My First Experience of the Games Industry

My first Gaming Press Event

In 2008 I was given the opportunity to attend a Gaming press event in London's Whitehall War rooms. I was invited by Codemaster to the first screening of two games in the final stage of development. I was shown a presentation of an early build of the games and had a chance to quiz designers and developers on story mechanics and the USP game play features of each game.

 I wrote a preview of one of the games and posted it on their forum. They we so impressed by the response they received I was invited to a tour of their Head office in Warwickshire.

The tour really opened my eyes to the whole development process that goes into games. I was able to see first hand how games are created and the environment they are created in.

Ubisoft pre-game preview and feedback Community Day

Ubisoft then invited me to a special preview of Brothers in Arms hells highway, at the Union Jack Club in London. Here I gained an even better understanding of the development process. I played an early build of the game, and gave feedback to the developers, about graphics and game play mechanics.

 At the event they had a military advisor and two World War two veterans, from the wartime operation the game was based on. I was able to meet the vets and listen to some of their wartime stories.

Here I learned how games can convoy true life experiences and make the player feel the emotions of a character based on a real person. It also helped me understand the

extensive research that some developers go to, to make the story feel real, and the continuity of the game authentic.

Infinity Ward Community Day

I also went to a promotional event by Infinity Ward, creators of COD 4. The community day was to promote their first downloadable content for COD 4. As a result they had multiple consoles set up, with models that had t-shirts that said “play me and win this off my back”, which I did adding to my hoard of COD freebies.

There was a competition being held and the whole event was filmed for Xbox lives' Acey Bongos, and I was overjoyed when I court a glimpse of myself on the video.

 Here I witnessed how developers can gain important feedback from the gamer while promoting the game.