From Gamer to Game Developer with Tina Lauro Pollock

In episode 3 season 2 of Carrie's Always talking, Carrie and Tina Lauro Pollock reconnect after years apart, discussing Tina's journey in the gaming industry. Tina shares her experiences of starting her own game studio, Brain and Nerd, in Northern Ireland, the challenges faced in game development, and the importance of storytelling in games. They delve into the dynamics of being a woman in a predominantly male industry, the significance of mentorship, and the efforts to create a safe and inclusive work environment. Tina emphasizes the need for diverse skills in game development and her commitment to encouraging young girls to pursue careers in tech. In this conversation, Tina discusses her journey in game development, the supportive community in Northern Ireland, and the challenges faced by independent studios in recent months. She emphasizes the importance of creativity during uncertain times and the need for diverse voices in gaming. Tina also shares insights on the evolving landscape of the game industry and encourages listeners to pursue their passions and embrace new opportunities. Grab a wee cup of tea and join us for this episode!

https://brainandnerd.com

If you have a story you'd like to tell, send me an email at carrie.always.talking@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

You can also find me on Bluesky- @carrie-is-talking.bsky.social 

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Transcript

Carrie McNulty (00:02)

Welcome back to Carrie's Always Talking. I'm your host, Carrie McNulty. This is the podcast all about stories and connections. I believe that when people share their stories with one another, it's the main way that we build empathy and humanity. And that's something I think we need a lot more of in the world today. Well, we are at episode three, season two. And for anybody who's been listening or any new folks that are listening, I always say thank you for hanging out with me, spending a little bit of time with me.

and also with my guests. And this week I'm excited to share my guest is Tina Lauro Pollock. She is a friend that I've had since I lived in Belfast about 17 years ago. And she has done some pretty incredible things in Northern Ireland that I wanted her to come on and talk about. And she was very gracious in doing so. Plus I got a chance to catch up with her and you know that's always a good time.

So Tina and her business partner, Brendan Drain own Brain and Nerd. And this is a indie games development studio. It's based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. This studio, started it in 2012 at a time when nobody else in the area was really doing anything like that. Brendan had created...

this idea and Tina thought, hey, this would be really cool to turn into a game. And they worked on it for a really long time, learned a ton, got a lot of mentorship. And along the way, Tina became a mentor and continues to do so in teaching people how to create either their own independent studios or hiring people in the area to join them in their venture.

They continue to take on new projects and come up with new ideas. But she talks a lot about some of the challenges that they've come up against as of late and some of the successes that they've had over the years, which has been very cool. Tina herself has won, like I said, a lot of awards for her work as has the studio. So I think it's an interesting discussion as always. I always think the people I have on are interesting because I love stories and that's really what gaming is about.

And I myself am not big into gaming. So I have a ton of questions for Tina, as you will see. This is one time where I will say that it might feel a little less conversational because I do have a lot of questions for her in this episode because it's something I don't know really much at all about, but I'm very interested in the whole process of how they started and where they've gotten to and just, you know, it's all so cool and interesting. So hopefully you feel the same way.

I will make sure to put the link, their website in the show notes so you can check it out and see what projects they have worked on and what they're working on now. And I also want to take a moment to ask people, and I'm going to continue to ask this as episodes progress from here, to join me in something that I've been doing as of late. In the past couple of months, I've started making a donation to our local food bank.

If you're somebody who's in the position where you can join me in doing that, I'm going to ask you to do that as well. Right now is a time where people are really in the need of more resources in general, but food is one of those things that I don't think anybody should have to go without. And if you're capable and able to donate, I ask that you would. Usually, local places benefit most from cash donations because they really know where they can go to get a deal on the food that they're bringing in. And they have typically

programs set up already in the community. But anything that you can donate is always welcome and useful. And if you're somebody that can't, please don't feel any pressure. This is me just speaking to those listening who do have the opportunity and capability. As always, if you're able to rate and review the podcast for me wherever you're listening, that's awesome. I appreciate those who have. It just helps the podcast to get noticed more in the listings whenever there's more ratings and reviews definitely help.

So I think that's about all. I'm still going to be doing bi-weekly episodes as of now. If you're somebody who has a story and wants to connect, please do so. Remember that that is something you can do anonymously moving forward. You don't necessarily have to give all of your information if you're like, I want to share something, but I don't really know if I want everybody to know my stuff. We can do that.

All right, let's go ahead and get into the discussion with Tina.

Carrie McNulty (04:58)

Hi Tina.

Tina Lauro Pollock (04:59)

Hey, how are you?

Carrie McNulty (05:01)

I'm Well, my long-lost Northern Irish friend.

Tina Lauro Pollock (05:04)

It's been a hot minute, yeah.

Carrie McNulty (05:07)

It

really has. think I was counting it up this morning and I was like, well, I think we lived over there 17 years ago.

