We often mention our team in terms of "Amplidudes and Amplidudettes", but we decided we should give you folks an idea of who we mean. You've guessed it, it's time for another installment of our (semi-)regular feature, Meet the Team! Today we exceptionally go for a newcomer to the team. If you want to know more about us, or your nephew wants to learn more about the career path of a game developer, or if you're just curious, read on.
Meet the Community guy who is posting about himself in the third person, François, aka Frogsquadron!
Who are you and what do you do at Amplitude?
Hey folks! I’m François, you guys know me as Frogsquadron on the forums. I turned 29 on Tuesday (which is why I lobbied for the spot this week!), and my role within Amplitude is that of Senior Community Developer. I am the studio’s most prominent speaker on the forums, where I translate what players say into devspeak and vice versa, to help get the message across. Apart from that, I handle some of our social media presence (GDD votes, blog articles) along with Stéphanie, event planning and management. I also help with tech support, triaging issues to pass them along to the right person, and helping where I can.
What were you doing before you joined Amplitude?
I was working for Electronic Arts, on their community support platform. There I tried handling as much VIP user stuff as I could, since I found it very interesting to see what kind of incentives made people want to participate and get involved in communities. Before that, I worked for BioWare on Star Wars: The Old Republic, mostly peacekeeping and leading discussions on the French forums. It’s quite amusing to see how different things are between a huge team that is itself part of an even bigger organization, and being one of two people doing All Things Community-Related at Amplitude.
When did you join the studio?
Less than half a year ago, at the end of summer. Just in time to get up to speed for the Paris Games Week and our Halloween releases.
What feature have you worked on that you're super proud of?
I haven’t been here a long time, but I was really happy to take part in our balancing efforts on Endless Legend, with Kaboomer and Wilbefast. I put in place the conversational space to help our community discuss what they felt was needed, gave them the tools to get their feedback heard, and discussed said feedback with the team. It was really empowering. I’m also really proud of the last Beer2Gether event we had for the Endless Day this Thursday: it was my first time participating in the organization of such an event, and Stéphanie left me a lot of leeway since she was getting everything ready for the Global Game Jam Paris (check it out!), and somehow everything turned out fine and no one caught fire. In my previous history of employment, I’m really proud of having worked on both Star Wars and SimCity games.
What are you currently working on?
Helping the game dev team deliver the GDDs for Endless Space 2, because the ravenous hunger of our community grows with each passing day… The game dev teams are the ones with which I interact the most. I also talk a lot with Slowhands (Jeff, our writer) when we create the next G2G vote, to make sure that the options offered to the community align with the vision we have for our games. He is currently not talking to me anymore after in the last few votes you guys decided that the new Minor Faction was going to be a photosynthetic aerial* minor faction of cryptic persecuted pirates…
(*final results pending)
What's your favorite game of all time?
Oh boy, that’s a tough one. I think it’d be a toss-up between Civilization 2, Homeworld, Cryo’s Dune and Grim Fandango, I have sunk countless hours in Minecraft too. Endless Space is my favorite Amplitude game, and I’ll never thank enough the friend who asked me to come play it with him. Oh also Mario Kart on SNES!
Is there anywhere on the Internet where I can see more of your stuff?
Since the only thing I produce is an uninterrupted torrent of words, Twitter is where I’m at. Come say hi!
What's your favorite faction or character in our games?
I am very fond of the Hissho and the Pilgrims. I played them almost exclusively. In Endless Legend it would be the Vaulters. My favorite hero in Dungeon would be Troe, because of his absurdly high attack speed.
Is there a funny story that happened to you at Amplitude?
I almost became the surrogate Office Santa when Tim was scheduled to do it but was late to the party. Never have I been more terrified of children. Thankfully, he got there in the end and insisted he would do it (“I watched YouTube videos to get better at it!” he said). Close call.
What's your favorite junk food?
Every Wednesday is Call of Cthulhu night, and that means getting a greasy kebab, samurai sauce, no onions, before facing unspeakable evils.
What's the most played song in your music library?
I tend to listen to a lot of music on repeat, and switch wildly from genre to genre: from game soundtracks to cyberpunk synthwave, black metal to indie folk. One of my favorites of the last few years: Kwoon’s I lived on the Moon.
What's the next place you want to travel to?
New Zealand. Let’s go!
What's your favorite fictional character?
Hobbes, from Calvin & Hobbes. I aim to be a little more like him and a little less like Calvin, but it’s easier said than done.
That's it for François! We hope you found this interesting. Comments or additional questions, feel free to ask!
If there's a question you would like us to ask the interviewees, let us know!
