As the world premiere of several television specials were quickly approaching, the National Geographic Channel (NGC) was interested in expanding its engagement efforts beyond just the television screen and onto the Internet. The interactive team at NGC set out to launch a series of customized online games, and turned to New York-based developer Arkadium. It's there that Digital Arts & Design graduate Joe Laurino has been working as a Game Producer on a number of their education-themed games.

“I’ve been on the National Geographic Channel games since the beginning, and we did so well on the first one that they’ve been coming back to us ever since,” the native New Yorker explains. “They give a lot of input. We’ll get a lot of emails with suggestions, and they’ve really helped out a lot with the production.”

Joe’s position as Game Producer has him wearing a lot of different hats while helping oversee these projects. It’s difficult to classify any day as “typical,” as his work can include everything from managing the game content design and project pipeline, to calling on his music production skills to create the audio – all skills he’s been honing since he started experimenting with game production at a young age.

“Game Producers handle all the different facets of a game, and I do pretty much anything I can get my hands in,” he shares. “And growing up making games on my own I was used to doing everything myself anyway. Art-related or music-related or programming-related – I was able to train myself in a lot of different skill sets early on in my life, and I use all of them here each day.

“So one day I might be doing XML coding or tweaking variables in a game, and the next day I might be modifying some files in Photoshop because we need to change the backgrounds. It’s a very fast-paced, high-energy job, but that’s what I’m used to, and I love it.”

That work ethic has already seen Joe and the team produce four well-received titles under the collaboration – Fossil Hunt, Stonehenge, The National Geographic Channel Expedition Game and Fight Science. The latter was recently honored with a Silver award at the 38th Annual Creativity Awards, one of the longest-running international advertising and graphic design competitions in the world.

“Winning was pretty sweet, I have to say,” Joe says of the win for Fight Science, adding: “But we were also really proud of Expedition Game because the production values for that game were through the roof. You actually have an emotional attachment to your character because you can completely customize it. And to have a hand in designing it, watching it come to life, and finally win that award was just unbelievable.”

Recognition aside, Joe admits that he’s enjoyed just being able contribute his ideas to the team at Arkadium; in addition to the National Geographic games, Joe has also been involved with “tons of games” for Arkadium’s Great Day Games website, along with several other game projects. Growing up on a healthy diet of Mario and Zelda, making the switch from gamer to Game Producer has been the ultimate payoff – and Joe is looking forward to what the future holds as the company continues to work with their expanding roster of clients to keep developing innovative new titles.

“Being here, they don’t play around when they’re looking for people – they can get a lot of great talent, and the fact that I’m here is just a personal achievement,” he shares about his career at Arkadium. “And just making these really fun games with this team, and then seeing a bunch of people play them and enjoy them, that’s my biggest achievement so far I think. That’s what I’ve wanted since the beginning of my career.”