GDC Scholarships
A new week, a new update. This week, I’d like to talk about the IGDA’s GDC scholarships, since I just got through reading a stack of applications and rating them.
First off, the quality of the submissions has been getting better and better every year I do this. Applicants are sounding more mature, better informed, and have grammatical skills you’d expect from people who have to write essays in order to remain afloat in their learning institution of choice. If you are reading this, and applied for a GDC scholarship through the IGDA, then I applaud you on your well-written submission.
Anyway, I wanted to write a little about some things that impress me when I’m reading a submission. As always, I’m not speaking for all judges. They all have different buttons to push in how to get them to give out a high score. These suggestions are just my preferences.
1) I always appreciate a well-written submission. This means that everything is spelled correctly, all words are being used with proper tense, and the prose gets right to the point without being too wordy, or too curt. I don’t mind short bullet points, or longer paragraphs, as long as the information is well presented.
2) I think the most important thing that influences me in giving out a high score is how interesting I think the applicant is. In other words, I’ll give an applicant extremely high scores if I find that they seem to be people I want to talk to. These are people who have interesting and unique ideas about games, and want to explore some facet of gaming that I don’t get to see in my day-to-day job. I guess, what this really boils down to, is that I want to send people to GDC that will bring as much value to the conference as they expect to get in return.
3) Those Carnegie Mellon students continue to impress. Their submissions are consistently very professional, well written, and interesting. I have a friend who thinks that the Entertainment Technology Center is a fly-by-night fad, but I haven’t been anything but impressed by the quality of their students. If you’re out there looking to enter the games industry, or want to get a scholarship to GDC, be aware that there are extremely smart, talented, well-funded, well-counseled students from CMU who are going to take those positions away from you if you don’t put out 110% to look just as polished. They’re like the Harvard Business School graduates of the game industry. Just a word of warning.
4) Back to the scholarship thing. One of the things that can count against you is your email address. If an applicant sends out an email address like punkIdiot@moronic.com , I might think less of that applicant. Also, if I’m having a hard time deciding on an applicant, and that applicant gives out an email address linked to a unique website (like www.moronic.com) I will go to that web site to check it out and see if I can get more info on the applicant. Needless to say, if the website is anything less than professional, that influences my opinion.
5) As a corollary to #4, if an applicant puts a website in their submission that tells me more about their passion for making games, that will influence me, as well.
6) A personal point: name dropping rarely works. An applicant could be Warren Spector’s personal gameplay advisor, but if they start dropping his name to associate themselves with him, it feels like they are trying to manipulate me. This works even less when they start name-dropping their teacher’s names. You are the one working to get a scholarship, not them. It’s your value, not the people you know, that I care about.
7) I think the topic I pay attention to the most is the one where the applicant talks about his or her favorite game. It really shows a lot about their character and gives me a lot of clues as to what their personality is like. An interesting notion amongst applicants seems to be that it is more valuable to name an obscure title rather than a popular one. They name games like Rez, ICO, M.U.L.E. and others, much like film students would skip James Cameron films and go with Felini. Really, in this case, it isn’t the game that matters here; it’s the part about why the applicant’s favorite game is their favorite game. This is where a judge can really tell if the applicant is a fan boy or really serious about being in the industry.
8) Finally, telling a judge that you want to own your own company is probably not the best thing you can do. To me, an applicant that writes this (and there are more than you can believe) is not someone who has a very realistic view of what it is like to make games. While sending them to GDC might wake them up to some of the realities of this very difficult path, I feel the scholarships are too valuable to use as object lessons. I would rather send someone who wants to make games, not just their own, special game they’ve had in their head since they were 13, but any game people will let them work on. Further, I want to send people who, no matter what position they find themselves in a development studio, will make an indelible mark on the games they work on with their unique and special genius. Luckily, every year, we find these people in the stack of applications.
First off, the quality of the submissions has been getting better and better every year I do this. Applicants are sounding more mature, better informed, and have grammatical skills you’d expect from people who have to write essays in order to remain afloat in their learning institution of choice. If you are reading this, and applied for a GDC scholarship through the IGDA, then I applaud you on your well-written submission.
Anyway, I wanted to write a little about some things that impress me when I’m reading a submission. As always, I’m not speaking for all judges. They all have different buttons to push in how to get them to give out a high score. These suggestions are just my preferences.
1) I always appreciate a well-written submission. This means that everything is spelled correctly, all words are being used with proper tense, and the prose gets right to the point without being too wordy, or too curt. I don’t mind short bullet points, or longer paragraphs, as long as the information is well presented.
2) I think the most important thing that influences me in giving out a high score is how interesting I think the applicant is. In other words, I’ll give an applicant extremely high scores if I find that they seem to be people I want to talk to. These are people who have interesting and unique ideas about games, and want to explore some facet of gaming that I don’t get to see in my day-to-day job. I guess, what this really boils down to, is that I want to send people to GDC that will bring as much value to the conference as they expect to get in return.
3) Those Carnegie Mellon students continue to impress. Their submissions are consistently very professional, well written, and interesting. I have a friend who thinks that the Entertainment Technology Center is a fly-by-night fad, but I haven’t been anything but impressed by the quality of their students. If you’re out there looking to enter the games industry, or want to get a scholarship to GDC, be aware that there are extremely smart, talented, well-funded, well-counseled students from CMU who are going to take those positions away from you if you don’t put out 110% to look just as polished. They’re like the Harvard Business School graduates of the game industry. Just a word of warning.
4) Back to the scholarship thing. One of the things that can count against you is your email address. If an applicant sends out an email address like punkIdiot@moronic.com , I might think less of that applicant. Also, if I’m having a hard time deciding on an applicant, and that applicant gives out an email address linked to a unique website (like www.moronic.com) I will go to that web site to check it out and see if I can get more info on the applicant. Needless to say, if the website is anything less than professional, that influences my opinion.
5) As a corollary to #4, if an applicant puts a website in their submission that tells me more about their passion for making games, that will influence me, as well.
6) A personal point: name dropping rarely works. An applicant could be Warren Spector’s personal gameplay advisor, but if they start dropping his name to associate themselves with him, it feels like they are trying to manipulate me. This works even less when they start name-dropping their teacher’s names. You are the one working to get a scholarship, not them. It’s your value, not the people you know, that I care about.
7) I think the topic I pay attention to the most is the one where the applicant talks about his or her favorite game. It really shows a lot about their character and gives me a lot of clues as to what their personality is like. An interesting notion amongst applicants seems to be that it is more valuable to name an obscure title rather than a popular one. They name games like Rez, ICO, M.U.L.E. and others, much like film students would skip James Cameron films and go with Felini. Really, in this case, it isn’t the game that matters here; it’s the part about why the applicant’s favorite game is their favorite game. This is where a judge can really tell if the applicant is a fan boy or really serious about being in the industry.
8) Finally, telling a judge that you want to own your own company is probably not the best thing you can do. To me, an applicant that writes this (and there are more than you can believe) is not someone who has a very realistic view of what it is like to make games. While sending them to GDC might wake them up to some of the realities of this very difficult path, I feel the scholarships are too valuable to use as object lessons. I would rather send someone who wants to make games, not just their own, special game they’ve had in their head since they were 13, but any game people will let them work on. Further, I want to send people who, no matter what position they find themselves in a development studio, will make an indelible mark on the games they work on with their unique and special genius. Luckily, every year, we find these people in the stack of applications.
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