Callum Cooper-Brighting

The Sumo Group closures really have broken me a bit, and I need to rant about the state of things. I'm sorry if it seems I'm glossing over all the closures before this one, but so many ex-students went there, so many ex-colleagues passed through there, and so my timeline is just filled with people looking for work. We keep talking and talking about the economic factors involved, Brexit and Covid and this and that ... the thing I can't stop thinking of is that in my life I've watched the world slowly pitch into a place of despondent capitalism. Art has become more about making stars and fame than helping people escape and reflect. A drive for "truth" and objectivity has resulted, paradoxically, in people putting more stock in spreadsheets and numbers than people. I can't help but feel that if you're bleating about finance and trade deals and business decisions, you're ignoring the fact that general support for artistic and creative endeavours has declined sharply and is still declining, even in the so-called "art world". Games are ultimately always going to be the first to fall in a culture war against creativity, because games are ultimately and profoundly pointless things. That's the whole majesty of the medium: they make us feel profound feelings, they help us explore our existence by being separate from reality, but to do so they MUST bring us nothing tangible in return. The truth is that our industry will probably bounce back to some degree, but it's not any financial structures or cost systems that will save game development as a medium and an art form - it's a cultural shift to recognise the importance of expressive and explorative subjective art in the world today, and the need to support creative endeavours without the pressure of financial recompense.

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It has happened 😔 I'm one of the many Sumo peeps affected by layoffs. I had a fantastic time at Sumo Digital Ltd. I met incredible people that will be lifelong friends, I represented my company at many international events, and, super recently, I've been nominated for Diversity Star at the Develop:Brighton Star Awards. I also got to build teams for the really cool titles below: 🗃️ A Little to the Left 🪓 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 🏎️ Stampede: Racing Royale 🛢️ Still Wakes The Deep But, now, it's time to say goodbye 👋🏼 So, to all the incredible people I had the honor of hiring & working with, I just want to thank you for enriching my experience 💖. I can't wait to play all the future games you'll make. --- 🚨 I am now on the lookout for a new team I can complement with my skillset! 🚨 I have 5+ years of experience recruiting for all main core development teams, as well as senior leadership and operational roles, via many different ATS & CRMs. Exclusively in the Game Development Industry. However, THAT'S NOT ALL! I also have extensive experience 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠: ✨DEIB programs, ✨Reports and analysis, ✨Career support initiatives, ✨Early career processes, and ✨Recruiting & hiring training materials. ➡️ So if you are looking for a recruiter, a #DEIB specialist or a generalist who can support multiple areas & teams, make sure to message! ➡️ If you aren't hiring but want to help, leave a comment below or repost to increase my reach! --- 📣 Follow #RethinkRecruitment and ring the 🔔 to stay updated! ⏩ https://entrylevel.games/ 🌟 Opinions are very much my own™️ #Layoffs #Redundancies #JobHunting #GameDev

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Why is it important to understand games? Because they explain how a party turns 35% of the vote in an election into over 400 seats in Parliament. Labour’s win in the UK general election is many things. A sign that voters could not do anything other than boot out a tired and incompetent Conservative Party; a relatively unenthusiastic trade off of steady competence over wider vision; a least worst option that has opened the doors to smaller parties. It’s also a victory for ruthless campaigning. It’s an operational masterclass in which financial and personal resource was directed with strategic precision to get as many Labour MPs over the top as possible. And it is derived from a fundamental truth: elections are games with clear rules. Labour’s strategy - and, to be fair, The Liberal Democrat’s approach - rejected the idealism of “the best vision wins out” to say “how do we win this game within the set rules” to avoid another 2019 style disappointment. It’s an approach that is central to great campaigning. It is also, as Kelly Clancy posits indirectly in her great book Playing With Reality, a perfect example of minmaxing a game: controlling and risking as little as possible from your side while maximising opportunities within the rules (and errors from your opponents). Clancy argues that our failure to understand play and to take it seriously within society means we can’t understand fully the social, cultural and biological drivers that lead us to create the rules based systems that we play within. Elections are therefore one of those rare times where the dynamic of play is surfaced in a way that we can truly see, that we can understand explicitly and that we can talk about easily - demonstrating its immense value in a way little else can. P.S. If you like reading about the surprising ways games reshape society, think about subscribing to my newsletter Video Games Industry Memo. There will be plenty more where this has come from in the year ahead.

