Ben Board

Theme Park World

Current project:
Our first, unannounced project. My role is running the (currently) seven-strong programming team.

Academic Info

College: Cambridge University, England
Degree: BA (Honors) Computer Science

Were there any particular projects or areas of study that you pursued?
Not of note; my final-year project was rather unadventurous.

Did you do any internships?
I spent two months working in a small ISP in Tallahassee, Florida, in 1995, although I arranged that myself; there was no internship arranged as part of the course.

Career Info

Tell us about your first job in the industry. How did you get the job? What was it like? What were your responsibilities?
My first job was working for Bullfrog Productions in Guildford, England, in 1997. I applied there directly after spending a year working in 'the real world': working in the defence industry programming random things that seemingly nobody in the world could care less about. Starting in games was the best thing I've ever done (and probably will ever do) in my career. I started working on a title in the (now defunct) 'Theme' series while I learned the tricks of the trade, and before long I was coding the AI and helping design the architecture for the game. I learned a huge amount in that first year. After that the game was canned, and I was moved onto the Theme Park World PC team, as the AI programmer, although by the end of the project I had had a hand in various aspects of the production. That game shipped in November 1999 and went on to be a huge success, on PC as well as its conversions to PSX and PS2. I moved on from the Theme team to do some AI and game architecture R&D for a while, followed by a brief stint on a further short-lived internal project (again helping to code the architecture) before deciding to move on from Bullfrog in October 2000 to help start Dogfish. Bullfrog (and EA UK, as it became) will always be a very special place for me, and despite a few ups and downs it was a completely fantastic place to work.

What jobs have you held in the games industry thus far? Briefly describe the career path you took to get where you are today.
I left Bullfrog to become a founding member and Lead Programmer of Dogfish Entertainment, together with a group of eight other Bullfrog artists and programmers, in October 2000. Since then we have become a first-party developer for Sony and are a year into developing our first game for PS2. Being lead coder is a whole new experience, requiring new skills, a new view of games development, and an acceptance that coding time is significantly reduced! That said, I'm very much enjoying my new role - I've got a fantastic team around me whose skills I can help to develop and direct, as well as a leading role in this new company that sees me involved in decisions at the highest level, including making all coder hiring decisions.

Advice

What fields of study, specific courses, or life experiences would you recommend to students interested in your field?
I studied at university and would definitely recommend it, although at the time I was quite convinced I was getting nothing from it - it's only in hindsight that I can see the benefit. I would recommend learning a good structured language like C++ to as high a standard as you can, and far beyond that which you learn in college. Thirdly, write a game and make it as complex as you can afford the time for: it will teach you about game programming considerations that a hiring company will be interested to see that you know. Fourthly, remember that games programming is not just about graphics! Not every games coder knows how to write 3D engines, and although an appreciation is very useful indeed and recommended, don't lose sight of the fact that there are only a couple of engine coders on a game team - learn about gameplay. Finally, the most important thing is to play games - lots of games. Borrow games from friends and play them. Play games you don't like and work out why you don't like them. Judge the games you play and try to identify the interesting approaches, the things that look really impressive, the design decisions. Try to crash the game or cause strange behaviour, and if you manage it, think about why the developers didn't fix it. But most of all enjoy it! The games industry needs people who care about games.

Is there anything you wish someone had told you before you got into the games industry? Is there anything you would have done differently?
I wish someone had told me that working in games was a genuine career option. When I was growing up I used to talk whimsically about making games but never really believed it was a job for mere mortals. That persisted until a friend suggested that I apply, which I did, never believing for a second that I would get it. But I did, and I've never looked back…

Anything I'd have done differently? On the one hand, I'd like to have started earlier and not spent a year doing other things. On the other, I'm glad I spent that time doing boring stuff because it made me realize why my new games job was so cool, and that's an experience I try to reflect on whenever I'm having a bad day.

As games increase in complexity, what are the various kinds of jobs that you foresee development companies needing in the next five years?
Well, assuming games really do significantly increase in complexity (which I'm not sure is quite so true as the question implies), I can see greater specialization in coder and art roles. Lead Programmer becomes Lead Technical Programmer and Lead Game Programmer. We have a low-level engine coder and a high-level 'Technology' programmer. And so on: several degrees of AI programmer, with parallel responsibilities in different areas of a game; programmers with the remit to put the polish into the gameplay; a physics programmer or two; tools coders to write supporting utilities to aid development; library programmers to develop the background functions used across multiple projects; and so on. Gone are the days where one or two programmers can start and finish a project, except in a few very rare cases. These days games are getting graphically more impressive, and the added features enabled by the improved visuals can enable some new gameplay, but most games are similar in the way they play now as they have always been; the roles don't change as such, they just get a bit more involved, and sometimes beyond the amount of time available to a single programmer, in which case the work must be shared. Whether this is the same as games becoming more 'complex' is debatable. In terms of non-coding roles, good level designers are becoming more of a commodity and have a skill which can (must) be learned at home, and good testers are hard to find (and underappreciated), although I wouldn't recommend anyone do it for long.

Do you have any other advice or recommendations to share with students who are interested in doing what you do?
If you love games, have opinions and ideas about them and feel you have something to contribute, then get involved: the industry would be glad to hear from you!