, because she was certain it would go over budget! Neither of us could stop laughing... and of course, as is so typical in the game industry, we both found ways to get our projects done. It proves the old saying -- everything looks like a disaster in the middle.

Heidi McDonald

Name: Heidi McDonald

Twitter: @Death_Bow

Gender: Female

Nationality: USA

Birth date: 15/05/1970

Title: Game Designer

Company: Schell Games

Some games that you have worked on: 

PlayForward: Elm City Stories

Lionel Battle Train

Tunnel Tail

GumTrix

The World of Lexica

Website: www.deathbow.com

1-What did motivate you to become a game developer? 

I came to games accidentally, in an unusual way. It wasn't until I was shown that this is a viable career option that I realized I would be a good fit for it, because I've been a lifelong gamer and have always found ways to make things more fun (I toilet-trained two boys by throwing Cheerios into the potty and giving them points for how many they could hit). I love bringing joy to others, particularly my own children. It seemed like a natural progression. Communications to events to games. Pow.

2-What does inspire you creatively? 

My kids, and things that happen in daily life. I'll experience or see or hear something and think, that would make such a great game...just like as a writer, I observe things and say, that would make such a great character or a great story. Inspiration is everywhere, you just have to be observant. Next time something makes you laugh or feel good, think about specifically why, and how you can bring that with you into your game.

3-If you had unlimited resources to make any game you wanted, what kind of game would that be? 

I'd make that game George Lucas was talking about in 2013 when he said "“The big game of the next five years will be a game where you empathize very strongly with the characters and it’s aimed at women and girls. They like empathetic games. That will be a huge hit and as a result that will be the ‘Titanic’ of the game industry, where suddenly you’ve done an actual love story or something and everybody will be like ‘where did that come from?’ Because you’ve got actual relationships instead of shooting people.” 

THAT GAME. I want to make that game.

4-What was the biggest challenge of your career? In which game? How did you overcome it? 

The biggest challenge has been having to go from knowing no tech, to learning Unity3d, Twine, scripting, some code. That is not my strength at all, but it's not enough anymore to "just be a writer" because the bar is steadily going up in terms of how technical one has to be in order to get hired. In my case, I just bit the bullet and started getting my hands dirty. You have to break things a lot in order to learn how they work. The key is persistence.

5-What do you usually do for raising the possibility of success in your projects? 

Good communication: asking a ton of questions to make sure you understand what's required, and everyone is on the same page. Playtesting: making sure you expose your work to many people and opinions before it goes into the world. Teamwork: finding out ways to work with people even when you don't like them, personally...everyone has strengths and things you can learn from, even if what you learn from them is "here is the kind of person I prefer to not ever be."

6-What is the most helpful piece of constructive criticism you ever received? 

Stop fearing the technology. If you put forth the effort to learn new things, you'll find respect and support from people who are glad to see you do it.

7-What are the advantages/downsides to working in games?

Advantages: Getting to have nerf gun fights and have blue hair. Having your kids think you're a rock star. Downsides: If you are someone other than a straight white male in your 20s, you will experience difficulty in this industry, both getting hired and after you're in. It's getting easier, slowly, but this industry does have a problem with ageism, sexism, homophobia etc. and you need to be prepared to face that with persistence and grace. Only you can decide whether there's a point when it's not worth it anymore.

8-What is your best advice to a beginning game developer?

What are you willing to give up to be in games? Think very hard about that. Because this is a brutal, unstable industry. You may find yourself fired tons of times for reasons that weren't your fault, moving a lot, working 14-hour days for days at a time. If you're okay with that, then go forward, but watch your money, and have a savings account in case the unexpected happens. That, and be nice to everyone, and help anyone you can. You have no idea when getting your next job may come down to who you know and who you've done favors for. 

9-Which skills are the most important for a game developer in your field/position?

Communicating effectively is #1, whether that's describing something an artist has to draw, or explaining to a programmer how a feature should work, or tutorializing the game for players, or bringing across story and dialog. Listening effectively is also incredibly important.

10-If I want to become a great dev in your field, what games should I play, what books should I read, and whose work should I follow?

I'm a writer/designer, so: read Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design. The Narrative Design Toolbox by Heussner, Lemay, Hepler and Finley, Evan Skolnicks' book, Lee Sheldon's book. Play anything BioWare makes, Telltale's games, and indies such as Gone Home and To The Moon. 

