Talk Title: Being a Unicorn: Multiclassing in an Industry That Wants Specialization

Effective talk: How to be a unicorn in game dev

Year of Talk: 2023

Video Link: Being a Unicorn: Multiclassing in an Industry That Wants Specialization

Why might some people learn multiple disciplines?

• Some positions tend to be harder to get right out of college. So, an option for some people is to go into similar careers. 

• Instead of going straight to design, start as an Artist/Programmer and then transition.

  
  

What can someone with multiple disciplines do that multiple people with single disciplines couldn't?

• Helps a lot with prototyping. One person can quickly test out ideas. Once the idea is fleshed out, it is passed to a full team to expand and improve it.

• Having one person with multiple skills work on it at the start helps take away the time spent where multiple people need to communicate to do basic tasks.

• Allowing the larger groups to concentrate on areas that are important and have already been decided

• Also means that the team can better plan around challenges and bugs found during initial prototyping.

• Having multiple disciplines also helps you understand how everything is meant to combine. You can slightly modify the mechanics you're given if you understand what they are intended to do, but aren't doing that.

• Smaller teams tend to have a larger need for unicorns. They don't have the resources to hire individual people for each department/area.

• When working in one area of a studio and wanting to transition to other areas, it's useful to find how you can help out with smaller items. This lets you show off that you are useful AND are willing to help.

• Not everything you make needs to appear in the resume. If you have skills in two disciplines but the job is looking for only one, then you can send in a resume that has info for that discipline.

• During the interview, you can show off your other work, and this can lead the recruiters to realize that you can be a good fit in other areas.

  
  

How to hire a unicorn:

• Usually considered a red flag if you outright state you need a unicorn. But other ways of searching.

• State the core skills you're looking for that are important for the role. Then add skills that might be needed and how the applicants would use them in conjunction with other teams.

• When working as a unicorn, it's super important that you have clear boundaries on what you can and can not work in. Otherwise, you'll have multiple teams always asking for your help and no time for your work.

• If you find that multiple teams/producers are asking you to constantly switch between teams/disciplines, then talk with your manager to coordinate which areas you are most needed and where you should concentrate. Since there isn't infinite time, each minute you spend switching teams is lost as you get used to the slightly different workflow.

  
  

Biggest difficulty as a unicorn:

• Interviews can be difficult as people might not believe you're good enough. Or will give you extra tests to see if there is enough knowledge.

• Sometimes, it can be hard to market yourself in different disciplines if you don't have much experience in doing so. Trying to help with expansions lets you use templates that more experienced programmers have already worked on, but they need someone to work on them.

• Once you've had some years in the industry, you can start using your network to more easily get the following jobs, as people know you can easily fit into different studios.