Is there any kind of default experience that's looked for as far as Producers position? I've debated trying to get into the industry (possibly even with a Star Citizen studio) but don't exactly have any direct experience. However I am a veteran of the military going on almost 15 years, and have organized a variety of projects with in it and in my civilian life as well. Would that exclude me still for lacking a generic college degree or would I be able to find an open minded company on that aspect?asked by Alex Valentine

Thank you for serving.

Oh, that's a really good one.

That's a good question, and no you would not be excluded from a role. It depends on the job. With your experience if it makes sense would you be able to jump right in and get a producer level role at some company? Maybe not, right? But the fact that you've got project experience, right? That you've done projects in some form or fashion. That you can speak intelligently about how you got that project from the beginning to the end. Those are great traits, they're skills you learned that we use every day that will help you in this environment. Would maybe a production assistant or coordinator role or even a associate producer role at certain companies make more sense? Probably, right? But it definitely wouldn't... there's no specific degree that would get anyone any higher than the life experience you would bring to the role itself.

It's one of the industries that I've seen is a very even playing field. That oftentimes it's what you know not necessarily where you went to school.

Yup, absolutely, absolutely.

Let's look at Blizzard. How many producers, how many senior producers did we know that never even went to college.

Sure, absolutely.

One of them was like an air conditioning repairman. One just worked at dot com sales. They eventually became senior and lead producers.

Yep. It's a very young industry. So we still have a lot of... we don't necessarily have a full degree program out there. I think they're starting to pop up more for games. But we don't.. most of the leaders of the industry don't necessarily come from a games school focused background, right? They got into the industry, they loved it, they worked their way up. They learned the industry. They want to make the industry better. And so I think all that kinda combined, yeah you could totally get a role within some kind of producer role at some kind of game studio. I don't see why not.

I am gonna actually add something, just as a little nod to Alex Mayberry. Something he told me back when we were at Blizzard.

Yeah.

If you're looking to get into production. Don't look at it from the perspective of, "Well I am not an artist, I am not a programmer, I am not a designer, I am not an engineer, so what's left for me? I think I'll try production." That is the wrong reason to get into production. you have to have a very dedicated love for it. You have to love looking at spreadsheets, keeping things organized. Now you with a military background, that would obviously... having that discipline would help greatly. But it's something that you have to have a passion for. If you're someone who just went by default, "Because I can't do anything else in the industry, I might as well get into production." I've historically seen a lot of people who go that route tend to have a lot more trouble within the industry. So find some.. If you just want to get into the industry, pursue a course that you want to. If you want to be a designer, start designing mods for different games, things like that. If you want to get into production, that's a very very specific skillset and discipline to pursue.

Yeah. Absolutely. So, great question, and there's definitely still an opportunity out there for you.

Absolutely.

For sure.