11-What changes do you want to see in the game industry?

I want more than lipservice to diversity, both in the developer ranks and in game portrayals. I want VR to stop making me throw up. I want YouTubers to elevate their content, making actual analyses and intelligent commentaries about games that make people want to participate and investigate, not just spectate. 

I want gamer trolls to be held accountable for their behavior, by game and social media companies, and where appropriate, law enforcement. Games are for everyone, and we need to create respectful places where everyone is welcome. 

Bonus: Tell us a funny story from your adventures in game development.

I was on a three hour client conference call about what we should call breasts. "Breasts" was too clinical a word, and not something that would typically be said by young teenagers. Other words on the table were felt to be too disrespectful or too sexualized. So, we have a game about HIV prevention and sexuality that has no mention of breasts in it, because we couldn't agree on what they should be called.

Nathalie Lawhead

Name: Nathalie Lawhead

Twitter: @alienmelon

Gender: Female

Nationality: USA / Slovenia 

Birth date: 20/10/1983

Title: Indie

Company: Tetrageddon Games

Some games that you have worked on: 

Tetrageddon Games

Website: www.tetrageddon.com

1-What did motivate you to become a game developer? 

I think I always had it in me. I started as a net-artist in the late 90's. Traditional art wasn't enough for me, and I basically grew up behind a computer, so tinkering with interactivity sort of happened naturally. I was absolutely fascinated by all the avenues of creative exploration computers, and later internet, opened up for artists. Things could move, react, act, and people could experience my art on a deeper more profound level. It's like creating world's, or alternate realities.

The way I saw it, the internet made it possible for artists to really be in charge of their work. Anyone could see it, and museums or galleries where no longer in charge of an artist's success.

Eventually people started calling what I did "games". At first I hated the label because it also enabled a lot of misunderstandings. If you say "game" then people expect a clear goal, mission, agenda. Players would often become confused, or outraged, because "What am I supposed to do? This is not a game!". Eventually I decided not to fight the label, and see what contributions I can make to "games". We're all making this together. It's a collective effort.

Thanks to this (our collective experimenting, and pushing the label), today I think people are a lot more liberal in what they expect from a game. This "boom" in experimental is what I find totally exciting about games today. People are wiling to experiment and create new labels.

So I'm totally thrilled to call myself a "game developer".

2-What does inspire you creatively? 

I think you can get inspired by the weirdest things. Usually I get a lot of inspiration by browsing the crappy places of the internet (no need for names), but lately I've been getting it from places like itch.io, gamejolt, or fun collections like http://harmonyzone.org/frog.html. Twitter's #screenshotsaturday has become one of my happy places. I love seeing what other devs are doing. Just to name a couple... I totally love Strangethink's generative art or ceMelusine's stuff.

I started out being pretty isolated (not really part of the meatspace indie community) then I started going to events because my work was being showcased there. Now I can't believe that I haven't done that before. There's so much amazing stuff, and so many amazing creative developers. Events like IndieCade, Fantastic Arcade, or Glitch City have been a treasure trove of inspiration for me. You might not think so (if you're like me), but it does make a big difference to actually physically meet other developers.

3-If you had unlimited resources to make any game you wanted, what kind of game would that be? 

Wow... I've thought of this often, but come up with something new everytime.

I would love to make a multiplayer FPS that's all about the bugs. Like the way you successfully play it is to try to get it to glitch out. Like fall through the floor, or rocket into the sky because you collided with something at the wrong angle.

I totally love the "bad" ideas. I had one before that would be called "The Crucifier" and you would play Jesus, as acted by Charlton Heston, armed with a nailgun and witty wiseguy one-liners. It would be horrible (in a good way), and all about meaningless over-the-top gore + shooting... There's also "Dude Simulator" which would be all about being a dude. You know, like brushing your teeth or walking around at home in underwear... I have notebooks full of ideas in the event something like this ever happens.

4-What was the biggest challenge of your career? In which game? How did you overcome it? 

I've tried working in the game industry before. Suffice it to say, it wasn't good. I understand that other people may have good experiences, but I got one of the bad ones. Now I think it served the wonderful purpose to kick my ass into going out and doing my own thing.

I think that's one of my takeaways from that experience. Every creative industry has its companies that thrive on draining desperate creative people. You see this with visual effects. Games are no exception. This is no reason to quit on dreams, but incentive to go out and pursue it on your own terms.