Tina Lauro Pollock (05:13)

Please don't be telling me

that.

Seventeen years ago

Carrie McNulty (05:18)

Right, but remarkably,

you and I are no older, so that's pretty amazing. Well, you know, when I started doing this, you were a person that I had in mind because I think, you know, what you do for work and what you've created and cultivated for yourself there is pretty interesting. So I'm wondering if you have a couple stories for us about what you do.

Tina Lauro Pollock (05:21)

Nope. Exactly right.

Yeah,

for sure. So I work on computer games. I run an independent studio here in Northern Ireland that is very small, but has managed to make some good end roads. And now there's sort of a Northern Ireland game industry that's being built around us. And then, you know, even, you know, on the wider island as well. I mean, there was a new fund announced on Friday that's

another half a million funding from the government there from Screen. So it's sort of picking up now into this like big investable thing. And it's just, really interesting to see that growing around all around us now. But when I started Brain and Nerd was pretty different.

Carrie McNulty (06:27)

Yeah.

Yeah.

So how long ago did you start? Because I don't remember dates anymore the way I used to. So how long ago did you start that? And what got you thinking like, this is something I want to start my own business. I want to start my own thing.

Tina Lauro Pollock (06:37)

You

So I started Brain and Nerd with my business partner, Brandon, 13 years ago, January 2012. And what had happened was, Brendan had just very recently finished his master's in computer science. And his main project for that, guess, was a terrain generation engine.

so that he could make real world scenes. And that was quite new and unique then. You didn't have game engines off the shelf like Unreal Engine or Unity Engine or a lot of the tools people would use now. So it was quite novel at the time. And I sort of looked over his shoulder because we were living together at the time, a few housemates. And I was like, yeah, we could totally make a computer game out of that.

sweet summer child. I did not know it, I did not know at that point. But having said that, we were plucky enough to become the first Irish game project to be successful on Kickstarter back in the day. So we went the crowdfunding route with another mutual friend of ours, Dan Morse, set it up for us because that wasn't even a thing in Ireland at the time.

Carrie McNulty (07:43)

Thank

Tina Lauro Pollock (08:09)

Northern Irish people couldn't apply to being Kickstarter back then. It was only a US platform. And yeah, so he helped us set that up, obviously with the US base. So, and we managed to smash our funding goal for that. And our first game idea predestination ended up taken off and we quite quickly formed a very tiny studio around making that game happen.

Carrie McNulty (08:40)

Yeah, that's amazing. you prior to that, like how much computer program experience did you have? How much knowledge did you have about any of that stuff when you just looked at it you were like, ooh, this looks like I could, we could do something with this. is interesting. Like.

Tina Lauro Pollock (08:55)

For me, a grand total of no programming experience at that point. None, not one iota. But what I did bring to the mix was the project management side of things and a lot of the operations and people management side of things. Because I've been doing just general management and operations management work before that. So that's what I brought to the table. And then over...

Carrie McNulty (09:10)

Thank you.

Tina Lauro Pollock (09:21)

several years, I realized that that had a place in the games industry and that's a role that's quite sought after now in terms of game skills. I think one of the biggest changes in the last decade is that game studios now realize that it takes much more than programming skills to actually ship a successful game because around 98 % of games fail and just don't...

Carrie McNulty (09:46)

Hmm.

Tina Lauro Pollock (09:48)

make market, don't make sales, whatever the case might be. So they've realized that you need those wraparound skills, right? You need someone who can manage your community. You need your play testers, you need producers. You need all of these other roles that aren't necessarily programming heavy, but are still vital.

Carrie McNulty (10:07)

Yeah, well, yeah, it sounds like to make the full business to make it be like the studio, you said, like you need all the parts to make it go. And that was what you brought and just wild. So you've always liked gaming.

Tina Lauro Pollock (10:21)

Yeah, I started to game before I could read. I used to have my mom tortured and putting codes into the Commodore so that I could play Commodore games, but I had a four-year-old attention span. So, you know, maybe take her 15 minutes to set up the game because of everything you need to type in. And then I'd play for maybe five, 10 minutes and then want to switch to another game.

Carrie McNulty (10:33)

haha

Yeah, so much work, so much work.

Tina Lauro Pollock (10:48)

So I was very quickly prompted to read at that point so that I could, you know, play my own games. So yeah, I started off on the old Commodore 64 and I've never stopped playing since. I kind of accidentally ended up being a gamer though because consoles weren't specifically bought for me because, you you're talking, you know, 1990 on, I started gaming and

Carrie McNulty (10:52)

Yeah.

awesome.

Mm.

