Spotlight On: Dr. Enrique Perez (Head of School, MetStudios Berlin)

At MetStudios Berlin, we believe that the combination of innovative technology and creative vision is key to shaping the next generation of industry leaders.

At the helm of our Creative Technology department is Dr. Enrique Perez, a dedicated educator, prolific game developer, and an advocate for inclusive learning. With a career that spans over fifteen years, Enrique has made significant contributions to games, art installations, amusement attractions, and educational projects worldwide. Their years of experience and passion for creating a inclusive learning environment make them an inspiring figure in both academia and the industry.

In this interview, Enrique shares their perspectives on current technologies, their vision for education at MetStudios, and the insights they bring to students from their extensive career in games and interactive media.

How do you see emerging technologies like AR and VR reshaping the future of the creative industries?

I would not call them emerging anymore, but current. Personally, I see opportunities for implementations everywhere. I see AR and VR becoming more and more ubiquitous. I see them integrated into every process we do, from shopping to bureaucracy to interacting with our loved ones. The important thing is that the interaction with these technologies becomes transparent, meaningful and that it makes sense.

We need tools and experiences that truly augment and expand our lives. But for that, we also need to form the professionals who can deliver such experiences. There is where MetStudios comes into play, to form such creatives.

When these technologies appeared, there were many interesting things that made us curious. But we should not deny that there was also a lot of rubbish. I see the need for professionals that create and produce these technologies, and ensure they are seamlessly integrated to our lives. We need tools and experiences that truly augment and expand our lives. But for that, we also need to form the professionals who can deliver such experiences. There is where MetStudios comes into play, to form such creatives.

What excites you most about leading MetStudios Berlin?

I feel very excited and thrilled to be able to contribute to the education of our students with real life experiences. I am also very proud that, at BIMM University, we focus on making the students’ time with us the best experience of their lives. Sometimes I can’t even sleep at the thought of all the extra-curricular activities, events and networking opportunities with industry people that we are continually preparing for the students!

I can say that this is my dream job; I love what I do. All the people who are interested in studying, learning and growing with us can be sure that, at MetStudios, they will have one of the best experiences of their life and one of the best educations for their professional life.

Can you share a memorable project from your career that highlights the intersection of games design and education?

I have worked on plenty such projects. I consulted on user interactions and game design for the construction of an amusement park attraction in Mexico. The purpose of this attraction is to teach children how the whole the extraction and processing of minerals works. As part of a research project, I also designed casual games around the topics of corruption, bullying, and school shootings. Before joining BIMM, I was commissioned to design a casual mobile game about human rights for the Thai market and a party board game about extortion for the Burmese market. I was also commissioned to plan the production of a mobile game on peace for the Arab market.

I must say, I see games as a way to learn. I also think people learn by playing. And people learn the most when we design the most fitting playful experiences. I, therefore, see these three concepts – games, design and education, as an essential triad. I do not see them separately; they should always exist together.

Your academic journey is quite impressive, with a PhD in Games. How did your academic research influence your approach to teaching and your current role in higher education?

There is certainly a before and after. I was teaching game design and game development courses before coming to BIMM University. I was also working as consultant and ghost writer on different mobile game projects. I felt quite well prepared after having finished my master’s in games in Denmark. I felt I was sharing with the students the best knowledge available because I had just studied with the top game researchers. However, it all changed.

One day, one of my students asked me how to make games. I asked him what he meant by that. He said it was clear that games have different elements that constitute them, so how are they designed? Then I realised he was right. All that body of knowledge or theories in the academic discipline of games, Game Studies, focuses on defining game elements but there was nothing on how to design games. My work experiences also confirmed this. I was constantly making games for clients whose requirements and target players really demanded me to go off the foundations I had learned at school.

When I did my PhD, I wanted to delve into this topic: how to actually design games? Game Studies is relatively a young discipline, and no one had ever turned to the Design and Engineering disciplines to explain how to design and specifically how then the design of games works. This is what I did with my research. With my dissertation and later papers, I explained how design happens, what it is about, and exemplify how prominent and award-winning indie game developers made their games. Afterwards, my teaching on game design drastically changed. I could no longer work with the theories I worked with previously. They felt irrelevant. My approach was to facilitate the design knowledge and skills the students needed which did not exist in Games Studies. The students learn to analyse their actions while designing, especially their reasoning, and find their way to accomplish their project goals.

