Hi friends! I’m Tabris, a Community Manager here at Warner Brother Games Boston. If you’re an active member of our Game of Thrones: Conquest Discord Community and enjoy our Discord stages, you might be familiar with my work. If not, I invite you to check out this insightful developer interview from 2021!
Today, I’m here with another interview with our wonderful developers from our internship program!
One of the most challenging parts of the games industry is entering it! It requires a fantastic amount of skill, patience, and the ability to communicate with different game developers across that sphere of influence.
We’re lucky at Warner Brothers Games Boston to have the opportunity to foster that growth through our internship program! It’s a curriculum designed to develop early career talent into critical positions in our company. Over the course of 6 – 12 months, these developers are taught core competencies and technical skills and given skilled mentors who know the ins and outs of their game.
We’re lucky to have Sandall, Echo, Neera, and Rhema with us today. They’re here to share their incredible journey and the impactful work they’ve contributed to Game of Thrones Conquest and other projects over the past year of development.
Q1: Introduce yourselves! Who are you, what do you do at Warner Brothers Games Boston?
Sandall
Sandall, I’m an intern at WB Games Boston, and I work on client-side engineering.
Echo
Hi there! I’m Echo- a Software Engineering Intern at WB Games Boston. I work with the Developer Experience Engineering team to create tools used across the studio to help streamline the development process. These tools help bridge the gap for developers across different disciplines to make everything work together!
Neera
I’m Neera, a product management intern! I do various things related to maintaining live-operations (live ops) for and analyzing the performance of Game of Thrones: Conquest.
Rhema
I’m Rhema, and I’m also a product management intern for the Game of Thrones: Conquest mobile game! We research how players play and how those actions impact the game on a weekly basis.
Q2: What were your favorite projects while working on Game of Thrones: Conquest?
Neera
I got to work a lot on revamping the old events that players would see during their first couple weeks after downloading the game! Going in and reviewing the existing schedules and upgrading them to match the current state of the game served as a really good way to familiarize myself with both the game and the behind-the-scenes work going on to keep it running. (And we got to request tons of awesome new House of the Dragon-themed art!)
Rhema
I also got the opportunity to work on updating the new player experience (NPE), which included rewards, and event refreshes! It was interesting to see how much thought and work goes into creating these consumables, and to see how our changes can impact other parts of the game.
Q3: While working on these projects, were there any notable challenges? Or things you have learned?
Sandall
I learned a lot about WB Games Boston’s internal tooling for Unity. There are a ton of different scripts and tools that save you a lot of time in development. I got to face new challenges every day, and I explored many different systems in the game and was able to add to them and understand their design.
Echo
Expanding on my knowledge through practical application was definitely the most difficult but most rewarding to learn. From starting off making small bug fixes at the beginning of my internship to conceptualizing, designing, programming, and finally implementing new features, I learned a lot more about the development cycle at a real game studio. There are so many more systems I had never used (or even heard of) before the internship, but getting used to these processes definitely helped me understand the bigger picture.
Neera
Working with so many tools and numbers, it’s inevitable that there will be mistakes (even with all the checks we have in place). Hearing , “It’s okay to make new mistakes. We just don’t want to repeat old ones,” was very reassuring. I’m super grateful that my team has been so understanding and encouraging as I got up to speed on how we do our work.
Rhema
One of the biggest hurdles for me was adjusting to managing a 4X game, a format I am not the most familiar with. There was definitely a learning curve for me in terms of being able to contribute questions, solutions, and ideas when I was still learning how the game functioned. Thankfully, our team was very patient and made each step of the way digestible and light-hearted, and I eventually got the hang of things.
Q4: What’s your impression of the Game of Thrones: Conquest Community?
Sandall
Everyone seems really friendly and welcoming, just a great community to be a part of.
Echo
Players seem very invested and excited about what the future holds for Game of Thrones Conquest!
Neera
The dedication and insight a lot of our players have is seriously impressive! I wish I were this locked in on some of the games I play, but I don’t have that dog in me, so props to y’all. (Also I love seeing the memes that get made.)
Rhema
I was impressed with the knowledge that these players have accrued over the years honestly! There are some really funny and sassy moments, and I can tell that they care a lot about the game and this community (and winning).
Q5: If you had any suggestions for students trying to enter the industry or get an interview, what would you suggest?
Sandall
It can be discouraging to get rejected from your dream job or just run out of game studios to apply to since games is a relatively small industry compared to the general software landscape, but it’s important to remember that any job you can get in your discipline, even if it’s not at a game studio, will give you valuable experience to help you get hired in games the next time you apply.
Echo
I agree with Sandall- it’s really easy to feel like you aren’t qualified enough, not smart enough, or not talented enough for a position you’re interested in. I say apply to positions you’re interested in, even if you think you may not have enough skills to do so. You’ll be surprised who ends up getting back to you- and even if you don’t get the job, you’ve made new connections with interesting people along the way.
To be honest, I didn’t think I was going to get this internship, and I doubted I had enough knowledge to be successful. I ended up getting this internship in part due to my experience teaching kids how to code and develop games- because it showed that I had a good blend of hard and soft skills. Even though it may not be at a game development company, finding a position that utilizes your skills at any company is well worth it in your journey!
Neera
Make something you’re proud of – whether that’s a game or something else! Everyone will exit college with a degree and class projects, but the dedication it takes to go beyond that can help you stand out. Plus, all the things you’ll learn seeing a project through from start to finish will put you in a way better position both to be picked to progress in the hiring process and be able to answer interview questions thoughtfully. I didn’t think I would end up working in games, but when I found out from making and releasing a few that I enjoyed it and wanted to pivot, that experience is what got my foot in the door.
Rhema
I was a Communications major with an Environmental Studies minor! I genuinely didn’t think that I would get past even the first round of interviews (we had to record a video of ourselves and send it in), but at that point, I had been applying to so many that I took a leap of faith and sent in my video. With my leadership experience in Girls Who Code, I saw so many women who came from different backgrounds of expertise get involved in the tech industry, so that really inspired me to go for it as well. Be yourself! Authenticity is something that I think this company and each team values, because every person has something to offer.
Q6: Last but not least, and the most important question today. . . .are you Team Black or Team Green?
Sandall
” Green 🙂 “
Echo
” A hard choice, but Team Green. “
Neera
” Sandall and Echo are wrong, Team Black is the correct answer here lol.”
Rhema
” I think I’m Team Green but I think Team Black is more entertaining haha. “
Thank you all for giving me some of your time to answer these questions! Pleasantly surprised to see the amount of Team Green support here. Hope to see that continued support while House of the Dragon season two airs, Sundays on Max!
As always, thank you so much for jumping in and reading this interview. If you have any interest in joining our team keep a look out for job postings here on the Warner Bros. Games Boston career page!
Have any questions, or suggestions for future interviews? Feel free to tag @community in discord!