Tina Lauro Pollock (11:18)

Back then consoles were very much seen as a boy's toy and these were all bought for my big brother. I didn't own them. The only one that I actually owned of my own was the Game Boy Color. And I owned that because that was specifically made in clear glittery purple and had purple carry cases and things like that. So my parents could actually see that a girl could have those things.

Carrie McNulty (11:21)

Mm-hmm.

No.

Right, that's the only indicator that a girl could advertise that has purple and sparkly. Got it. Yeah, perfect.

Tina Lauro Pollock (11:47)

Where are the other consoles now? yeah. Yeah, exactly, right? Yeah.

Doesn't matter what your interests are. Just, you know, if it's purple, it's fine, or pink, it's fine. Yeah. So it was interesting. I grew up watching a lot of games rather than actively playing them until I sort of got my own budget to be able to pay for my own games.

Carrie McNulty (11:55)

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it was from before you could read till, you know, what you've created now, it's always been an interest, but it sounds like, so for you, when you found out you liked it rather than just watching, was it just like an escape for you? it a, what was gaming for you that you really loved it so much it became your career?

Tina Lauro Pollock (12:33)

I think for me, I just love a good story. Any way to tell a story, I'm all for it. So I love games, but I also love movies. I love books. I mean, anything with a story and I'm all for it. So I think that's really important to me in all of the games that I create. I always try to have that element of storytelling in them. And I think games specifically have that interactivity. The other...

Carrie McNulty (12:56)

Mm-hmm.

Tina Lauro Pollock (13:01)

story vehicles can't really have just as much. You kind of, you you watch and don't participate necessarily in other forms of media and I just love that interactive bit for games where my feedback shapes the story.

Carrie McNulty (13:13)

Yeah.

Well,

right, you're in control in a sense of where the story goes, which is kind cool. Yeah. So with Predestination that was the first game that really made a splash. And then from there, once that ball started going and rolling, were you like, we've got to do more of this. This is amazing. Yeah.

Tina Lauro Pollock (13:22)

That's it exactly. Yeah.

Kind of. So

it was actually a really challenging and hard route to get predestination finished and to market. So obviously with the lack of support of like a local industry here, there was no larger studio or even a publisher that existed on our island at the time for us to learn from. It was all very small operations, quite similar to what we were doing. And

It was a huge challenge to know how to do these things efficiently. And we'd grossly underestimated what budget it would take. We'd grossly underestimated the time that this would take. And we made an awful lot of the mistakes that people, when they first try to make something creative, do. And what we decided to do, rather than fold under the mistakes, guess, is we documented them. We shared them with our local community.

Carrie McNulty (14:22)

Thank

Tina Lauro Pollock (14:33)

so that other studios could learn from what we'd done so that they didn't need to repeat all the same grind to make some sort of progress. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, so we would do talks locally for other small game studios so that they could learn from our story, the successes and the failures. We were really candid about those. We would attend local scenes like the Northern Ireland Developers Conference, and I give a talk on...

Carrie McNulty (14:38)

So you didn't gate keep You were sharing to build the community, which is awesome. Yeah.

Tina Lauro Pollock (15:02)

the many failures we made on the way and how to correct each one. And yeah, I think we learned an awful lot, but it took us seven years in total to get that first game out. And it was just a very, long journey. Back then you had to go through Steam Greenlight, which was like a community voting system to get your game on Steam, which you don't have to do anymore. Anyone can publish now on Steam.

Carrie McNulty (15:12)

Mm-hmm.

Tina Lauro Pollock (15:31)

but we had that whole level of scrutiny to get through. And then we put it into early access and then we had to work on that feedback to bring it to launch. And we had to secure other budget by working on other bits of innovation and things like that to get it all finished. But we got there in the end.

Carrie McNulty (15:50)

And you, mean, again, the determination it would take to stick with it for seven years and to see it through, that had to feel incredible when you finally got there.

Tina Lauro Pollock (15:58)

yeah, was such a relief when we actually did push that big launch button. It really, really was. Yeah. It was so good. But I think what really was great about it was that it freed us up to work on projects that made more sense going forward. So Predestination was based on

Carrie McNulty (16:01)

The red button. Launch.

Tina Lauro Pollock (16:25)

a quite retro type of game, the Space 4X strategy game, very slow turn-based tactical kind of thing, which wasn't very trendy by the time we launched. So it was quite nice to be able to pick up something new that actually had a bit more of a commercial sensibility to it rather than just a project that we wanted to play but didn't necessarily have a huge audience. So we ended up in the Northern Ireland screens first.

Carrie McNulty (16:35)

you

Mm-hmm.

Tina Lauro Pollock (16:54)

Game Studio Accelerator just as we launched Predestination. And that's where we picked up our next project that's still in development, Hortelius. And it's a sort of Honey I Shrunk the Kids meets like Subnautica or any of those exploration game type systems. So that's quite interesting too because it's such a big departure, but it has really familiar touchstones.

