GCG Feature: 'Soapbox: Into the Industry'

Author: by Beth A.

In this latest feature for Gamasutra sister educational site Game Career Guide, Dartmouth College's Tom Eastman reflects on his path into game industry and his role as an intern for GarageGames in a postmortem style piece. He describes what went right and went went wrong for him, including his focus as shared in the following excerpt: "The more I focus solely on games, the more I skip other things. It's easy to convince yourself that beating the next guild in Oblivion is more important to your future job than writing an English paper. Unfortunately, that's the moment when I've forgotten what has helped me reach this objective. Trying to keep a broad focus in the hope that it will apply in the end is hard. Going to a liberal arts college and having to take Latin for two terms isn't easy when you doubt you'll have to talk yourself out of a Roman prison camp anytime soon - but that's just the point. I could probably make a pretty cool game about ancient Rome now. It won't help me directly, but knowing a bit more about the world brings you one step closer to making a great game about that world. The ability to learn is far more important than the learning you do along the path anyway. Life won't have any downloadable content (that's been announced) and you won't be around for the sequel. Don't let yourself be too focused on one thing, even if it is games." You can now read the full Game Career Guide feature to learn more (no registration required, please feel free to link to this column from external websites).