Students meet developers
published: Saturday, 19. September 2009
After two days of meeting with fellow game developers and publishers, several top names in the industry took time off on a Saturday to speak with students from Singapore about the ins and outs of the gaming industry.
With both Singapore-based as well as international speakers here for the Games Convention Asia (GCA) show this week, the GCA Students' Day event drew a spontaneous group of 200 to 300 students.
They were not disappointed. Rather than boring speeches, they were given a detailed rundown on what it meant to work in the industry, for example, understanding the entire game creation process from conception to launch.
Addressing Singapore's prospects for the world gaming industry, Olivier de Rotalier, general manager for Ubisoft Singapore, pointed to two games being created in the Republic.
He showed a trailer of the latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles title - the first game to be entirely produced by Ubisoft Singapore. He also pointed to Assassin's Creed II, which had specific levels made by Ubisoft's Singapore studio and which would out in November 2009.
The team in Singapore contributed to level design and level arts. It worked on Assassin Creed II for eight months, even as the core engine was created in Montreal.
De Rotalier said the company was always looking for new talent. For example, he said the team for the new Assasins Creed is now staffed with no fewer than 400 people, who are competent technically and have good communications skills as well. In the 1980s, a game was developed with no more than 30 people.
Team players are what the company is looking for. De Rotalier stressed: "Like a football team, 11 good players without teamwork will lose to 11 who have better team spirit."
He was just one of several speakers at the Students' Day conference.
Other experts to speak to the students included international speakers Masaya Matsuura, president of NanaOn-Sha and Takahiro Murakami lead producer for Electronic Arts Japan, who brought their insights on working in game studios overseas.
Other local speakers came from industry leaders already based here, such as the Singapore-MIT Games Lab, Lucasfirm and Digipen.
The day would end with a panel discussion on how to break into a game industry that is increasingly becoming bigger yet more complex with many experts - both technical and artistic - working together to produce the next big title.