Looking back I see that I could be so much further along if I would have just invested all that time, commitment, and passion into my own work. It's what I'm doing now, and I totally encourage other people to do the same. The tools are there, the platforms to get funding are there, it couldn't be a better time.

5-What do you usually do for raising the possibility of success in your projects? 

Passion is one of the big ones. If you're working on something and the ideas keep coming, and you'd rather work than sleep, and just can't stop, then I think it's definitely going to succeed. If you make something you love, I think other people will love playing it.

Also, if there's an idea you just can't put down, and you love playing what you make. I think you end up with something great.

I love the projects that keep me laughing all through production. It's really something special when you just can't quit working on it.

But, in the end, I think success is a very relative term. It means different things to different people.

I don't think you can make a good game if you set out to make a game for the sake of success.

Success can be a trap. You'll sacrifice potentially amazing ideas for the sake of some tired formula that everyone else is using. It's really best not to bring that into the picture.

6-What is the most helpful piece of constructive criticism you ever received? 

Don't take the comments too seriously.

You need to have a concrete idea of what you want to make, and how you want it to turn out, then stick to it. People (more so online) are very quick to criticize. It can get VERY depressing. Sifting through that information (good criticism from bad) without letting it "kill" the passion/vision you have for your project is a skill in itself. Especially if you're making something new. I used to take what people said about my work to heart. If you're a perfectionist it can take a lot of practice not to do that.

7-What are the advantages/downsides to working in games?

The advantage is that you can completely express yourself. Games are sort of like the crossroads medium where all arts come together to make something. You can express yourself through music, and sound, and design the interactivity, and the artwork. It's very 100%. I absolutely love every aspect of development.

I'm currently working alone. I make everything on my own (music, art, programming, marketing, PR, etc...), which is fun, but can get incredibly lonely. It can seem a downside. To do this you do sacrifice your personal life, but seeing people play it when you're done is what makes it so amazing. My games are about humor, so when I see people laughing and "getting" the jokes, it's the best feeling in the world. I wouldn't trade that in for anything.

8-What is your best advice to a beginning game developer?

Just start making games. There's no one place to start. You can read all you want, and study about it all you want, but the best way is just to start making one. It doesn't have to be a good game, or playable, but once you get into it it sort of unfolds naturally. Get feedback from friends, keep tinkering, eventually you get better at it. It's also important to see what other indies are doing (like on itch.io or follow some devs on Twitter). This gives you a sense of what you can do.

I notice a lot of beginners often try to tackle the "epic" ideas first. It's not good to start with something huge, or that's "just like your favorite AAA game". For the beginning, it's best to start with something personal, and small. It's a great self-rewarding feeling to get your finished game out there, so it's important not to make it so complicated that you never finish it.

A great place to start would be to participate in gamejams.

9-Which skills are the most important for a game developer in your field/position?

All of them. You have to get good at everything. For example, music, sound, programming, art, and design. Then there is also marketing, and PR. It's good to understand your limitations, then build off that.

Not everyone is a great artist, so work with pixel art, or some retro style.

On the other hand, not everyone is great with programming, so focus on art and keep the interactivity simple.

If you keep pushing yourself then you eventually get good at what you are weak at.

10-If I want to become a great dev in your field, what games should I play, what books should I read, and whose work should I follow?

Nose-dive into http://itch.io/ and just get lost there. Also http://wip.warpdoor.com/ and http://killscreendaily.com/ are great starting points.

For those that are interested, I keep a youtube playlist of gamedev related talks: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXFlbiQkdDD1b3yOcFbx33lH0TfgCOFpx

Sort of my personal collection. Anything I find of interest, that helps me become a better dev, I put there.

It's also totally worth it to check out the GDC Vault!

11-What changes do you want to see in the game industry?

More tolerance. I wish we could all just get along.

Bonus: Tell us a funny story from your adventures in game development.

I have this game called FROGGY (It's Hungry) http://froggy.alienmelon.com/ and people constantly think it is, or has something to do with, Frog Fractions 2. There have been a couple conspiracies about that (people speculating on forums about odd details in the game, "the honeypot", etc...). I ended up making this website about how it's NOT Frog Fractions 2 http://froggy.alienmelon.com/thetruth/ which didn't help.

I've had a lot of fun watching peoples confusion.

