Will Bonner, Associate Test Engineer, Riot Games

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Из курса от партнера Michigan State University

Game Design and Development Capstone

130 оценки

Michigan State University

Game Design and Development Capstone

130 оценки

Курс 5 из 5 — Specialization Game Design and Development

In the game design and development capstone, you will create an original game from initial concept through implementation and then launch it to the world! Along the way, you will have the opportunity to put your game ideas in front of your peers and for the best-of-the-best you will have the chance to get feedback from game industry professionals. The capstone experience gives you the opportunity to push your skills further and demonstrate your newfound skills as a game developer. The capstone also contains guest talks from game industry professionals at Riot Games, Deep Silver Volition, Iron Galaxy, Radiant Entertainment, Goodgame Studios, Stardock, GREE, Heart Shaped Games, Kongregate, and more.

Из урока

Milestone 6: Ship It!

Rule #1 of GameDev: If you don't ship, it doesn't exist. In this module, it is time to say, "Enough is enough," and ship your game. We're literally asking you to create a final build of something and put it somewhere where the world can see it. That can be Kongregate, the iOS App Store, Google Play or wherever you think is most appropriate.

Marie Lazar, 3D Environment Artist, Goodgame Studios5:49

Eric Arnold, Studio Architect of Programming, Deep Silver Volition7:02

Will Bonner, Associate Test Engineer, Riot Games4:33

Jon Moore, Graphics Engineer, Iron Galaxy Studios12:35

Matthew Vorce, Programmer, Pixo Group4:13

Chris Bray, Studio Head and Senior Producer, Stardock7:07

Greg Donovan, Senior Producer, Deep Silver Volition5:24

Scott Brodie, Founder and Lead Designer, Heart Shaped Games6:16

Jared Riley, Engineering Manager, GREE International18:12

Charles Roman, Senior Software Engineer, Radiant Entertainment3:56

Познакомьтесь с преподавателями

Brian Winn
Associate Professor
Media and Information
Casey O'Donnell
Associate Professor
Media and Information

Hello there.

My name is Will Bonner.

I'm a 2011 graduate of the Michigan State Game Development Program.

Since my graduation, I've enjoyed a career in the commercial games industry.

Brian contacted me asking if I'd like to share my post graduation experiences and

perspective with you.

I told him that I would be happy to help you guys in any way that I can.

So first, I'll tell you a lit bit about what I'm doing now.

I'm a test engineer at Riot Games, you can think of that as a cross between

a gameplay engineer who codes the features that players end up getting

their hands on, and a tools engineer, who is empowering the rest of the team.

I'm currently working on an unannounced game title.

Hopefully I'll be able to share more details about that with the rest of

the world soon.

I'd like to tell you about how I ended up working at Riot.

It has been an enjoyable but

difficult journey, full of hard work with some surprising twists and turns.

I started school at Michigan State with the idea of becoming a designer, but

I quickly discovered my talent and passion for programming.

While I was in school, I worked my butt off in computer science classes,

game design courses with Brian, internships, and freelance work of my own.

Post graduation, I was lucky enough to get hired at an independent game

studio in Grand Rapids Michigan called Yeti CGI.

They're still around, too.

You should check them out.

In the two years I worked there, I was a full stack developer, working for

companies like Zynga, Nickelodeon, and

the Game Show Network on contract, as well as some in house game titles of our own.

Additionally, I've been an active participant

in the Game Developers Conference since I was a student.

I worked as a volunteer conference associate

where I do everything that I can to help the show run smoothly.

In the process of doing so I've made friends across the country.

Including those at Riot that would eventually help me get hired

as a technical QA analyst on League of Legends.

I did well enough in that capacity that I was promoted to an engineering role and

transferred to the R&D team that I am on today.

There's a long list of valuable skills that have helped me get to that point but

I think the most important and underrated of those are the people skills.

Communication isn't about what you're saying, it's about what they're hearing.

The value of empathizing with others, asking good questions and

being sure not to over or under communicate cannot be overstated.

I also say for engineers in particular that abstract reasoning and deep, complete

knowledge of what you're trying to do and how it should work is invaluable.

Don't settle for assumptions on how important stuff like your engine,

password encryption algorithms, or databases work.

Measuring twice and cutting once can massively increase the speed and

quality of your work.

And makes it easier for

similarly well informed teammates to collaborate with you.

It can also improve your ability to identify and learn from your mistakes.

Lastly, I'd like to offer some career advice for everyone.

If you're serious about games as a profession,

you need to be a total bad ass to pull it off.

That's not trying to scare anyone out of trying.

The industry is bigger than it's ever been today, and

many of the skills that you would be getting to work at a game studio

are just as valuable in other pursuits, too.

I only want to stress the competitiveness of this industry.

Nobody in a triple A game development studio is there by accident.

They've earned that spot.

Sometimes over literally thousands of other applicants,

through a combination of social and disciplined specific skills.

As a practical example I've kept up with about 25 of the students from my

graduating class at Michigan State.

About five of us out of that 25 are currently employed

at a commercial game studio of any type.

Now, some of the folks outside of that five are at a game studio by choice, but

some of them aren't.

The hard truth of it is, there's very few studios out there with the budget,

capacity, and desire to hire sub-par developers.

To overcome those obstacles, you'll probably need to work harder to achieve it

than anything you ever have in your life.

Either that, or be incredibly smart or incredibly lucky.

And even then, working hard is only going to help.

So have internships, exercising your discipline specific skills every summer.

Ship a game.

Have at least a fleshed out LinkedIn profile and perhaps a website and

portfolio to boot.

Go to industry events like GDC or PAX.

Contribute to an open source project that you like, or

any other collaborations like a game jam or IGDA that you can.

This is not a job for the lazy.

So now you have a pretty decent idea of who I am, where I've come from, and

how I think about the game's industry.

With that in mind, let's delve into a subject where I spent much of my time

lately, developing games as a service.

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