Linking back to my earlier post, I wrote that I wanted to go out to more events. My main motivation at the time is that I just want to meet new people. Not to say that there is anything wrong with my current friends or what they are doing. It's just that sometimes, what you want to do and what you are interested in may not be what your friends want to do or interested in.
I think it safe to say that, company is a good thing, both pleasurably and productively as well. No doubt, the enjoyment that I drew from many of my past hobbies were often more from the people that I enjoyed these hobbies with. Most notably were my friends Stuart Brine and Tony Dos Santos who I played Yugioh very closely with when I was young. Additionally, I don't think I would have been as successful in many of my endeavors if it weren't for the people, mentors and team members that supported me. There are too many examples to name, but I'll be sure to mention you guys in future posts.
But anyways, how does this all relate to what I've been doing. So after a big night of gaming with friends during Friday night (and Saturday morning), I drove down to Brisbane to attend a video game conference called Game On Symposium: Foreplay to Freeplay. I was supposed to head down there with a couple of class mates from Bond, but everyone else was too slack to get up in the morning, so it was just Blade and I that drove down to attend.
The conference was themed around indie game development and many of the presentations were about technical business aspects of independent studios, things such as intellectual property and general business management were discussed. I honestly didn't learn anything from this side, partially because of my own experiences, plus I had some pretty damn good lecturers at Bond University. I felt that I gained a lot more during the breaks than during the presentation. I got to meet plenty of people at different levels within the game development area. I met plenty of students, who were still in school, couple of indie game developers doing their own thing after finishing their courses as well as meeting other more senior members of the industry.
While I was there, I had a chat with a couple of the indie game devs about possibly coming down and showing off a bit of their work at next Gamer's Life Convention. These guys all seemed pretty keen to get out there and show off what they got, so we exchanged details and I'll get in contact with them later on. In addition to meeting plenty of people that might be interested in working with me, I got some pretty good insight from one of the founders from Screwtape. He spoke about 10 rules that he had learnt while starting up his indie studio. I took some notes and here's what he said.
1) Start within your own means
2) Log your time. So you can see how much time you are actually working on a project. Then consider if you would be able to pay yourself a wage using those numbers
3) Spend plenty of time "Selling" your game, not just developing it.
4) Embrace the established rules until you know enough to break them
5) Talk to anyone about your work
6) Start small. You'll make plenty of mistakes when starting. Might as well learn from mistakes that cost less.
7) Be ruthless with certain decisions. Sometimes you have to make some hard decisions on what is worth it and what isn't. You'll have plenty of ideas and opportunities, scrap the bad ones.
8) Ask for help when you need it. You'll be much more successful if you do.
9) Play a lot. Don't just focus on your own work, take time to experience what others are doing.
10) Know your business and Industry. You not only need to keep up to date, but be ready to follow future trends
Overall, I have to agree with most of his list. Points 2 and 4 were things that I haven't thought of so especially I made sure to note them down. It's nice to hear that there are other people out there who are doing what they love, even with the lack of security surrounding it. I had really gotten a lot out of the day and was really happy that I went. Blade even met a couple of people who were interested in similar gaming fields as he was.
Looking back on the day, I was right to force myself out of the house. If I were to summarise what I can take away from this experience it would be
- If you want to be someone that does something new or follow a different path, make sure you spend regular time getting out, having new experiences and meeting new people.
- You might meet people who have similar interests and goals as you do.
- You can learn so much from other people's experiences and perspectives
Ps: I really dislike politics and networking with people specifically to gain. Thinking about what I wrote, I'd like to believe what I did was different. I want to believe that I'm not a hypocrite. In future, I think I'll post something up about what I believe to be networking ethics. Until then, thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment