How I got into Gaming, Part 2 - The Interview

Virgin Games - The Interview

The story of how I ended up at Virgin Games is a funny one, for having had to return to full-time employment outside of the game industry left me little time for programming, so my focus switched to primarily working out my game designs on paper.

This lead me to develop one of my most extensive game designs yet, a RPG game tentatively called the Wizards Eye. It took me about 6 months to outline it in a 300 plus page document which included a full back-story along with a vast number of level diagrams.

I didn't have the time to develop all of the art and code for it, while I was holding down a full-time job as a mechanic still, so instead I shipped it off to Virgin Games as-is just on paper, strangely enough I was just applying for a programming position and the idea of being just a designer didn't even dawn on me.

My hopes for getting a job with them wasn't too high at the time for I had already approached Interplay, a game developer right up the street from Virgin Games at the time, which turned into one of the strangest interviews I have ever had, yet another story LOL.

So I was pleasantly surprised when I received a letter from Virgin Games scheduling an on-site interview a few weeks later.

I remember feeling excited and a bit panicked at the time, for all I had to drive at the time was an old beat-up Datsun 510 that I wasn't sure could make the trip down to Irvine.  But lucky for me at the time my girlfriend and future wife had a reliable car and was willing to drive me down there for the interview.

Now the next question was what to wear?

Working as an auto mechanic for the last few years, with uniforms provided didn't exactly prepare me for what I thought might me a suit and tie interview, so I spiffed up as much as I could for the meeting.

One of the most memorable comments my girlfriend made on the drive down was, “Don’t expect people there to be walking around in blue jeans and t-shirts, so I had to hold back my laughter when I was met in the lobby by the Director of Development, Stephen Clarke-Willson who was wearing blue jeans and t-shirt :-)

Now with my expectation for predictability out the window, Stephen, also known as Doc to all who worked there at the time, lead me down to his relatively small office and sat me down for my interview.

I was nervous, as you might expect and a bit confused when I looked over to the left back corner of his office and saw my game design document for The Wizards Eye tossed fairly casually in a pile with other documents.

Stephen sat down and said, after a little introduction chitchat, “I’m thinking of bringing you in as an Assistant Game Designer for Cool Spot, a upcoming Platform Game”.

Now, really confused I look at him and said, “Not as a programmer?” and he said “No!... I really need someone here to handle the game design”. I then told him that I knew absolutely nothing about platform games, for my main focus for years has been on making RPG games.  Stephen then turned and picked up my game design that I had sent him and said, “Anyone who can come up with all of this can easily design a platform game!”. We then talked about more about the position and how I would eventually be working with David Bishop, who they were planning on bringing over from Virgin Games UK to be the Manager of Design in the US. Then we went over the basics, such as benefits and salary, which was much more than I was making as an auto mechanic, before he escorted me out, saying that he would be in touch.

It would be about two weeks before I heard from Virgin Games again with an offer that would kick-off my in-house game design career.

Next: Virgin Games - Let the Games Began