Carrie McNulty (17:04)

Okay.

me.

Tina Lauro Pollock (17:22)

that people

will have nostalgia for. So it's a nice one to work on.

Carrie McNulty (17:26)

Yeah. Well, and with the first, by the time you released it, the first game not being as popular, I would think that would be a good way to learn, you know, like all around, just the whole project, a good way to learn. And then once it's released and you can really, okay, then onto the next, cause you've learned so much, you're ready to go with the next thing, you know, adding to it, which is very cool. You being a woman and predominantly male,

Tina Lauro Pollock (17:48)

for sure.

Carrie McNulty (17:56)

field, what is that and what has that been like? Have you found that you've gotten the respect or have not or what you know not saying call people out not saying that. Curious because you know it is it's not the path but like you know your mom didn't even think you wanted to play games at one point because you know you had to have your purple one so I'm just curious what's that like what has it been?

Tina Lauro Pollock (18:19)

Yeah,

it's been interesting. There's been a big change of late. I will say the industry is definitely getting friendlier for people from underrepresented communities of all kinds. And it's actually a pretty diverse place now, surprisingly so. But nevertheless, a lot of those underrepresented voices are still in junior or mid roles. They're not taking up leadership roles because

Carrie McNulty (18:33)

Great.

Tina Lauro Pollock (18:48)

they're kind of being blocked out of them. So there's still work to be done. Don't get me wrong, but it's a lot better.

Carrie McNulty (18:50)

Hmm. Right. So little bit more in,

but maybe not all the way yet still.

Tina Lauro Pollock (18:56)

Yeah, exactly. There's a fit in the door, but

it's not totally flat structure yet. When I started, I remember attending our first big publisher meets. We attended the London Games Finance Market to pitch that idea for Hortalius We're very excited about it.

There were a couple of those meetings that we had where I was just treated like Brendan's PA and not like someone who knew anything about the project of the game. Like I was there to take notes. So challenging some of those expectations by spitting facts is how I like to get past it. I think it's great working with Brendan in particular because he's very good at taking a back seat.

once and I was like that happen and be like.

Carrie McNulty (19:50)

was gonna

say, I could see him being very chill, you know, and then just letting you step up and show that you do know everything there is to know about it. Yeah.

Tina Lauro Pollock (19:53)

Yeah

For sure.

For sure. I mean, there would be times where I would be covering a particular topic on a slide. And obviously, like, I'm the knowledge holder for that particular slide, because it's a partnership, right? know, Brendan has strengths and I have strengths, and we cover our own individual areas. So I'd be taking them through maybe the market for the game, for instance. And then they'd be like, yeah, yeah, this, that, the other, always questions in those particular bits.

but to direct those questions at instead of the knowledge holder for that information. So that was something to get past, but Brendan would just be like, you're talking to the wrong person and totally redirect back. And I think that really helped for sure.

Carrie McNulty (20:43)

Yeah, well,

and thankfully you wouldn't have picked him as a partner, I think, if he wouldn't have respected what you bring and wanted to support you, which is great. But you would think they'd catch on. You're like, I'm the one actually answering all the stuff. So you want to contact over here? Here. Thanks. Yeah.

Tina Lauro Pollock (20:54)

I know.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

If I'm reading this slide, guess who knows about the slide? This person.

Carrie McNulty (21:04)

It's me. I'm not just

reading them. I wasn't just brought here to read this for you I assume you could do that. I actually know about it Yeah

Tina Lauro Pollock (21:11)

You

I am really, really glad to see a change in now though. We have some amazing schemes like the Limit Break Scheme that is a mentorship and allyship program that was set up by people who are underrepresented in industry but are in leadership positions to offer mentorship to people who are either entering the industry or are at those mid levels and are trying to get their first roles or...

get a promotion or whatever the case might be and mentor them in both the hard skills for each of the roles and soft skills that they need to, you know, sort of do combat in these spaces. So that's been super useful. I've mentored on that for a good few years now. And I've also been a mentee as well from some of the AAA studios, which has been fantastic for my own learning as well. And then I'm pretty big into just

Carrie McNulty (21:53)

Yeah.

Tina Lauro Pollock (22:11)

being a STEM ambassador locally too. So I would specifically target a lot of the all girls schools here because it's a huge challenge trying to get girls to realize that this is a career that they can do. I walked into one of the biggest schools in West Belfast. name the name, but their main hall didn't have internet and we're there for a STEM careers fair to talk about careers in tech.

Carrie McNulty (22:17)

nice.

Tina Lauro Pollock (22:41)

to these girls and they don't even have internet in the place where they study. So what do we do? You know?

Carrie McNulty (22:46)

I mean, that's,

I wouldn't have expected that, you know, and that was probably more recently.

Tina Lauro Pollock (22:50)

Yeah.