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🚨 Can Nostalgia create a path back to games industry growth? 🚨 💡 ⤵ I went to watch Inside Out 2 with my daughter on Saturday (well worth a watch!) and one of the new emotions was Nostalgia. Whilst only playing a minor role for 13 year old Riley in the film, it is an emotion increasingly being felt by publishers and gamers. Whether it be big scale returns of old PC classics or emulator apps cropping up on mobile, it is clear that many players are looking for a Nostalgia hit! But Why? Well for me retro gaming scratches a number of intrinsic needs; 1. Familiarity - An old pair of slippers, moulded to you, is just more comfortable than a shiny pair of Air 1s. 2. Mastery - No one likes being a noob. If players can skip learning and get straight to the fun, they will. 3. Community - Who doesn't love getting the old gang back together... Reminiscing. Laughing. Smiling. From a publisher perspective it makes a lot of sense too. Large amounts of the initial development costs have been sunk already, you have a clear target audience to go after and you have the opportunity to turn back the clock and learn from last time. Nostalgia doesn't have to stunt innovation. In Old School RuneScape we have worked with our community to create entirely new quests, game modes and map expansions whilst staying true to the retro vibe players are looking for. And there are more games coming.... I saw today a 2005 server save of Habbo Hotel is being dusted off and relaunched tomorrow with a community-led voting approach.... sounds familiar 🤔 Good luck Sulake. Hope the launch goes well. So we have Old School RuneScape and now Old School Habbo... Come on Lance Priebe lets get the band back together with some Old School Club Penguin! 🐧 🐧 🐧 What other retro games do we need next? #nostalgia #gaming #mmo #gamesindustry #insight

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No squatch sightings last weekend...but wow...what a week since. A massively productive one for The Glitch (on all fronts), and apparently some other things happened around the industry as well...huh. Alright...let's-a-go: OMY@C 🤘 ⛏ - Metallica will be in Fortnite soon. The event is called "Metallica: Fuel Fire Fury," and it will kick off on June 22nd. The San Francisco band got on the Fortnite Festival stage yesterday - so if you're curious...hop on in there. RIP Cliff. RIP Eddie. 🍎 - Apple's WWDC was this week...and their formal entry into Ai was the big takeaway. "Apple Intelligence," was the name they landed on. Essentially, it's Ai integrated through every aspect of their various OS's...adding personal context to everything. My first reaction was...do I want that though? On one hand, this feels like the first real indication of where consumer Ai is headed...on the other: privacy? A big part of Apple's presentation of their Ai is "setting a brand-new standard for privacy in Ai." So...they're well aware of the line that's being crossed. Apple's 5-minute video overview (on their site) shows you how "Ai for the rest of us" will work...and it's easy to be cynical about it. A squirrel DJ...cool. Custom emoji's...neat. Still...you should watch it. When app devs finally start building for this though...look out. PREDICTION: iPhone 16 will be the best selling iPhone yet. The 6 sold 222M units total...71.5MM units in it's first 3 months...so we'll know by year's end how this crazy statement is trending. 📺 🎮 - Mike Verdu will soon be leaving his role as VP of Netflix Games (and starting a new role with the company). Speculation is rampant about what this means for the games unit. It's possible that it means...nothing at all. I'm still massively bullish on the gaming opportunity for Netflix. My personal opinion is that transmedia is the biggest, most exciting play here...but I've also heard there are internal headwinds on that. 🤷‍♂️ 🍷 ⛵ - I'm not going to Cannes...again. Maybe some day. I'll drink rosé and look important at home...again. I'm not bitter. 📺 🎮 - Follow Friday: Two nerds with a webcam...that you absolutely should be following if you're in the games business: 1) Chris Melissinos (Principal Evangelist for Amazon Web Services (AWS) - Video interviews with games industry legends, deep retro dives, and discussions on the top news. 2) Alexander Seropian (Founder/CEO of Look North World) - Host of "The Fourth Curtain," is always a headliner event. 📺 - Palm Royale (Apple+). Kristen Wiig as a social climber in 1960's south Florida. So good. Save a grasshopper for me. 🎵 - Spotify's "Daylist" - pull the throttle back a bit with your list names though. "90's Indie Twee Friday Afternoon," might be accurate...but it's embarrassing. 🎮 - It's been 2 weeks since I picked up Hogwarts Legacy and Vampire Survivors...haven't started either yet. THAT's how busy it's been.

