作者：Ethan Levy

从我刚进入游戏行业在Pandemic工作室当实习生到成立独立工作室参与开发《Enhanced Wars》，已经过去近11年了。时光飞逝。尽管还处于我的职业生涯早期，但我认为我至少得到一些值得分享的见解。我记得，当我还在上大学时，导师让我在课堂上发言自己成为游戏设计师的历程，我觉得这是一个反思我入行的经历和与年轻又自大的大学生们分享经验教训的机会。我不会再让机会溜走了；我真希望可以时光倒流，把40岁的我的智慧分一些给过去的我。要是我开始实习工作的第一天就知道以下7点就好了：

internship(from vicewolf.deviantart.com)

1、游戏行业很小

游戏行业很小，相当小。当你进入这个行业开发了一些游戏后，你就会更加感觉到它的这种“小”。去年，我作为顾问参与开发《Enhanced Wars》，推荐我的人居然在9年前与我共事过，我没料到我们还能再次合作。我过去曾经激怒过这个EA的人，却多亏了他推荐给我这份工作，我的房租总算有着落了。所以，当我走进会议室时，立即就为那时候少不更事的自己觉得理所当然的行为感到后悔。

在你刚入行时见到的人，你极有可能再次相遇。你培养的每一段行业关系，都是一项长期投资。那些你曾经以为阻碍了你成功的人，可能在5年、10年、20年以后，变成你不得不拉下脸来求助的人。虽然要求现在还年轻的你抱有这样的远见太困难了，但早些意识到游戏行业的小，总是好事。

2、不要强出风头

当我回顾自己的职业生涯，最让现在的我感到羞愧的时候就是刚开始新工作的那几周。在那段时间里，我会非常急于证明自己，我试图让周围所有人都相信我有多了不得。

每一次我在新工作上卖弄自己，我就是在自己抽自己。我还年轻，我太兴奋，我太急于表现自己。这种出风头的行为，恰恰证明了我对自己的工作是多么无知。

每开始一份新工作时，我就本能地想卖弄自己。现在我真希望自己当时能低调一些。只有好好学习公办室的运作方式，你才能真正发现大显身手的机会。每一个新工作环境都是一个成熟、有深度的有机体。

当我反思过去，我多少希望自己当初能在每一份新工作开始的第一个月保持低调。如果我能低头睁眼，我本可以发现真正的施展才能的机会。

3、要解决问题而不是抱怨

当你还处于行业的最底端时，看到在你之上的人的所做所为，你很容易发牢骚。你会暗想，如果你是主管，你就不会那么做；为什么他们会犯这么明显的错误？

但当8年、10年过去了，你自己也坐上主管的位置了，你的决定也受到下面的人的质疑了，你终于理解当初你的团队主管为什么会做这样那样的决定。当年的你绝对不能像他们看得那样分明。

当你作为游戏开发团队中的一员，抱怨一下主管的不是，似乎没什么不好。辛苦工作一周后，跟同事互相发泄是件乐事。在午休或晚饭后，抱怨一下当天发生的事也再所难免。这让你觉得跟同事的关系更亲近了，对自己的自我感觉更加良好了。

但如果你真的想证明你自己，那么唉声叹气发牢骚绝对是浪费时间。如果你是一个实习生，你可能会看到大大小小的事出了错。这时候，你会很容易告诉你的同事说某个人是傻叉，而不是去寻找你自己完全能够解决和修改的问题。

如果你跑去告诉你的上司说工作流程出错了。那么你的所做所为只是指责一个已经超负荷工作的人做了错事。但如果你是告诉上司工作流程效率不够，于是你做了某事，现在程序员每天可以节省10分钟的代码时间了。那么上司就会对你另眼相看了。

当你还是实习生时，突出你自己的最好办法是，在没有人告诉你的情况下解决问题。哪怕只是小问题。如果你能解决小问题，自然会有人把更大的任务交给你。

4、找“师傅”

