Dora joined us in the Work With Indies Discord in November 2022 to for a conversation with our members about her path from... checks notes... cake decorator to Director of Games, how her role as a producer starts with caring about people, and what genuinely stands out to her when reviewing job applications.
Dora, thank you so much for being here and sharing your insights with the Work With Indies community!
☕ Oh gosh, insights! I'll sure try. Hey all, thanks for having me!
💬 Let's kick off with telling us a little bit about who you are, your journey into games, and what you are up to now! - Katherine
☕ Sure! So, I'm originally from Canada, but am now a US citizen. My path in games is a little esoteric, I guess. Like a lot of folks, I played a ton of them growing up, but never really envisioned a career in games as attainable. [.c-highlight]Used to be a cake decorator, actually.[.c-highlight] I got into games via a freelance games journalism job I was lucky enough to get that I held for a long time, and met my current employer, Armor Games Studios, through that work!
They brought me on when the company's publishing was in its infancy and was originally only to be handling some writing and PR. Eventually, one of my colleagues, Sean McKenzie (our VP of ops) asked me if I wanted to try being a producer and helped train me. [.c-highlight]I've been fortunate to land somewhere so supportive with folks who have encouraged and fostered my growth[.c-highlight] into my current role as Director of Games, though my heart still lies in production.
😍 A cake decorator?? Armor Games are truly lucky to have found you!! - Katherine
☕ Well Im sure my skills are super rusty, but hey - all it has to do is taste good to be a successful cake! I never envisioned myself doing something like this, that's for sure.
💬 What an amazing career path! You say your heart still lies in production, what about it do you miss the most? - Katherine
☕ Haha, well, as far as production - I'm lucky that I still get to be a producer! It was actually a condition of me accepting this promotion, so I still get to do it. [.c-highlight]I love working closely with developers and being near all that creativity and talent, and helping to guide them through the weird, wonky process of making a game and hopefully make their lives easier.[.c-highlight] I tend to form very close friendships with my devs, and I really cherish that. I'm always cheering for them.
💬 Wow! That is quite the journey. Cakes to freelance journalism to PR to Producer to Director of Games. Congrats!! Also, there is a lot of variety in those roles. What has helped you successfully navigate across disciplines and continue to grow across roles? - Nate
☕ I think I have to kick it back to being lucky to have supportive people at my back. Folks who taught me [.c-highlight]never to be afraid of failure[.c-highlight] and always afforded me new opportunities. I am by nature an introvert and can be a very anxious person - self-doubt and impostor syndrome are always a challenge. [.c-highlight]I had to learn a lot of new things and put myself in a lot of situations that were intimidating. The biggest challenge was often overcoming my own fear and telling myself I deserved to try, and not being afraid to adapt and try again when I messed up from time to time.[.c-highlight]
But I guess [.c-highlight]I saw this as an opportunity to hopefully make the industry I love a little kinder and a little healthier, so I'm very motivated by doing what I can to improve the lives and work of others.[.c-highlight] I think having something you're working for like that, as cheesy as it might sound, is a powerful motivator.
Wow sorry I sound like a Hallmark card um, but it’s true!
[.c-insight]💡 Love this. Ultimately, we're often simply hiring problem solvers. A willingness to take on a new problem is always a little intimidating because the solution is unknown. So, you try. And sometimes it works. Other times you learn. Over time, you start to get better at just figuring things out. And figuring things out is 90% of most roles.
I'm also a big believer in having a mission in addition to your role and responsibilities. I need a why. My why early in my career was just "not lose this opportunity to work in games". When that was less of a worry, it became about helping game developers become more successful. Later, to help people find more success and fulfillment in their careers. And throughout it all, to bring more joy into the world through games.[.c-insight]
😏 Reminds me of one of my favorite tweets. I forget who the author is... let me find it... - Nate
☕ Nate no, I’ll run away if you embarrass me!
💬 Hello Dora! Thank you for coming to speak with us today!! ❤️ I wanted to ask what it was like learning the ropes of being a Producer in game development. Were there any initial hurdles that you weren't expecting? - Jamie
☕ I think the biggest initial hurdle was just developing a really healthy appreciation for spreadsheets and scheduling. You have to be a super organized person, because you're helping other people to be more organized as well to stay on track and solve production problems.
But because of the way we operate at AGS very closely with our devs, I quickly found I also needed to be a support foundation for the teams I work with. [.c-highlight]Game development is so hard and so challenging, which I knew, but I DIDN'T know how much value I could provide in being someone who my teams could turn to to vent, to ask for guidance, emotional support, etc.[.c-highlight] I think being willing to understand people and work with them on a level like that is hard, but can be very rewarding and lead to a better understanding of how you can help them in the long run.
