Chelsea Rapp, Chairperson of New Zealand Game Developers Association
In Career Spotlight, we profile women and nonbinary people who work in the gaming industry. It is our goal to show the vastness and variety of jobs within the world of gaming and to share professional advice and perspective with our readers.
This week we profile Chelsea Rapp, Chairperson for the New Zealand Game Developers Association. She discusses what it’s like to represent the game industry and its interests, her road to professional game development, and a couple of tips for those looking to enter the gaming industry.
Chelsea Rapp, photo courtesy of the subject
Could you tell us a bit about NZGDA and the kind of work you do as Chairperson there?
New Zealand Game Developers Association (NZGDA) was founded in 2004 and is the national industry body that represents all the people and businesses in New Zealand that make games and interactive media. This includes typical games (both physical and digital), VR/AR products, location-based experiences, tools, hardware/middleware, and apps. Our membership includes 50+ studios and more than 750 professionals actively working in the game industry. Most of our efforts are geared towards things like providing professional development opportunities for game developers, advocating for game studios to the government, improving funding opportunities for emerging studios, and fostering international partnerships with the global game industry.
As Chairperson, I work in coordination with the NZGDA Board to represent the game industry and its interests to government agencies, cross-industry trade bodies/businesses, the media, and tertiary education. I spend most of my time trying to make sure that game studios have what they need to build thriving businesses and that they are able to respond to changing market conditions. The NZGDA also runs several programs geared toward professional development, including an annual game developer conference, a business start-up competition, and a mentorship program that provides training and growth opportunities for game developers in our community.
What are your major responsibilities in your role?
I focus primarily on advocacy and bringing awareness to the challenges and opportunities our industry faces. This can mean representing the games industry at meetings with government agencies when they are considering policies on things like skills development or public funding, or speaking to the press about how different events and policies will impact our industry. I also work hard to bring people together and improve opportunities for new studios. This can often take the form of events, where we bring game developers together with investors, consultants, or even foreign embassies to see if there are opportunities to work together.
How did you begin working in the world of gaming professionally?
My road to professional game development has certainly been an unusual one. My background is actually in molecular genetics and immunology. I worked for many years in product design for medical devices, but after nearly 10 years in science, I was ready for a change. I’ve always loved video games, ever since the first generation of PlayStation and Xbox, and I hated that science had so little room for creativity – everything was very regimented and controlled because it had to be.
When my partner and I emigrated to New Zealand, I knew that I wanted to work in a different industry, and games are one of my true passions, so it made sense. Luckily, I got my first real job out of grad school in software project management, and those skills are easily transferable to game development. My first job in games was as a Producer for CerebralFix in Christchurch, and from there I used my experience in strategy, analytics, and lobbying to support our studio’s work in mobile games and location-based experiences. I now work as the Head of Corporate Strategy and Business Development, where I focus on building our R&D pipeline and make sure we have the skills we need to deliver interactive media projects for our clients.
From there, the leap to my role at the NZGDA felt very natural. Luckily, I have a ton of studios, developers, and other industry professionals that support me and they’re the ones who keep it all moving forward.
How did the professional background you had previously prepare you for your current role?
In my previous background, I worked with very large teams that span multiple disciplines. I helped those teams build out the plans and budgets that were needed to support large, multi-national clinical trials and manufacturing projects. Coordinating that many people with so many different skillsets can be challenging, but it’s not that different from making games. Technology and software development, regardless of the sector, generally use the same principles and tools.
I also wrote a lot of policy documents and worked closely with regulatory bodies like the US Food and Drug Administration to help get medical devices approved, which gave me some of my first experiences in working with the government. Those skills have come in handy as we’ve worked to lobby the government for more support of the games industry.
What skills do you think you use the most in your job?
Pretty much all the skills I use daily are soft skills. Things like negotiation, conflict resolution, consensus building, public speaking – these are critical to helping people outside the games industry (government, investors, public funding organization) understand game developers and studios, and what they need to thrive. Sometimes I might only have a handful of minutes with a minister or the leader of a trade organization, and I must make sure that I make them count.
It’s important to take the time to listen too, and to understand where people are coming from. Games are frequently saddled with antiquated stereotypes, so I spend a lot of time listening to others and trying to understand their perspectives, as this is an important part of building relationships with them. So many great things that have happened in my tenor as Chair have purely been the result of taking the time to build a relationship with someone who might not have been exposed to the game industry otherwise.
How do you find working in the games industry different from other industries you’ve worked in?
MedTech is certainly more rigid and tightly controlled, whereas games can adapt quickly to changing conditions. That flexibility is very much a double-edged sword – I’ve often been frustrated by the amount of re-work or scope creep that I’ve seen in games projects compared to MedTech or E-commerce, but in games, we’re more able to change things we don’t like or that don’t work well.
I know that games get an (often deserved) bad rap for ‘crunch culture’ and toxic workplaces, but in my experience, the workplace culture in New Zealand has been far superior to the culture in the U.S. One of the reasons my partner and I left the U.S. is because we were both working 60-70 hours a week for many years, and over time that wears you down. I woke up one day and I was 30, and I wondered where all the time had gone. In New Zealand, I have a much healthier work-life balance, and even though I do have some late nights, my overall quality of life is much higher.
Games also seem to look more at a candidate’s performance and skills than their education or what I would call ‘pedigree’. In science, your education (Bachelors, Masters, Ph.D.) can be a major factor in determining what roles you are eligible for. In games, we rely more on your ability to deliver a product, and thus we often give candidates an art or coding test as a part of the interview process.
What advice do you have for women who may want to start a career in gaming or professionals who want to pivot their careers into the gaming or eSports industries?
Chelsea Rapp, photo courtesy of the subject
Two pieces of advice have been instrumental in my career change:
First, if you have at least 30% of the skills in a job ad, apply for it. Job ads are written with the ‘perfect person’ in mind. Almost no one meets all the criteria in a job ad, and studies have shown that women tend to apply for a role only if they have at least 90% of the skills, whereas men will apply if they have at least 30% of the skills. When recruiters look at your resume, they’ll decide right then what they’re willing to compromise on and what they aren’t – whether it’s years of experience, certifications, whatever – but if you never apply, then you’ll never know if they would have been willing to move you to the next round. If you want the job and you meet at least some of the criteria, apply with what you’ve got and write a great cover letter. Remember that cover letters are for people and culture, not for a re-hash of your CV, and you should use your cover letter to tell them more about you, your goals, and why you want to work for the company.
Second, you can learn to do almost anything, for free, on the internet. There are so many free tools and low-cost courses online these days. It’s never been easier to learn a new skill set. Last summer, I learned how to reupholster furniture for free on YouTube. Game development is the same. In addition to the numerous game development courses on EDX or Udemy, many of the major game tools (Unity, Unreal, Blender) are free to download and many high-end tools (Maya, Houdini) offer low-cost versions for students. I always tell people to go on LinkedIn and find someone who has the job you want; read their job description and some of their duties – that will help you identify areas that you may need to brush up on to prepare for a job interview.
Learn more at nzgda.com or connect with Chelsea by email at chairperson@nzgda.com
Follow Chelsea:
Twitter: @vitaminC_Rapp
Follow NZGDA:
Twitter: @nzgda
Instagram: @nzgamedev
Facebook: New Zealand Game Developers Association
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