Being honest about your shortcomings

Having non-PM guests will likely be a strong trend for the second season of Game Dev Diary as I talked to Tom Hunt for this week’s episode. He is currently working as an Art Lead at Space Ape Games and he previously worked at companies like King and Rare.

The thing that helped Tom get his foot through the door back at the time was his habit of honing his skills even before getting a full time gaming job. He clearly knew he wanted to work on games, so he spent extra time whenever it was possible to create his portfolio. This is one of the most frequently discussed topics in this podcast and I wasn’t surprised to hear it from an experienced artist. No matter your position or craft, you need to be able to create a portfolio displaying your skills and how you improve through time. Of course, as a junior person trying to enter the industry, you will not be able to show a very deep portfolio, but still showcasing what you have been doing on your own personal time thus far is really helpful.

There is another thing that Tom suggests to people who want to enter the game industry which I think can be applied to any other industry out there: Being comfortable with not fulfilling 100% of the job description. Although this doesn’t mean you should apply for a director level position without any experience, you shouldn’t also be discouraged by not ticking a couple of the boxes in the description. If you think you can catch up with the team in the short term and if you convince people, it will only be a matter of time for you to fulfill the whole description shortly after starting to work.

All this talk about skill was a great segue about a topic that focused on how to improve it through time. Everybody is born with certain abilities and inclinations which might create a bit of a difference when it comes to performing their craft. But nobody is born with the complete skill that they are using and what we see is mostly thanks to the hard work that has been going on for years. And one important thing that can kickstart this continuous improvement is the awareness about our deficiencies. It might be quite hard to admit the things we are not good at, especially if they are strongly related to our profession. But if you show the strength to swallow the hard truth about what things you are not good enough at, it can unlock a whole new phase of growth. The important thing here is to find which skills you think you want to use in the future and continuously work on them. Spreading your time too thin by trying to improve everything will probably not move the needle for you professionally. Staying too narrow, on the other hand, might make you a great specialist but you will carry the risk of that skill being less important or even obsolete in a possible future.

Being honest to yourself might be one of the hardest things to do since our minds always try to find the coziest and most comfortable space. But talking with Tom and hearing his journey where he spent hundreds of hours just sketching things on a small notebook proved its importance. It is quite similar to receiving negative feedback from others. It hurts a lot in the first instance, but once you’re over that initial reaction, you will be able to see how to grow a lot more clearly than before.