💬 Follow up question to Jamie's. What was the most important thing you had to learn when it came to producing? - Joel
☕ I guess I sort of answered your question about the most important thing I learned about producing in my last response, but it bears repeating - SPREADSHEETS. My god, like. I can't make them, but thankfully I work with wonderful folk who can, and they are so useful for so many aspects of development and publishing.
But also, I think I had to learn to have hard conversations earnestly. I am a very conflict averse person normally, and it can be hard to tell someone, "Hey, we should talk about how this timeline is trending," or "Hey, we should bring on someone else to handle the narrative design," because especially in indie games, making a game is such a very personal act. So, I had to learn how to have conversations when there were problems (as opposed to just the fun, easy "Wow, yay, everything is great!" stuff), and do so in a constructive, respectful way that would help us find sustainable solutions. And it's always unique from project to project.
💬 Thank you! These are all such wonderful insights... and it warms my heart to hear when people are out there, in the industry, trying to make it a kinder & healthier place team by team. I've been thinking about shifting towards production as the impact a producer can make for a team really resonates with my values. - Jamie
☕ Regarding hiring and people finding paths. We (Armor) feel very strongly about people being happy and fulfilled in their work. [.c-highlight]You can give anyone a paycheck for eight hours, but to give them work they feel happy and excited to do is much more challenging, but more rewarding for them.[.c-highlight]
So, the approach we tend to take is, [.c-highlight]"Is this person going to be happy in the role they're applying to for at least a few years?"[.c-highlight] As I mentioned at the start given my own weird career path, careers are fluid and changing. It helps to remember that it's ok to change your mind and decide you want to work in something else than you thought you did. All I really care about is whether we can help that be a place with us.
Because we're a publisher, it can be tricky if someone is, say, applying to do QA but they really want to do art for games. We don't have an art department, so that's a situation where I would be unable to help someone long-term. But if they're like, "Yeah, I like doing QA, but I've always been curious about business development" or something, that's a conversation we can have and see if there's room with us to help you grow in that direction. A lot of folks with us started doing one thing and wound up doing something very different.
"You can give anyone a paycheck for eight hours, but to give them work they feel happy and excited to do is much more challenging, but more rewarding for them." – Dora Breckenrige
💬 This is really great to hear, thank you! I've been working towards transitioning into video games. I've been a tabletop designer/publisher and have done work with digital (smart speaker) games previously. My question is, how can one (me) best present themselves in light of not having a lot of experience directly with video games? - Ogreteeth
☕ So, as a company, we are in general usually open to training up people with less direct experience. The senior producer role is an exception because of the direct responsibilities and needs there, but usually we look for good people. "Is this someone who seems genuine? Earnest? Do they have transferrable skills like management, spreadsheets, people work, etc?" It is most important to us to find passionate people who care and will support one another. [.c-highlight]I can teach someone how to do anything (or find someone who can teach them) - I can't teach passion and values.[.c-highlight]
So, I would say depending on the role you're applying for and the needs of the company, consider how relative and valuable your skills from previous work are even if they aren't direct 1:1s. Sometime it might not be a fit. But I think people should ALWAYS put themselves out there and try, even if it's scary. You might get a no, yeah, but you might also get a yes, and that's something worth trying for.
[.c-insight]💡 This is so key. There are many reasons why one might conclude a candidate would not be happy on a team long-term. Many of them aren't related to their skill set or resume or portfolio. Growth path and career opportunities is just one example.[.c-insight]
💬 Looking through Armor Games Studios portfolio, there are a lot of wonderful games in there! Also, a lot of different types of games and genres. Can you speak to your selection criteria? What makes an AGS game? And what role would your new Producer play in selecting new games to publish, if any? - Nate
☕ Regarding our selection criteria - we honestly look for a) does this game excite us, and b) [.c-highlight]are we the right fit for it[.c-highlight]? The first one is easy. Is this a game we're eager to work on, with a team we can see ourselves meshing well with. We don't sign anything we aren't excited for. The second half comes down to business and honesty. Not every publisher is a fit for every game, for all sorts of reasons beyond simple resources and scale of investment. We ask ourselves, "Do we know what to do with this game? Do we have a marketing plan? Can we see how we can help the developer polish this? Is this a genre that we have NO experience at all in?" It's most important to us that we and a developer feel confident in our ability and qualifications to deliver on their game. So we spend a lot of time digging into ourselves as much as we do the comps for any particular title when we look at whether there's a fit for it. And of course, the numbers have to line up.
