It’s been a while since we did our last batch, but with the games business having blossomed into a hotbed of ongoing recruitment, it seems like a peachy time to bring back Rare’s in-house staff profiles. Hopefully these will prove informative for those hoping to get into a particular line of work, but also entertaining enough to be worth a read for anyone interested in Rare or a general industry career.
In this edition: Mike Wilson, Associate Producer. Produce this, Wilson! Whatever that means.
Rare: What’s your background and how did you arrive at Rare?
Mike Wilson: Arrived at Rare in a car. Drove down from the North of England not long after I finished university where I obtained a degree in Business. As part of my studies, I worked at a cool internet startup in Germany that gave me plenty of community/web experience and helped me secure an initial six-month contract supporting the launch of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise. That was five years, two contract extensions and one FTE contract ago, and I haven’t looked back since.
Have you found yourself doing the job you always thought you’d do?
At college I saw myself becoming an Engineer, but two years of Computing convinced me that wasn’t my path into the gaming industry. Working with the community on Nuts & Bolts and Kinect Sports was great, but I was keen to become part of the Production team so when the opportunity arose to move on to Season Two, it was too good to turn down.
What are your main responsibilities on the average game?
Since becoming an Associate Producer, I’ve been focused on defining what features will be included in our games and ensuring those features are delivered to the highest quality. Day to day that includes defining goals for the upcoming sprint, reviewing new builds and discussing the latest Design thinking.
Which Rare games have you worked on, and what’s been your biggest achievement?
Supported on Nuts & Bolts, Trouble in Paradise, Perfect Dark XBLA and Kinect Sports as Community/Web Producer, before becoming an Associate Producer on Season Two. My biggest achievement probably came in the form of a Community Day for Kinect Sports where we got a whole host of fansites, bloggers and press to visit the studio and play Kinect for the first time. We’d never opened up the studio quite like that before so that was an achievement in itself, but our Rapid Robot costume was pretty special as well.
What do you see as the top perk of working for Rare?
Being able to work in the countryside is pretty nice. Most studios are based in city centres whereas we get to enjoy vast, beautiful grounds. And there’s ducks!
What do you find most exciting about your job?
It’s great to see a game come together. Being part of a group of people all working towards the same goal is a special situation to be in and something that I really enjoy.
How much influence does a Producer have on the direction of the game itself?
Producers are responsible for defining which features make it into the game and ensuring that they’re implemented to the highest possible quality. This involves working closely with Design, Art and Engineering to confirm that features are well-defined, meet the goals of the project and can be implemented in the time that we have. So there is some scope to influence the direction of each title, but ultimately it’s the team and their creativity that really define a game. We have a great group of people here and it’s up to the Producers to bring out the best in them.
How would you describe your fellow workers in five words?
Dedicated, fun, diverse, opinionated, creative.
Favourite Rare game, favourite Xbox 360 game and favourite game of all time?
Played GoldenEye and Banjo-Kazooie for hours when I was younger, but Viva Piñata holds the title of my favourite Rare game and favourite 360 game. It’s the character of the Piñatas, the sounds of the garden… actually, no, it’s just the Quackberry. That alone makes it a great game, you get to feed it sandwiches!
As for favourite game of all time, considering I still take part in daily Mario Kart playoffs (with bespoke ‘Fizzbelly’ rules too complicated to go into here but involving substantial fizzy pop forfeits – rules available on request) I’d have to say either Double Dash!! or Mario Kart Wii. I’m not great at many games, but after four years of regular Mario Kart I’m pretty confident that I can hold my own.
Any good (printable) anecdotes or memories from within the walls of Rare?
Not long after joining Rare, I had the honour of transporting the Banjo costume to Paris for an Xbox event. We had the great idea of making a quick video showing Banjo in Paris looking for a Jiggy. I wore that costume for eight hours. Eight painful hours. Luckily I had Xbox UK’s own AceyBongos on hand to help out, but I think he spent more time laughing than supporting.
What advice would you give to anyone thinking of applying for a role similar to yours?
I think my Business degree has been invaluable, but you need to be a good communicator and able to work under pressure in order to be successful. Keeping a close eye on the gaming industry as a whole (and other related industries) can make all the difference when attempting to predict future trends. You also need to be flexible and reactive as no matter how flawless your planning, the world of game development is so fast-moving with such a huge variety of things going on that you can never be totally sure what’ll drop into your calendar from one day to the next.
Previously in Rare Life:
David Wong, Senior Test Lead
Ian Bolton, Network Programmer
James Thomas, Gameplay Engineer
Gavin Price, Designer
Steve Mayles, Character Artist
Rich Nguyen, Tools Engineer
Weighing up a career in the games biz? What roles would you like to see covered in future Rare Life columns? Drop us a line and let us know.