The Capital Region has become a rapidly expanding hub of video game development, with multiple studios arriving — and thriving — in Albany, Troy, Saratoga and Schenectady in recent years. Studios range from small, incubator-level operations to large teams working on some of the biggest games in the industry, offering a rich tapestry of opportunities for aspiring game designers.
The latest episode of the Marshall Arts podcast for the Daily Gazette features an interview with Ben Greene, locally based art director for Gearbox Software, creator of one of the most popular game franchises of all time, the post-apocalyptic "Borderlands" series. In a wide-ranging conversation, Greene discussed his experiences working in the video game industry and offered some insights into the creative process that brings games from concept to console.
“I've lived in seven different states, just following my career to the next opportunity,” said Greene. “But there's so much more opportunity now to stay put and work remotely and you're not seeing as many people relocating in the last handful of years. So I'm fortunate to have landed here, working with Gearbox in upstate New York, because I love it here.”
Based north of Albany, Greene is the lone Gearbox team member in the Capital Region, with the studio’s primary offices in Texas, Quebec and China. He initially found his way to the region when he accepted an art director position at Velan Studios, the Troy game studio founded by brothers Guha and Karthik Bala, after he previously served as an art director and concept artist for various studios up and down the East Coast.
As an art director, Greene explained that his role is fluid, often changing from project to project and differing with each studio. Depending on the individual’s skill set, an art director on a video game can be a team manager or serve a more traditional role similar to that of a director in films or television — or, in Greene’s case, a little of both.
“Everyone as an individual has their own strengths and their own comfort levels around what they take on at the studio,” he explained. “A lot of times I end up being in roles where I'm both managing the individual artists on a project and creatively directing the games we're working on.”
Greene said his own pivot from concept artist to art director was not something he anticipated early in his career. It occurred when he was faced with a project for which he had a strong creative vision and felt an intense desire to see that vision realized.
“I was always like, ‘I don't want to be an art director. Art directors don't make art,’ ” he recalled. “And then there was this project I was a lead concept artist on many years ago, and I was really passionate about the project and had a lot of ideas for how to push it to the next level. I shared those ideas with the heads of the studio during a review, and they turned to me and said, ‘Do you want to be the art director for this?’
“I had to tell them I’d get back to them about it because I had to go home and process what they asked me,” he laughed. “But eventually I realized that I absolutely did not want to experience somebody else taking on this project and not realizing the full potential that I saw in it.”
The opportunity to create the sort of supportive creative environment for the team’s artists that he had always wanted for himself sealed the deal when it came to taking on the new role, he explained.
“One of my passions as an art director is helping to create positive creative environments [for artists],” he said. “Just because you have something in mind that you think is really cool, that doesn't mean there's not someone with something even cooler waiting around the corner. I think it's important to consider that and be able to recognize that this is a better idea than you initially had, and then make sure the artist knows it was awesome and other people know where that idea came from.
“And then it's your responsibility to bring [that idea] into the overall vision for the game and make it work,” he added.
Concept art from the Knockout City video game created by Ben Greene.
Image Provided
In discussing his own professional journey, which has involved art direction on popular original titles such as Velan Studios’ competitive, dodgeball-like action game "Knockout City" as well as Nintendo’s global hit "Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit," Greene said learning to be flexible as an artist and art director has served him well from the start. He initially studied art in order to work in the comic-book medium, only to discover concept art in the entertainment industry as a potential career path late in his college years.
Even after pivoting away from comic-book art and toward concept art, though, he found himself frequently frustrated in his efforts to break into the entertainment industry via that path.
“Concept art is not for everyone,” he warned. “There are a lot of people who want to do it, but like with anything else not everyone who wants to do it is skilled at it [in a way that] they’re comfortable visually interpreting other people’s ideas.
“I started out as a freelance concept artist and I was terrible at it,” he laughed. “But I eventually got an in-house, full-time position … and that really was the start of the rest of my career.”
Greene didn’t pull any punches when describing the creative challenges faced by both studio artists and artists who become art directors in the industry.
“You rarely get the opportunity to work on what you truly want to pursue. A lot of the time you take on what studios need help creating, regardless of your personal artistic preferences,” he said, emphasizing another example of the flexibility the role — and the industry — demand from artists. “They come to you and say, ‘Hey, you've got this skill. We've seen your work. We’ve seen your personal work, but this is what we're trying to make. Can you make this for us?’ So you end up taking on the parenting of that project and finding the best way to get it to the finish line.”
However, Greene said all those experiences have helped inform and shape his approach to a personal project he has been working on for more than a decade now — one that, for him, helps to scratch any creative itches his full-time role doesn’t satisfy.
The project — which blends dark fantasy, sci-fi and western themes in a massive saga featuring a wand-slinging, magic-channeling protagonist on a harsh, alien planet — has been a world-building project in development since Greene was in high school, and one into which he’s channeled the sum of his storytelling experiences in the game industry.
Concept art from an untitled personal project created by Ben Greene.
Image Provided
For Greene, “chipping away” at the concepts and questions at the heart of any project is an exercise he’s grown to enjoy, whether the subject matter is a well-worn franchise, a studio assignment or something entirely original, such as the world he’s been building in the pages of countless sketchbooks over the years.
And that process is just as useful for building the world within a video game as it is for telling any sort of story, no matter the medium, he insisted.
“One of the biggest games we made at Velan, 'Knockout City,' started with a simple idea about the interaction of throwing and catching. They were like, ‘How do we take this mechanic, this human interaction of throwing and catching, and turn it into a competitive, fast-paced, gaming experience people can get together and have fun with?’ ” he recalled. “We didn't want to make a traditional sports game. So there were a lot of questions to answer.
Concept art from the Knockout City video game created by Ben Greene.
Image Provided
“It works the same way with world building in general: You have to start with a simple idea — even one that's been done a million times. And once you start chipping away at it you start influencing that simple idea, because you’re an individual with your own experiences and your own ideas and your own influences. And that starts creating complexity in that simple idea,” he said.
“And then you bring other people into it and they start chipping away, too,” he continued. “And it starts to blossom into something truly unique.”
Listen to the full interview with Ben Greene on the latest episode of the Marshall Arts podcast at DailyGazette.com, Nippertown or on your favorite podcast app. You can also see more of Greene’s work — including concept art and sketches from his past studio work and personal projects — on Instagram and ArtStation.
