Kudo Tsunoda: Drexel CS student bests Kinect Sports game dev at his own game

Kudo Tsunoda, Microsoft’s creative director for Kinect Games, spoke at Drexel last month.

By Zeek Weil

In what you might call an epic Kinect Sports tournament, one Drexel computer science student made it to the finals and faced The Boss: Kudo Tsunoda, Microsoft’s director for Kinect Games.

And, you’ll be pleased to know, the Dragons prevailed. The gamer beat Tsunoda at his own game.

Tsunoda came to Drexel last month to speak about the video game industry (and of course, to compete in the video game tournament) in an event organized by Drexel’s Westphal College of Media Arts & Design.

Here’s event organizer Zeek Weil on the most important takeaway of Tsunoda’s talk:

The eventual winner of the video game tournament about to face off with Kudo Tsunoda. Photo courtesy of Zeek Weil.

Kudo was very real about what it’s like to work in the video game industry. He, like most people that get into that business, loved to play video games as a kid, but he had no idea how much work it took to develop and produce a game. Kudo explained that his first job in the video game industry was answering the phone at the a video game studio. He stressed the importance of if you want to work in the industry, you have to get your foot in the door and that once in, you have to work hard.

He talked about one production schedule for a video game that had him working 120 hour weeks for the final two months of production. Gaming at Drexel is a nationally ranked, collaborative program between the Digital Media program’s Game Art and Production major and the Computer Science department. The students certainly work in teams and co-op in industry, but I think the major takeaway for them is that once you get into this industry you have to have a passion a real desire for the work. That the hours are going to be long and demanding, but if it’s what you love to do, then it won’t matter.