That would have been 2015. There's no excuse.

Carrie McNulty (22:56)

Okay,

no, I don't even think, yeah, I wouldn't even think when I lived over there that that would have been appropriate. you know, so that had to be challenging to be like, hey, you could have a career doing this and we don't even have internet here. What are you talking about? Yeah, I don't.

Tina Lauro Pollock (23:06)

Yeah. Crazy.

Yeah,

for sure, for sure. you know, some of the students had developed these incredible skills on their own bat, but didn't have the careers knowledge in their careers office in school to tell them that this is a pathway that they could have taken. So that's something that I still work really hard on today. We've done over a hundred different STEM events with, you know, events like that going into schools and also doing placements.

work experience for school children and right up to like graduate placements and things like that. It's just something that I love to do because it's still just not as known a career here as it could be.

Carrie McNulty (23:56)

Yeah, but it says a lot that you were, you you have benefited from putting in the work and getting yourself into the position you're in. And I love that you still share it. You know, again, it isn't for you like I've made it and you have your hand reaching back for people to bring them up with you. And I love that. That's awesome.

Tina Lauro Pollock (24:11)

Yeah.

Sure, for sure. It's one of the things that we would be known for as well locally, which I love. If anyone talks about Brain and Nerd they do talk about it as a safe studio to work for. I would prefer that any day over, but they've made the biggest game in Ireland or anything like that. There will always be a bigger game that makes more of a commercial success and things like that.

Carrie McNulty (24:26)

that's very good.

Mm-hmm.

Tina Lauro Pollock (24:42)

having a safe work environment where people have been valued as, you know, paramount, really, you know, and we do so well on diversity metrics for a tiny studio that we've got awards for it things like that too. So it's been really, really nice to get those kudos. The MCV Women in Games Awards were kind to me two years in a row, which was really nice. I was shortlisted for the mentor of the year one and I won the business woman of the year one.

Carrie McNulty (25:11)

Woohoo!

Tina Lauro Pollock (25:12)

So was really nice.

Carrie McNulty (25:14)

That's amazing. mean, again, I think if Tina from, you know, when you first started this thought about what she wanted to accomplish, I can't imagine if you would have told her, hey, you're going to get to the point where you're winning awards because of being a successful businesswoman, what you bring to the table, your ability to mentor, teach, share. I mean, I can't imagine that you, that younger version of you would have been like, yeah, mm-hmm, yeah, I see it.

Tina Lauro Pollock (25:42)

No,

never. Absolutely not. Definitely not. I think it's probably a surprise to a lot of people who knew me as well. I gotta say. Yeah, I mean, I had a rough time coming up through school. I was quite ill, chronically fabulous and went to a grammar school that didn't really like that anyone was anything less than perfect. And, you know, I

Carrie McNulty (25:50)

you

Tina Lauro Pollock (26:11)

went to university, got sick again, didn't finish university and eventually found my feet at Ulster University that have amazing support and I did my masters in games design over Covid because I get work from home so it didn't really matter how was feeling I could get stuff done so that was a game changer for me and yeah.

Carrie McNulty (26:18)

Thank you.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

No.

Tina Lauro Pollock (26:39)

Their team there are incredible. They're just such nice people and supportive people who have great awareness of what the realities and practicalities of working on games are like. And they're not just teaching you theory. They're really helping develop some of those skills. And yeah, I a great time there.

Carrie McNulty (26:50)

Yeah.

and your program

at Ulster or has that been there? Because I, yeah, okay. Okay.

Tina Lauro Pollock (27:04)

That's quite new. So we

were the first cohort of the masters, certainly. There were only three of us who graduated in my year. Yeah. So there were three of us and the first cohort of the bachelor's in design and games design was I think maybe 20 something. Some numbers like that. And now the class sizes exploded. It's about triple that now. Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (27:32)

That's amazing.

Tina Lauro Pollock (27:34)

really really taken off now.

Carrie McNulty (27:36)

And you said, well, you know, we chatted briefly before we started recording, but you said that you were doing a little bit of teaching yourself.

Tina Lauro Pollock (27:45)

Yeah, so I am a casual lecturer now at Ulster and I really love it. They, final year students there have a module on studio development and so what I teach them are a lot of the business skills to support them to start their own studio with their own game ideas. So I take them through how to pitch to these people, how to test the market viability of their idea.

to make a compelling case for funding. And I teach them about a lot of the support structures that are in place in Northern Ireland and Ireland as a whole to help fund new game businesses. Because we're very lucky here to have Northern Ireland Screen Support. And then now there's the new Irish funds as well. So we're in a pretty good position there where if we do find a publisher, for instance, Northern Ireland Screen will help.

that budget with another 15%. Yeah. And for prototypes, they'll pay up to 75 % of the prototyping costs and allow some work in kind for your 25%. So very, very kind terms to try to get businesses started here. And that's on top of their incubator schemes as well, which we benefited from. And they've refined since to suit even better. So, I mean, it's a great climate here now for a new studio starting despite the

Carrie McNulty (28:44)

that's awesome.

