My First Austin Game Conference
This was my first time at AGC and I have to say that it was a bit smaller than I expected. The conference only needed a small corner of the (rather large) convention center for the expo area and the meeting rooms. As a matter of fact, it was literally a longer walk from the nearest entrance of the convention center to the action than it was from my hotel to the entrance!
However, contrary to what one might expect from such a small conference, it was surprisingly professional. The expo area was well organized and the meeting rooms were kept neat and all the equiptment seemed to work. So all in all it was a pretty smooth experience.
I had not originally planned to attend, however. Noel Llopis, another Sr. Architect at High Moon Studios had planned what would surely have been a great presentation on Agile Game Development but Noel was called away on more pressing business (But if you are interested in more information, you might want to check out agilegamedevelopment.com). So, I was asked to substitute at the last minute. Although I am a proponent of many Agile methods and Scrum in particular, I wouldn’t be able to do the topic justice on such short notice. So after some discussion we decided that I would present something which I can speak on endlessly with very little notice - my current passion: Programming the Cell processor.
At Vivendi’s High Moon Booth
Along with the local Austin professional developers, it turns out that there are quite a few students and recent graduates that attend the conference. And since we are actively recruiting top talent at all levels, it was a great opportunity to talk to people and promote our studio - we were able to spend some quality time with quite a few applicants and really get into the details of why the culture at High Moon is unique.
Quite a few of those students were prepared with resumes and demo reels and it was really great to feel the enthusiasm for the industry and our studio in particular. I did spend some time helping the students with their resumes, actually. Apparently there is a common format that 90% of them are using which made it difficult to tell them apart. I suggested each person forget about using off-the-shelf formats and write something that is a little more unique - or at least slightly different. Here are a few other problems I saw on resumes and my suggestions for fixing them:
- Being too wordy. Especially at a convention where there’s a very limited time to read a resume. Say things simply. Don’t use 100 words when you can use 10.
- Make it clear what you do. Are you a programmer? An artist? It seems obvious, but put that at the top. If you haven’t narrowed down what you can offer to a studio at least to a basic skill, your probably not going to get anywhere.
- Microsoft Word is not a skill. I suppose that there are jobs for which it is not assumed that applicants can use basic office applications, but this is not one of them. This is especially true for programmers - it just makes your resume look silly. Photoshop and Maya are probably relavant though.
- Put the links to your stuff on the web. A few programmers mentioned that they had demos or sample code on the web but there were no links to that information in their resumes. If you have something special, make sure it’s easy to find when your resume is evaluated again later.
- Don’t overstate your strengths. I don’t expect kids fresh out of school to know everything, honestly - it’s not a problem. But if you are going to say that 3D math is your main strength at least be able to answer a couple of basic math questions. Or if you’ve listed x86 assembly as a strength be prepared to talk shop - I love programming in assembly and if you can’t then even carry a basic conversation about it, it’s a little disappointing. If you’ve just dabbled in something or have only worked with higher level APIs - that’s OK, just be honest about it.
Tapping the Cell
As it turns out, the right people were not informed that I was substituting for Noel. When I arrived, I was not on the list and didn’t have a badge. The staff did a great job of handling the situation quickly though and within minutes I was on my way with a custom hand-written name tag. But none of the schedules or door signs were changed. Rob Vawter from SCEA was gracious enough to mention my presentation during his, and our guys at High Moon really went above and beyond and helped me out by printing a session description and handing them out at the booth - that was really nice.
Overall, I think the presentation went well. I tried to respond to quite a few of the comments I received from my interview with PSINext. Specifically how high-level strategies for Cell programming are applicable to cross-platform titles and the impact of my suggestions on engine design. If you’re interested in the details of what I presented you can get: Tapping the Cell (Slides)
There were a couple of interesting questions that I can manage to remember:
“The basic philosophies between Agile development and the type of data-first design [I’m] espousing seem to share some similarities - is that a coincidence?”
I think the answer to that is both yes and no. Yes it is a coincidence in that any similarities are not there by design. But no, I think the similarities are there because both methodologies are based on the basic premise of knowing what the most important elements are and being prepared to adapt and change them to get practical benefits. I think knowing what’s both real and practical is more important than policy and procedure in programming and the Agile methods are similar in regard to development in general.
“How would you teach these approaches to an established programming team?”
This is a tough question that I still don’t have a great answer to. At the moment, I think the most realistic method is to work with one programmer at a time and demonstrate the real benefits that can be gained from changing their approach and perspective on programming. In general, programmers find it harder to argue with immediate results but can argue about “design philosophies” until they run out of breath.
And the obligatory…
No game development conference would be complete without:
Was it worth it?
Yes. At the very least, as was pointed out to me, it is an opportunity to know better those who we may work with but never get the chance to spend time to really get to know eachother. And the Austin Game Conference has been one of the best experiences I’ve had with regard to being able to spend time connecting not just with old friends and colleagues from other studios, but from my own too. It really was the environment and the people that made this a worthwhile trip.
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