Gaming Fest – Shared Experience Storytelling with Seth Smith

A presentation by a SCAD Alumni, Seth Smith, was given this week during the SCAD’s Gaming Fest. Seth graduated from SCAD in 2010 and is currently working at Riot Games as a senior game designer on Valorant. Ever since Seth was young, he wanted to be a game designer. As a child, he couldn’t afford pokemon cards. Instead, his mother had gotten him blank notecards, whichwas the beginning of his game design journey. He would create his own pokemon cards;  when his friends all wanted to use his instead of the real ones, that’s when he knew game design was his calling. After graduating from SCAD, Seth worked in the industry to create games for mobile, AR, casinos, and more. In this Gaming Fest Presentation, he talked about what is needed to take into consideration when creating games and their storylines. 

In games or any storytelling media, a story that is diverse, inclusive, and has equity is one that connects the most with people. When creating a ‘universe’ for your game, movie, tv show, comic, etc., you need to think, who are you making this universe for? And what are the pillars of that story universe? The pillars arethe base lesson learned or the experience that connects real-life people with digital media. For example, in Avatar the Last Airbender TV show, the story is about connecting with nature, friendships, and peace. When creating these ideals of a story, you must think about your target audience and try to connect with them as much as you can. 

For inclusion in games, you can’t simply throw different races and cultures into a game without any empathy. You have to do it intentionally; have it be meaningful. Seth stated that you need to “do inclusion of cultures with intention, understanding, and empathy. Inclusion in games isn’t just about race, heritage, or culture; it can be about the type of game the person likes to play. An example Seth gave was having stealth characters or heavy-type characters in action games. Certain people always go for the character that has the stealth attributes, whereas others  go for the one with magic. To create more inclusion, you should have more opportunities to do so but also make sure it is manageable. 

One of the questions someone had asked Seth was what should a good game portfolio look like? His advice was to always think about who this portfolio is for and what aspects you’d like to do and showcase. You should never make your portfolio specific to a certain company you want to work at one daybecause you should always assume that they might not be around in a couple of years from now. It is generally good practice to show a variety and not super specific to that one company. You should pick skills that serve an audience and invest your time improving your skills in that area. 

Hearing Seth talk about his knowledge of storytelling in games was very inspiring because you could tell how passionate he was. The SCAD Gaming Fest happens every year so we recommend you go check it out if you’re interested in it!