Alumni Interview with Game Designer Corey Waite Arnold

Corey Waite Arnold MA '14 

Alumni Interview by Deidra Cali MA '23

1. You currently work in writing video games and even have your own games online! How did you get into this after you graduated with your English MA? 
 
It wasn't something I planned. After getting my MA I started teaching composition and critical reading courses as an adjunct at Community College of Philadelphia and Eastern University. But I was also making games as a hobby, mostly with a local dev community called Philly Game Mechanics (PGM). This is something I've always done, make and play games, usually dumb board games and stuff with my brothers. But with PGM I started collaborating with local video game makers, mostly as a writer.  

Eventually someone in the Game Design and Production department at Drexel needed someone to write grants for their lab. They were looking for someone who knew a lot about games but also had research and writing skills. The indie dev community in Philly is small, so I was recommended by several people who knew about my background in academia. I was approached and happily accepted the role because the work was more steady and the pay was better than being an adjunct. I won't spend too much time talking about being an adjunct, but it was as difficult and exploitative as everyone says. I burned out after like two years, but I still taught a third. The only thing that's going to improve that job is widespread unionization.    

The Drexel lab was an incubator for students designing, developing, and releasing video games on a quick timeline. So in addition to writing grants to fund the lab, I was helping students design and develop their games. I had the privilege of offering design advice to many, many student projects, and even oversaw the release of several to PC and console. Some of the students would graduate and then ask me to work with them on future games. So I picked up a lot of skills there.  
 
I also became more deliberate about learning new disciplines at that time. During a game jam with PGM I challenged myself to solo develop a game in three days, which meant learning code. I found an unexpected aptitude for it, and went on to do my own brand of rudimentary programming on other small games. 
 
Eventually the pandemic hit and the lab had to scale back so I was laid off. I had some unemployment runway and I thought "why not use it to go through the awful and arduous process of looking for professional game dev work." So I did! After dozens of applications and interviews and unpaid writing tests I just emailed my favorite game developer and said "I love your games, can't wait for the next one." We hit it off and he passed me some work which became more work. So now, about three years later, I'm full time developing the sequel to my favorite game while doing freelance work on other projects.  

2. How do the skills you acquired during your time at Villanova show up in your current work life, or in other ways? 
 
My time at Villanova was invaluable, and the courses I took there enrich my writing daily. Some recent examples: I'm currently writing a post-apocalyptic hard(ish) sci-fi game, and I was a TA for Heather Hicks when she was teaching a course on Apocalypse Lit, so I think about her research and writing all the time. When I was hired to write that game I was also surprised to find that it speculates a future in which Lagos, Nigeria has become an even more significant global megacity, and has expanded some industries into near space. So I've been able to use what I learned in the Postcolonial Lit class I took with Chiji Akoma. Dr. Akoma introduced us to a number of amazing Nigerian novels in that class, and I even wrote about one set in Lagos, so I'm pleased I can use that research here and there. 

In terms of skills: I learned to write under deadline, to develop ideas in conversation via seminar, to take, give, and implement feedback, to draft, to edit. All kinds of stuff. Plus I wouldn't have gotten any interviews for the work I've done so far without "MA in English" on my resume. It's a super flexible degree and I'm grateful to have it. 

3. What was the most important thing you think you learned from your time in Villanova’s English program? 
 
I don't know about "most important," but one vital thing I learned is that I work better in collaborative environments than I do in intellectual isolation. I felt so at home and intellectually enriched during classes but found the process of writing, especially writing the thesis, quite lonely. There was something very strange about having an intellectual breakthrough after weeks of struggle and getting super excited and then looking around and realizing you're just one person in a room, like, thinking. In comparison, bouncing ideas around during seminars or in conversations with faculty was far more exciting to me.  
 
In games now I collaborate with a team constantly. None of my ideas exist in a vacuum. Nor are they siloed within one artistic discipline, because they have to interact with sound and art and code and design. So I love that. It suits me. 

4. It’s so cool to see someone with an English MA in a field that is typically thought of as being STEM-centered. How does your English MA intersect with your field and do you have any words of wisdom for those who may want to pursue something in a STEM field after they’ve completed their English MA? 
 
My advice is don't specialize, don't silo yourself within one discipline, instead be curious about experimenting in other fields and failing there until something happens. Don't do this as some kind of tedious professional development shit but instead because learning new things is fun and offers you new perspectives that enrich your life everyday.   

In terms of STEM, I've found that learning to code isn't as hard as people make it out to be. Being extremely good at coding is very hard, but learning the basics is quite easy, and gives you a huge leg up. There are an absolutely absurd number of free resources available to learn any language or engine you want, so if you just dedicate a few hours a week to YouTube tutorials or whatever you'll pick up some employable skills pretty quickly. 
 
Also, if you're stepping outside of teaching into some professional managerial role, be willing to steal time from your employer. As far as I can tell a huge portion of salaried desk jobs require like five hours of real work per week and the rest is just a bizarre, depressing, ritualized performance of work. So find a goofy email job that doesn't kill your soul, do the absolute minimum, and spend the rest of your time on the clock learning something on YouTube or making stuff or learning a new language or applying for a PhD or whatever. Then when you quit or are fired you are ready for the next thing.   

5. Do you have any cool plans or projects coming up? Or anything else to share?

Absolutely! I just released my first Nintendo Switch game, a seasonal comedy game for all ages called Howloween Hero. The apocalyptic sci-fi game I'm working on is called Ostranauts, which is in Early Access now on PC. I made a cute little all-ages game about being a tractor with a bad boss called Lil Dozer that you can play in browser right now if you want. I wrote this little comic and my friend illustrated it.  

More germane to literature: a short story I wrote was selected by Joyce Carol Oates to be read and workshopped on camera as part of her Masterclass on short fiction. You can read a version of that story here, or see me workshopping it on camera with Joyce here (if you want to pay for the course I guess.)   

Corey Waite Arnold MA '14