Spartan Profiles: Scott Brodie
FAST-TRACK GAME DEVELOPER
Shooters are video games that generally require great quickness and reaction times. Ironically, the career of game developers sometimes parallels these games. Take the case of Scott Brodie, ’07, of Kirkland, WA, a professional game developer with Microsoft’s Carbonated Games.
A year ago, just before beginning his senior year at MSU, Brodie was an intern on a team that developed Aegis Wing, a side-scrolling shooter for Microsoft’s Xbox 360. While there, he was hired as a fulltime game developer—a career he wanted while growing up in Livonia as a child and becoming enamored with early Nintendo games.
“I chose to come to MSU because they had a pretty good computer science department and some professors who were interested in game design,” says Scott. “Bryan Winn, the faculty advisor to Spartasoft, a student group that designed flash games and more complicated products, and Ethan Watrall, were both very helpful in building up game design at the university,” he recalls. “We had very good dialogues. They really helped me get into courses that were related to what I wanted to get into.”
Scott notes that the game industry has gone mainstream and now rivals the movie industry in sales. “We’re working mainly on casual games, which I think are at the forefront of the industry because they attract a mass market,” says Scott, who cites Bejeweled and Hectic as examples of casual games.
“In the near future you’ll see a lot more casual titles. As gamers get older and raise families, they don’t have as much time to invest in games.” Scott also believes the game design industry has a healthy future. “There are many more people getting into the industry,” he says, “so there are a lot more opportunities these days.” Scott’s quick ascension to game developer is perfect proof.
