Player Characters

Title: Give uniqueness to the conversation | Nida Ahmad UX'er and host on the Level Edit podcast Guest: Nida Ahmad UX'er and host on the Level Edit podcast Twitter: @NidaAhmad_ Level Edit podcast: @leveledit Highlights: We talk about what UX really is, is it manipulative? Why a game is all in the head of the player, crunch and over time, game jams, and the value of being yourself and being unique. People: Celia Hodent: celiahodent.com Chris Wilson: @crwilso Luke Wroblewski: lukew.com Games Surgeon Simulator Candy Crush Saga Links Bossa Studio: bossastudios.com/ Subscribe with these services: Support the podcast: Support Player Characters with Flattr

Guest: David Turner from The Computer Game Show about video games and podcasting. David has over tean years of experience making podcasts and naturally has a lot of advice to give for anybody considering starting a podcast. We talk about why they spend a lot of time arguing on The Computer Game Show and how or why you'd want to monetize your podcast. Or not

Title: You gotta jump in | Jason Howard, Graphic Designer for Twitch and Mixer Guest: Jason Howard, Graphic Designer for Twitch and Mixer Twitter: @jhoward404 Instagram: http://instagram.com/jhoward414 Twitch: http://twitch.com/jhoward414 http://414graphics.weebly.com Takeaways: Ask questions if the client doesn’t know what they want. Watermark the files you show on social media or to the client before final delivery. Make showcases in low resolution. Accept rejection. Make sure your designs are not copying other designs by accident. Don’t be afraid of it. Seek out clients by finding streamers that have no graphics. Put a screenshot of a relevant game in your photoshop file to design an overlay around. Research how to make your YouTube thumbnails stand out. Highlights: Jason started his started his fascination with games with Atari and the original NES. He has memories of coming home from school and begging: Let me play Super Mario Bros on the one TV in the house. Later went on to Super Nintendo and has o

Title: You need a business sense | Moxu Kraze, translator Guest: Moxu Kraze freelance translator Twitter: @MoxuKraze YouTube Highlights: Kraze grew up with parents who didn't really want him to play video games even though they had a Sega console at home. Possibly a bootleg version. But as a teenager, he got a laptop, discovered DragonAge and the world of video games. He's been hooked ever since. He grew up outside the US but visited with his parents and found out that he was good with languages. So he started translating by helping with a fan-translation of a novel. Even though he wasn't very good at the beginning, they had a small community that helped each other. Later he came to the US for college and stayed afterward. As a way to make money, he searched online for translating jobs. Kraze started on small projects and even got scammed a few times. But he found out that video games also need translations and figured he could combine his talent for languages with his passion for video games. After working o

Title: Focus on the soft skills | Matt Demers social media manager for Evil Genuises Guest: Matt Demers social media manager for Evil Genuises Twitter: @mattdemers Instagram: @mattdemers Twitch: twitch.tv/mattdemers Highlights: We talk about the role of the journalist in video games today, and content creators on a broader scale. How the current model of free content paid for by ads and sponsorships is not very solid and certainly not scalable. For Matt this meant that he couldn't see himself as a games journalist in the long term. While he was taking his bachelor in journalism, Matt spend his free time watching Heroes of Newerth matches and later on League of Legends and he realised that the esports industry would need professional journalists. So he started focusing on esports both as a writer and a streamer. After quitting a job at a software company, he started freelancing in esports. While that didn't exactly make him rich, it gave him experiences and connections in the industry. At the same time Matt wa

Title: Don't wait for someone to pay you | Esports shoutcaster Sam Wright Guest: Sam Wright - Esports shoutcaster plus tech and games blogger Blog: techgirl.co.za Facebook: facebook.com/techgirlza Twitter: @techgirlza Instagram: instagram.com/techgirlza/ YouTube Highlights: Got her start in video games with Nintendo games and playing Mortal Kombat 3 on PC that her dad had gotten. Later her brother and his friends would play Dota in the weekends, and he eventually got signed to a pro team. That lead to Sam wanting to cover the esports scene more seriously to help build the local scene. That led to working alongside Paul 'Redeye' Chaloner on a big tournament, and he told her that she could have a career in esports. That might sound like she got lucky, but she also worked hard to put herself in a situation where she could take advantage of that lucky break. Besides writing about technology and games on her blog and going esports events, she studied journalism and chose a university where she could do radio. So b

