What we can do is take a lesson from my animation instructor, perhaps minus the threat of bodily harm. Opening communication channels to student organizations and educating them not just about the technical skills they'll require but the employment savvy they will need to survive is the way to a sustainable industry.
Although the IGDA provides a great number of valuable resources for students, including the GDC Scholarship initiative and student membership in the organization, a majority of members believe that dealing with amateurs and students is a waste of their time, an annoyance, a misuse of organizational resources. The IGDA should be about professionals. It isn't hard to see why; there are so many would-be game developers occupying a spectrum of dedication levels and talent that it can simply be difficult to keep track of them all. And let's face it; proto-geeks can often be plain old annoying. But ironically some of this attitude stems from subconscious or conscious resentment of the Logan's Run effect in the industry; fatally, some developers want to take this out on students or haze them purely out of good old fashioned "that's the way we done it," "I suffered, so why shouldn't you?" attitude.
We are all fortunate that most of the aspiring game developers that make it through tend to love games so much that they will forgive us our neglect, our disdain, our arrogance. They will be grateful for knowledge in any packaging. But somewhere deep inside the soul of this interaction, a little bit of resentment builds, and the fraternity approach encourages younger developers to show us just how easily they can take our jobs.
Make no mistake; mentoring students takes a great deal of energy, and the IGDA should be about professionals. But it should also be about the professional interests of our industry, which include investing in the future. This is a simple and terrifically difficult matter of resisting human nature, and the instinct to fight today without ever looking up for tomorrow. The rapid turnover and mass exodus of experienced developers by now is legend in the industry, and this is one of its causes, a story as old as time itself: the conquering of the father by the son, the mother by the daughter. The young developer who comes in, is pushed to prove herself, works to the bone to do so, steps up to work the extra hours while her older counterparts fight not to - and eventually is left standing there, alone with her long hours, bereft of the wisdom that built the products that first brought them through the door.
So never mind that working with an apprentice is phenomenally rewarding. Never mind that you can learn a tremendous amount by interacting with HYPs (who often have far more time than we do to play every game under the sun). Never mind that, as an art community, we might be a little concerned for our legacy and how appalling it is that most under-13 gamers have never heard of Joust. Cultivating an apprentice population is a matter of pure and simple survival, and is deeply connected to our own quality of life.
That's why, February through April, Inside Job will focus on students: what they can give us, what they need to know and what they're not learning in school. We'll talk about the sides of the industry we often don't want to talk about, we'll show them how it happens and then we will gently, lovingly tell them that we will beat the crap out of them if they let it continue.
Erin Hoffman is a professional game designer, freelance writer, and hobbyist troublemaker. She moderates Gamewatch.org and fights crime on the streets by night.
