Another Day, Another Interview

Well actually this is the first one. Here at the first ever Guildford Games Festival. A place where industry professionals and the public can meet to discuss events in the games industry (I’ll have more on the event in a later article).

I was lucky enough to snag an interview with nDreams Associate Community Manager, Daniel Cosgrove. We briefly talked about the upcoming VR game Phantom: Covert Ops and also his pathway into the industry.

About Phantom: Covert Ops

Yasir: If you could introduce yourself to us?

Daniel: Hi, I’m Daniel Cosgrove and I work at nDreams as an Associate Community Manager.

Yasir: Can you briefly explain to us what Phantom: Covert Ops is?

Daniel: So, Phantom: Covert Ops is a VR stealth-action game which sees you infiltrating an abandoned Cold War naval installation in a kayak to prevent a rising enemy threat.

Yasir: How does the game control?

Daniel: So, the controls are very simple. It is a seated experience so you are sat down playing. You don’t need to be completely untethered.

Yasir: So, you don’t really need full room space to play this?

Daniel: Yeah, you essentially don’t need that much space. All you really need is a square box around you.

Walid: Is Phantom Ops available on all VR headsets?

Daniel: It’s exclusive to the Oculus Quest and Oculus Rift.

Yasir: I actually purchased an HTC Vive on launch and initially I was amazed. I slowly dropped off as the first wave of games looked really similar. To see something like Phantom, it shows VR has come a long way. Do you feel the same way?

Daniel: Yeah definitely, to see the VR industry evolve at far as it has, it’s been really cool. This is my first job in VR and I’ve been mostly a console gamer, so to come into this ever-expanding industry at a time now, it’s been really good.

Walid: Do you see your games expanding more to other VR headsets such as Playstation VR or Vive?

Daniel: So, our other titles have been released on PSVR, Vive and we’re looking to develop on Valve Index as well. But Phantom, just because we’re co-working with Oculus, it’s an Oculus exclusive.

Walid: Would that limit you to stay with one company?

Daniel: No, so in theory, we could do something with oculus and in two years we could do something with Playstation and then after that we could do something exclusively with Valve. We’re never really tied down to one specific company. If we we’re owned by one of those companies then it would be a different story.

How Daniel Made It Into The Industry

Yasir: Can I ask you about your background in gaming?

Daniel: Yeah sure, this is my first job in the games industry. I finished my university degree in computer science last year. I was a Reddit and Discord moderator for the Call of Duty series for three years and I did that while I was studying.

About 2 years in my programming degree I was like wow I hate programming! That’s when I decided it would be a great time to try and start doing what I like and now I’m doing something which is just amazing.

Yasir: How did you manage to land your job in nDreams?

Daniel: Basically, I had my CV and written my past experiences, stuff that I did voluntarily, on my own accord, for free etc. I sent application after application.

I was also a member of Activision’s Ambassadors’ Program which is where you do consumer support on their own internal services, so that really helped my application.

For someone who’s looking to get into this job, I would say, experience is key. Try and volunteer for whoever you can and get in there. If you’re going into coding, work on your stuff in your spare time. Build your own website, work on your own indie game, that, at least at the moment is definitely the best way to get into the industry.

Walid: Some people might not be interested in going to University and rather do an apprentice and get straight in. What approach should they take?

Daniel: The exact same thing really. At its core, my university degree basically showed that I could stick through something and work on projects for an extended period of time.

I went to Robert Gordon University in Scotland for a four-year degree so I was working on that for four years, nonstop making sure I was building skills and now that I’m here, I use very few of those skills because it was all programming and design.

But now that I’m in this role [Community Manager] it’s very much, how to communicate with people, marketing, what people want and how to talk to people.

Yasir: What’s your day to day life at work, how does it start?

Daniel: It usually starts with me getting a breakfast in the studio. We got our own fruit stand which is free for anyone to take, which is really good for us because it keeps people on the go and stay healthy.

Then I’ll sit down and check emails, go through over the social stuff which came in through overnight. Obviously, we’re based in the UK and we get a lot of stuff from Oculus in America. Scan emails for anything important, scan Twitter, scan Facebook, scan Reddit. Literally to see what’s going on.

Then from there it tends day by day. Some days I might be writing presentations, writing reports, looking into what people are thinking about the game, what people are saying. Some days it might be I might be talking to YouTube creators and see if they’re interested in having a go at the game.

Other days it might be a simple case of talking to fans on discord and that’s how generally the day goes. It’s really great to be never tied down to ‘oh I’m doing this today’. One day I might be in the office and one day I might be at an event. So, it’s been great to have that variety of work.

Yasir: Is Discord the new way that people communicate through?

Daniel: It depends on the industry, so we don’t have an nDreams discord for the public so we go out to the VR discord and some of the press discord and we talk to them on there. Most of the stuff that I do is traditional social media like twitter in particular. So, twitters a big one because it’s where everyone is active in the industry. Reddit is also another key one to talk to because it’s the biggest discussion forum in the world it’s like the 7^th most visited website —

Yasir: It’s the front page of the Internet right?

Daniel: Literally yeah. So, it’s quite important for us to make sure we’re talking to everyone and that’s one of the best parts of the job. some days we might get someone who says ‘yo man your game looks awful, what’s wrong with you, why you making this?’ And then next you’ll see the same person look at the new trailer and go, actually I’m gonna buy that, it looks amazing.

With Phantom, the first gameplay we showed off was very much, here’s this and here’s that. It wasn’t a very long trailer either, like 30 seconds or something. We showed it off at an event and someone in the audience said ‘can you get out of the Kayak?’. I said ‘no, you’re in the kayak for the game’. And he went ‘so this is a rail shooter then? You just keep move along with a paddle? It’s gonna be boring!’ Well actually no, it’s a game that encourages exploration.

And the next response was, ‘alright that’s all well and good but is it going to have a story?’ We’re like ‘yeah we’re planning to have a full-length story on this all the way through to the end’. Then he was like ‘oh well actually you might have sold me that, I’m definitely interested in that I’m gonna keep an eye on this’. So, it’s good to be able to get our message across to people in an important way. It’s good to dispel misconceptions if that makes sense, especially with a game like Phantom.

Yasir: Brilliant, just to wrap up what are your favourite video games?

Daniel: So, my favourite VR game is obviously Phantom, but my favourite games of all time are the Batman Arkham series. I’m a huge fan of Metal Gear Solid and the Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask.

Yasir: Not Ocarina of Time?

Daniel: No, no I’m a controversial one.

Yasir: Thank you for your time.

Phantom: Covert Ops will be coming to Oculus Quest & Rift platforms sometime later in 2019.

Follow nDreams on Twitter to keep up to date.