guildford.games Sponsor Spotlight: Mastered

In conversation with Hugh Wybourne

Welcome one and all to a return of our G.G Sponsor Spotlight series! As G.G Fest draws shockingly closer every day, we wanted to go back to our sponsors much like we did last year and, whether they be returning or fresh faces, get a closer insight to what they do so you can see how it all fits into our wonderful little ecosystem in Guildford town. There’s so much going on here all the time, and over the next few months we’ll be exploring what our partners get up to! Outside of playing all our favourite Guildford-made games, of course.

Today we have with us Perri Lewis from Mastered, a service that provides training courses and bootcamps for all disciplines of artistic production and business funded almost entirely by the Department for Education! Their website is loaded with testimonials as to the absolutely excellent quality of the education they provide, and we couldn’t be prouder to have them on board! If that sounds good to you, then read on to learn more about this exemplary service and what it might be able to do for you and your team. 

1. Mastered clearly has an eye for creative potential, so what is it about guildford.games that's made you want to come forward with official support?

[PL] Our mission is to empower creative professionals in the new world of work - and that is exactly what g.g is doing for the games community here. If we don’t have people like Lauran and Jason - and the wider g.g crew - bringing people together, we lose the connections and relationships that are ultimately what make a place like Guildford so special.

We have funding to support g.g because we were selected by Surrey County Council to deliver 90%-funded training to any games company whose people need it – and this is our way of getting the word out to those developers, publishers and support companies, while supporting something epic. 

2. Your service provides courses and information both for studio teams and independent industry professionals alike trying to skill-up and evolve, what do you think really gives Mastered the edge when it comes to teaching all these people?

[PL] It’s bespoke. We personalise every bootcamp for the studio/publisher that needs it – so every curriculum and schedule is tailor-made, taught by experts who deeply understand games, with each cohort made up of only staff from that company. It means studios/publishers know their people are being taken off production in order to learn skills that can be used the very next day in their job. We describe what we do as user-first, industry-led and data-informed - the principles that govern every part of the learning experiences we create. 

We’re humbled by the potential that Perri and the team at Mastered sees in us, and from what we’ve heard from alumni their process truly is staggeringly well put together and, as mentioned, tailored to not only fit in seamlessly with studios midway through production but also to ensure this new unlocked potential is applicable from the moment they leave the session!

3. Let's get practical for the next question, you feature on your website loads of success stories from various alumni of Mastered but we were wondering, what are some courses you've run recently that you can tell us about? And do you have anything big and exciting coming up in the near future?

[PL] This autumn we have got a lot of requests from art managers who want to upskill their 3D teams in Houdini (it’s a super hard skill to hire for) or Unreal (even harder to find people who know both!). Blender is often requested - leads want to reduce their Autodesk costs and go open source. Production leads are asking us for a mix of soft skills (from managing conflict to motivating teams to speaking to press and players) and hard skills (advanced Jira, Perforce and Unreal). Heads of engineering tend to love modern C++ and advanced maths. And there’s an increasing number of requests for data analytics for teams needing to build out live service functions.

They truly know what they’re talking about over at Mastered, and remember that these courses are not just aimed at freelancers or independents! If you work for a Guildford-based studio they want you! The sharing of knowledge, education, and passion are the cornerstones of community building and they’re what we’re all about here. The Guildford game developer community is already of course amazing, but by skilling up Mastered you can make it even better!

4. You may have heard Guildford referred to as the Hollywood of the UK video games industry, and being somebody that works hand-in-hand with both the teams down here and the Department for Education up in old Westminster, do you think people are aware of just how much greatness we brew in our humble little town?

[PL] Not always - but it is getting there. The fact Surrey County Council were able to secure funding from the Department of Education for 100 learners from Guildford to go through a bespoke Skills Bootcamp shows games really is a priority industry for them. There is no other pot of funding they could have gotten access to that is so flexible - which is critical, given how quickly skill needs of games changes. 

5. Lastly, we couldn't let you go without checking first, perhaps the most important thing for anyone joining the g.g Fest team: what are your favourite Guildford-made studios and games? And you can't say all of them ;)

[PL] I play couch co-ops with my husband, and so I’m a big LittleBigPlanet fan (Media Molecule) - and am really excited for the King of Meat launch in 2025 (Glowmade).

Wonderful choices, we at g.g are extremely excited for King of Meat too! Thanks again to Perri for giving some insight into Mastered and to the whole team for sponsoring g.g Fest in February and all the events we hold in between! If all this wonderful content has got you curious, you can find out much more over on their website.

[PL] And if you want to find out how to get 90% funded training for you or your studio/publisher, email perri@mastered.com to set up a call!