Can you tell us your role and summarize your day to day responsibilities?
I am a producer with the Lucasfilm Games team. I work with our external game developers from start to finish on our titles. In particular, we help them work in the Star Wars galaxy by making sure they have all of the information they need and the necessary feedback from our teams within the company like the Lucasfilm Story Group.
A typical day can be filled with conference calls with our teams located around the world. Navigating time zones can be fun! I’m currently working on two projects, and they couldn’t be more different from each other. I like that variety.
How is the Lucasfilm team organized and how does that relate to your work with external licensee studios?
I work with an assistant producer, and we in turn work with our executive producer, so we have a small group that facilitates the development cycle for a specific game. On the flip side, we work with the producers, directors, and designers from our licensee studios. Together we help craft the story, visuals, and design for our new games.
And considering your professional background, you worked at Lucasfilm’s former video game division, LucasArts, correct?
That’s right! I was a game tester on the quality-assurance (Q.A.) team for Star Wars Republic Commando [2005]. That was the first game I ever worked on. Back when I was 16-years-old, I told my best friend that I wanted to do two things: live in Los Angeles and work on a Star Wars game. And those two things didn’t have to be at the same time! I came to LucasArts in northern California during the last six months of development on the game, and then I got to see it launch. It was really special to start my games career on a Star Wars project. Later on in my career, I was able to get started working in production with some of the same developers I had worked with in Q.A. at LucasArts.
And you mentioned this dream of working on Star Wars games. Could you talk a little more about your love of Star Wars and your history with video games?
I’ve loved games since I was a kid. I had sisters who were significantly older than me, and they had an Atari that was put away in the closet because they were done playing with it. I would get that out when I was young. Arcades were also still a big thing, and I’d go to the mall with friends when I was 15 and 16 and play a lot of Tekken and other games. At home we’d play things like Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter. I’d be sitting around with friends and we’d talk about what we wanted to do for our careers, and because we were playing video games, I thought, somebody has to make these, right? Personal computers were really on the rise, and there was a lot of cool software, and you had consoles like the PlayStation coming out. I thought that might be a good direction to take, and I decided to ask people in the games industry about how to get started.