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If #gamesrecruitment was a MOBA/MMO 🎮 Internal teams are Tanks – big damage soaks constantly attacked on all sides. HR OPS/People are support classes – keeping everybody going. A GOOD Agency recruiter are high DPS/Rogue types – very targeted, very effective when used properly. A bad agency? See below… #Thursdaythoughts #GamesIndustry

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Watching Vs. Reading Vs. Playing games... I've watched a lot of gameplay video's, in fact just doing some terrible maths based roughly on live streaming once a week alone for the last 5 or so years, not including all the games that came through the Academies, I reckon I given thoughts with commentary well over 650+ games... Oooof 😱 double or triple that professionally to be conservative. I've also read a ton of books, some good, some great and others, well, average at best. Of course, I've built a poop ton of games that were extremely average as well to be fair. Whilst reading and watching gameplay is super valuable in gaining insights to game systems, production polish, feedback effects and a to some extent flow, there's really no substitute than getting the game in your hands and playing. You need to play. You need to play to truly understand how a game feels, how it makes you react and your emotional response whilst experiencing it. If you want to improve as a game dev / game designer, you need to play. Sure, listen, watch and read reviews, they can provide amazing insights, but these seldom include emotion and favour technical analysis. Play at least 10 mins of 1 game a day as your daily routine, especially games outside your typical genre as this is where those magic ideas can come from :) #gamedev #gamedesign #mobilegames #mobilegaming

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Today's update from my ongoing process of engagement and learning about the UK video games and interactive entertainment industry is about the value of talking to people, particularly face-to-face. This might be an early candidate for the 'this is not an insight' awards, but bear with me.... So, my 'first 100 days' plan, such as it is, is essentially about building relationships, learning about the industry, engaging with members and shaping an overall picture of what the industry needs and how my organisation can help. In this process, there is nothing better than getting out and speaking to the broadest range of stakeholders to start to build up an overall picture of where the organisation needs to go. I've learnt over the years to approach these conversations with an entirely open mind and to ask questions rather than trying to advance a view. The honest truth, coming into an industry as an outsider, is that there are layers, connections, meanings and ideas which you won't begin to understand at the beginning which can have a profound impact on your overall direction and priorities. Take, for example, a concept which is becoming increasingly central in my thinking about our future strategy - that the industry sits in its own unique category at the intersection of creativity, technology and community. Each of those words, and the concept of the exciting boundary intersection between them, comes from a conversation. 'Creativity' came from speaking with a group of Trustees about the art of making video games - the sheer creative vision and energy it takes to release a game which captures the hearts and minds of players. 'Technology' came from speaking with a stakeholder in Scotland who reminded me that video games have always pushed boundaries - asking 'why not?' and testing the limits of new technologies to deliver amazing player experiences. But it was only yesterday that Luke Hebblethwaite, Head of Games at BAFTA slotted in 'community' as the missing piece - yes, games occupy an exciting space at the meeting point of code and creativity, but the magic ingredient that breathes life into them is the communities they inspire. Both in-game and in people's daily lives, games bring people together, create shared experiences and connect people in a way that crosses all boundaries. In all of these conversations, I take lots of notes. What you end up with is a bit of a 'stream of consciousness', but over a period of weeks, concepts begin to emerge, structures take shape and a sense of direction and purpose starts to come together. The point is fast approaching whereby I need to consolidate all of this into a simple, compelling strategy and action plan. But the sense of 'discovery through conversation' won't stop there - once the plan is live, I will continue to get out and meet as many people as possible both to hear their critiques and their ambitions and to build a coalition towards bringing the vision and strategy to reality.

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Games Jobs Workbook v14.2 Is Here (PLEASE HELP REPOST) https://lnkd.in/d6x5NHMZ - Resource 8 From v14.0 to v14.2 (today, 4/19), we have achieved - 3,616 games employers (+1,488) - 1,078 games employers who are actively hiring (+197) - 13,783 games jobs (+792) Thanks, as always, to my dear friend Eva Tucker for feeding me this list of new adds, to which I have added URLs and locations where they were missing, eliminated companies that are defunct or without sites, and added the full functional level of detail in the games jobs workbook. All these new companies are now also 99% semi-automated through my standard approach. Anything for gamers, Amir

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Day 2 of Develop:Brighton! 😁 Come say hello if you see me! Maybe I'll even let you have a go on the fan.....! 😬 #developbrighton #opportunity #gamingindustry #gamejobs #gaming #artist #haptic #recruitment #gamingcommunity #gamedevelopment #gamedev #brighton #events #venues #developbrighton2024

