Tag Games is full of some incredibly talented people and in our Meet the Manager series we take a look at the people who lead and inspire the team’s development and growth.
First up, is Jaid Mindang, our Head of Art.
What do you do at Tag?
I’m the Head of Art, which means in a nutshell that I’m responsible for the wellbeing and performance of the artists.
How did you get into Games?
Sort of by accident, really. I’m of the age that I had a ZX81 and a Commodore64 and loved computer games, but the career I had chosen for myself when picking a degree course was traditional animation with a view to animating on feature films. But when Domark Ltd. (the company that later rebranded as Eidos) approached my art college to procure traditionally trained animators to help them raise the standard of their game graphics, the course staff pointed them towards me, since I continued to spend more time than was wise at maintaining my high score on the coin-op cabinets in the Student Union. So I freelanced for Domark during the summer holidays of my 2nd and 3rd year, learned how to use Dpaint and they offered me a job when I graduated. I was still aiming at a career in feature film animation but hadn’t sorted things out to do anything about it, so I accepted thinking I would get around to applying formally to Amblimation in Acton, where they had a studio at the time… it never happened. That was 30 years ago.
Favourite thing about working at Tag?
I really like that Tag puts the wellbeing of its staff very high on the agenda. In our post-Covid society, I feel that employee wellbeing is now a serious conversation topic in the industry, but Tag really does a whole lot more than just pay lip service to that. It’s really a shared priority in the studio leadership.
What about your work at Tag do you find particularly rewarding?
Working with a wonderful, welcoming and inclusive team is the best part. I feel this is an immediate upside of spending so much time on staff wellbeing - everyone is genuinely enthusiastic, positive and collaborative.
And what about the more challenging parts of your work? What really pushes you?
Keeping up with the modern production methodology. There are plenty of principles of project management and production I’m just not aware of. Sometimes I find myself having to google acronyms in meetings to follow the conversation. Most of my production experience is learned from trial and error. Carol our COO, was amused by my allusion to the existence of a“Producer School”, where I feel I should enrol myself in order to catch up with these new-fangled processes. At least I am still learning new stuff.
Favourite thing about Dundee?
I’m working remotely from North Yorkshire, but I’ve been up to Dundee a few times now. I like its proximity to the water, that the cost of living is so much less expensive than what I’m used to. A night at the pub doesn’t break the bank, and I feel more energised from the days I’ve spent working in the Dundee HQ alongside real people rather than just looking at everyone’s faces on Zoom. I guess that last one isn’t unique to Dundee, but that’s one of the things I look forward to when I’m going up there.
What game character do you think you’re most like?
I’ve been cast as background game characters in a couple of guises - a villain in a Scooby Doo SNES game, the lowest tier of security guard in Stolen (PS2/Xbox) - you know the fat, lazy type who ignores the security monitors while reading his newspaper and eating doughnuts. I’d like to think the similarity was purely visual, though - I did carry a bit more weight in those days - HAHA! I’ve been likened to Wario more frequently than any other game character by other people, which is weird because I always play Donkey Kong.