Title: Write something only you can write | Video games journalist Vic Hood Guest: Vic Hood - Video games journalist Twitter: @hood_vic Highlights: Got into video games early with her dad playing Tomb Raider and playing games with her cousins. She even wanted to be a pro gamer as a kid. Went the route of creative writing and journalism and got an internship at Eurogamer. Love digging in for the deep stories Most people are willing to help, they want to see people succeed. Colleagues offer help when you mess up Games: Tomb Raider The Sims Detroit: Become Human Far Cry 5 Friday the 13th Links: Eurogamer PC Games N VG 247 Kotaku Games Press The original Demon's Souls review: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/demons-souls-review People: Wesley Yin-Poole: @wyp100 Kirk McKeand: @mckkirk Jason Schreier: @jasonschreier Julian Benson PlayerUnknown: @PLAYERUNKNOWN Christian Donlan Tom Phillips: @tomphillipseg Keza MacDonald: @kezamacdonald Subscribe with these services nqn8idss

Title: You gotta write for an audience | Steven - Independent gaming journalist Guest: Steven - Independent gaming journalist Steemit: steemit.com/@holoz0r Twitter: @holoz0r Highlights: Steven studied visual arts at university with the aim to get into video game development or video game storytelling. Got his first console from his grandparents, and eventually graduated to playing PC games at school. At the same time, he started writing his school projects in the style of the Australian magazine PC Power Play. While playing online multiplayer games he got involved with managing servers and players as an admin, which lead to working for games.on.net. Then someone suggested that he applied for the role of community manager for World in Conflict, a strategy game developed by Massive and published by Vivendi. The community role lead to writing guides and articles. But a change in management meant that he found himself in disagreement with an editor, and so he quit the writing job in protest. Steven is very intere

This is Player Characters, and if you're a fan of video games and you want to get a job that has something to do with games, this show is for you. Maybe you're thinking about becoming a youtuber, a streamer, a producer, a journalist or a creative like Jens. I want to help you do that. Highlights from this episode: Jens started programming BASIC on his fathers computer and later joined the local swedish demo scene. Helped Magnus Högdahl start Starbreeze Studios and became Programmer #2 there. At one point, things were going so badly, that they had to ask for unemployment benefits, but they kept working on games in their free time. Jens left StarBreeze because he wanted something different than big AAA game development. He still accepted a job at LucasArts though. But that job turned out to be something quite different to what he signed up for. Now he's back in Sweden and has spend the last five years with his own tiny games studio, working on the very indie Yoku's Island Express, a sort of pinball metroidvania

This is Player Characters, and if you're a fan of video games and you want to get a job that has something to do with games, this show is for you. Maybe you're thinking about becoming a youtuber, a streamer, a producer, a journalist or a creative like Regina. I want to help you do that. Highlights from this episode: Educated in design for movies - Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Earning pocket money by doing paint brush for his father To advance in your job, look at areas in the product that are overlooked and take ownership of those. Point out how things could be better, and work on it. Present your ideas, but also respect the no. As a lead how can you make sure that the team feels that they can present their ideas to you, while at the same time turning down most of those ideas. When you turn down ideas, explain why it doesn't work. Make sure to show enthusiasm for the ideas that you do pick. When you're the lead, it's important to let people fail and make mistakes. If we always do the same, and do the sa

This is Player Characters, and if you're a fan of video games and you want to get a job that has something to do with games, this show is for you. Maybe you're thinking about becoming a youtuber, a streamer, a producer, a journalist or a streamer like today's guest Candy Explosives. I want to help you do that. Candy got her love for games from her dad, who was kind enough to get her a PlayStation for Christmas. But obviously he had to try it out for himself first. That started a life long love for video games, so it was only natural to get a degree in computer games design. That lead to her first job in software testing, but she found that she would rather be playing games than making them. And then when the PlayStation 4 arrived with the share button right there on the controller, she just had to try streaming. In this episode we discuss how Rainbow Six Siege went from a bit of a niche game, to a massive success. Candy mention how her brief experience with the Destiny community was an incredibly positive exp

This is Player Characters, and if you're a fan of video games and you want to get a job that has something to do with games, this show is for you. Maybe you're thinking about becoming a youtuber, a streamer, a producer, a journalist or a writer like Michael the guest in this episode. I want to help you do that. Michael actually never pictured himself as a games writer, and he started his career focusing on movie with a degree in film and media science. He was involved in making music videos as a way to get to do movies, but ended up writing on Hitman Absolution through a friend. Through that experience he discovered that games and Hitman in particular could actually be the medium to tell the kind of stories that he liked. And even though Michael actually says that he doesn't really have any advice for aspiring writers, he clearly has a lot to say about games and writing. We also talk about how our imagination works for us, and how games as a medium is very well suited to take advantage of that. And how storie

Title: From Edge Magazine to Angry Birds 2 | Author, designer, and product manager Will Luton Guest: Will Luton: http://will-luton.co.uk Twitter: https://twitter.com/will_luton Book: Free 2 Play - Making Money from Games You Give Away Highlights: Will tells the story of how he first got introduced to video games via a very early console, that his father used to test tv's as a tv engineer. Later Will got a job at Sega in the QA department, and from there he worked his way into producing games. And his expertise and view on games has given him the chance to write for Edge Magazine and PockerGamer.biz. Among many topics we talk going to school to get a job in video games, why Agile development is such a good fit for games development, and crunch plus how to avoid it.

