Brody Brown isn’t your typical college student. In fact, the junior computer science and economics major wasn’t your typical high school student either.
During his sophomore year, Brown and two friends began developing a computer game, tentatively called “LifeSpan.” Through the years, he developed most of the programming and designed the artwork for the action role-playing game, where the player takes control of a party of four characters who the hero meets throughout the story. “The story is dark, and full of intrigue and guessing who is and isn’t genuine when they interact with our hero,” explains the Hazlet, N.J., native.
The game is so captivating that it caught the attention of Seattle-based Valve Software, with whom Brown is currently negotiating a deal that stands to pay out significant royalties.
Brown discovered his passion for gaming at a young age. It was an activity he could enjoy with friends, despite asthma and chronic knee problems that kept him from participating in a lot of the sports other kids enjoyed. While he managed to play baseball and enjoy biking, gaming has been his primary pastime. He even became fluent in Japanese because of his love of gaming and anime.
“Gaming is what has really shaped my life,” Brown says. “Some of my closest friends are people I have never even met in person [but know through the gaming world].”
When Brown came to Albright, he found a home among its eSports program, a varsity sport at the college with three teams on campus. As a team captain, Brown says, he focuses on how best to support the team dynamic and keep his teammates’ spirits up after a loss. It’s a role he sees as having great carryover in the workplace.
The soft-spoken gamer says eSports has also helped him improve his communications skills. Moreover, he says, “We as a team must cooperate to be successful in what we do, which very closely resembles how many corporations run today.”
Brown got a taste of the corporate world during an internship with JP Morgan in 2019. It was a great way to gain inside knowledge of the industry and make connections with “higher ups,” he says.
And in the summer of 2020, Brown will be making global connections as he and a group of friends take a bike tour across Japan. Their trip will take them to Mount Fuji, the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and multiple theme parks, where Brown will rack up his 400th unique roller coaster ride.
He describes the trip as “strictly a cool-down, fun trip with friends” before starting his senior year at Albright. After graduation, Brown hopes to — you guessed it — work for a game development studio creating the digital worlds he loves to play in.
