ABOUT

Tell us who you are!

Mike Anderson, 33, producer, ustwo games.

So what do you actually do?

I keep my team on track and empowered to do the best work they can.

What has your career path been?

I studied BSc Computer Games Design at the University of Westminster, graduating in 2008. My goal was to land a junior programmer role somewhere after graduating, but the course was the first of its kind, and didn't end up covering enough material in enough depth for me to secure one right off the bat.

I was still determined to get into the industry however, and I managed to get a job as a QA Tester at SEGA in West London. I hadn't really considered QA as a potential career route before, but it seemed like a good way to gain first-hand experience of the various parts of game development and learn more about where I might fit in best.

I stayed at SEGA for about a year and a half or so, but I was on a zero-hour contract and the role didn't allow me the chance to talk with actual game internal development studio members, so I ended up leaving for a fixed term contract at Lionhead Studios in Guildford. I was only there for 6 weeks, but the integration within the development team made a huge difference to me, and let me learn a whole lot more about how games are actually made, and how the different teams work together to achieve a shared vision.

After that contract ended, I wasn't super sure what to do next, so I had some time off and thought about what it was I wanted to do. I figured I shouldn't let my experience in QA go to waste, and I honestly did enjoy the job, so I started the job search again. This time I had a focus on mobile games studios, as Angry Birds had just taken off (no pun intended) and was opening up this whole new world of game development. I was lucky to find a role at a mobile game studio called Ideaworks Game Studio in West London (again) and stayed there for about 2 years.

It was very cool there, we worked on some original IPs, and it was also the first time I had a permanent role in the games industry (paid sick leave and all that!). I gradually gained more experience and knowledge there and started transitioning slightly into a lead role, eventually leading a team of QA testers on some of our projects. I also started learning agile/scrum methodologies from our producer and writing up reports for our clients. I was comfortable and happy there, but one message from an old mate from SEGA changed things up for me.

I got a message out of the blue from my mate Shaz (big up Shaz!) who told me a friend's brother worked at a design studio in East London who wanted to get into making games, and needed someone to head up QA for them. I figured I'd check it out, so I sent over my CV and went over for an interview. I ended up loving the energy and vibe of the place and I've been there ever since. That was back in 2012, and the studio was ustwo, so I've nearly been there 9 years in total now.

I started out at ustwo doing the usual QA stuff I'd been doing over the years, making sure our games were working well across all our supported hardware, following up on bug reports from players, but that gradually evolved into doing a bunch of different things, ranging from level design, to coding and eventually more production tasks.

For the past few years I've been working full-time in a production capacity, looking after teams, budgets, roadmaps and all sort of fun stuff like that!

What is the best part of your job?

Probably working with ridiculously talented people and helping them achieve their potential.

It's also nice reading a really heartfelt review for one of our games, knowing we brought some happiness to someone's life!

Why do you do your job?

I've been into games ever since I was little, in fact one of my earliest memories is of playing Decathlon on the Atari 2600 in the front room with my older siblings. I was always interested in computers as well, and IT was the thing I was best at in school, so the 2 interests just kind of merged together at some point.

As far as getting into production, I'm a people person, and also someone with a lot of different interests, so a role where I have such a varied workload day to day and get to work with all sorts of different people is perfect.

One piece of advice for someone starting in your role?

Don't be afraid to ask questions, it's a big part of the job!

Never forget, the only stupid question is the question that is never asked.

Check out Mike’s Twitter below!

DAY IN THE LIFE

Even though my role is a lot about bringing structure to the team, what I personally get up to each day can vary quite wildly, but in general a day will go like this:

The alarm on my phone goes off at 9am, and I have to snooze it at least twice before I actually get out of bed. I brush my teeth, wash my face, moisturise (important!), get on some deodorant and throw on a fresh t-shirt and some jogging bottoms, and head downstairs. I'll fix up a bowl of cereal and start turning things on and plugging things in for the day.

At 10, I dial into and run the daily standup meeting with my team. This is a time for each person to share what they've been doing the previous day, what they aim to do today, and if there's anything preventing them from getting through their tasks. This ends up taking about 15 minutes, and then we can usually squeeze in another 15 minutes of chatting and joking about random stuff before anyone has to head off for another meeting. It's a nice time to keep the team morale up while working remotely.

I usually have another meeting from 10:30 to 11:30, let's say this time it's a call with some of our business partners. This type of meeting generally starts off with an update from the partners, with us providing feedback to them about the work they've done, and then there'll inevitably be some questions asked in both directions. I try my best to answer things within the call, but anything that needs a bit more work to answer gets added to my to-do list, which I prioritise and look at a few times each day.

11:30 to 12:30 is usually when I get a chance to catch up on my emails, checking if there's anything I need to do. "Anything" in this context could be anything from a marketing asset request to a software subscription renewal, to a holiday request. I clear my inbox during this time, and star anything which I can't reply to/do straight away. The to-do list makes a comeback here, and I'll add anything that needs to be done to it as well. We also use Slack a lot, so I might add new tasks to the list based on what people are saying to me on there.

12:30 is when I go to lunch, I've been going for walks recently as I really need the fresh air/exercise, and sometimes if I'm feeling fancy I'll order something for lunch so it arrives just as I'm coming back :)

At 1:30, I'll be back at my laptop, with my to-do list ready, and just start working through it, starting with whatever is the highest priority. Sometimes solving a problem is just a case of asking the right person in the team to do it, but I try to keep interruptions to a minimum, so I'll usually have a go at it myself before I get someone's assistance.

2:00 is the daily standup with the QA (quality assurance) team, we have a team member based in Canada so this time is the most accessible for us all. This is a chance to get up to date with how all our games are looking on all our platforms, and be made aware of any bugs which we might need to fix in a future update.

The standup usually doesn't last more than 15 minutes, so I usually get a bunch of time to go back to the to-do list, check emails and Slack before the next meeting of the day. I usually drop a message in Slack just to remind the team to take a break from the screen or drink water.

I'll usually have another meeting around 3pm, let's say this one is our production meeting, where me and the rest of the production team get together and take a look at our company roadmap. We check the dates and milestones for each project have been updated, and make sure any other key events are added so we don't run into any surprises down the line. We also take a bit of time to check out any cool new production methodologies or tools we might have seen online, or heard about from friends that we might be interested in using.

I generally use the last few hours of the day to wrap up as much of the to-do-list as possible, ticking things off or reprioritising as necessary. On the rare occasion that I actually get to clear the list, I get a chance to just check out interesting things, like GDC (Game Developer Conference) talks related to game development, or any webinars, cool fan emails that might have come through.

And that's a sorta typical-ish day for me. If the weather's nice, I might go out for another walk before dinner, and after dinner I'll just chill out for a bit. Lately I've been watching Beauty and the Geek on Amazon Prime Video, and playing Monster Hunter Rise. I bought some dumbbells from Decathlon during lockdown so I try to lift them a bit before having a shower and going to bed.

Then we start the whole thing again the next day!