Title: Meet up in person and start shaking hands | Freelance Game & Screenwriter Morten Brunbjerg Guest: Morten Brunbjerg | https://www.mortenbrunbjerg.dk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mortenbrunbjerg Twitter: https://twitter.com/mortenbrunbjerg Highlights: Morten tells the story about how he always wanted to write, but had to support himself with a education in IT and later a job as an IT teacher, because getting hired as a writer was difficult. But he kept writing, and read all he could about writing. And luckily he was able to get a mentor, who could help with getting better at writing. We talk about the main differences between writing a regular story, and writing fora video game. And how Mortens background in IT and programming came in handy when he started making video game stories in Excell spreadsheets. Games: Monkey Island: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_Island_(series) Another World: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Another_World_(video_game) Flashback: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flas

Guest: Ben - Slothyy Twitter: @getslothyy Steemit: steemit.com/@getslothyy Dlive: dlive.io/@getslothyy) ### Advice: Leverage all you possible can. Your brand is your most important thing besides your product. Find that little niche and run it, make it yours. Don't copy what everybody else is doing. Either get a website going or get an e-mail list going and just engage with people. Send them a weekly update. Send out a little digest. For your personal brand you could do a weekly recap of your favorite moment or your most valuable lesson of the week for others that are trying to follow in your footsteps. Whatever it maybe. Do something that sets you apart from others. ### Highlights: Ben talks about how his passion for gaming started with playing NES with his father and also going to Magic the Gathering tournaments in addition to doing his own tournaments with friends and family. Later he got lost in World of Warcraft. We talk about how the experiences in games and in MMO's in particular, whether in Player vers

My guest in this episode is actor Alex Lehman. Alex tells the story of how and why he added motion capture for video games to his already impressive acting CV. Why does it take an actor to do motion capture? Why not just use a person who is professionally doing those movements? We get into the differences between traditional acting with an audience where everything is live and you have one take, and using your body to very precisely express movements and feelings through possibly any number of takes. We talk about how the agency of a video game in some ways conflicts with the fact that story is often told through pace and timing. If you want to hear more interviews with people working with video games, please subscribe to Player Characters on SoundCloud or iTunes and of course tell all of your friends. You can find show notes and links on freeplay.co/playercharacters

Thomas is celebrating 20 years in game design, and is now a freelance designer in what he calls "full stack design". His interest in video games actually runs parallel with his passion for board games, a passion that started with pen and paper roleplaying games. Hear the story of how Thomas started as an intern and worked his way to a senior position - twice. Hear how IO grew along with the rest of the gaming industry, and basically had to figure out how to make games at a bigger and bigger scale. Along the way, they helped define what a Game Designer is. Thomas has an interesting view on unrealistic deadlines and how they can actually be useful, because "creativity finds a way".

Learn the origins of the Two Button Crew name, and how it's actually so much more than "just" a YouTube channel for and by Nintendo fans. Scott and Simeon tell about the respective memories and experiences with gaming and Nintendo games in particular, and the Big N is the cream of the crop in their eyes. I ask them about how and why they started their YouTube channel, and get and insight into their strategy on how they actively foster a positive community. And of course I get the details on how they manage to publish five videos each week, and practical advice on how to start on YouTube.

In this episode my guest is Tim "Teemo" Ashton who works for cybersport.com where concentrates primarily on League of Legends. But Tim has also worked as a barista before running a GameStop, and then he started to talk about video games every chance he got. I want to thank you for listening to this episode of Player Characters If you want to hear more interviews with people working with video games, please subscribe to Player Characters on SoundCloud or iTunes and of course tell all of your friends. You can find show notes and links on freeplay.co/playercharacters

An interview with Jesper Nielsen from EA Dice about what it means to be a video game producer. I want to thank you for listening to this episode of Player Characters If you want to hear more interviews with people working with video games, please subscribe to Player Characters on iTunes and of course tell all of your friends. You can find show notes and links on www.playercharacters.co