We spoke to recent game dev graduates about job prospects, their thoughts on the industry and hopes for the future.
Having recently graduated from the RMIT Design degree for Games, myself and my peers have been faced with a glaring cliff face of the real world, where we no longer have the support net of being students to catch us if we doubt ourselves. Personally, I have always felt a pull towards writing and analysis of video games, so the choice of further education was an easy one to make. However, many of my classmates are choosing to join the job market. Knowing that jobs in the Australian games industry are difficult to come by, and curious how they all intended to take these first steps into their professional careers, I sat down with a few of them to discuss their goals.
My own game-making partner, Emma, feels a similar pull away from traditional game design, and is instead focussing on honing her other skills before joining the job hunt. The other half of our studio, JunCat, Emma is far more interested in writing and worldbuilding than ever looking at a line of code again. When it came to talking about any games in her future, she told me about how she can only ever work within the style we have developed, and only ever within our partnership. “I'd never get inspired on my own to [make games], so it would always be with [me].”
Together, we make games “inspired by the books [we] read”, which she described as “fantasy, with a big focus on the worlds,” and “things with heart”, and I would describe as “whatever trashy fantasy the Kmart books section had on special”.
Our games are kitschy, cutesy and deeply reliant on our own twisted sense of humour. Our graduate piece, ‘Playing God’, was a visual novel in this exact style, focussing on a subversion of classic dating simulator games by asking the player to play matchmaker, rather than prioritise their own romantic endeavours. Emma plans to eventually undertake further education for creative writing, and is working on a novel based around two of the main characters of our game ‘Playing God’. Her future goals include a series of novels and story games which tell the love stories of her characters in every universe.
In a similar way, my fellow classmate Ash finds her inspiration in the worlds she designs for her games. Her Capstone piece in collaboration with some other classmates, ‘Wattle Creek’, was a brilliantly heartwarming homage to Australian small towns, friendships, and leaving behind everything you’ve ever known.
Working primarily as an environmental artist, she aims to have her assets bring about a sense of story and love, and enjoys working with other game devs.
“I'm interested in production and design myself, helping [writers] bring their story to life is always extremely rewarding for me,” she said.
Ash, like me, intends to pursue further education, however is taking some time first to try and get some industry experience under her belt.
Another graduate, Jade, discussed how she has already entered the workforce, securing a Quality Assurance position at Melbourne’s Big Ant Studios. She doesn’t have a specific kind of game she wants to make in mind, instead her goal is to work her way up the ranks of AAA studios and eventually work as a designer.
It was an uncommon answer for those I spoke to to be in search of AAA success, however one other alumni, Patrick, expressed a similar desire. Having already achieved a level of industry success while studying, he felt that the encouragement of validation became a cornerstone in his artistic process. When we spoke, he mentioned an intention to expand upon his existing project, ‘PsychoSwap’, which is a fast-paced first person shooter. In terms of how much help he feels he received from the degree itself, Patrick noted that “it works…I found out that I’m passionate and that I’m good at what I do.”
As opposed to Jade’s plans to work her way up in existing studios, Patrick intends to create his own AAA-level studio one day “within our own generation…which we can all be proud of.”
For many of my classmates, however, the plan looks a little different. Throughout the course of the last three years, we have been taught to follow what feels best for ourselves, and create the games we want to see. As such, a vast majority of those stepping out into the world are doing so at an indie capacity, as they want to keep their creative freedom. One such student, Bora, has already received some attention for his game ‘Whiskey St2007nes’, which he says represents everything he wants to be as a game maker.
“It started out as a freak accident, and then it turned into one of the things I'm most proud of," he said.
‘Whiskey St2007nes’ has been exhibited across the Melbourne games scene, most notably at Freeplay: Parallels 2024 and PAX AUS 2024. As far as visually appealing projects go, it is one of my favourites, as it is truly a hodgepodge of media and assets thrown out into the “Whiskey Stones Dimension”, in a way that, should you have ever met Bora, will remind you of his heart.
Another gamemaker following this particular path, Noemi, also has a very specific kind of game she wants to make in mind. Currently, she is taken by turn-based combat games, and is entertaining the idea of a dark, fantastical take on a turn-based RPG with heavy, rich worldbuilding. Reflected in her art, Noemi carries a creepy, lore heavy style into her games which will keep a prickle down your spine as you play (and play, and play, and play…trust me, I struggle to put her games down!)
Overall, the main question I had to ask my peers was this; “Do you think there is a space for what you want to create within our industry?”. Unlike with all the other questions I asked, where responses were ever changing and considered, everyone immediately had the same thing to say...
“Absolutely.”
While a focus of our studies had been creating what we wanted to see in the world, it changed the focus of our practice entirely, and led us all to learn that, should you know where to look, you were never the only one that wanted to see that thing.
From those looking for mainstream success, those hoping to get popular off the backs of their dream works and those like myself who simply want to share a small piece of themselves with the world, we were all in agreement - even if we could not find a space straight away, we are all willing to carve one out, and find the people who want what we have to offer.
You can play a selection of student work from recent graduates at the RMIT Game Design Grad Show website. Check out the games and please hire us. 🥺🥺
