Guest Lecturer: Cameron Thompson (Angel's Den)

Cameron Thompson is a business Angel for "Angels Den". Angel's Den is a website dedicated to aiding young or aspiring people who would like to become successful entrepreneurs. Angels Den is a medium that helps investors and entrepreneurs find each other so they can do business if they suit each others requirements for doing business.

Although the lecture wasn't entirely relative to Games Design, he brought a lot of elements to my attention in case I want to start my own games company later on in my career or even fresh out of university. He firstly spoke about where to secure finance and the best place to get a good investors; depending on our preferred business direction.

Different Sources of Finance: 

    -Public sector (jobs given and has a healthy economy),

    -Banks (hard to secure funding) 

    -Business Angel/Venture Capital (investors, business experience and their own money)

In approaching these different financial sources, they're traditionally secured by having a very successful pitch to the potential investor. He gave a lot of good pointers for when it comes to making a successful pitch such as:

    -Get their attention quickly

    -Avoid technical talk

    -Condense down the business information so you don't lost their focus

    -Trust your instinct

    -BE 100% HONEST

Overall it was a lot more beneficial than I originally suspected. He always made sure that we were aware that the investors are ultimately investing in OURSELVES as much as they also invest in the business. I can understand the reason for his talk as parts of the industry is branching out into smaller companies creating the Indie Games Scene which is populated with games graduates.

Guest Lecturer: Arthur Parsons (Travellers Tales)

Arthur Parsons is a Senior Designer at Travellers Tales and has a lot of experience when it comes to developing computer games. The list of games he has worked on starts from Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex and progressively gets better to titles such as Lego Harry Potter. Since he has been with TT (Travellers Tales), the company has gained more and more recognition with every game release and showed it in his lecture. He now works more with the fresh talent coming into the industry and advising young aspiring designers like myself on the industry.

His relaxed attitude came as a shock to a lot of the students and the way he casually walked into the room, sat down and cut straight to the chase, informing students on anything they asked about relating to the industry.

The feedback given from him gave me more of an idea of where to start and where to aim in the industry. He also spoke about the department structure of TT ranging from Production right down to Q&A testing. Listening to Arthur has made me extend my aims to the industry as I'd like to look more into Production or Marketing in games, after reaching a design role.

He gave crucial advice on how to deal with applying for a position in a company and what to look out for, referring to the importance of C.V's, Cover letters and most importantly; how the work portfolio is delivered.

Overall a very beneficial lecture from somebody who's experience and knowledge eased a lot of my own and the class's nervousness. So far this is a very good start to the Guest Lecturers for this module.