Mm-hmm.

Tina Lauro Pollock (29:11)

global challenges in the game scene right now.

Carrie McNulty (29:13)

Yeah, I mean, I definitely want to talk about that because I would imagine just with everything in flux that you're noticing that in your chosen career field too. But again, I guess I'm fangirling a little bit because I'm like, yeah, all of these things are available and all of these grants and all of this funding and all of this stuff. But it's like you were doing it before any of that existed. And I can't help but think that some of the reason why is your success showed what is possible. And I think that's so freaking cool.

Tina Lauro Pollock (29:40)

Yeah.

That's probably the coolest thing that I can say about my career is that it's like spawned this whole supportive infrastructure locally and it's made, you know, government, you know, in some sense.

Carrie McNulty (29:46)

you

Yeah!

They notice and they're

like, want to put money towards this because we've seen that it be a success. And you were doing this starting your studio in your house, right? Like it was, yeah, wild.

Tina Lauro Pollock (29:59)

Yeah!

Yeah, for sure. This was

a bedroom project at first, coding in our dungeons. But yeah, we got there in the end. At one point there, we got up to a team of 15, which for a local studio is pretty significant. And we managed to get some European funding to help us with Hortalius

Carrie McNulty (30:13)

Your cup of tea. Just coding away. Yeah, do your thing.

Tina Lauro Pollock (30:34)

We've completed some amazing research and development projects as well, and really cool tools that really make our games a little bit different. Like we have a dynamic sound controller that we made, so the audio in the game has different localities, but they can move and things like that. So if you're tracking a rabbit through a forest or whatever, the noise can travel with that rabbit really, really dynamically.

the rest of the game audio still happening around you and your space. That's really cool. Just really, really cool tech. Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I love those challenges and I love writing the grant proposals for things like that too.

Carrie McNulty (31:03)

That's cool. Yeah, I think it sounds like it really immerses you more, right? Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah, I mean, it

sounds like you're just really excited about it, and that makes it easy to talk about, right? And that makes it easy to get other people excited about it. So really, your role in it's perfect for you because your joy around it shows.

Tina Lauro Pollock (31:26)

for sure.

Yeah, I mean, I just love it. Yeah,

for sure. I mean, at the end of the day, you're making something for specifically for people's enjoyment, right? So it's always going to be fun, even if the process is challenging and infuriating, there's barriers in your way. Don't get me wrong, it's hard work, but it's joyful as well because you're making people happy at the end of the day, which is fantastic. Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (31:45)

like arduous times. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And

it's a creation from your brain that somebody is all about. That has to feel pretty good,

Tina Lauro Pollock (32:04)

Yeah, that's it. That's it. Like people are actually engaging in stories that you created. Like people are going, I really, like when this happens. And you're like, thanks, I wrote that script.

Carrie McNulty (32:14)

Yeah, yeah.

I'm glad you noticed that. That was my extra added, my touch here. Yeah. What are some of the challenges that you're noticing now that is making a little bit tougher for you guys to keep moving ahead or causing concern?

Tina Lauro Pollock (32:21)

No, it's alright.

Mm.

Yeah, there's quite a few right now. It's a pretty tricky time for the game industry as a whole. So during COVID, there was a huge game boom because everyone was at home. Nobody could do their outdoor activities safely and people tend to game in as a bit of an escape from pretty hard reality at the time. So game sales went through the roof, which meant that investors who weren't initially in the game space

Carrie McNulty (32:44)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tina Lauro Pollock (32:59)

started to branch into games. yeah, but that money wasn't given out with, you know, the longevity of the industry in mind. they're... Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (33:01)

I'm sure over.

So it's fickle. If the attention's

there, then the money is there. But when the attention is waning, they're not keeping the money there.

Tina Lauro Pollock (33:19)

For sure, for sure. That's it. Just like the minute those things happen where money goes away or things like that and then studios are just left to fend for themselves, you know? And this is happening at the AAA, tip of the top of the industry too. You know, a lot of games that were planned to be releasing in 2023, 2024 kind of just went silent because funding disappeared.

Carrie McNulty (33:34)

Hmm.

Mmm.

Tina Lauro Pollock (33:47)

And that's had a huge knock on effect on the rest of the industry to the point where in the first couple of months there of 2025, we had more layoffs than we'd had in about a decade before that. It is pretty tragic. And the lack of funding for the larger studios has made the publishers that do exist for independent studios like mine be much more risk averse. So they're just not putting their hand in their pocket.

the way that they would have a few years ago. So you have times where you have deals on a table and then all of a sudden they're pulled. So it's very, very hard times for independent developers to keep telling their stories. No. Yeah.

