Today’s December 15th, 2020. Today marks the release of the Vergil DLC for DMC5, and it also marks exactly 10 years since I started at Capcom. I’ve had so many amazing experiences and met amazing people, all thanks to those that have given me the opportunity.

Ever since I was a kid all I knew was that I wanted to work in the game industry, preferably in Japan. I double majored in Japanese and programming in college hoping that it would put me on the path. When I got outta college I had no idea what steps I should take next.

By some twist of fate, my dad knew someone who was related to Jason Rubin and they had me give him a call. Ultimately his only advice was I needed experience to get a job. I applied to a couple places as a programmer but was turned down for that specific reason.

I decided that if I was going to work in Japan, I’d need to get better at Japanese anyway, so I found the first job I could where I’d be able to use my Japanese all day at work as a fuel injection engineer in Chicago. After working there two years I got transferred to Japan.

In 2009 I decided that I wanted to get closer to the game industry, so I taught myself how to program for iOS. I ended up working as an iOS app programmer for almost 2 years. In that time I began making industry friends in Tokyo and one of them suggested I apply to Capcom.

I didn’t have any industry experience, but they were looking for people who could coordinate between Japan and their partners overseas. 6 years after graduating from college, I finally accomplished my goal. Since then, thanks to people giving me a chance, I’ve gotten to meet some

legendary creators, work on beloved properties, become franchise producer and even gotten to be on stage at E3 thanks to our friends at MS. I’ve been incredibly privileged and lucky to get the opportunity I’ve been given.

The most important lesson I learned through all that was to pick yourself up after failure, to never give up, and to continuously reevaluate your plans to achieve your goals and consider new approaches and options. I believe following that approach, you can achieve your dreams.

I hope all of you can achieve your dreams the way I have, and I wish you all the best of luck. <3