"I always played games my whole life. 我一直很喜欢游戏. And very early on in my life, I knew [I wanted to work at] 暴雪 because of the 暗黑破坏神 游戏”,说 游戏设计硕士 毕业生劳拉·萨丁哈·基德. "It was my first online RPG, 和 I was amazed by it."

Today, Laura works as a Lead User Interface 设计er with 暴雪, contributing her skills in art, 设计, 和 delegation to the video game developer's massively popular MMORPG, 魔兽世界.

"I remember when I got to 暴雪, it took me almost two years to realize that I was really there,劳拉回忆道.

In her current role, she oversees UI features for all 魔兽世界 扩展和补丁, while working with her team to implement user feedback 和 maintain the artistic integrity of the beloved fantasy franchise.

"There's a lot of culture inside the 魔兽争霸 universe, 和 the UI features have to match that," says Laura. "Our art should look like 和 be a part of the world."

Committed to continuous improvement, Laura 和 her team are not only 设计ing the game, 他们也在玩. "That's really helped us underst和 where players are coming from. I think it's very interesting when we hire people for a role. We want to make sure, especially, for the 设计 role, that they play the game for real."

原产巴西, Laura's early interest in a career in game 设计 wasn't exactly a simple pursuit. With a lack of comprehensive game 设计 programs 和 even fewer game developers in her home country, Laura opted for a career in something video game-adjacent: app 和 web development. "That was the closest thing that I could get to games," she says. “但这不是游戏."

After working for several years in UX 设计 for web 和 mobile apps with companies like Microsoft 和 Nokia, Laura realized she wasn't ready to give up her dream of working in game 设计.

"I found some 设计 schools, some other game ones. But they were very attached to the engineering side, or something more mobile. I wanted something that would open doors, 和 not limit me,毕业生说. "So I went to 满帆 to get the master's in 游戏设计 to open the doors, 和 see what I could do with it."

While working with 满帆-based educational game developer CelleC游戏 during the last six months of her degree program, Laura began to 设计 her portfolio to reflect the art styles of 暴雪 games like 家庭 和 魔兽争霸.

"I could do the UI for the educational games, but make sure it had a 暴雪 look," says Laura. "That really made them pick me from, I think, a bunch of people. They could see that I could paint UI. They could see that I could put a game together in a good way, UI-wise."

Giving her the chance to focus on developing her portfolio wasn't the only benefit for Laura from her time with 满帆. "I remember the production classes that we had were very, very aligned to how we make games [at 暴雪],毕业生说. "I think the whole dynamic at 满帆 helps you see that everybody can have a role, 和 that you have to work together to achieve something. I think that's really good because that's how we do things here."