A person cannot become a designer by designing just a single game. Design skills develop through practice.

My focus was also on the practice. A person cannot become a designer by designing just a single game. Design skills develop through practice. To become a designer, a person must be exposed continuously to different circumstances and project requirements. You learn to be like a detective and to frame problems in the right way to give customers what is right for them, and what is most likely to succeed in the markets.

I see games as products and services that are part of the entertainment industry. This means that the way to succeed in making games is to know the business, to produce games that are part of the industry, and to prepare the relevant product, commercial, financial and technological strategies. Students should gain skills for all this.

As someone who has worked extensively in the fields of video games and interactive media, what do you believe are the most significant changes in these industries over the past decade? How do you incorporate these changes into your teaching?

Things have changed so much. I have seen so many different game industries shape up, transform and become something else. Each person has a different story.

When I started my career 27 years ago, working in the game industry was not something I could have ever considered. But in 2005, after studying classical animation, I landed my very first game designer job at Gameloft, a mobile game studio. That was the only game company in my country. Many phones were flip phones. Many of the games where in black and white. We were all delighted every time we had the chance to work on a ‘sophisticated’ phone with a colour display which, of course, did not have a wide colour palette. To download a game, you topped up your phone and then paid with your credit. People didn’t play that much on their phones back then. It was close to the beginning of that trend. The market was very young and small.

Three years later, I worked at a mobile entertainment company and was deploying mobile games to the company’s server so people could download directly from us. It was not yet the time of the big online platform stores. Apple had already launched the first iPhone and mobile games were becoming more and more ubiquitous. Web games were very popular, and more and more people bought games on Steam.

Then I did my Master’s in game design. After graduation, I ended up in a market that looked totally different. Even though there were a few very successful indie games such as Braid and World of Woo, founding your own indie game studio was not common. However, there were many agencies in a frenzy of producing advergames and edutainment. Many organisations also wanted to jump on the train. My games background and experience helped me get UNICEF MX as client. I also worked for a German mobile game developer and ghost wrote many games to compete with the most popular games worldwide. It was popular to design casual games and add gamification features revolving around achievements and things people could share on social media.

Years later, indie studios started to pop up here and there, along with game collectives and game festivals. From casual mobile games sprung hyper-casual games. Sophisticated monetisation systems were incorporated. More and more games were outcomes of successful crowdfunding campaigns. VR and the metaverses became more popular. The story goes on.

What motivated you to transition from industry to academia, and how has your experience in the creative technology sector informed your approach as an educator?

I don’t see myself as having left the industry or having transitioned. I have been (and am) active in the industry all the time. Even while I was doing some of my latter studies, I have always been working or teaching in parallel. In the last few years, I have also been researching and publishing papers. Even now, I am being asked to join industry panels and events.

My background and past experiences have confirmed that is crucial that students learn to design. Most commonly, I have seen people who learn ‘game design’ don’t do any design. They just have projects in which they put arbitrary ideas together and add nice visuals and sometimes a story. But sometimes these kinds of projects simply don’t make sense because they are not interesting, fun, or suitable for the market or the culture where they are deployed.

Students should learn how to actually design games. They should learn to reach project goals, to analyse client, business, and technical requirements, and to deliver and deploy games that actually make sense in their market or context. And these learnings are honed only by practising. Students at MetStudios get the right practice and experiences to be the leaders of tomorrow.

How do you foster a balance between technical skills and creative expression in your students?

I don’t see a divide between creative expression and technical skills. If you want to be creative, you need to employ techniques that allow you to be creative and grow artistically and professionally. Without the proper techniques such as design methods (i.e. brainstorming, story boards, flowchats, etc.), instead of being creative, you end up putting up together random ideas. This is certainly not creativity. Similarly, while using technology, you’d better be creative to find out how to produce things that allow you to express yourself or that are unique.

If you want to be creative, you need to employ techniques that allow you to be creative and grow artistically and professionally.

I see MetStudios students excelling in both creative expression and technical skills. We focus on educating them to be versatile and to learn how to solve problems. They are multidisciplinary.

Tools and trends come and go. Yet, the important thing is that the students have the foundations to use new tools without issue (e.g. other game engines they may need to use at work). We want students to learn to innovate, to learn to know how to solve problems, to reach the project goals, to measure the impact of their work, to learn to use documentation of IT tools and be able to switch from one tool to another and, of course, to be kind and ethical people.

