Kellie Galentine
Assistant LV Life Editor
Emmanuel Lagumbay, senior music major, held a presentation sharing his experience at the Game Developers Conference yesterday in the President’s Dining Room.
“The reason I’m here is because I’m a gamer,” Lagumbay said.
Lagumbay traveled to San Francisco last month for the Game Developers Conference.
The conference brought together more than 24,000 artists, designers, programmers, composers and other members of the video game community. Gamers traveled from across the country and around the world to attend the conference.
“The game industry and networking is opposite of what you would think of the business world,” Lagumbay said. “It’s just a bunch of regular people walking around talking to each other.”
The conference presented opportunities for networking with the leading companies in the video game industry. Lagumbay held up a stack of about 150 business cards that he collected during his time at the conference.
“Everyone wants your job but also want to help you because they don’t want the industry to become stagnant,” he said.
Having made many contacts at the conference, Lagumbay is currently in talks with companies in New Jersey, China and Belgium to compose music for their video games.
Lagumbay introduced Justin Gold, the founder and CEO of the indie game development start-up company Morphadox.
Through the Google Hangout, the audience was able to hear about Gold’s experiences and have a question and answer session with the programmer about his New Jersey based business.
“As a business, things that don’t seem necessary—like a mission statement—really are so that the company is defined,” Gold said.
He answered questions about what video game companies are looking for in job candidates and the coding languages that are essential to becoming successful in the industry.
Lagumbay expressed his desire for there to be a presence of gamers on campus.
“Everything I know has been self-taught,” he said. “I have been encouraged but not had a professional who teaches the programs. I feel like a program would spark an interest in people already interested, as well as incoming students.”
Sophomore theater major Jordan Klomp, presentation attendee, agreed a club would be beneficial to gamers on campus.
“An overall gamers organization on campus would be cool to officially bring everyone together who plays the same games,” he said.
Lagumbay’s passion for composing music combined with his desire to be in the gaming industry is what drives his wish for the University to have more involvement in the world of video games.
“I want to see students making games,” he said. “I could see a club turning into a course on campus.”
Kellie Galentine can be reached at kellie.galentine@laverne.edu.
Correction
The story “Student shares ‘Game’ experience” (April 4) incorrectly stated there were 24 million attendees at the Game Developers Conference. There were actually around 24,000 attendees. The Campus Times regrets this error.
