Mental Health in Games: An Early Career Primer

Guest blog by Eve Crevoshay! In 2019, Take This released a white paper on the state of mental health among people who make games. Since the release of the paper, Take This has worked with leaders and other organizations across the industry to identify practical solutions to these challenges — and we’ve learned a great deal by working with studios of all sizes, and people in a variety of roles across the industry. This article outlines what we’ve learned, where we are, and how to identify a positive workplace culture.

Oppression, Privilege, and Allyship

This blog post is based on a workshop that was presented early in the summer to define terms like “oppression,” “privilege,” and “allyship” that would form the basis of many other workshops to follow.

The discussion centered on game development spaces specifically, but we spent some time defining universal terms and talking about privilege on a holistic level.

Lessons on Production & Scope

Rad Magpie invited Shannon Mitchell, COO at Gametheory to discuss Project Management and Scope with our 2020 and 2021 cohorts. This blog makes the lessons learned in those visits available to all who wish to read (or watch) them.

Rad Studio, Game IndustryMegan McAvoyAugust 9, 2022Rad Studio, project management, production, scope

Brainstorming: Techniques To Think Outside The Box and Find The Fun

In this Rad Studio workshop, we explored the importance of brainstorming. Brainstorming — a focused group discussion or activity intended to collaboratively generate ideas — is a great way to get creativity flowing and help you and your team begin the ideation phase.

Rad StudioMaggie DeCapuaAugust 8, 2022Rad Studio, Brainstorming, Ideation

Marketing for Game Devs

We created this workshop to give our cohort a basic understanding of marketing for game devs, share some tools and resources for creating effective video game marketing, and discuss our requirements for Rad Studio projects. We cover foundational marketing concepts non-marketers should know, how to determine goals, and how to make plans with strategies and tactics to reach those goals.

Game Industry, Rad StudioMaggie DeCapuaJuly 21, 2022Rad Studio, marketing

Creating Team Contracts

Have you ever found yourself pissed off after receiving an “urgent” email from a coworker on the weekend? You don’t want to work on the weekend, but you find yourself stuck uncomfortably in between three less-than-great options: do the work and add a little bit to that “resentment bank;” ignore the message, but feel unsure about your choice, and maybe experience preoccupying feelings of guilt, or negotiate a potentially tough conversation about your boundaries on the fly and field your coworker’s reaction. Of course, there are strategies for asserting boundaries even when they have not been stated ahead of time. But when it is done ahead of time, it is SO. MUCH. EASIER.

Rad StudioDana SteinhoffJuly 15, 2022Rad Studio, contracts, project management

Communication in Small Groups

This workshop about the fundamentals of team communication was taught during Rad Studio; Rad Magpie’s 11-week games incubator program.

Rad StudioMegan McAvoyJuly 8, 2022Rad Studio, Teambuilding

Rad Studio Orientation

Along with the course content that we covered in Rad Studio Online, we would like to share the 2021 Orientation in order to provide some context. Rad Studio 2021 was a fully online summer program, and the information below was shared with the cohort of emerging game developers during their very first meeting. When creating this orientation, our goal was to capture the heart and soul of the program to get all the students on the same page.

Rad StudioMaggie DeCapuaJune 3, 2022Making Spaces Safer, DEI