Carrie McNulty (34:30)

Yeah, it seems like it's just

very insecure right now, right? There's no, even if you have something great that you've worked on and you're excited about and you've sold it and they seem like they've agreed at any moment they could say actually, no, we're not going to fund this, which sounds really heartbreaking.

Tina Lauro Pollock (34:45)

Yeah,

it is. is. For instance, my team put around 18 months into a co-development project with two influencers who had a great game idea and asked Brendan to develop it for them. And we had several different deals on the table that through the economy, the state of the games industry have fallen through for the game to the point where we've had to let

the bulk of our team go, which was heartbreaking last month. So we're now in a position where we're considering a Brain and Nerd you know, what we do next. Will we be working on some micro projects? Will we find roles somewhere in the AAA game industry? We just, we don't know right now. No.

Carrie McNulty (35:26)

Yeah.

sure. Yeah, so it makes even the

future of your studio uncertain at this point.

Tina Lauro Pollock (35:40)

Yeah, for sure. mean, and that's just true right across. mean, there was a studio that I was talking to the other day who just won a lot of awards, like, and names and same where, that, you know, are in huge difficulty despite that very recent success. Because it's just the funding for their next project just doesn't come into fruition the way it should and the way that they deserve.

Carrie McNulty (36:08)

I hope that the pendulum starts to swing back the other way so that people who find joy in games can continue to do so. I mean, yeah, I think a lot of people live as though COVID is over, but it's not. That's sort of a sticking point for me. I think.

Tina Lauro Pollock (36:23)

Mm-hmm.

Carrie McNulty (36:27)

I think just like everything there's an ebb and a flow and then when people could felt like they could go out they did and I'm hoping that you know maybe some people will come back into what brings them joy and that you won't have that fear for too much longer it's just there's so much uncertainty all around really you know

Tina Lauro Pollock (36:43)

That's it, that's it.

I think once they've sort of stabilized their pockets on the money that they now need to claw back post-COVID, I think things will start to stabilize and a lot of the sort of leading thinkers in the game industry are predicting that most development is going to happen at the very high levels of the independent space rather than that AAA space because those larger projects

that are 50 million plus budgets. Yeah, just not that feasible anymore. So they're thinking that instead a lot of even the larger publishers might be more looking at putting smaller budgets, a million or less into independent endeavors, but really at the top of their game.

Carrie McNulty (37:14)

Yeah, was gonna say big money, right? Like big, big money. Yeah.

Hmm. Well, that would be an interesting turn, wouldn't it, to have it be that the people who were in these huge, huge studios and corporations start coming to you and being like, hey, can we get in on what you're doing? Like.

Tina Lauro Pollock (37:43)

Yeah. It would be super interesting to see.

It would be so interesting to see. But I think what we've also seen as well is during COVID, lot of education was also democratized. So a lot of independent endeavors have picked up pipelines and, you know, world leading sort of ways of working to make games.

very efficiently and they're combining that with the indie ability to pivot really quickly to new trends and ideas and thoughts that AAA doesn't have because they're so risk averse. So it's a really exciting space to be in. It just is very rocky right now too.

Carrie McNulty (38:32)

feel like that's a good message in general for everybody, regardless of what industry you're in, is that, yes, it's tumultuous times, right? It's very rocky, but that's also where the creativity lives and where you're forced to pivot and come up with things that you wouldn't have thought of before.

Tina Lauro Pollock (38:39)

Mm-hmm.

Carrie McNulty (38:48)

and to kind of throw being risk adverse out the window a little bit. And I feel like we all kind of have to do that to some degree to be creative about our income revenue and where we're getting streaming sources and where we're getting, you know, I have a private practice. It's just me for doing therapy, but I can say even referrals have slowed down on my end. So I've had to think about other ways of how can I also continue to make money or do things that aren't conventionally what I've been doing. So.

I'm not saying like, yay, it's great that everything's so unstable, which I'll be so glad that we don't know what the hell's going on. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that's where the creativity, the hope of things kind of lives is when you're in the mud trying to figure it out and something can grow from that that you wouldn't have considered before because your brain has to work in a different way. So.

Tina Lauro Pollock (39:18)

You

Yeah, I mean for

sure, for sure. I mean, I think being someone from West Belfast, Good Friday Agreement kids, I definitely know those vibes. We've kind of been here before where futures were rocky and speculative and scary. You know, we kind of get it. I think we're very well placed for that, which is great.

Carrie McNulty (39:47)

Yeah

to say the least, my gosh.

yeah.

yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, definitely. think there are many folks living in Belfast that are used to uncertainty, or it's not that long ago where it would have felt like, hmm, what will today bring? I have to be ready for anything. Is there a potential in my, you know? Right, right. Do I have to get off the bus because there's a bomb threat? I don't know, maybe. I'm not sure.

