Children’s video games make up a considerable chunk of the market, with developers creating unique content for consoles, handheld devices, and educational platforms like Leapfrog. Game Development graduate Sean Coughlin has built his career at two of the genre’s largest developers, Disney Interactive Media Group, and his most recent job at Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds Group.
Sean got his start with a year-long internship as undergraduate production associate at Disney Interactive Media Group – the creators of the hit Wii game Epic Mickey. While at the studio he helped coordinate the production of titles for a variety of platforms, including software like Cars 2, Phineas and Ferb: Across the Second Dimension, and Disney Princess: Enchanting Storybooks.
“There’s something really cool about creating family games, and one of my favorite things when I worked at Disney was having input into the greater design,” he says. “I was supporting the producers, playing each game, reviewing the design documents, and tracking all the game submissions throughout the different departments. I really learned a lot from that experience.”
Since wrapping the Disney internship Sean has joined Nickelodeon Virtual Worlds Group as Coordinator of Premium Businesses for their MMO, Monkey Quest. The title is a free-to-play role-playing game, where players can purchase additional items to enhance their characters. Sean is in charge of managing all of this premium content by handling daily updates to the site, brainstorming game ideas, working with the artists and developers to implement them, and testing products prior to launch.
“Nickelodeon in an awesome company with a lot of great ideas, and it’s super exciting to be working in the free-to-play space with them.,” he says. “It’s a completely different business model, and kind of a revolution that’s picking up steam because more studios are seeing the benefit. The gaming industry is growing, and it’s not just about consoles or PC anymore, it’s Facebook, mobile, and free-to-play.”
By focusing on the children’s game market Sean has been able to experiment with evolving areas of the industry, and help define how business models like free-to-play will continue to offer gamers new experiences. It’s an envious position for a developer to be in, and he’s continually inspired by the new opportunities he’s discovered in gaming since graduating from Full Sail.
“Getting into the industry you see that there’s so many more options than you ever thought of as a student,” he says. “I’m really grateful to be working on the type of stuff I am because in order to keep growing you have to keep tweaking your abilities and challenging yourself. My experience at Full Sail really helped me out a lot with that because you constantly have to think of new ways to do things.”
