As the final Fidelity Investments Leadership in Technology executive speaker series of this semester, Chad Dezern , studio director of Insomniac Games in Durham, N.C ., lectured on the care and feeding of ideas.
The studio in Durham recently shipped their first game, Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One, on the Playstation 3. Dezern used examples from the creation process of this game to show the design choices used during game development.
His lecture consisted of the three broad steps that go into creating games: visualizing, prototyping and production. He says the brainstorm is not always the most important aspect, and that it is more about the ideas that come out of it.
“Ideas are really what we do as a business. Ideas are what fuels the game, what gets people excited,” Dezern said.
By showing the process of early sketches, to 3-D character mockups, to a completed teaser trailer featuring the characters from development, Dezern showed many different aspects of game making.
“We don’t actually go through things in a laid out order. It’s very organic. We take these pieces out of order and put them in order … design is nothing but a series of choices,” Dezern said.
Ken Tate, director of development and external relations in the engineering department, organized the lecture series.
“I try to have at least one entrepreneurial, one person from the gaming industry and then the rest are just kind of fillers,” Tate said. “We try to get really timely topics. We try to get things that interest our students, but across a big spectrum. I think it provides them insight and it brings the careers and the leadership to reality for them. That is the whole idea behind this.”
Students who attended the lecture, some of whom were interested in careers in the gaming industry and some who were just fans of Insomniac, said the lecture inspired them.
“It was very entertaining and informative because I want to go into game development, and it gave me a better look at how that works,” Roger Agans , a freshman in computer science, said. “This guy basically said he came fresh out of college with a major and a little bit in his portfolio. They came looking for him is the idea that I got from this and Insomniac is a big company so I’m actually pretty geared up now to making games on my own.”
“I played a lot of the Insomniac Ratchet and Clank series, and I was pretty curious about how much production, how much time and effort went into the game,” Lai Tran, a junior in computer science, said. “It’s very motivational. It makes you just want to, after a lecture, for me, go out there and design something on my own. That’s how I feel whenever I come to things like this.”
During the question and answer session, Dezern gave some advice to students looking into starting a career in the gaming industry.
“The best way to get a job making games is to make games,” Devern said.
Devern , after college, got a job working for Disney, and later Dreamworks , before being hired by Insomniac.
“Taking an idea that is really nothing, a few written words … and getting it ready for the world to see … [is] extremely gratifying. I recommend trying to chase that feeling,” Devern said.