Tina Lauro Pollock (40:17)

Another bomb alert at my school for god's sake, you know

Carrie McNulty (40:28)

This is what I had planned today, you know, hopefully it's, hopefully it's nothing to that degree that we're talking about. You know, it's just the uncertainty in general is where people do get their, their creativity and their ability to think outside of the box. And that sounds like something that you've been doing for years. So I hope that your creativity and ingenuity can hang through this because I'm sure that what you have coming next is going to be pretty impressive. That already has been.

Tina Lauro Pollock (40:34)

No.

Okay.

I hope so. We have plenty of ideas of what we want to do next. So now it's just trying to make some really, I guess, conservative plans to make those happen and be really, really smart about some of the ways in which we work to be sure that we can sustain through this really uncomfortable bit to then reach the good bit at the end.

Carrie McNulty (41:19)

Yeah,

more of the good stuff because you definitely you've earned it, you know You kind of started a movement. That's a big deal. And I think you know The fact that you're still trying to pull other people up with you during the uncertainty also says a lot about what you've done and what you want to build continue to build, you

Tina Lauro Pollock (41:25)

Hopeful.

Mmm.

Yeah, that's it. I mean, and it's not just our studio too. There are so many little indies all across the globe working in really challenging conditions and trying to pull other people up with them. It's really good to see. Because games used to only come from the US, only from huge studios with so much money. And then you had like...

Carrie McNulty (41:43)

Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Tina Lauro Pollock (42:04)

Obviously the sort of Japan bubble too with Nintendo and things like that. But again, huge, huge companies. Like you had your Capcoms and your Nintendos and all the rest. But now the whole face of gaming has changed because the tools are easier. The learning is free online. You know, it's just, it's really, really exciting. Like anyone can make a computer game now.

Carrie McNulty (42:13)

Yeah.

Yeah!

Yeah, which is very cool because there are many people that have awesome ideas that would have never had access before.

Tina Lauro Pollock (42:32)

Yeah,

that's it. you know, why is it always a white man hero and it damsel in distress and attire? You know, we can tell other stories because more voices are now involved in games. It's so funny how that happens.

Carrie McNulty (42:44)

Yeah, there's other perspectives. Yes,

yes, yes, we don't need any more white knights, please. We don't need any more and really any aspect of anything. I'm just saying it doesn't, yeah. We're good. We're good on that. We're good.

Tina Lauro Pollock (42:56)

We're just done.

It is fantastic though to see the kind of stories that are coming out of games now because of that, because of more voices being in games. Really, really unique stories, which is fantastic.

Carrie McNulty (43:10)

Well, isn't that an interesting perspective, that everything is more enriched and more full when there's more voices at the table? Hmm. Hmm. Who would thought that hearing perspectives from all different types of people could build something really amazing? I don't know. That's wild. Mind blowing. It shouldn't be revelatory, but it seems like that is.

Tina Lauro Pollock (43:17)

Who'd a thunk it?

But

so often it is, especially in mainstream media.

Carrie McNulty (43:39)

Yeah. Wow. Well,

is there anything that I didn't ask you about that you're like, I want to be sure to share this?

Tina Lauro Pollock (43:49)

Probably the main message, I guess, is it's never too late to find a career that makes you happy, first and foremost, and it's never too late to learn something new. So no matter what your background, your age, or whatever, if there is something that sparks joy, makes you creative, and makes you more ambitious than what you would normally be, go after it. It's never too late.

Carrie McNulty (44:01)

Yes.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. That's a beautiful message. And again, I think something that everybody needs to hear right now. So.

Tina Lauro Pollock (44:23)

Yeah, that's it. If

your status quo is crumbled, go make a new one. Yep.

Carrie McNulty (44:27)

Yeah, you got to. That's the times we're living in, you know?

And the times we've been living in, but it seems heightened right now. So I think your message is a very important one in this time in particular, and also your story is just awesome. I have loved catching up with you. I feel like, you know, we see each other occasionally interact on social media, but, you know, I think the last time I saw you was 15 years ago. So that's been a long time.

Tina Lauro Pollock (44:35)

at us.

Thank you.

Yes.

You

it was your last visit to Belfast

Carrie McNulty (44:59)

I know, I

know time goes so fast. So I, I appreciate you joining and telling your story and talking about what you do because it is so interesting and you're just delightful. I love talking.

Tina Lauro Pollock (45:14)

I appreciate your time. Thank you.

Carrie McNulty (45:15)

Yeah,

absolutely. Well, again, thank you for coming on and to everybody listening. Be well, take care of yourself, and I will be back in a couple weeks with another episode. And Tina, it was wonderful talking to you.

Tina Lauro Pollock (45:31)