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This is an interesting one: UK PETITION TO ‘STOP PUBLISHERS KILLING GAMES’ EMERGES For context, in the UK anyone who gets more than 10k signatures on a petition has the right to have it debated by the government. This petition gained 27k signatures very quickly. It didn't get the response they wanted (and got closed early because of the UK's upcoming election). However, it's an interesting one, especially in the detail. Essentially it highlights that when players buy a game the terms state that the game can be cancelled at any time. That applies to both games as a product or service - and there is debate over the definition of those two. And this happens a lot. The petition references Ubisoft's The Crew servers being taken down after 10 years. It's perhaps hard to totally get behind that. But the point is interesting. What the petition actually asks is: "Require publishers to leave video games (and related game assets / features) they have sold to customers in a reasonably working state when support ends, so that no further intervention whatsoever is necessary for the game to function, as a statutory consumer right." https://lnkd.in/ems4fd7z

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Games Jobs Workbook v14.1 Is Here (Please Help Repost) https://lnkd.in/d6x5NHMZ - Resource 8 We now have: - 2,760 games employers (+632) - 982 games employers who are actively hiring (+101) - 13,359 games jobs (+368) In terms of secondary statistics (when I say "ever," I mean since I started tracking data in November 2022): - Jobs are the least concentrated by employer ever. The top 10 employers have 4,993 jobs, or 37%. The top 27 employers have 6,706 jobs, or 50%. - Jobs are the least concentrated by function ever, although still fairly concentrated. The top three functions have 61% of all jobs, and the top four have 70%. Engineering, Programming, Tech Design, Tech Writing = 29% Art, Tech Art, Animation, Cinematics & Video = 21% Game Design = 11% Production, Project Management, Business + Communication Ops, Performance = 9% - The average number of jobs per employer is 14. - The median number of jobs per employer is 4. - Of the 982 games employers currently hiring: 264 are fully remote (27%) 118 have some remote jobs (12%), so 40% of games employers have some remote jobs. 600 are all hybrid or onsite (61%). - Of the 982 games employers currently hiring: 1,322 jobs are fully remote (10%). 2,686 jobs are at employers who have some remote jobs (20%), so 30% of jobs are at games employers who have some remote jobs. 9,351 jobs are at employers who are all hybrid or onsite (70%). - You can expect 939 additional games companies in v14.2. I am breaking this large update into v14.1 and v14.2 after all, just because I need a bit more time for testing on the second installment. Thanks, as always, to my dear friend Eva Tucker for feeding me this list of new adds, to which I have added URLs and locations where they were missing, eliminated companies that are defunct or without sites, and added the full functional level of detail in the games jobs workbook. All these new companies are now also 99% semi-automated through my standard approach. Please enjoy this even bigger, largest directory of games jobs in the world!

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Definitely agree with Richard here--it echoes a sentiment by a mentor, who taught me that to be a good game developer, you need to learn how to have fun. Let's expand upon it. These are things that can weigh down a lot of folks in our industry, and plenty of other creators on this platform reiterate statistics I need not echo. To navigate the "depressing stuff," know that it is okay to take a breather. Practice self-care, please--job hunting is intense but blocking out twenty minutes for a walk or to watch a show can really change things for the better. A scenario many colleagues often find themselves in is following (the well-meaning) advise of networking and applying. It's something I found myself guilty of as well--and it wasn't until I noticed that my calendar had little to no time left for... well, fun. It was a period of time I also participated in game jams, and looking back on the projects I could tell that had I consumed more media (be it games, shows, movies) my work would have improved by a lot. Find the hope and positivity in creative endeavors--I may be biased, but every day I look forward to creating stories and experiences. It isn't always about work. Looking forward to the next meal, the next walk, the next hike, next networking event, next portfolio update--these are "little big" things that when compounded on have helped me navigate this industry. Hopefully, this little positivity train that Richard started can also help others. I'll end this by showcasing an example of what I meant by how consuming media can nurture the "narrative design" brain: this weekend, I finished watching Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch of Mercury by Studio Sunrise through Crunchyroll. It was a lot of fun, and I highly recommend watching it--as the series progressed, it definitely inspired some ideas on combat systems, cinematic scripts and interactions that I would love to explore someday. Watch a show, have fun even if for thirty-minutes, and celebrate the achievement that is finishing a series--book, television, anime, whatever that may be! What's a show or movie that you all have seen recently? I'd love to hear how other game developers are inspired by other mediums! #gamedev #positivity #hope #narrativedesign #gundam #mecha

