Make a Career out of Video Gaming!
Australia’s leading sport video game developers, Big Ant Studios, have recognised the efforts of two First Nations trainees by offering them full-time employment.
Proud First Nations men Darcy Phillips and Darcy Faulkner are now part of the Big Ant Studios family working as Quality Assurance Testers.
Both young men were involved in the First Peoples Creative Industries Traineeship program – an initiative of the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria, delivered by our ArtsReady Program.
Jude Fernandes, Program Manager at Big Ant Studios, who supervised the young men through their traineeship, explained why the traineeship program is so important to their business.
“We at Big Ant Studios believe in honing not just skills for the job, but also the capabilities or interests of a person.
Bringing in trainees adds a fresh perspective; not only in sports knowledge but also in the way the new generation perceives life.
Using these fresh and new perspectives both enables the company to bring out the best of what the trainees are interested in and adds the benefit of helping the organisation grow in size in the workforce, which enables us to keep taking on these opportunities with newer trainees.”
Jude said that one of the highlights of being a supervisor was witnessing the trainees’ growth in their roles and seeing their unique personalities shine through which made the supervisor experience all that more rewarding.
“Darcy Faulkner and Darcy Phillips, now known as D1 and D2 respectively, bring different personalities to the team. D1 is more expressive, adaptive to the systems used at work, and comes up with some fantastic dry sarcastic humour and he bonds with everyone.
D2 started off quiet but has opened up to the team much more, becoming an incredibly diligent worker and completes his tasks effectively.”
One of the trainees, Darcy Phillips, said the traineeship was one of the most important experiences in his life as it inspired him to continue to work in the industry.
“Being always interested in gaming, when this opportunity came up, I knew I had to go for it because this would be my foot in the door of an industry I am passionate about.
The opportunity did not disappoint. My role in my traineeship and what I am doing now involves testing video games to check there are no glitches, which is pretty awesome.
Getting this first-hand experience at Big Ant Studios has inspired me to work hard and keep moving up in this industry. It has given me direction and made me realise that I want to always love what I do for a job. Right now, I can truly say I love what I do here.”
“When they asked me atthe end of my traineeship if I wanted to work full-time, I was stunned. It was one of the proudest moments in my life.”
With the success of their First Nations trainees, Big Ant Studios is keen to continue hiring more young people through the ArtsReady Traineeship Program and to provide more opportunities in the growing Australian gaming industry.
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IMAGE: Darcy Faulkner