Had to hold myself back from messing with them too much. :)

Sean Weiland

Name: Sean Weiland

Twitter: @Male_npc

Gender: Male

Nationality: USA

Birth date: 20/02/1984

Title: Project Leader

Company: Risen Phoenix

Some games that you have worked on: 

Steamalot

Go Go Galago

Website: www.risenphoenixstudios.com

1-What did motivate you to become a game developer? 

I spent most of my childhood playing games. Then I made a series of choices that sent me to seemingly completely contrasting career paths (theatre, bartender, dance instructor). At one point I realized that all of the work that I enjoyed doing was also work that needed to be done to make games, a product I loved any way. I was 24/25 when I made that realization and actually started pursuing game development. 

2-What does inspire you creatively? 

Just about everything inspires me creatively. It's probably why I have a large number of projects going on at any one point in time. Music and live performance are among my top favorite things that always leave me feeling jazzed to work on my own projects. 

3-If you had unlimited resources to make any game you wanted, what kind of game would that be? 

An Oculus RIft style VR MMORPG. I want to be plugged into an online world. 

4-What was the biggest challenge of your career? In which game? How did you overcome it? 

The biggest challenge was probably getting into games. I was already trained and good at other work. After starting to get work, market was/is the biggest obstacle. I don't think I've overcome it yet. Getting people to know about you and your game is one of the hardest things for an indie to do. 

5-What do you usually do for raising the possibility of success in your projects? 

Talk about what I'm working on to whoever will listen. BTW Steamalot (tactics game) has been greenlit and we are working on a spiritual successor. 

I do ^that^ 20 times a day. 

When it comes down to the project I try to go for the highest quality result that I can afford by time, talent, and money. Even if it is harder and pushes deadlines to the limit; every extra effort is worth it. 

6-What is the most helpful piece of constructive criticism you ever received? 

"You haven't begun to be creative until you've thought of everything. Once you've gotten all of that out of the way, you can start on the real work."

7-What are the advantages/downsides to working in games?

The advantages for me are that I get to leverage many facets of my interests. I love working on projects that have lots of unknowns (which can be VERY stressful for lots of people). I like planning projects, working on designs, and providing feedback to my co-workers. 

The downsides to working in games is that it is still intensive work that can take a long time and still result in failure. It is also a field where people constantly underestimate the amount of work that goes into a project. The work is also highly project based; meaning that when development is over many people find themselves looking for work again. It can be unsettling to look for work/move every few years. 

8-What is your best advice to a beginning game developer?

Learn things besides your core skills. Take history, literature, art, psychology, and anything else you like. Take a class in something you hate too! Games are an art form and art is the reflection of the world around you. If you don't experience the world your products will be flat and uninteresting. 

Also fail early and often. Don't wait for someone to tell you to make a game or to get that "big break". This isn't Broadway or Hollywood. Start making games and get all of the suck out of the way now so you can start making some really good stuff. 

9-Which skills are the most important for a game developer in your field/position?

:-O, dam. The most important skill for an indie developer is everything ;-) I wish that weren't true. I am a poor coder, but I still can sit down and understand what code is doing. The same goes for art, I don't have very refined skills for art, but I can describe what colors, shapes, and lines are doing for specific assets and give feedback accordingly. For an project lead/designer, flexibility, thick skin, and the ability to communicate with every type of person you meet is essential. 

10-If I want to become a great dev in your field, what games should I play, what books should I read, and whose work should I follow?

Hmmmmm, that's a toughie. You should play as much as you can get your hands on. Even bad games can teach you about what to avoid in game design. Hit up best of lists for the last 10 years as well as IGF nominations/winners from forever. There are good books for every field within games. This is so subjective that I can really only say start following the people you like that make games you like. If I were me, I would and do follow Jane Mcgonigal, Brenda Romero, Jesse Schell, and Richard Garriott. That's just a sampling though. There are many people out there to learn from. 

11-What changes do you want to see in the game industry?

There needs to be a larger forward facing movement to be inclusive in games. Its seems like developers are on board with diversity in games, but the games themselves are only slowly changing. I think due to unwanted backlash developers/companies have been quite about big social issues over the last year or so. 

Bonus: Tell us a funny story from your adventures in game development.

I don't know that anything really funny has happened while making a game (except for lewd design proposals). Since coming into game development most of my silly happenings have occurred from being in close proximity to influential people and been totally unaware of it until after. 

