Ryan Maloney is a Game Design student, with a Computer Science minor, who just wrapped up a summer internship at Adult Swim Games, a video games publisher. As a production intern, based in Atlanta, his main responsibilities were interfacing with developers to provide production, quality assurance (QA), and marketing updates; assisting with submissions to console platform holders; and QA-testing games. While this was Ryan’s first time working in a formal studio setting, it did not take long for him to feel comfortable, valued, and respected as a team member.

Fully immersed in the day-to-day responsibilities of a game producer, Ryan embraced every growth opportunity he could find and through the support of his teammates, learned a lot of new skills. He even had the opportunity to work on major titles like Battle Chef Brigade and Death’s Gambit.

“Battle Chef Brigade was one of my personal favorite games from the publisher before I’d even worked there, so getting to help out with an upcoming update for that title was really satisfying,” Ryan explained. “Death’s Gambit is also a game that a lot of people have been looking forward to for a long time, so getting to work on that and see it up to its release was incredibly exciting. Getting to work there during the summer when they were working on so many projects and working up to a few launches was really fulfilling and showed me what it takes for a studio to manage several projects at once.”

Fortunately, Ryan was fully prepared for this type of fast-paced role at Adult Swim Games. His on-campus classes and work experience gave him a deeper understanding of what game development is like, which ended up being an important perspective to have.

“I was able to empathize more with the development teams and their issues while working in a publishing role,” he said, “but of course, the general skills I’d learned about game production were also massively helpful in terms of learning how to conduct myself better in a more formalized studio setting and in adapting to different development timelines.”

Ryan describes one of the most significant benefits of his previous work and on-campus experience as the ability to communicate well with a team.

“Game development and publishing is all about working on teams, so if you can’t communicate well then you’re probably not going to be a good fit at most studios,” Ryan described. From morning meetings with the whole team to allocating resources and staffing for projects strategically, communication and teamwork truly is at the foundation of any games studio.

With a refreshed skill set, Ryan will be back in Boston this fall, where he will be finishing his last year at Northeastern. Congratulations on a successful summer experience!