When you make friends on the road, a lot of the times you make friends for life. We first met Francisco Lujan a million years ago in Eugene, Oregon at Old Nick’s when he was playing auxiliary percussion for Venezuela’s legendary post-hardcore outfit Zeta.
He wasn’t alone, either – we had just been introduced to him and his double-bandmate Antonie Pereira. It was our second time playing a show with Zeta (we as in me, in this particular instance with Muscle Beach Petting Zoo), but the first time meeting these two in particular, who we quickly learned also made up 2/3 of a science-rock band called Pavlov’s Bell.
Since then, which in reality was probably somewhere in 2018, we’ve stayed in touch the way most musicians do outside of playing shows together – memes. Just memes. Countless memes. But in real life, these guys have been busy – in the years since, Francisco ended up playing drums with Mold! and Makoto, and Antonio routinely backs Codefendants with the rest of Zeta, a project already features Ceschi Ramos, Sam King of Get Dead, and Fat Mike of NOFX.
In short, it humbles us that we ever knew these talented gentlemen, and it has since the beginning. But one night, many, many moons ago, we remember thinking we must have drunkenly misread a message from Francisco about his various goings on. “What? There’s was no way he was talking about working on Call of Duty, was he? He must have meant playing it. Man, what is he doing out there?”
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Well it turns out, he meant what he said. Being the absolute professional he is, it makes sense that he’s hardly content to let any one high-profile project outweigh another, because rest assured, there are indeed others. We’ll get into that below, but he’s currently working on a Master’s degree in International Business, just announced a tour with Mold!, and has long been teasing me with whispers of new Pavlov’s Bell material. It’s a pretty full schedule.
We knew we’d to circle back to Francisco’s experience in the field when we started this section, and ultimately we came up with this specialized, semi-technical overview for anyone passively interested in the the industry, but not sure where to start.
Read on for some interesting anecdotes and valuable insight into lesser-known aspects of development like partnership testing, the complications of modern QA, and how a position as Software Build Administrator saw him supporting one of the most successful RPG’s in recent memory.
FB: First off, what are some of your favorite projects that you’ve worked on, regardless of your role? What would you consider your first real gig in the industry?
Francisco: While working at Intel, I was the Software Build Administrator for their Game DevRel group. In this role I had the privilege to collaborate with several game developers to help optimize their game for Intel hardware and connect them with Intel’s game engineering talent to help debug and solve issues prior to release. Through that role, I was able to get first-hand experience in the industry and support high profile projects like Elden Ring, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Gotham Knights among others. Elden Ring is literally my favorite game right now!
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FB: Is it important that someone on a given team is experienced or “into” the kind of game they are working on, or is it better to use contrasting tastes like having an Role Playing Game fan help with a First Person Shooter?
Francisco: In my opinion, it is important for a team to be “into” or at the very least aware and informed of the industry if they are working in gaming in any capacity. Being aware of trends can help companies dodge issues that are heavily discussed in gaming media outlets. In particular, performance has been something that has come more to the forefront as PC gaming has become popularized and people are increasingly knowledgeable about the workings of their hardware.
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FB: Communication seems crucial when it comes to juggling the data from QA, the response from the leads, and the needs of the developers. Does that ever get chaotic?
Francisco: Sometimes releases can get very hectic. Sometimes issues are introduced last minute, and people are working overnight to debug. Not only that, but there might even be conflicting interests among teams. So yes, chaos can come pretty often!
FB: When a QA team is testing, from what we understand, they are working with “builds.” These builds are essentially pre-release versions of the game that are generated as development progresses. Does QA always work with the same build as programmers and developers?
Francisco: Right, builds are playable versions of the full game that have different functions depending on the type of build. There might be builds intended for press or builds created to test specific mechanics or rendering techniques/engines/APIs. Usually, builds are distributed through Steam and separated into different branches. A “nightly” branch typically holds changes the developers actively working on the game make daily, while a stable build is something that usually goes to the QA teams for testing fixes. There are also release-candidate or “gold” builds or code-locked builds that are the closest to shipping the final product.
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FB: When you are working with builds, what does it mean when they are tweaked for “partnership evaluations?”
Francisco: In my experience, this varies from developer to developer. For more high-profile titles, this may include a build with limited functions or that only includes a specific feature that is being implemented as a result of the collaboration between companies. Sometimes, developers do not have the time or resources to tweak their builds for each of their partners though.
FB: How would you say QA / management roles have evolved with modern development styles, as in titles being released officially on one day, but constantly being updated /changed past that point with patches and mods?
Francisco: The rise of the early access model has created a very interesting dynamic between game developers and their user base. In titles like these, it is the users that are doing the testing and the games are updated based on community feedback. In my experience in the hardware space, it is quite difficult to track these types of games because the release dates are constantly floating. Sometimes these games drop without announcement and become hits overnight, making it difficult to manage any issues that arise.
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FB: For some people, the recent headlines about layoffs in the industry are fairly frightening. But there also seems to be a lot of good faith among developers that this is part of the natural sway of things – do you feel QA teams / software specialists are on the same potential chopping block as development teams?
Francisco: Yes, lately the gaming industry is a very unstable environment. I have seen entire studios that have released critically acclaimed games be completely shut down. I hope the industry stabilizes soon.
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FB: Lastly, as a musician with multiple projects, (including our favorite science rock band) we can’t imagine what your schedule looks like. When you are working on a project as QA or software manager, can you walk us through a typical day for you?
Francisco: Currently I am a full-time student getting my Master’s degree in International Business. However, when I was working on build management, I kept my work/music schedules aligned while still making room to actually enjoy games. While I was working full time, I would normally spend a good amount of the day in meetings strategizing and defining priorities, with time allotted for checking builds and making sure I’m delivering the right information to the teams testing them. I collect as much information as possible from my meetings to make sure testers have the available information to properly test these games and give relevant feedback. This way we don’t need to create unnecessary tickets on Jira or another type of issue tracking system.
After work, would I usually have a drum practice routine where I incorporate daily workout exercises, playing my band’s songs and learning new drumming concepts or polishing. When touring/playing festivals, I would openly/transparently communicate with my work team and figure out my coverage while staying open to communicate if any critical issues arise. Then, catching up on any gaming news and playing the latest games would be a way to wind down or go to a concert from time to time too.
(Well how about that. We didn’t even know about the Elden Ring thing till we put this thing together, that was a shocker. Many thanks to Frankie for his insight and kindness over the years, especially this little interview! As for everyone else, enjoy the new section and we’ll squeeze in more when we can. Thanks for playing! If you’re looking for more music, check out our Bandcamp compilations here. If you like us, or possibly even love us, donations are appreciated at the Buy Me A Coffee page here.)