他人指导的重要性，再怎么强调也不过分。当你遭遇困难的处境时，当你面临你一个让你不知所措的问题时，当你累得头晕眼花时，你需要别人和你说说话。他人的视角可以帮助你换一个角度看待你遇到的问题。有人帮你买玉为煎饼，听你说问题并提建议。也不要只有一个人这样对你，要几个才行。

要找一位这样的“师傅”可能并不容易。如果有人放下自己的事，来帮你避免犯错或者乐意陪你去吃饭和回答你的问题，那就说明可以与此人建立和保持良好的关系。试着定期一起吃饭或者喝杯咖啡，这样你就可能持续这段友情了。把你想问的问题写下来。感谢朋友为你花的时间和对你的鼓励。要有感恩的心。如果你的“师傅”跳槽到其他公司，记得用邮件或短信保持联系。

5、不要在上班时间看视频

这是最明显的错误。我看到实习生和新毕业生最常犯的错误就是，一台显示器上的是工作，另一台显示器上的却是娱乐视频，他们就是这样一边看电视一边工作。当然，我得承认我本人也曾经做过这种事，也就是开发《Enhanced Wars》做非常无聊沉闷的工作时。可能永远不会有人制止你，当总是有人会注意到。

一边看电视一边工作是个糟糕的习惯。你可能会认为你就是能发挥100%的效力，但其实你不能。如果你能在一边看电视一边工作的情况下完成了所有你应该做的任务，那么如果你能专心致志一些，你就会更快完成你的工作，解决更多小问题，让自己脱颖而出。

一边看电视一边工作是很容易被发现的。你的经理可能永远不会阻止你，但当审批你的实习报告或决定哪个实习生可以留下来当全职员工时，你就知道他的态度了。这些决定通常是由若干层级的人决定的，并且做决定的人跟你没有直接的工作往来，人报务只知道你花了很多时间看视频节目。

6、抓住一切有可能的机会

这一条与第一条（游戏行业是个小世界）有关，你必须抓住任何迎面而来的机会。如果你正在学习游戏开发的课程，如果你正在参加行业大会，如果客座讲师来你的学校演讲，这些都是你不能放过的机会。我对自己现在的职业生涯很满意，但我仍然后悔自己错过了那么多写邮件或联系LinkedIn的人的机会。你永远不知道5年以后一个人能获得什么样的成功，或者随着个人品味的变化或看到新事物，你本可以做出什么样的游戏。

例如，《Ratchet & Clank》一直是我最成功的游戏系列。但我不知道，这种把吸引人的图像和边跑边射击的动作结合在一起的游戏会这么成功，至少直到去年Insomniac的老板Ted Price到我的游戏制作班讲课。我没有得到他的名片，也没有记下他的邮邮地址。我想我直到课堂结束都没有介绍过自己吧。我真希望自己当时就那么做了。我还记得很清楚，Infinity Ward的联合创始人Vince Zampella在《使命召唤2》发布后不久就来我们的课堂讲过一次课。但我不能确定是哪个Infinity Ward团队的人来说了，因为我没有介绍我自己。我没有拿到他的名片，也没有记下他的邮箱。我很肯定我穿的是Pandemic工作室的T恤，如果那天晚上我站起来，我肯定又要抛出一个自大的问题了。

这只是两个比较擦边的例子，但相信我，我过去确实错过了很多机会。

7、人生不只是游戏

如果你已经看到这一条了，那么我应该可以猜想电子游戏就是你的终身热情所在了吧。如果你能在行业里找到一份实习或第一份工作，那么它就是你人生的最大胜利之一了。为了做游戏，你会很乐意牺牲无数个夜晚、周末和数段友情。我知道我会的。

人生不只是做游戏。青春年少本身就是一个不会再有的机会。所以不要让做游戏的梦想凌驾于人生的其他一切之上。

当我熬夜给《Enhanced Wars》平衡单位或制作地图时，我不会想“大三时我放弃春假去参加团队晚宴和记录光盘是一件多么好的事。”你应该意识到，你只是一个实习生（除非你的老板要留下你），游戏团队没有了你，一样会继续前进。你要有自己的生活。你要有自己的时间。

