2025-2026 Industry Involvement Roundup

2025-2026 Industry Involvement

At SMU Guildhall, we provide numerous opportunities for our students to meaningfully interact early and often with game industry professionals throughout their time in our program. These advantageous direct-to-industry exposure points allow students to learn from and work with developers, artists, designers, producers, recruiters, and studio leadership from across the game industry for career preparation, project development, hiring and networking, and more.

This academic year alone, Guildhall welcomed representatives from 15 game studios to campus to interact with our students through guest lectures, portfolio reviews, networking events, recruiting conversations, mentorship opportunities, classroom engagement, and experiential learning activities.

Industry engagement is an important part of how Guildhall helps students prepare for careers in games. Learning directly from current professionals gives students valuable insight into studio culture, production pipelines, emerging trends, collaboration practices, and the realities of modern game development. These interactions also help students build professional confidence and establish connections within the industry before graduation.

Since our inception, the voices of the video game industry's leaders have been at the helm of our program's vision and operation, leveraging two full decades of ever-evolving partnerships with hundreds of studios, app developers, and digital technology companies across the globe in and out of the classroom. Our Career Services and Industry Partnerships team work continuously to cultivate strong relationships with studios and create opportunities that connect students with professionals actively shaping the future of games. These partnerships are part of what makes the Guildhall experience unique and help support our students as they prepare to enter an increasingly competitive industry.

The 2025-2026 Academic Year offered our students numerous valuable industry connection points in and out of the classroom including:

Studio Visits and Special Presentations (At SMU Guildhall)

• Arcella Sound: Guido Arcella — three interactive workshops focused on game music for students at SMU Meadows School of the Arts and SMU Guildhall
• Archetype: Daniel Leon – Lunch & Learn 
• Arena Net: Kaela O’Neill – Classroom Presentation
• Bethesda Game Studio: Jacob Naasz - Classroom Presentation
• Certain Affinity: Yidi Wang – Career Day
• Epic Games: Yan Zhang – Classroom Presentation
• ForwardXP: Steve Nix – Career Day Panel and Presentation
• Gearbox Software: Jason Brown – Career Day, Lauren Dube – Classroom Presentation, David Eaton – Career Day, Aiwen Zhang – Classroom Presentation
• id Software: Paul Allen – Career Day Panel and Presentation, Matt Grabowski – Classroom Presentation, Ryan Moncrief – Classroom Presentation, Peter Sokal – Classroom Presentation, Brandon Souders – Classroom Presentation, Dane Hellyer – Career Day, Kiara Hickey – Career Day
• Infinity Ward: Chris Schmidt – Career Day Panel and Presentation
• Meta: AR Schleicher – Lunch & Learn, Victor Garritano – Classroom Presentation
• PeopleFun: Ted McCormick – Classroom Presentation, Austyn Wiles – Classroom Presentation
• Stone Kite: Jami Jeffcoat – Career Day Panel and Presentation
• The Dev House Agency: Zoey Hoggatt – Career Day, Ashley Otterbach – Career Day, CJ Rudolf – Career Day, Zack Shaikh – Career Day 
• Treyarch: Susan Arnold – Classroom Presentation, Gerardo Reynaga – Classroom Presentation
• Tripwire Interactive: Bryan West – Classroom Presentation

Student Work Reviews

• Fall Bagel Day
• Career Day Game Showcase: Harddriverz, Kila, Ling, & Ballin’ (alpha)
• Spring Thesis Expo

Studio Visits & Tours (Hosting Guildhall)

• Id Software
• Naughty Dog
• Riot Games

Networking & Conference Engagement

• Activision/Blizzard
• Arcella Sound
• Believer
• Couch Heroes
• Culangex
• Disney Games Group
• Enduring Games
• Epic Games
• Ethical Games
• ForwardXP
• From the Fridge Game
• Gameopedia
• Gameplay Group
• Gamesim - Keywords
• Gearbox Software
• Geogrify / SetJetters
• Google
• High Voltage Software
• HyperQuant Media
• Keywords
• Mad Tale Games
• Midwest Games
• Riot Games
• Side Inc
• Sony
• Stone Kite
• Them Handsome Fellas
• Unbroken Studios LLC