https://twitter.com/billysonthewall?lang=en​

 

http://press.billygoat.tv/sheet.php?p=supermarket_shriek

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-barr-43506721

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https://soundcloud.com/stbdpodcast/william-barr-video-game-designer-billygoat-entertainment

 

https://player.fm/series/small-town-big-dreams-2155222/episode-3-william-barr-video-game-designer-billygoat-entertainment

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Director of Billy Goat Entertainment Ltd. Writer and director of Her Majesty’s SPIFFING, 2016 Xbox One/ PlayStation 4/ PC satirical adventure game. Animator.

He came from the university of Wales and has worked in many different areas and even worked and worked with Alec in the past to create a fantasy RPG game which ultimately lead to nothing but is still cool to find that the contacts and friends you make in uni that you still keep in touch even years after graduating and finding work. ​William has also previously worked in sixteen south and then decided to leave to start his own business and stared Billy Goat entertainment. 

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I learnt that William worked in TV Production in the past and now he is the owner and director of his own company Billy Goat entertainment. The techniques that are used by big corporations and companies are used in the same way as small companies  would except they are abit more pliable. Rather than specialising in specific areas they dabble in different aspects of the industry and are more well versed in different aspects of the industry and are not focused on a single area. This is due to smaller companies not having the budget or capital to hire specialists for every role in each aspect of the games industry, so try to diversify to get hired especially if you are wanting to work locally.

Founded in the year 2010 The Goat began life as a 3D animation studio, producing a variety of animated TV adverts broadcast in Ireland. In 2011, with support from friends at Northern Ireland Screen, The Goat focused its attention on video game development.

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Local Games Companies:

Miniclip

https://corporate.miniclip.com/careers/

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Italic Pig 

https://elk-gazelle-h3s2.squarespace.com/

The studio is based outside of Belfast in the seaside town of Holywood. This tiny town is the epicenter of creativity in Northern Ireland, being home to Paper Owl, Yellow Moon and Waddell Media.

The entire team is active in the UK game and animation industries with our very own Kevin Beimers a regular speaker at events throughout the world.

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Billy Goat entertainment are releasing supermarket Shriek in March on Xbox games pass. This game was presented to use in the lecture as early access as we tested it and found it to be fun engaging and whimsical. It was very minimalist and unique in the game play where it could be played cooperatively or single player using the triggers of the controller to control each characters, being a man or a goat and their screams create the propulsion movement and  speed along with the direction they go through the different  levels with varying obstacles and interactive aspects like destructible environments etc.

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I learnt that small studios use unity or Unreal engine to create platform or indie games.

To get hired in the games industry especially here in Ireland for the Companies you have a broad knowledge of the field of study and you have to show this in a showreel and portfolio. This showcases your skills and talent by putting your work on display exhibiting it to potential employers or platforms where you can get recognised and potential find work or freelance. Be creative and develop your skills and portfolio refining it with your most recent and best work as you progress and generally be nice and friendly and try to create contacts and relationships with people in the industry and attend events and competitions to network and get to know people. Be both creative, artistic and technical about your work and create a blog or tutorials on how you progressed from initial ideas to final product. Be creative and become a proficient problem solver looking for faster and better ways to produce solutions that will help you down the line. Also try to learn new software and keep up to date with the latest versions and updates and the new functions this adds along with learning the latest methods and techniques used in the industry. and the best ways to accomplish certain tasks and look for alternative methods and experiment. Overall have fun and keep going.

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After class i chatted to William for a while with a group of my peers about some games industry relevant questions and his background and how he used to work with Alec and they tried to create their own fantasy game in the past. He gave me some valuable advice involving the risk and stress of becoming a start-up company and the problems you can face when you start off. It is tough and is not for the faint hearted as it is long hours and very stressful worry about finding work projects and the financial aspect. He advised us to gain some industry experience before trying to make it on our own. I also asked questions like how he deals with stress and what type of hours he would have ? He said you have to find outside interests and make the most of your free time will still having the occasional gaming session of Doom. To channel his frustrations into killing demons to help relax from work and the stresses of life. He told me about several different methods of how he copes with stress like spliting up work flows and allocating a set amount of time onto specific projects  like a timetable rota for each task he has to do that day so that he can make progress in each aspect as you can't always complete what you set out to do but as long as you are learning and moving and progressing then you are succeeding.  He also said to try not to overwork yourself or sicken yourself from a project, take a walk or go for a coffee every now and again. Try to get up and move after every hour of work and go and get some fresh air and try to give your mind and eyes a break from looking at the screen, stretch your back out.  He also said about try to meet up with peers and chat or organise an activity together something other than animation preferably something involving exercise to help realise endorphins and to help mental health.

