My good friend Armando Soto helped me break into the game industry nearly a decade ago. My experience working under him was invaluable, and his influence plays a huge part in my work to this day. Now, Armando is extending his generosity even further with his new educational venture, Entertainment Arts Academy.
EAA helps bring industry veterans together with aspiring artists through in-depth, inexpensive videos. For hardly more than the cost of a song on iTunes, you can watch instruction from real working artists that earn a living through media design.
I had the privilege of being interviewed by Armando for the site's launch. We discussed the details of owning a small, independent studio. Check out the video below for a preview. Please note: The video below is just a sample of the interview! The full video is much longer. In fact, I'd say that it contains more inside information about our studio than has ever been released in our 6-year existence as a studio! :)
One more thing: If you use the promo code Jacob before Friday, November 4th, you will get $1.99 off any video purchase.
PS: I don't make any money from EAA, but I do highly recommend it!
Thanks for posting the promo code! I actually watched the full version before watching the pre-interview because I thought this YouTube video was going to be an excerpt of the full video.
I wish we had remembered to give some of that advice to the game dev club this semester before we started working on projects, especially given the number of new members we got this year. There's this one group that started with nine people AND they're trying to make an RTS. Although, they've managed to impress me to the point where I now have more faith in them completing the game than I ever did in any of last year's projects. It's also interesting how letting them form such a big group has encouraged more members to get to know each other, as opposed to how clustered we were last year.
(why is the font-size for the comment text box so small? or maybe its the font itself)
Livio,
I'm really glad you enjoyed the interview. I know you're more a coder than an artist, but I'd still keep an eye on the EAA's page--I think they'll definitely have some interesting material for you in the coming months.
That 9-person RTS game sure sounds like a big project! I'm glad they're getting the job done though. Maybe it's important to let people start off with their dream project and then work backwords. It's win-win: They'll either fail and learn to simplify (a good thing) or they'll succeed and have a finished big project!
I wish we had remembered to give some of that advice to the game dev club this semester before we started working on projects, especially given the number of new members we got this year. There's this one group that started with nine people AND they're trying to make an RTS. Although, they've managed to impress me to the point where I now have more faith in them completing the game than I ever did in any of last year's projects. It's also interesting how letting them form such a big group has encouraged more members to get to know each other, as opposed to how clustered we were last year.
(why is the font-size for the comment text box so small? or maybe its the font itself)
I'm really glad you enjoyed the interview. I know you're more a coder than an artist, but I'd still keep an eye on the EAA's page--I think they'll definitely have some interesting material for you in the coming months.
That 9-person RTS game sure sounds like a big project! I'm glad they're getting the job done though. Maybe it's important to let people start off with their dream project and then work backwords. It's win-win: They'll either fail and learn to simplify (a good thing) or they'll succeed and have a finished big project!
-Jacob