Today, a class in Kolej SPACE was treated to a special sharing session, featuring notable figures in the games industry sharing about getting a job in the games industry.
The three-man panel consisted of Persona Theory’s Saqina Latif, Burhanudin “Burhan” Zamri as well as GamerBraves’ own Wan Amirul, and talked about common pitfalls with fresh grads trying to break into the industry.
“When you’re students, and you’re about to go for an internship, you have to ask yourself, ‘what do you want to achieve?’ “, Saqina asks.
The sharing session lasted two hours, covering everything from how to mentally prepare for interviews to the technical aspects of sending things like email.
Early on, Saqina elaborated on the role of interns in a company- while they weren’t expected to be top tier, any mistakes they made would still have some impact on the studio.
“We cannot afford to slow things down so that is why when you apply to us, it’s great if you know who we are , what we do or what kind of work we do”, she says.
Burhan, in particular, stressed the importance of practicing ahead of interviews- even rehearsing with his wife before hsi own interviews..
“Practice is important”, he says. “Don’t expect to [just do it]. Some people are that good, they can be very charismatic and very quick thinking. But most of us, including me, we have to practice”.
The panel concluded with a Q&A session, wherein students got to ask questions about everything from time management to the existential threat of being blacklisted in the industry.
Malaysia’s slice of the Games Industry isn’t to be overlooked- the country is home to multiple game development studios like Lemon Sky, Streamline and even most recently, Virtuos KL.
Programs like these are a huge part of making sure interested talents can get to the jobs they need- both showing the skills necessary to get in and letting students know that the door is open to those who are interested.