You’ve mentioned the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in your work. How do you encourage this among your students?

Many game developers are jacks of all trades. They do the programming and the conceptual work of their game and even produce the 2D art or 3D models. But there are many other things to take care of. You need audio, you need nicely set up game scenes and level design, and much more. Why not to collaborate with other people to produce the best quality content?

To give a clear example, people underestimate the role of audio and sound in the development of a game. A good game can go unnoticed or lose significance because its audio elements are not good enough or were chosen arbitrarily. But when a game has really good audio and sound, the experience of the players can be extraordinary. Audio builds the experiences players perceive; it contributes with the immersion, with the progression and the make believe we want in order to keep players hooked. I am convinced that we have to collaborate with people from other disciplines to make the best games.

Luckily, as part of the BIMM Group, games, music, film, acting, animation and visual effects students can converge to collaboratively develop great things. These students are extremely talented and professional. I find it extraordinary that they have so many opportunities to participate in each other’s topics or can meet at events or on projects where they can join forces.

At our school, we often organise game jams and workshops which are open to all of our students. We are proud of the projects that come out of these initiatives and will continue encouraging these interactions. I am also convinced this is a privilege that students at other institutions don’t have. At other places, students are usually only interacting with people who study the same courses as them. At BIMM, our games students can benefit from lots of musicians and filmmakers studying at other schools who are keen on working with them.

Lastly, I would say that this collaboration is what really reflects the world outside university. Once our students graduate, they will collaborate with people from other disciplines. The good thing is that our students are already used to this.

As a leader in higher education, how do you stay updated with the rapid advancements in technology, and how do you ensure that your programs remain relevant and cutting-edge?

On the one hand, we are part of the industry. We have many industry partners with whom we collaborate, and they come to MetStudios to teach or host masterclasses and workshops. We also get invited to their events. You will see me regularly at Tak & Play, the Computer Games Museum, or Game Developer hangouts. I also attend Gamescom, A MAZE and Games Ground. BIMM is also member of the German Games Developer Association (game – Verband) and of the network of the media industries Medianet Berlin Brandenburg.

Through these institutions, we stay connected with game companies and can offer our students opportunities to mingle with people in the industry. On the other hand, and at a personal level, I am active in the game industry. In my free time, besides enjoying my family and nature, doing sports and playing games, I also write papers and attend academic conferences, like DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association) and make my own games.

What are some of the trends or emerging technologies in creative media that you are most excited about, and how are you preparing your students to engage with these developments?

Obviously, artificial intelligence is the trend in the spotlight. I think BIMM students are in a privileged position. They learn to use top-class software and applications. Every time the software or applications are updated or have new features, the students have the chance to learn about it. Thus, they are always up to date.

AI needs guidance, directives and focus. We want our students to learn to take an active role so that they get the best out of all these emerging technologies.

I should also add that we encourage the students to use all the new tools, including artificial intelligence. I believe AI can really simplify tasks and take some work from us. However, AI needs guidance, directives and focus. We want our students to learn to take an active role so that they get the best out of all these emerging technologies. In other words, you can produce things using AI but it is only through the right input that the output is functional, aesthetic and makes sense. And I might be repeating myself, but because our students are in close contact with people in the game industry – or, I’d rather say, we make sure our students are already in their studies part of the game scene – they are exposed to the methods and tools that the industry uses right now.

Emerging technologies such as AI are just one side of this story, but the other side is their impact. This leads me to talk about sustainability, climate change and social justice. We want the students to learn how to be efficient in their work and to know how to optimise all their processes. We want them to be aware of the impact they have as well as the contribution they can make to society. We bring these topics to our lessons.

Sustainability is a very hot topic in the game industry. This is the reason why the UN drives Playing For The Planet in collaboration with the world’s largest game companies. We are no exception. At BIMM, these issues are also at the forefront. Students get plenty of opportunities and situations throughout their studies to reflect upon their role in the world and the positive changes they can produce by making games.

Through Enrique’s guidance, students at MetStudios Berlin are not only gaining technical skills but are also encouraged to be thoughtful creators who understand the broader implications of their work in society.

We are excited to see how Enrique’s leadership will continue to shape our Creative Technology department and inspire our students to achieve remarkable things in the fields of games, animation, and VFX.