Breaking into a multi-billion dollar gaming industry with CEO & Game Director at Zap Pop Pow, Stuart De Ville #19
The multi-faceted business of game development has seen an ever-growing presence in the spotlight in recent years, especially in lieu of an increasing range of free, open source development tools. At a time where blockbuster studios claim the lion’s share of the industry’s worth - upwards of $77bn for mobile gaming alone - Stuart De Ville has seen considerable success with his indie studio, Zap Pop Pow.
Sharing his experience as a creative leader in game design, fine art, book illustration, graffiti art and Founder of Game Dev London, Stuart explains how he directs a varied creative team to achieve a vision, the low barriers to entry for budding game developers, and boldly taking the first steps to working for yourself.
Lee & Stuart discuss:
Pursuing a dream in spite of deterrence from his art school
Learning business sense from his graffiti artist gig
Stuart’s exciting start in the games industry
Taking the initiative to work for yourself and achieve your own goals
Managing a creative team with greatly varied personalities
Effects of the increasing accessibility of open source game development tools
Growing Game Dev London as a creative community
Links & references:
Lee Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leecooperrecruiter/
Stuart De Ville: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuartdeville/
Zap Pop Pow:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/zappoppow/
Game Dev London:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/game-dev-london/
Get in touch: lee@extrology.com
Episode highlights:
“I always had those classic dreamy dreams of being an artist, like living in Paris, looking out my balcony with painted canvases. But everyone said ‘Oh no, you're gonna have to get a real job - Artist isn't a career’.” - 5:45 - Stuart De Ville
“I always had the support of my mum. She always said to me, ‘As long as you're happy, I don't care what you're doing’. I always had that support.” - 8:45 - Stuart De Ville
“I always had this immense drive, I don't think I would have been able to just snugly fit into someone else's dream. I always needed to be making my dreams come true.” - 11:20 - Stuart De Ville
“I thought, ‘Why am I bashing my head against the wall, doing all of his hard work to try and work for someone else, when everything that my life has ever taught me is that I can do it myself?’ From the other experiences I've had throughout my career managing creative teams, I just thought this is definitely something I can do. ” - 20:30 - Stuart De Ville
“When it came to how I connect people, and help them work together, that's where I had the steepest learning curve. Although I had managed creative teams before, I hadn't managed a creative team where the disciplines were so vast; programmers and artists tend to speak very different languages.” - 22:30 - Stuart De Ville
“These days, the bar for entry in terms of getting your product out there is on the floor really. A hobbyist can create a game and get it up on the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. And there's websites like Steam, and the Epic Store where literally as long as you've made a game, the quality doesn't really much matter. ” - 28:30 - Stuart De Ville
“The fear is that if you share everything, then you're creating another competitor. Whereas the reality is that there's so much space within this industry, and every single game is so different that you're never creating a direct competitor. If you help out someone else, 9 times out of 10, they're going to help you back. It's one of the wonderful things about the whole industry.” - 35:00 - Stuart De Ville
“The whole ethos behind Game Dev London really is that, because I had found this struggle to find my feet initially, we can make that easier for people. So that's what we do. It's a community for games developers, whether you're a hobbyist, in indie, or AAA. Wherever you are in your career, you can come join Game Dev London and we will talk to each other, help each other and share experiences.” - 44:05 - Stuart De Ville
“If I'm honest, beforehand it was all about being a success for me. But now there's this bigger picture that I want my boys to grow up having me as a role model.” - 49:35 - Stuart De Ville
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