Get into Games: Jon Hare’s mission to get top graduates into game jobs

Veteran developer Jon Hare hopes to expand a scheme that connects game graduates and employers. And he believes the focus on designing full games and learning professional practices provided by his Business and Universities Game Syndicate (BUGS) initiative will help reverse the UK game industry’s slide down the international development pecking order.

“If we want our industry to grow, we must be realistic and make sure our top students are discovered. They are the guys who are going to work in game companies or setup new ones,” explains Hare. “We want to push the British game industry forward, which is what BUGS is all about.”

BUGS already has supporters in institutions training an estimated 30 per cent of enrolled game students in the UK and developers who employ around one third of the country’s game workforce, says Hare. Three more universities are pushing to sign up to the scheme, joining the likes of the University of Westminster – where Sensible Software co-founder Hare teaches part-time. BUGS is funded by affiliate the University of Bedfordshire, Hare and fellow co-founder Professor Carsten Maple from Bedforshire.

“If we want our industry to grow, we must be realistic and make sure our top students are discovered”

Hare hopes the BUGS roll call will continue to lengthen, especially after a public thumbs up from Ian Livingstone and Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries Ed Vaizey at BUGS’ February 24 launch. That event was held at BAFTA and attended by bodies such as UKIE, TIGA, NESTA and Creative Skillset.

Universities who are affiliated to the scheme must agree to ensure students create a game in each year of study to sharpen their appreciation of the challenges of taking a project through every development milestone. “We give universities quite a lot of freedom to do their own thing. But BUGS is like a publisher for the universities,” he explains.

In return the institutions gain access to BUGS’ network of experienced game professionals as guest speakers and can share selected teaching resources. But the key advantage of the scheme, says Hare, is that membership grants students on affiliated courses access to the BUGSnet website – which is almost complete but still under construction. The site is a showcase for finished games which is accessed by major UK developers such as Sony, Codemasters, Jagex, Creative Assembly and Eutechnyx.

Students who submit their games get feedback from Hare and his colleagues and will either have their title accepted or rejected, depending on whether it reaches a technical quality bar. “We act as a filter for the companies,” explains Hare. “What we are doing is very pragmatic and it means the students, after doing two or three games, should be ready. Their first game will probably be a disaster, but they learn from their mistakes. The second one they should get out and by the third one they should be very good.”

“We give universities quite a lot of freedom to do their own thing. But BUGS is like a publisher for the universities”

Each game on the platform features detailed credits and is designed to help studios identify emerging talent. That’s something Hare believes is desperately needed in a higher education system which must get better at bringing on developers with potential who don’t necessarily rank at the top of the class.

He says: “The incentive is to get the good students to the top. Making games is an elite occupation. Not everyone can do it and not everyone is good at it. The best person could be the quietest student in the class who gets on and does things. It’s not always obvious who is good until you see their work. Your work is everything in this industry.” BUGS provides a shop window for such students.

“Hopefully BUGS will take off. We’ll get some backing from somewhere, we’ll get established and hopefully we can take BUGS to different countries or maybe different industries in the long term. The short term is to get the UK back so we are not number six in the world, but we are back in the top three.

“We didn’t capitalise on our status. In the late 1980s we were quite dominant, although maybe behind America and Japan,” adds Hare. “The BAFTAs were great to celebrate British games, but a lot of people picking up awards had American accents. We still have a way to go to get our British development style pushed up there.”

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