One of my favorites happened 3 years ago at the very last GDC Online in Austin, TX. I was hanging out with some new friends at a speakers social. I was volunteering at the event and then told to hang out and drink. I obliged. I saw a kid commenting on a guys t-shirt saying it "was funny". The gentleman kept a straight face and said he didn't see how his Disney script shirt that read "malt whiskey" was funny, and stolidly rejected his remarks. THAT made me laugh. "malt whiskey" and I started chatting. We introduced ourselves by first names and met up a couple of times during the week to have drinks and hang out. On the very last day Steve ask about my volunteer coordinator and asked me to deliver a message to him, saying that they were old friends. It was something about calling my coordinator an old man. 

I was all in, went to my coordinator, delivered the message, and awaited the laugh. He instead responded "Who exactly told you to deliver that message." I paused realizing I only knew this guys first name. I said "Steve", and described him. The coordinator and his wife looked at me and agreed that they know who sent the message and asked if I did. I said it was the guy I was drinking with! They laughed even harder and told me to google him. I immediately felt nervous. Being able to search for someone with expected results means I completely missed something. "Steve" is Steve Meretzky, game designer and one of PC Gamer's "Game Gods". 

I had no idea who he was. The jaws that dropped when I told people who I was hanging out with were enough to inform me that I had been painfully oblivious. On the up side, whenever I see "Steve" at an event, I know exactly what scotch to order. 

Ziba Scott

Name: Ziba Scott

Twitter: @popcannibal

Gender: Male

Nationality: USA

Birth date: 1/1/1982

Title: Owner

Company: Popcannibal

Some games that you have worked on: 

Girls Like Robots

Elegy for a Dead World

Website: www.popcannibal.com

1-What did motivate you to become a game developer? 

I've always loved programming, theater and the world of ideas.  I worked for years in web development and educational IT support.  But, topically, it separated me from people.  Games lets me work with ideas that fascinate everyone.

2-What does inspire you creatively? 

The creativity of others.  The simultaneous complexity and simplicity of nature.  How many feelings people have and how often we do or do not experience them.

3-If you had unlimited resources to make any game you wanted, what kind of game would that be? 

Resources aren't the main problem.  (Not that I have tremendous resources).  What's difficult is knowing how to effectively use resources.  Words are free and everybody can use them to incredible effect. But it's really hard!  I would use unlimited resources to train myself to be a better artist (in all senses of the word).

4-What was the biggest challenge of your career? In which game? How did you overcome it? 

Knowing when an idea and/or execution aren't good enough and putting them behind you to start something new.  I'm still having dreams about finishing a game I stopped working on.

5-What do you usually do for raising the possibility of success in your projects? 

Share! Test! Limit my scope and then cut it some more!

6-What is the most helpful piece of constructive criticism you ever received? 

Listen to your testers. Don't correct them.

7-What are the advantages/downsides to working in games?

Most people are in it for the love of it.  So I get to interact with passionate people who are very much alive and chasing dreams.

It can be hard to recognize your own successes if you compare yourself to the hugely successful outliers all the time.

8-What is your best advice to a beginning game developer?

Make small games and share them.  Learn. Rinse. Repeat.

9-Which skills are the most important for a game developer in your field/position?

Whatever your skills are, you need to be brutally honest with yourself about your own strengths and then find a way to fill in your gaps by either being more diligent or bringing in the right people.

10-If I want to become a great dev in your field, what games should I play, what books should I read, and whose work should I follow?

ALL OF THE GAMES AND BOOKS.

11-What changes do you want to see in the game industry?

Better treatment of women who make games and the depictions of them in games.  Less effort from brilliant minds poured into psychological tricks to make people pay for free-to-play stuff.

Bonus: Tell us a funny story from your adventures in game development.

I spelled my own name wrong on a name tag at an important networking event.  BEFORE drinking. Walked out of there with 5 lbs of candy.  Good night.

Tanya X. Short

Name: Tanya X. Short

Twitter: @tanyaxshort

Gender: Female

Nationality: USA

Birth date: 22/07/1983

Title: Creative Director

Company: Kitfox Games

Some games that you have worked on: 

Moon Hunters

Shattered Planet

The Secret World

Age of Conan

Dungeons of Fayte

Halo 2 ARG: Ilovebees project

Website: www.kitfoxgames.com

1-What did motivate you to become a game developer? 

