I wondered about getting in touch at some point, and telling the school how things have moved on in the last 19 years.
I left MGS in 1992 after royally messing up my Physics A-Level and went to Canterbury University for 3 years to study Computer Systems Engineering. I passed that with a glorious 3rd (I never did learn to revise) and was pushed by my mum to find a job before my 3rd year had even finished. After scouring the Kent Messenger each week, 3 days after leaving university I got a job making computer games for Anco in Dartford, and that career is where I’ve stayed for the last 16 years. I’ve made football management games, war games, medieval combat games, and for the last 7 years have worked at the highly prestigious Lionhead Studios in Guildford on the Fable Franchise for the Xbox & Xbox 360. I now am one of the top developers on the team in the design department, generally telling all the other poor souls what to do. In total, these games have sold over 10 million copies worldwide, won numerous awards and got my boss an OBE.
I have always thought about popping back to MGS one day and telling the latest batch of students that you can get into a fun career that pays well if you are willing to work hard and push yourselves, does anything like happen at all? I’m sure a decent number of them love computer games and will have heard of Fable and might be interested in me giving them advice on how to find a job in the future. Might be more motivation than some of the more serious professions people have ended up in.
I don’t know if you also know that Joel Veitch (A bit of an internet celebrity) was in my class too.