Alex Beddows talked about the Game Dev Discussion podcasts, their history, goals, and guests. Our Editor-in-Chief Kirill Tokarev has recently been featured in episode #14.
Introduction
Hi there, I’m Alex Beddows, a senior game artist and host of the Game Dev Discussion podcast. This is a show I started around 4 months ago, doing one live-streamed podcast a week where I speak to industry professionals for an hour or so to pick their brains about things I am personally curious about.
About Game Dev Discussion Podcast
The original purpose of the podcast was born from selfish motives if I’ll be honest about it. Although I grew up being one of the more talkative kids in class who couldn’t keep their mouth shut, I didn’t speak as well as I could talk. My role at work had evolved in a way which required me to be a better speaker, whether it was in meetings with clients or mentoring and communicating with the team, my speech skills were not up to scratch. While watching Joe Rogan‘s podcast it struck me that if I hosted a podcast that would force me to learn to talk and construct conversations better through practice. His format also influenced how I would do mine, I am a big fan of long-form unedited conversations as they allow conversations to evolve naturally and topics and tangents to take place without it ever feeling forced.
The other half of the selfish motive is the fact that there is a ton of industry professionals I have always thought about ‘I’d love to go for a beer and just talk to that person for a while’, and although there is no beer this is the next best thing. I get to pick their brains and get their views on subjects and topics I am interested in. As it turns out, most of the questions I have for them are shared by a lot of other people, so I framed the whole podcast as a tool to help people mainly new to the industry get some insight from people who have ‘been there and done that.’
After the first episode, I partnered with Jeremy Estrellado to be the official podcast of the DiNusty art community. This came about because both of us have the same kind of goal: we are looking to help other people in the art community. He does his thing with Twitch streaming himself making art as a platform to answer questions, and he also streams portfolio and WIP critiques. There is also the discord itself, which is full of great artists sharing ideas, critiquing each other’s work and sharing resources. This place he has created has become its own ecosystem of artists. It kind of made sense for us to partner up, with our views aligning and also the fact that Jeremey has some great experience with doing this type of thing with what he had done with DiNusty. He helped guide me in what I was doing with GDD as well as getting an official podcast for the Dinusty Empire which I knew he was interested in.
So the real stars of the show are, of course, the guests. Firstly I am always so grateful these guys take the time to talk to me. The podcasts journey has picked up 15 people already and I set out from day 1 to have people who I am either genuinely interested in or I think they have some serious value to people listening (lucky for me, they all fall into both camps). I am not only interested in getting the huge names of the industry on the podcast – the guys just starting out are also helpful to speak to. They have just come out of education and landed their first game jobs, so their advice is probably more relevant on what to do in 2019 to get that first job. Things like how they might use social media or LinkedIn, how they structured their Artstation and interview tips as they have literally just done them.
Podcast with Kirill Tokarev
And here’s the podcast I did with Kirill. This was the first episode where I didn’t have an artist on, and this was something I had been interested in for a long time – covering other aspects of the industry. There are multiple elements to this, one is that the games industry is a big place, it is not made up of just environment and materials artists. In the future, I plan to have all aspects of the industry represented: character artists, producers, animators, and programmers. The other part is the business aspect, there are multiple things you can do to be impactful on the games industry, such as what Clinton Crumpler has done with Dekogon or what folks like Josh Lynch have done with mentorship.
These side streams can be done on top of your 9 to 5 art jobs that really have an impact on the industry in a big way, and the fact that they give back to the industry kind of inspired the podcast too, because I know people will find value hearing these guys talk and explore ideas in a long-form conversation.
I hope people will keep finding value in the podcast. I am having a blast making them and so far, the feedback I have received has been overwhelming and encouraging. I would ask please to follow/subscribe to the platforms the podcast is on, the more support it gets the bigger it will grow and the more people it will help!
Afterword
I also encourage you to join the DiNusty discord, this place had a huge impact on me as an artist, and I know a ton of others with the same story. This place breeds quality and good industry practices!