My biggest piece of advice for aspiring #gamedevs: It's not just about your technical skills. Having great 'soft skills' and being able to work well on a team are critical for almost every healthy studio environment. Learning how to communicate effectively is a skill.

I put soft skills in ' because I hate the term, but it's better recognized that most of the alternates. Soft infers that they are easier. They are not. When I started in games I could barely look people in the eye, let alone challenge someone's ideas while making them feel heard

And because people are, well, people, there's no one approach that works for everyone. Learning how to adapt one's strategy on an individual basis can be maddening, but is ultimately critical in finding common ground.

Throw in differing cultures and there's a whole unseen world that's in play that you may have little to no visibility into without digging deeper. The way you communicate bad news to most Germans is absolutely different from the way you would do the same to most Kiwis.

And if you become a leader of a team, your communications need to adapt yet again. You're no longer just an individual contributor, and the way you vent or complain about things may impact an entire team and your reception within partner teams. What & how you filter is paramount