Someone today posted on the socials about the launch of Everquest. I remember that event pretty fondly because it happened around the time of my first GDC (Game Developers Conference), and I was super hyped about the MMO space due to a raging addiction to Ultima Online. By coincidence, I am driving to GDC tomorrow to meet up with a small number of long term industry friends and acquaintances.
My first GDC was a surreal experience. I knew very little about the industry itself and I barely knew anybody. I was understandably a bit nervous. I decided to bite the bullet and just walk up to a random group of game developers and introduce myself to them.
By some freak coincidence, the group of people I walked up to were several friends from the Asheron’s Call development team and the Ultima Online development team. These were the pioneers in the MMO space! I felt a little overwhelmed and humbled at the same time. I spent the next ten minutes just quietly listening and trying to figure out what is the best way to insert myself into the conversation. I don’t think I said anything super stupid, and I am happy to report that I still have conversations with one or two of those people up to this day. I am going to name drop Raph Koster here because it is interesting to meet people who have shaped your career, sometimes without even realizing it.
Old Man Szeder is not going to make this post about the good old days. He is also not going to make this post about why persistent worlds mostly aren’t, or why the MMO genre is still mostly “stuck” twenty years later. You will have to pour alcohol into my face before we word-fight on that subject.
Today I want to talk about networking.
Networking is an important leadership skill. Whether you are advancing your career on the IC track to be an Engineering Fellow, or if you are working your way into management, you have to be able to network. They do not teach this in your computer science classes, and there is a high correlation between “I like to work with computers” and “I do not have a lot of experience working with people”.
Over ten years ago, I used to take team members with me to GDC, or similar events, as a shadow. The goal was to get them comfortable with talking randomly to people in the industry and to start building their own network. It was successful for some people, and not successful for others. I have been trying to figure out what separated those two groups of people based on limited empirical data.
Everyone with whom I have spoken about networking agrees that it is important and valuable. For the people who have failed to grow their networks or networking skills, they all say something along the lines of “Yeah, I should probably do more.” It is an interesting statement to me because it is so consistent in its half-heartedness, both in language and in tone.
I am still unpacking what things I can do to help address the reluctance here to build this new professional habit. When I have my “Eureka!” moment, you know it will show up here.
What I want to do today is give you some exercises you can do to help work on your networking.
Attend a professional conference
Like I said, GDC is this week. I am not buying a badge to attend, but if you are looking for networking opportunities, this is a great way to jumpstart your networking. There are a few things you can do to help you here, all of which I have done:
- Sit down at a lunch table and talk to strangers. You might find that odd, but everyone is there for the same reason: To share knowledge. You would be surprised what you find just from people hanging around!
- Ask questions at the end of sessions. I have actually made a few interesting relationships at trade shows because I have asked questions at the end of panels or sessions. Sometimes it is with speakers, sometimes it is with other attendees. An industry friend of mine, who speaks at conferences, confessed that they get nervous when they see me in line for the microphone because I had a habit of asking very provocative questions.
- Go to networking events and parties. Many of these are loud and some are very boozy, but most of the people at conferences attend events where they are still “on the clock”. I remember being in a developer relations role and having my calendar booked from seven AM breakfast to 1 am parties for four to five days. Your voice is gone by the middle of it, but so is everybody’s. I am not doing that this year, thankfully, but sometimes that is what the job will ask for. These are rich environments for making deals and relationships that will pay off in the future, and many people will not waste a second of that.
Go to a local meetup
I do less of this than I used to, and it has its place. Meetups are a great place to practice meeting people, discussing interesting industry things, and finding people in your community. I live in the sticks right now, and by freak coincidence two of my neighbors are people who work in the games industry as leaders and we intermittently go on walks together. A local meetup will help you build those kinds of relationships. There is an interesting local meetup happening this week that overlaps with GDC. If GDC was not at the same time, I probably would have gone, with admittedly low expectations.
Lunchclub
During the pandemic, I joined Lunchclub. I still talk to two to three people from there and also learned several interesting new things and ideas in the process. I stopped taking new Lunchclub meetings because I was absorbed into two significant projects, and I recently debated resuming them. I was meeting great people and having lots of fun!
Creep on luminaries
There are lots of really smart people creating good content for you. Whether it is written articles or TokToks or videos, almost everyone and everything has a comment section, or people have tools for community feedback. In over two decades, there are only two times I have ever been significantly rebuffed from taking a random meeting. Only twice! If you write someone a thoughtful introduction and give a compelling reason to meet, you are likely to get thirty to sixty minutes of their time.
Some of those cold calls have resulted in life-changing opportunities for me.
The Side Hustle
To many people, nothing speaks more volumes than action. This is why I am generally always building at least one side project. Roll your eyes all you want at me. I am unapologetically GenX and steeped in “viva meritocracy!”. You learn so much by building things, and when you broadcast your projects, you will find like-minded individuals in the world to work with you, or talk to you about your passions.
Join a (related) Online Community
This is another one that is relatively easy to do. I have not had as much success in the past five years as previously, but there are interesting online communities out there. I see people actively contributing to online communities and also benefiting from those relationships. Half of the online communities I have joined have been as a result of previous relationships, and so I am discounting the return on investment for myself for that reason. I do have 2-3 significant professional relationships that are ongoing from online communities, just not many new ones.
Create a speaking engagement
The last, and probably hardest, thing that you can do is to create a speaking engagement. I have spoken at multiple conferences in multiple countries. I have also spoken to many undergraduate classes over the years about what life is like as an engineer and as a game developer. I have been on a few different podcasts to talk about projects I am working on or technologies I am interested in.
Being able to speak with some authority to a room filled with complete strangers requires some prerequisites. You need a cool title, or a cool employer, or … “something”. You might have to look for your “something” to find it, but honestly you probably have it. I have had at least three opportunities to speak to students, for example, where my pitch was “students probably want to hear from themselves in the future”, and that has put me in front of hundreds of students who are interested in messages from ten to twenty years of experience.
So there are some tools for you to think about for increasing your networking reach.
We should not forget that people you have worked with in the past are also an important part of your network. If you look at my list above and find that daunting, you should take a moment to reach out to someone you have worked with in the past just to say hello, and that you remember working with them in the past.
If it was such an enjoyable experience, and it is mutually felt, who knows? Maybe the two of you will find a way to work together again in the future!
That being said, I am going to go get ready for GDC. I have a pretty free calendar this year, and I am looking forward to reconnecting with many good friends. If everything above seems scary or hard, then ping me on my Socials. I am glad to take a meeting and see what I can do to help you!