我也许倾尽一生追求我的游戏梦，但到头来，我也意识到，游戏毕竟只是游戏。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

7 lessons I wish I learned before starting my first game internship

by Ethan Levy

It is rapidly approaching 11 years between my entry into the games business interning at Pandemic Studios and founding an indie studio to develop Enhanced Wars. Although it is still early days in my career, I think I have at least gained a modicum of insight worth sharing. When one of my mentors asked me to speak at the college course I credit for turning me into me into a game designer, I saw an opportunity to reflect on my time in the game industry and codify the lessons I wish I could go back in time to teach my youthfully arrogant college self. It is not like I am not still making missteps regularly;  I hope that 40 year old me is telepathically beaming back his list through time to send some wisdom my way. But it feels like a good time to share the top 7 lessons I wish I knew on my first day as an intern:

1) It’s a small world after all

The game industry is small. Remarkably small. The sort of small that only becomes apparent when you have been developing games for a while. In the past year and change that I have worked as a consultant to help fund Enhanced Wars, I have been recommended for gigs by people I worked with 9 years ago I did not expect to work alongside again. I have been able to pay my rent thanks to jobs I was referred to by people at EA that I am certain I aggravated at one point or another. I have walked into meetings to instantly regret the actions a younger, more abrasive self thought were completely justified at the time.

Every person that you meet in your early career, you are guaranteed to meet again. Every professional relationship you have is a long term investment. Every person you see as an obstacle to your success today will invariably be someone you are too embarrassed to ask for a favor 5, 10, 20 years down the line. It is nearly impossible to take the long view when you are young, but the sooner you realize just how tiny the game industry is the better off you will be.

2) Don’t go for a big splash

When I reflect on my career, the clearest facepalm moments come from the first few weeks on a new job. The times when I really wanted to prove myself. The times when I was trying to convince the people around me that I was a rockstar.

Every time I tried to make a big splash at a new job, I made a belly flop. I was young, I was excited, I was trying to instantly make my mark. The hard smack of soft belly against the surface of the pool was a clear reminder that I had no idea what I was doing.

When starting new jobs, my instinct was to be Impressive. What I wish I had done was try to be Invisible. Only by taking the time to learn how an office works can you truly see  the opportunities to make a meaningful difference. When you come into a job you are entering a mature organism with layers of depth.

When I reflect on the past, I more or less wish I had stayed silent for the first month of every new job. If I had kept my head down and my eyes open, I would have spotted the real opportunities to make a difference.

3) Fixers not moaners

When you are low down the game development totem pole, it is easy to look at the actions of the people above you and scoff. If you were in charge, you would do things differently. How could they make such obvious mistakes?

But then 8 or 10 years go by, and you start to occupy the shoes of someone whose every decision is questioned. You think about the past and you understand why your team leads made the decisions they made. Things were not nearly as clear cut as they seemed.

When you’re working on a game development team, it feels good to moan about the people in charge. After a tough week, it is satisfying to blow off some steam with your co-workers. During lunch breaks or late night team dinners, it is easy to complain about what is happening. You feel closer to your colleagues and better about yourself.

But if you really want to prove yourself, then moaning and groaning is a complete waste of your time. If you are an intern, you will see things big and small go wrong around you. The easy route to take is to tell your co-workers what an idiot person X, Y or Z is. The far harder thing is to identify the problems you are capable of solving completely on your own and fixing them.

If you go to your boss and you say “the build process is broken,” all you have accomplished is accusing a person who is already overloaded with work that she’s doing something wrong. But if you go to your boss and say “the build process was inefficient so I did X and now programmers have 10 extra minutes to code each day,” you will shine.

The best way to distinguish yourself in your internship is to be someone who fixes problems without being told. Small problems. If you fix small problems and make a difference, you will be asked to fix bigger problems.

