Blog Archives
Being A Gaming Professional Requires Professionalism
One of my game design students needed help with his assignments last week and made an appointment to meet with me on a day when I wasn’t teaching class. Normally I work from home on days I don’t teach class since commuting in Los Angeles is so time-consuming, but I’ll gladly drive over to the Los Angeles Film School campus when I have a meeting, particularly if it doesn’t require driving during rush hour.
I arrived at the agreed-upon time, but my student wasn’t at our meeting location. After waiting twenty minutes, I received this email from his personal, not school, email addess, which was something like iluvstarwars0504@vmail.com:
hey i cant make it to today i need to reschedule 4 friday
There are so many things wrong with this situation, it’s difficult to know where to begin. So, I’ll just start with the little things and work my way up.
First, send work and school-related emails using a professional-looking email address. No one is going to take you seriously if you are identifying yourself by “iluvstarwars.”
Second, you are sending an email to your professor, not a text to your pal. Don’t begin an email with “hey”. If I’ve given you permission to use my first name, you can start with “David,”; otherwise, treat me with some respect by addressing me as “Dear Mr. Mullich” (and if you want to really get on my good side, address me as “Dear Professor” — that never ceases to tickle me!) And for goodness sake, use proper English: spell out words; end sentences with punctuation marks; and capitalize the start of sentences, and the words “i” and “friday.”
Third, be considerate of my time — it’s valuable too. As soon as you knew you were going to be late or couldn’t make it at all, you should have contacted me, rather than allowing me to drive thirty miles and then wait for twenty minutes. Also, ask if you can reschedule for Friday, rather than telling me.
Fourth, apologize for missing our appointment. Do I even need to explain that one?
Imagine if you were writing to your boss or a potential employer. Do you think that you’d get that job or have that job for very long if you sent that message for a work-related appointment. And if you think that there are more relaxed rules for school than for work, and it doesn’t really matter how you treat your instructors, here’s my fifth and last point:
Many game jobs are not advertised and many positions are filled through referrals and recommendations. Your classmates and faculty will most likely be your doorway into the game industry. What do you want them to think of you?
Although the game industry itself is often very informal, people working in it (and those who want to work in it) should always leave a professional impression. The game industry is also very small, and anyone you come into contact with may have some influence on whether you get a future job. If you treat them with a lack of respect, they are not likely to respect you enough to refer you for that job.
That’s a more valuable lesson than what the student and I were going to meet about.
Defining Play, Game, and Gaming
One of the recruiters in The Los Angeles Film School’s Admissions Department recently asked our Game Production faculty to define three terms: play, game, and gaming. My assumption was that it was to help when describing our program to potential students, but regardless of the reason, I was happy to comply. One of the other instructors came up with some very philosophical definitions, but after a couple of paragraphs, came to the conclusion that “game” couldn’t be defined. But what’s the purpose of words for communication if they have no commonly understood meaning? So, I decided to give this one some thought.
I had just spent an entire day in my introductory game production course describing the psychology of play, and I actually provide a number of definitions for each of these terms. One of the definitions of play I use is “the freedom of movement within a more rigid structure.” That’s a definition I found in my textbook, Game Design Workshop, and I use it when just describing the elements of a game, where “freedom of movement” translates to “player actions” and “rigid structure” translates to “rules, goals, conflict, resources, boundaries, etc.” That works for the lecture, but it isn’t a very practical definition. After all, commuting to work is also freedom of moment (driving) within a more rigid structure (streets and highways).
The definition for “play” I ultimately decided upon was “to engage in an activity for pleasure and recreation.” To me, play is not about what you are doing, but why you are doing it. You can play baseball for fun, but if you’re a professional athlete, it’s work. Household chores can be tedious, but if you approach it with a playful attitude, it can be more fun. Besides, the definition was simple and straightforward.
“Game” is a little bit trickier. It needs to cover board games, card games, tile games, party games, pen and paper games, sports, electronic games, and video games (which in turn includes console games, computer games, mobile games, and browser-based games).
I provide a lot of definitions of “games” in my class. Sid Meier describes games as “a series of interesting choices.” Well, so is a multiple-choice test. Jesse Schell has an alternate description: ““A game is a problem-solving activity, approached with a playful attitude.” My problem with that definition is that the problem-solving in some games, such as Rock-Paper-Scissors or Candyland, is so trivial as to be virtually non-existent. Eric Zimmerman and Katie Salen defines “game” as “a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome.” Yeah, that will attract potential students!
In my game design class, I describe games as having the following elements: players, goals, procedures, rules, conflict, resources, boundaries, and outcomes. However, in very simple games, resources can be non-existent, and the conflict can be trivial. I eventually decided that the essence of games was this: “a playful activity with rules and goals.” Short and sweet.
Gaming! The final definition I had to come up with. Well, strictly speaking, “gaming” means “to play games of chance for money.” Our campus is in Hollywood, not Las Vegas, so I came up with an modified definition, specific to our program” “to play video games.”
I was happy with my working definition of “play”, “game”, and “gaming.” But if you have others, I’d love to see them in the comments below.
David Mullich 