Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | May 29, 2023 | Worcester Business Journal 9 experiences for psychological studies. Students from the FSU program have used their knowledge to improve how robots move and have brought their skills into the defense industry. The final level At the capstone project's post-mortem event, a presentation of the students' fi- nal projects from the game studio class, the focus was decidedly on games. e presentation took place in a lecture hall on the main campus on May 16, before an enthusiastic crowd of students, facul- ty, and parents. At the start of the semester, students pitched ideas for projects. ree games won out: Worm Punk; e Plaything, a puzzle horror game where a paper doll explores a creepy doll house; and Lob- ber, a manic 3D hack-and-slash game where the protagonist is pitted against a horde of skeletons and sorcerers. e students in the studio divide into teams to work on the games. rough- out the semester, they combine their skills and learn project management as they develop a fully working game. All of the games are available for download at itch.io, and the teams hope to get their games onto Steam, a popular video gaming platform. One of the appealing things about the program for Hotte is the teams maintain intellectual property rights to their projects. "e big thing about going here that I really appreciate and I think every pro- gram should do is we own our games. We keep our IP," said Hotte. "e professors are not really dictating the actual content of the products that we're making." During each of the presentations, the students discussed what they had learned from the experience, which included project management, how to keep the scale of a project realistic, managing time and resources, and how to self-regulate so as not to burn out. Because students are oen so pas- sionate about what they do, they can be subject to burnout, Hotte said, and this passion is sometimes weaponized by companies seeking to capitalize on it. e students who presented skewed noticeably male, which Hotte said he noticed in the program. ere are no women professors in game design, something he hopes the school will remedy as it hires a new professor. W PHOTOS | CHRISTINE PETERSON e gaming industry does have a gen- der imbalance according to data from job site Zippia, with 86.7% of game designers being male. e data does not account for nonbinary designers. Moving on Students who graduate from the program and enter the gaming industry can expect to find themselves in a high- ly-competitive environment, possibly subject to long hours and low entry-lev- el pay, said Hotte. Layoffs can be part of the industry as large projects end and the personnel who worked on a game may be cut loose to look for another project at another company. Even successful game designers find themselves moving from company to company, said Amakawa. e cyclical nature of hiring has been tempered by the rise of live-service games, like Fortnite, said Denzel With- erspoon, who graduated from Fitchburg State in 2019 and now works for Epic Games. Live-service games constantly add new levels or features to an existing game rather than releasing entirely new retail products. Witherspoon has helped connect FSU graduates with Epic since joining the company. Students specifically from the Fitchburg State gaming program have an advantage as they get access to a lot of aspects of game design and not funneled into a specialty, he said. "Students need to take advantage of the soware that they have access to while in school," said Witherspoon. And aer school, he advises students to not be discouraged if they don't land a job immediately. "Keep learning, keep busy," he said. In what is ostensibly his spare time, Witherspoon runs a game studio called Dennel Cake, which he started in 2017. He finished his first game, Obsolete Souls, in 2018. Making games is very much a passion for the students. Hotte has a job lined up in technology manufacturing aer graduation, but he intends to continue building games. College major is only part of the factor in the hiring process Fitchburg State University offers a bachelor's degree in game design, which meshes numerous areas of study including animation, computer programming, and creative writing into one major. When polled online, nearly 70% of WBJ readers say a job candidate's specific major in college is only part of the equation in the hiring process. How much does a job candidate's college major impact your hiring decisions? F L A S H P O L L We only hire candidates with specific majors. 19% We look at work experience more than educational background. 35% We look at relevant skills more than the specific major. 34% 12% An applicant's college major is not a factor in our hiring process. Video game designer: job statistics nationally Average annual salary .................... $95,185 Average age .......................................... 43.8 Demographics Male ........................................................ 87% Female .................................................... 13% White ....................................................... 68% Asian ....................................................... 12% Hispanic or Latino ...................................... 9% Black ......................................................... 6% Unknown ................................................... 5% American Indian & Alaska Native ............... 1% Source: Zippia COMMENTS: "We look at the major and the skills and experience. How can this be just an either/or situation?"

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