I've loved games since I was a very young girl, and once I found out game designer was a job in high school, I started keeping a game ideas journal. I was always full of ideas for new games I wanted to make, and briefly started and ran a games journalism/review site called gamer-girl.org, which let me attend the Game Developer's Conference in 2004. I earned a bachelor's degree in English Literature, then went to teach English in Japan, and it was there that I decided I would go for it and try to become a Game Designer.

2-What does inspire you creatively? 

Everything, but especially secrets and secret-keeping. I think game designers should always be interested in everything around them -- the systems, the factors, the weird quirks of reality and imagination that define our universe. Most of my favorite game designers are passionate about something in particular and create in another art form (drawing, painting, cooking, music, even sculpture or jewelry-craft) -- personally, I try to make sure I write at least one short story every month. It keeps my creative energies high.

3-If you had unlimited resources to make any game you wanted, what kind of game would that be? 

A persistent world in which politics, alliance, and betrayal were the main activity -- there probably wouldn't even be any combat or other kinds of conflict. Just pure battling for power over others.

4-What was the biggest challenge of your career? In which game? How did you overcome it? 

I think starting Kitfox Games was the hardest challenge, even though I didn't think much about it at the time. Creating our first game (Shattered Planet) could have been a disaster, because none of us 4 team members had ever worked together, and I certainly hadn't been a creative director before. But due to the other team members being really great, and our mutual trust for each other, we managed to make a game and release it on time, without crunching, which is a huge thing for an indie team. :)

5-What do you usually do for raising the possibility of success in your projects? 

First, when we start a game, we always have a clear idea of who our customer/audience is... and not just "myself" -- but myself in a certain context, and other people like me in that context. Second, we are very structured for an indie team, with many "best practices" carried over from my days at a bigger company. We're strict about our deadlines, and only working 8 or 9 hours a day, so that everyone can go home and have a good life there, instead of being stressed and working inefficiently and burning out. People are allowed to do some overtime now and then if they want to, of course, but I think it's a big problem for the game if we do that often.

6-What is the most helpful piece of constructive criticism you ever received? 

A mentor once told me "Stop thinking of your team like a company. You're all founders, you don't have any employees, so you're not a company. You don't have HR Managers. You're more like a band, being equals even if you have a lead singer -- you have to manage drama and personalities the same way."

7-What are the advantages/downsides to working in games?

Game developers are the coolest people. I really love them. The only real downside apart from it being an "office job" is that sometimes (like any artist, I think), I feel guilty for not contributing meaningfully to solving the problems of human suffering, as I might have done as a scientist, politician, or humanitarian.

8-What is your best advice to a beginning game developer?

Keep learning and stay humble. Personally, I learned a TON from working for a big company for some years, but there's lots to learn in many situations. Whether you're indie or AAA, as soon as you stop opening your mind and learning new things, you'll start calcifying and losing the ability to enjoy what you're doing.

9-Which skills are the most important for a game developer in your field/position?

Number one is ability to accept criticism. Then I'd say logical thinking, analytical thinking, communication skills (writing, speaking), creativity, people skills, multitasking. Game designers should also do a bit of programming and a bit of art, just to understand them, even if they're not very good at them.

10-If I want to become a great dev in your field, what games should I play, what books should I read, and whose work should I follow?

There are too many great games and books and developers to possibly see them all! Play a variety of games certainly, don't let yourself get too wrapped up in one or another. I recommend keeping a hungry spirit, but if you're a game designer, don't let yourself get too wrapped up in other people's game designs -- it can become an echo chamber of ideas. Instead, ask yourself what else you also love (a book or movie that touched you, a building's architecture, etc) and probe what you love about it. Devour the world and be brave when you express yourself. Don't feel like you have to imitate anyone else.

11-What changes do you want to see in the game industry?

I want to see more different kinds of people, with different backgrounds, making games. Right now, our culture thinks only programmer-types can become game developers, which isn't true, but it means that typically mostly white and Japanese guys become game developers. I want more industry leaders of different races, languages, genders, perspectives, passions, and dreams.

Bonus: Tell us a funny story from your adventures in game development.

Apparently in our previous game, Shattered Planet, there's a glitch/exploit that occurs if you create 1000+ of an item. Someone apparently used this SO MUCH that they lost use of that finger for some days due to repetitive stress, and accepted it as divine retribution for his 'sins' against the rules of the game. He now urges everyone not to use the exploit, or else they may also be punished by god. We devs thought that was pretty funny.