As far as the selection process itself, it's somewhat democratic. A lot of our team review the pitches we get on a weekly basis and we spend time playing builds and looking at materials. We discuss the project, the items I talked about above, and talk about wether it makes sense to proceed with next steps - usually a more personal call with the devs and running comps. So once they were up to speed with processes, of course we'd involve our new producer in that selection process! We think everyone brings new and valuable perspective to these things - Sean is very production minded and asks important questions about scope and experience, for instance, while I tend to zero in on narrative and design. So we think having our team weigh in helps us consider things from every angle.
💬 Hi Dora! Thank you so much for taking the time to talk publicly like this! As someone who is younger in the industry, I wanted to ask for your thoughts on finances in the indie world if you know or are comfortable answering any of those questions? Namely, what do you think is a fair rate for programmers, artists, and producers hourly or salary wise. I ask this not only as someone who looks for work in the indie scene, but also as someone who knows people interested in starting companies but who get overwhelmed when thinking about company salaries. - Whitney
☕ I unfortunately can't speak a lot about rates, largely just because I don't work a lot on the financial side of things myself. I know there are a lot of resources out there like the Game Dev Paid Me sheets that I think can be very valuable in helping ballpark. I think it's important not to undervalue yourself - there's a misconception in people that because working in games is so desirable, they should be willing to put up with less. Not true! Figure out what your worth and needs are, and of course talk to other people in the fields you're looking at. Be your own best advocate. (Sorry, wish I could give more help there!)
[.c-insight]💡 One of the Game Dev Paid Me sheets in question.[.c-insight]
💬 Hi Dora - thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today!! Really appreciate y'alls thoughtful and empathetic approach to hiring at armor and considering a candidates personal growth. I had a question directly relating to the Senior Producer Role you are hiring for at the moment. What challenges are you looking for this individual to help solve currently at Armor? - Vivifx
☕ I would say we're looking for an individual who can handle larger scale projects. As a company, we're about sustainable growth over time. The games we're publishing now are very different from the ones we were publishing when I first came on board six (wow) years ago. So as we plan for long term, we want someone who is going to be willing to handle larger scale projects like, say, a Bear & Breakfast, and can roll with the challenges inherent of managing a large project - especially since we tend to work with smaller teams than some might be used to.
Our ideal candidate is someone who is communicative, and able to plan long term, can handle multiple things at once, and is the sort of person who can roll up their sleeves and dig into problems to find solutions... with the support of others, of course.
💬 Given your prior role as a Producer on this team, and the fact that you'll continue to work in a Producer capacity, does this mean that the new Producer will report directly to you? And, to share more about the opportunities one might have in the role, can you tell us about your proudest accomplishment as a Producer at AGS? - Nate
☕ I think at least in the immediate term, the person we hired would likely report to Sean McKenzie, our VP of OPs who was our head of production until he stepped into his new role. And frankly, I think that's for the best - he would roll his eyes at me if he were here, but Sean is an INCREDIBLE mentor. He has so much experience and is so thoughtful at what he does. I wouldn't be where I am if not for him. He's like a brother who I bully at work with bad memes.
My proudest moment as a producer... that's a hard one! I will tell you something even cheesier than the rest so far: I produced a game called Don't Escape: 4 Days to Survive by scriptwelder, who is a veteran of the Flash gaming community. He and I have worked together for years, and I think SO highly of him. (I'm actually producing his new game we just announced too, Deep Sleep: Labyrinth of the Forsaken!)
He was one of the first devs I worked with and he has come SO far. When Don't Escape came out, Markiplier made a 7 video series on it and raved at length at the end of it. I honestly cried watching. Not because wow, big streamer, but because he GOT what scriptwelder was trying to do, and he was so appreciative and excited by it. And I was SO happy for scriptwelder to have made something that someone had that reaction to, and have played some small part in getting it out there.
💬 Ok, I am seeing a lot of cool perks and benefits here like
- Cool games by cooler developers
- Full time, fully remote work
- Benefits
- A four day, 32 hour (40 paid) workweek ... and cool extras like...
- Menstrual leave
- Company retreats
- Game club and more!
Can you tell us more about what the culture is like? I see a lot of memes being shared between teammates on Twitter. It looks like you're all having a lot of fun together. Is perception reality? Oh, and how great is that 4 day work week? - Nate
☕ Work culture! I would say a lot of what you see on Twitter is one side of the coin for sure. It's really easy when you work remote to feel siloed and apart from your team, so we spend a lot of time trying to create a community where people feel supported and have some of that casual water cooler chat/fun that you might get in an actual office.
