University of Edinburgh Careers Service reposted this
Last night I was invited to speak on a videogames careers panel at Edinburgh Uni. We each did a quick introduction about our careers and naturally I mentioned Moshi Monsters. A few of the students near the front immediately got excited and it turns out they used to play the game 🥹 At the end of the session a few of them came up to me to ask questions and chat. One had all the colouring books as a kid and loved to draw the characters. Now they're studying art and want to work in the games industry one day. One simply came up and said a big thank you because they loved Moshi so much 🖤 It was so incredibly lovely to know that something I contributed to way back in 2008-2012 has inspired this next generation of game makers. Moshi Monsters is still the project I am most proud to have worked on. Nothing quite beats seeing something go from a beta to having plushies and merch in your local shops. A whole generation of kids *really* loved that game. I told the students I'd kept a few things from that time and my favourite was this picture of the moshling Oddie as a goth. It was drawn by one of the children that played the game and sent to our office. Being the resident goth in the office it was given to me and I've treasured it ever since. Making games is really hard. Many of us wonder why we push on through the dropped games, the lack of funding, the NDA'd work you are proud of but can't share, the redundancies & so on. But it's things like this; knowing you've worked on something that inspired someone. That makes it all worth it. Anyway that's quite a ramble but I wanted to share it because it's a lovely reminder that games mean a lot to people and can inspire what they want to do with their lives. Your indie game, beta, Itch demo or hobby project might *really* resonate with someone. So please keep making & shipping games. Keep making them weird/quirky. Show your uniqueness and personality in your work because games are ✨art✨. Let's inspire more creative kids to follow their passions. P.S. If the kid who drew Goth Oddie and sent it to the Mind Candy offices in Battersea somehow sees this: thank you!