This is next level to share. I still don’t know if I believe it myself. I really hope this isn’t a dream I’m about to wake up from. I started a new job as an Associate Producer for Santa Monica Studio.

Sony Interactive Entertainment. Playstation. These were words I obsessed over as a kid. There’s just no words to describe how insane this is to me and my childhood. I probably won’t believe it for several years.

I might be able to put my incredulity into perspective with a small story…

When I was sitting in my animation class at RMIT University in 2010, I was watching a video of a boss fight for God of War 3 on Youtube with another student. We watched, in awe, and the student next to me proclaimed that Santa Monica Studio was his favorite game studio. I followed suit that it would be the end goal and the upmost dream of mine to work for a studio like that. I was joking around of course, there was never a plan for me to leave Australia – my goals were currently set on trying to get into Blue Tongue or Firemonkeys and then maybe, one day when I was brave enough to move to another country and had 15 years experience working on games locally in Melbourne, I could even fathom trying to go for an interview at a studio like that. It was such a spectacle to watch that boss fight, like a ballet of choreography mixed with perfectly timed mechanics to bring together the type of experience that gamers come together and unite for, like the type of community and emotion that sports teams create leading up to their championship.

Later that afternoon, when class was over, I strolled the streets of Melbourne city to the usual hangout where game students go in search of art books, comic books, merchandise, and all round geek fandom: Minotaur. I still remember the many steps you had to walk down from the street to get to this basement comic store. There I purchased The Art of God of War 3. I took it home and put it on my bookshelf. Santa Monica in Los Angeles was a mythical place far beyond my reach. It would sit on my bookshelf in my room for another ten years, collecting dust. I didn’t take it with me when I ultimately moved to the United States in 2012.

Fast forward to June 2019, and I just accepted a position on the production team at Santa Monica Studio. I know the significance of getting into this studio, both on a personal level and for others like the student that sat next to me in my animation class. I understand how many people apply for the position that I somehow, miraculously, pulled off. I still don’t know how I did it, but it really drove home for me that you will never know unless you try.

I’m now an Associate Producer on Gameplay Features.

This is it for me, this was the end goal.

And I did go back to visit family in Australia, and while doing some cleaning out of my bedroom I came across the art book that had been sitting on the shelf for 10 years. I almost forgot I even bought it.

I took it back to the U.S. and got it signed by some of the team.