Anita Szegedi is a game manager at Gameloft Budapest who does everything in her power to encourage and support other girls and women who want to work in the gaming industry!
Anita has always wanted to work in a creative field, but didn’t know which one. One fateful day, she stumbled across a game developer tool while studying in university and created an entire game all by herself!
Extremely passionate and determined, Anita learned as much as she could on her own before getting her first job in the industry and uses her platform and expertise today to advocate for more women in the industry!
Find out more about her first game, what she loves about her job, and what changes she’d like to see in the industry below!
What is your role at Gameloft?
I’m the game manager of the R&D projects in the Budapest studio.
Basically, my work as a game manager is to lead all the sub-teams in the development cycle and to own the direction and vision of the project.
I’m pretty involved with every part of the game: art style, technical solutions, game design decisions, and legal constraints. It’s a very diverse job, but this is why I love it – my brain is always used in full capacity!
Of course, it can also be very tiring because I’m always busy and keeping myself up to date with every little detail regarding every part of the development process.
What sparked your interest in video games?
I always wanted to work in a creative industry. For a long time, I was just trying to find my way, testing out different fields. But then I found a game developer tool, which didn’t require any scripting, and it got me excited.
I was still studying for my masters in sociology at the time and also working a full-time job. But I started to play around with this software in my free time, and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to create a full game out of what I had. This is how I created my first physics-based mobile puzzle game about a hungry hamster who wants to eat cake!
It was far from perfect, and I had to solve a lot of issues during the development, but I’m still very proud of it because I did everything in this project: 2D art, animation, level design, and programming. And of course I learned a lot about how a project is built up, what you should consider from the start (optimization for example), and how to make a game that’s actually fun to play.
I liked that I could learn very different things (like art and programming) and then put them together to work as a whole. I think this is when the little producer in me was born.
How did you come to work in the gaming industry?
When I realized how much I liked game development, I started to go to meetups and game jams. I brought my hamster game everywhere, to get some useful feedback from professionals. This is how I got my first job: I showed my game to a CEO, and he offered me a job as a producer.
I also started a game developer blog, where I gathered knowledge about how to start learning, and I analyzed games to help myself think like a game designer. It got quite popular in Hungary, but after a while, I didn’t have enough time to maintain it.
Who is one of your role models, and how have they helped you in your career?
My most important role model is Amy Hennig. She directed the early Uncharted games, which is one of my favorite series.
She’s a manager who contributed to really big projects and has helped shape the industry. Thinking of her career helped me to push myself and not to be afraid to be a leader in a male-dominated industry.
What have been your main challenges as a woman throughout your career so far?
Game development is a heavily masculine industry. There are still many stereotypes when it comes to women, and sometimes it can be quite disheartening.
I’m talking about stereotypes like “if you are a woman, you must be an artist or work in HR”, as if being a programmer or a leader isn’t even an option. Although I also have to mention that these are usually coming from people outside of the industry. I very rarely got anything like this from game developers.
I still think that women have to try harder to get in, but on the other hand, if you are professionally good, nobody will treat you differently.
What do you love about your job today?
Everything! I was promoted recently, and I worked very hard to get to where I am today. I really like my job and the fact that I can decide what to spend my time on.
I worked on Dragon Mania Legends as a producer before, but now I have my own team to direct from ideas to execution, which is a big challenge, but I enjoy it.
Also, it feels very nice to receive positive feedback because it means that the hard work I’ve put in is visible and what I do has an actual effect on other people’s lives.
What kind of changes would you like to see in the industry and beyond?
I’m really curious about new technologies, and I think we’re not really reaching the limits of their capabilities. I also think mobile and portable devices are going to be more and more important in our everyday lives, so I’m very happy to be in an industry that creates experiences for mobile.
Also, I would love to see a more diverse industry. As I already mentioned, game development is very male dominated, and women are often discouraged. I would really like to see this change, which is why I try to show on every platform that women can and should be game developers if this is what they want.
Girls hear that they’re “not good at math and computers” from a young age, which is why I joined Skool as a mentor and role model (Skool is the flagship project of the Technology in Education Foundation that provides free technology training for 8-18-year-old girls) to show them that it’s not impossible and that they shouldn’t give up their dreams just because of some misplaced stereotypes. This is also why we started to organize open houses for students at the Gameloft Budapest studio before the pandemic.
But the problem doesn’t disappear when we grow up. Many women still believe they don’t belong in tech-related industries. This is why I became a Women in Games ambassador, to organize events and reach as many women as possible to try and change their minds.
I also applied to give a TedX talk to show that even an introverted woman can be a leader in game development—it just takes hard work and courage. I hope I can change the mind of some girls and women out there and that they’ll be successful game developers in the future.
What do video games mean to you?
I’ve been playing video games since I was a little girl. Games mean challenges, learning, having fun, and sometimes escaping from daily struggles.
As multiplayer games spread, it also means having some meaningful interaction with my friends – we’ve been playing quite a lot since the pandemic started, and it’s a very nice way to keep in touch without actually meeting in person.
Since games are interactive – unlike any other medium – it gives a good opportunity to people to express themselves and do whatever they feel like at the moment. This is why I’m playing several games on several platforms in parallel because they all give me different, but still very fun and engaging, experiences.
What do you love about video games in one word?
Flow. I really like the way they make me focus and forget everything else in the world.
Like Anita, we believe women belong in the gaming industry and at Gameloft! If you've always wanted to work in the gaming industry, take this as a sign, and apply here! Stay tuned tomorrow for another edition of Girls Who Slay the Game!
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