4) Cultivate mentorship

The value of having a mentor cannot be overstated. When times are tough, when you are facing a problem you do not know how to solve, when you are so burnt out you cannot see straight, you need someone to talk to. Someone with a perspective that will help you see your problem different. Someone to buy you a burrito, listen to your problems and offer advice. And not just one person, but several.

It can be difficult to spot a mentor. If someone is going out of her way to help you avoid mistakes or is willing to go out to lunch with you and answer your questions, these are signs of a relationship you will want to keep up. Try and set up a regular lunch or coffee break every other week and prepare for that meeting so you can get as much value of it as possible. Arrive with a few questions you want to ask written down. Thank your mentor for her time and encouragement. Be appreciative. If your internship ends or your mentor moves on from the company, keep in contact with her over email and instant messenger.

5) Don’t watch TV during working hours

This is the simplest mistake to avoid. The top mistake I have seen from interns and new grads is to have their work on one monitor and streaming TV on the other. And I cannot pretend that I’ve never put TV on while working on more tedious tuning tasks on Enhanced Wars. You may never be told to stop, but people will notice.

Watching TV while you work is a bad habit. You may think you are capable of working at 100% efficiency but you are not. Even if you finish all the tasks you are assigned while enjoying The Daily Show, if you cut out the distractions you would finish your work quicker and have more time to show initiative by solving the small problems that will make you stand out.

Watching TV while you work is very visible. Your manager may never tell you to cut it out, but when the writing up your intern report or deciding which interns have the potential to go full time it will rear its head. These decisions are generally made by several layers of people, and decision makers who never really had a chance to interact with you at work may only know that you spent an awful lot of time streaming Marvel Vs Capcom 3 matches from EVO.

6) Open yourself to opportunity

Tied into my first point about the smallness of the industry is the idea that you have to open yourself up to the opportunities around you. If you are taking classes in game development, if you are going to mixers in your city or industry events, if guest lecturers come talk at your school, you are undoubtedly letting opportunities pass you by left and right. I am very happy with my career today but there are still plenty of moments where I wish had written down an email address or connected with someone on LinkedIn. You will never know what smash success someone will enjoy 5 years down the line, or what game you will wish you were working on as your personal tastes change or you are exposed to new things.

For instance, Ratchet & Clank is one of my top videogame series of all time. But I didn’t learn that its mixture of appealing graphics and run & gun action put me in my happy place until at least a year after Insomniac boss Ted Price gave a guest lecture to my game production class. I did not get his card or write down his email address. I do not think I even introduced myself after the class was over. All things I wish I had done. I am also fairly certain that Infinity Ward co-founder Vince Zampella spoke to one of our classes shortly after Call of Duty II was released. But I cannot be certain who from the Infinity Ward team spoke because I did not introduce myself. I did not get his card or write down his email. I am pretty sure I wore my Pandemic Studios t-shirt to class that night and if I stood out, it was for asking a cocky question.

These are just two of the higher profile examples, but trust me, there are many more opportunities in my past that I was blind to.

7) There’s more to life than videogames

If you made it this far into the post, it is safe to assume that working in videogames has been a lifelong passion for you. That when you land that internship or first job, it will be one of the great triumphs of your life. That you will gladly sacrifice nights, weekends and friendships for a chance to make videogames. I know I did.

There is more to life than making videogames. Being a young person is an incredible opportunity in itself, one you will never get a second shot at. So do not put your game developer dreams above everything else in your life.

When I am up late at night balancing units or making maps for Enhanced Wars, I am not  thinking “it’s a really good thing I skipped out on spring break my junior year so that I could pick up team dinners and burn discs.” Recognize that you are an intern and that (unless your boss disagrees) the game team will go on without you. Live your life. Be young. Enjoy yourself.

I may have devoted my life to the pursuit, but in the end even I realize that it is only videogames.(source:gamasutra)