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Sadly, Friday was my last day at Creative Assembly. I will miss so much about that place, and I learnt a great deal during my time there. These are tough times for the gaming industry, and I see more and more Quality Assurance testers left stranded after such huge waves of redundancies across so many big companies. So I ask, what does that mean for the future? Will stakeholders and companies consider the rising financial gains from a national or worldwide crisis in the future? If it happens again, should the company's growth be halted to allow an internal safety budget to be built up to protect workers from this in the future? I hope we all learn from this and aspire to do better, as Quality Assurance is an integral part of the gaming industry. To lose so much so fast is a huge blow to the industry, not to mention the lives of people who dedicate their time and talent to achieving a smooth and secure product. The cost of making games is constantly rising, yet the cost of buying them has remained the same since 2010! Thats over a decade of money rising into development costs but not increasing the product prices; consumers want more for less. But they want better quality games more than that. I think it's time the industry had a shake-up. I will miss my time in CA so much, but I will not give up on this industry. We're gamers as well as developers. I would be pretty rubbish at QA if I didn't try to diagnose the issue the industry faces. QA isn't a last resort. We're a necessary resource and work alongside development to ensure our customers get quality games because we're passionate about games ourselves and we want to enjoy them for years to come. Somewhere, we seemed to forget that it was always about Quality and not Quantity. So I think it's time we rebalanced that original structure and try stabilising this industry again. There will always be games and people to play them, so let's make them better together.

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Suno and plugin manufacturers need to team up. From occasional users up to full time producers, the ability to swap sounds (in stems) based on the best available #VSTs out there would be a game changer. A sort of Splice for #collaborative, #social, occasional and pro #musicmakers alike. Add to this something like Supertone's killer AI voice stuff and you can see where I am going. 👉🏻 On-cloud collaborative music platform (social component) 👉🏻 Full songs or Stem generations with plugin instrument swap. 👉🏻 MIDI, Stem and Single tracks Export up to 96kHz 👉🏻 ... no wait. I am not going to give this idea away for free ha. 😬 🔥 Immersive audio mixes possibility? à la https://mixcubed.com/ and more... Got 15 more points on my list that I'd like to see implemented, but I will resist the urge to share them here.

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Splash Damage has confirmed, to several news outlets, that a "small number of [its] roles" may be at risk of redundancy. If your role is affected by this news, please make use of the support available across our three platforms. Specifically, I recommend checking out the Games Org Support Posts in Home 1. These resources are highly effective, with ample data to back their success. I won't pretend there are easy solutions but our community's only goal is to make things a little easier for as many people as possible. We have a ton of data showing that, for all candidates, your chances of finding a games role double (from 5 to 10%) over 12 months if you regularly use all our resources versus not. I'm so sorry to hear this report and I will, as always, do my best to do something about it rather than just talking. Home 1 - 🔗 AMIRSATVAT.COM: Our main hub provides 18 resources to assist you in finding work, featuring a fully updated design. - 🔗 Games Org Support Posts: Find a template at AMIRSATVAT.COM (Category 4, Resource 10). If you can provide information from your team (with their consent), I’ll help edit and disseminate the final product, reaching 100,000+ people. These posts are highly effective in increasing visibility, and we've done 99 of them. Home 2 - 🔗 Discord: Join us at discord.gg/amirsatvat, our live extension of community resources. With over 4,500 members, we are currently in an open-join phase. Home 3 - 🔗 LinkedIn: Our community here includes nearly 92,000 members, with 1-3 daily posts offering support and career assistance in the games industry. How the Broader Community Can Help: - Spread the Word: Reshares and comments on this post amplify the visibility of these resources. - Offer Support: Utilize the 16 ways listed on AMIRSATVAT.COM under "How You Can Help" to assist, or simply lend an ear or advice on our Discord server. - Join Our Movement: Volunteer with us at AMIRSATVAT.COM to support our colleagues in the games industry. Our network has facilitated over 2,200 jobs and 41,000 coaching conversations to date, the largest impact of any games organization on earth, and has been visited by millions of gamers lifetime.

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News: Hiring Market Update - June 24 (Games & Tech) I pick up where we left off in March and cover off the rise in solo game devs along with the latest tech funding news and implications for the wider job market. You can also get the latest on the projects I'm working on. Studio Vision Podcast

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Unreal Engine Educators! If you are heading to Develop Brighton please let me know! I would love to meet up with you! Feel free to drop me a DM so that we can get some time booked in! #unrealengine #unrealeducation #education

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