So, while of course a LOT of our day-to-day is hard work and talking through production, publishing, etc, we also have channels where we just... hang out! Watch Nintendo Directs together, share weird recipes, chat and goof. It helps us remember and connect to the person on the other side of the screen, and to remember we're not alone in this.
And sometimes people come into calls between our CEO John Cooney and I, and we're improving scripts to Hallmark original Christmas movies.
💬 Bit late to the party but, do publishers hire writers by any chance? Sorry for the really simple question but that's the role i feel like I can contribute with, at least initially with any game company. I'm also decent with logistics stuff like emails and whatnot - Farid
☕ We personally do not! We do sometimes look for freelancers to fill needs if a development team doesn't have a writer or needs additional support, but that's always on a limited contractual basis. I can't speak for others.
[.c-insight]💡 Publishers do hire writers all the time. You're more likely to find full-time and long-term employment at larger studios. You can find them in smaller indies as well, but if you look through our writing jobs on our website, you'll see that there are not a lot of advertised roles at indie studios and they are frequently contract roles. Also, to set expectations, these are among the most in-demand roles with often hundreds (and sometimes 1000+) applicants for each opening. This isn't meant to be discouraging. But to set expectations for the need to 1. apply to each role in earnest with a high quality and relevant application, and 2. not be too hard on yourself if you find yourself missing out on roles because there is just so much great competition out there, of which you are included.[.c-insight]
💬 With being the Director of Games, and maintaining a role as a Producer, how do you structure your days to fit all your responsibilities, and how much time do you get to spend in each role? There is so much that goes into scheduling, supporting, and finding time for people and projects that I'd love to hear how you keep this all organized and juggled (especially on a 4 day work week!). - Brendan
☕ Role juggling - I'm still learning! When this promotion was originally offered to me, I spent a lot of time thinking about what it meant and what I could do with it. So I try to keep long term goals for specific things I want to do for our company in mind and revisit them frequently, while ensuring that the day-to-day operations are met. I don't want to be the type of leader who doesn't do anything of value with their position, so it's important to me to regularly audit what I want to do long term, and what the company needs from me to serve it and our teams the best.
My production work tends to be balanced out with weekly developer meetings. I meet with each team once a week, and of course have specific items I'm working on with each one. I spend a lot of time aggressively managing my schedule to ensure I'm getting the devs all the time and attention they need, which means a lot of that long term planning I talked about. But we also try to create a culture here where we encourage people to delegate and lift one another up, so [.c-highlight]I try to be smart and reasonable about handing off the tasks that should go to specific people to allow me to focus on the things that only I can do, and that my devs need from me.[.c-highlight]
💬 Thank you so much for the thorough answer to my question! My follow up is if we are interested in applying for an open role at Armor, what would you recommend to make an application stand out? I know from my own hiring experience sometimes its easy to get lost in the sea of resumes - Vivifx
☕ I review every application that comes in! [.c-highlight]The ones that tend to stand out the most are the ones that are genuine.[.c-highlight] You want to know the details, of course, like work experience and such. But [.c-highlight]I also like opening an application where I can get a sense for the real person behind it, and understand why they want to work with us.[.c-highlight] The answer might be "I want a job with these benefits!" which is totally fine, but seeing [.c-highlight]someone who seems enthusiastic and passionate about themselves and their work, as opposed to a standard, stock resume, grabs my attention[.c-highlight].
💬 Hi, do you guys look for experience or the quality of work? - iTzLION
☕ Both! Experience is obviously always a plus, but if you have a proven set of skills and that comes across, even better. Though sometimes specific roles might need specific experience, which we try to call out when we post our openings.
💬 And this is a wrap for today's AMA!!! Dora, thank you so so much for answering our questions!! Feel free to share any socials, so that we can find you!! - Katherine
☕ Thank you all so much for having me! It's been wonderful to talk with everyone, and I appreciate all the questions. You can find me on Twitter at @partyinpangolin.
And of course you can check out Armor and our work... check out all our devs, they're the real talent!
[.c-insight]💡 Dora's a great follow. A++++. Would follow again. - Nate[.c-insight]
💬 Dora! Thank you so much! You've given us all so much hope for the types of kind and generous workplaces that we all wish to join (and hope to see more and more of throughout indie games). Good luck to all the candidates! - Nate
☕ Thank you all, and thank you everyone at Work With Indies! Our last three hires have come from you, and we so appreciate all the hard work you do helping people find the right fits for them!
Cheers everyone. Be kind to yourselves and have an excellent week.