I also learnt that the working hours are more layed back that i was anticipating as it starts at 10 so people can sleep in or come in late after the traffic has died down and work until 6 at night. The company is a small tight nit group of enthusiastic individuals and work as a well functioning team. 

 

Employers will measure your progress, style and their budget for hiring and  even freelance stuff before considering you for work.

Supermarket shriek the game was created in partnership with Microsoft for an April release. William has worked on indie games in the past and is now working on bring more  games like this to consoles and other main stream markets like steam.  For the process of creating Supermarket shriek Billy Goat used unity and  William advised us to learn it, if we were interested in making our own games  for now or in the future.

I learnt how the partnership with Microsoft works and how they claim a commission every time the game is sold meaning less profit back to the creators and company but this is because they are along the game to be advertised on their gaming marketplace it will also be on Xbox's Game pass.

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The most important advice was about starting your own business and how you don't want to get into debt so early on in your career as it will ruin your life with a mountain of debt and on top of that your student loans.

The probability and the high likely hood that it will fail on the first time being above 90% and even if it doesn't there will be very long hours and alot more stresses and problems and having to shoulder the responsibility and direction of the company soley on your own. Also you have to constantly maintain it and the high level of stress to keep it running and not wasting money is very hard. Even things like getting backers and financing and funding is increasingly difficult especially with Brexit. These are all things to consider when or if you are starting a new company and the most important thing of all is having contacts and networking for both clients and other people in the industry and try to get to know people.

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Also i asked many other questions like what is the average length of time it takes to produce a game and he said it was like 2-3 years but can be done quicker if can take longer if anything changes eg. software jump. He explained this problem with the jump to next gen consoles and the re-release of old games being called remastered making more money from old projects by simply revamping and optimising the games for modern consoles.

On average these 2-3 years are for a small company and games companies designing or working on indie games or a fairly recent start up company. In the industry companies struggle to survive for more than a few years as they don't have the funding and capital of the big fortune 500 companies  to produce big renowned titles and they can't take on as much work. They can only work on small projects or a big project but it will take a longer time to produce. This is due to the  amount they can take on at any one time due to a lack of staff and  number of workers and specialists that  are working for them as there is usually only one or two in the whole studio. Also other factors include things like marketing and technology. The ever evolving platforms are  changing and evolving and adapting along with the software and operating systems and has a tendency to change suddenly and can sometimes companies bankrupt or a project to be scrapped after years of work as it will then be outdated and the game will be dropped of the project left behind. Your game might flop and there is no certainty that you will succeed other than the time and effort you invest and all you can do is to try your best and keep working and try to better yourself and develop your skills and work and try to make a name for yourself in the industry and it is okay to change and try new things and go down alternative paths like converting to games design and vise versa moving into animation. 

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To get hired :

Have a good showreel or portfolio 

Be a good artist 

Only show your best work don't user fillers as it will decrease the quality 

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If you want to be a character modeller for games look at:

Zbrush and making high poly and low poly models and baking textures.

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Reflection:

I took alot away from this talk and it made me be more realistic in what i can achieve, in my own work and in groups as i am finding myself doing more than most. I am getting to involved and have a tendency to over do things, i need to focus on managing my time better and not doing everything to such i high standard. I think this stems from my perfectionism  and i have to try and come back a little and try and save myself from getting all worked up.

I found the talk interesting and it has helped me see that this pathway of starting my own business may not be the best route to take for me right now, but i will consider it down the road when i am older and more experienced and wiser. I also loved the game and thought it was really funny and had some very good premise but i found some bugs that William took note as it is still in Alpha build and the game is incomplete and the levels got less refined as you progressed to the end. He was looking for some feedback and this i hope helped him to refine the game so there are no more few bugs, errors, lag and warped textures.

 

You have to be patient and invest alot of time in things and it doesn't always show and things will eventually go wrong you just have to be prepared and determined so that you won't be set back. You have to develop tough skin and you have to build up your resilience so you can shrug it off and continue so it wouldn't affect you or your work. There will always be set backs but it is what you ultimately learn and take away from the experience to help better yourself, change and develop it what is important.  It helped me to realise the amount of time and effort that is required to work in games industry and  the time scale that game developers work on projects in local small companies rather than the fortune 500 ones. The levels of stress and work seem more laid back than university and i think i would like that but also dislike it as i like a bit of structure to my days also i have learnt what i needed to for thinking about starting my own business along with the slow level of progression that can happen requiring alot of patience when working on certain projects or software.

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