Wil Rivera

What is your name and title?
My name is Wilbert Rivera but I go by Wil, and my role at IllFonic is Live Producer.

Do you really live in a submarine?
There is a running joke in the company that I live in a submarine, because on all our company video calls my office space is illuminated by red lights and I am surrounded by screens all around.

Tell us about your early days, and the lead up to where you are now at IllFonic.
I started in the gaming industry working QA for a company that focuses on online card games. While working for that company, I got offered a JR engineering and animation role from a small company working on a VR game. The project was just for 6 months, but I felt it would provide me with a more valuable opportunity, so I made the leap and worked on that project and it was a great experience. Shortly after the project ended, I saw an offer to work QA on Friday the 13th: The Game and I jumped on that opportunity, and I've been working for IllFonic for the majority of my career.

From a spectator's point of view, Live Ops seems like a large and vital department, with some details being custom to each company. How would you summarize Live Operations at IllFonic?
Live Ops at IllFonic is never the same day twice. A majority of our time we spend gathering more information on what issues the community is reporting and facilitating between content developers and trying to get the best version of the game out to our communities.

In talking to you about day-to-day to-dos, we established that your position cannot be said to have an "average day." Give us a run-down of just some of the many things you address around here.
Usually my day starts by looking at emails. I know, not the best, but usually we’ll find something that is impacting players in a negative way and we will try to get more information and see how we can help them have a better experience with our games. Once I'm done with that, I usually reach out to our QA team and ask them questions about our current builds for our games. If they have any concerns, I follow up with the content producers or devs, get more information, and provide that to QA.

Then I might get an ask to generate codes for giveaways. While that's going on, I also check on how localization is progressing and address issues in that area of development. Meanwhile I’m attending meetings, updating documentation, and working with release management on scheduling future content and patches. Usually throughout the day, things are escalated to me that require my attention, whether it be for my knowledge of the game, or if someone is having issues needing to be resolved.

What are “builds?”
Every day we make a version of the game and those are called builds. We're basically staging the builds and making sure that we're preparing for them to go live, and we'll have several iterations of builds before we select which one we think is the best version at that point in time to be released.'

What does localization mean?
Localization means translation. When we work towards a DLC, all of our strings are in English, so we have to send out that text to get localized into other languages. Because I speak Spanish, sometimes I'll look at the Spanish strings to see what needs translating and if we missed anything. That can sometimes help deduce areas that might need attention in other localizations.

What is your favorite part of your job?
My favorite part of the job is traversing the smoke to find the fire. So there is some routine that develops over time in the things we do, but since our role is reactive we are normally chasing the fires and trying to put them out.

Your influence in the company isn't limited to game operations-- you're also a key member at conventions. Tell us a little about that.
I really enjoy the convention scene; it reminds me a lot of when I used to work at GameStop and we would host tournaments and big events at our stores. Since I was always responsible for setting things up and planning events, being part of the convention team makes me nostalgic.

Another thing about working in conventions is that it brings me closer to members from the community, and we can have conversations about our games. It brings a huge smile to my face when I see people playing our games, and they want to talk and ask questions. Just seeing the enjoyment in people always makes it feel real that I'm working in video games.

What role have video games played in your life?
Video Games have played a huge role in my life. Growing up in New York City to a low-income Hispanic family, I was always told that it was a fantasy, and that I would only be able to play games but not be a part in creating them. But something in me wanted to be part of the world, the marvel of story-telling, bringing a world to life, bringing characters to life, and just the sense of adventure that games bring to me. I wanted to do the same and bring that to people as well. Since I spent most of my childhood in Puerto Rico on a small farm, video games were my main source of knowledge and education– I learned to read English by playing on my Nintendo, and just the sense that the world was bigger than the little farm I lived on was amazing at the time.