Welcome to the stage: Mohamed AbdAllah
Exciting news everyone; our team is growing. Please join us in welcoming our latest crew member, Mohamed AbdaAllah. With years of experience building games and helping the best with their customer support, we’re thrilled to have him on board.
To introduce our latest recruit, we sat down and got to know a bit more about Mo, what his favourite games are, and what exactly he’ll be doing at Gameye.
Let’s dig in.
First things first, tell us a bit about yourself Mo
“Where to start? I’ve been in the industry for a few years now. Funnily enough, I originally studied engineering back in 2010. It was interesting, but after trying it out for a few months, it just wasn’t really for me.
I kickstarted my journey in gaming at a company called Funcom. They took me on as a volunteer ARK Events Advisor. I would handle in game events, storyline, roleplaying as key NPCs in the game, and more. And I also tackled some of the technical support, as well. Which was awesome. But they also taught me a lot about customer service, which I was really interested in.
After that, I spent a few years at different companies, ones not really in the gaming industry. But I missed it. So, I jumped back into gaming, this time as a developer.”
Wow, so you’ve made some games?
“A few, yeah. I mainly freelanced and worked on around seven released titles, and then around ten personal or game jam projects. And they’re all different. One was a third-person action multiplayer RPG shooter (yeah, that’s a mouthful). Then three others were more AR educational titles. A couple using MergeCube. After that, I worked on an onboarding tool as part of an SDK, which helps developers export their games for WebGL.”
What made you join Gameye?
“In short, it was the right place and the right time.
To be honest, I left the games industry a couple of years ago. There’s little to no gaming scene here in Egypt, and it’s almost impossible to make it on your own. Which is a massive shame because you can find talent almost anywhere in the world now. I’d done game development on and off for years, and it wasn’t a viable option for me anymore.
So during my new job hunt, I stumbled across Gameye. I’d heard of them before (even looked them up a few years ago). And it just seemed to fit in perfectly with what I wanted to do. I loved my roles in technical support, and I adore games. And better yet, Gameye is an entirely remote company, so it fixed the problem of where I live.
It just seemed to be a match made in heaven. The crew is great, our clients are wonderful, and the role is super interesting.”
And what do you do at Gameye?
“I like to call myself a computer doctor (or at least, that’s how I explain it to my dad). But obviously, that can mean a lot of things. So I’ll break it down into three different areas.
I’m a doctor for our servers
The first part of my role is checking in on our servers. So their health and state. Are they performing well? Things like that. We constantly keep an eye on things to make sure nothing is wrong and avoid any potential downtime or lag issues.
I’m a detective for our clients
This is probably my favourite part. If a client has a problem (so, say, they can’t start a session or their games are lagging), we turn on our detective mode and figure out what’s wrong. We scan logs and do regular check-ins with our clients. You have to dig into the history of specific actions. And then figure it all out.
And I’m a negotiator
This isn’t really part of my support. But an interesting part of what I do is make sure we have enough servers up and ready to go, so our clients can have as many servers as they want without experiencing any downtime or issues. I’ll chat with server providers and reserve the best ones, for the best price.
This is particularly important as we need to watch our partners’ activities. So if a client has a free weekend, we have to scale up and get more servers. Equally, that applies to downscaling, so we’re not paying for servers we don’t need.”
How are you finding it?
“It’s an exciting role and a lovely company to work with. I love the idea of solving problems. And almost no day is the same — I feel like I’m learning something new all of the time.
The company is a very collaborative environment, too. There are a lot of chats around decision making, so it feels like we all have an input. We work as a team, support each other, and encourage new ideas and processes. Everyone just feels very down to earth. (The benefits aren’t half-bad, either.)”
What’s your advice to any game devs out there?
“Oh boy, there are definitely a couple of things I wish I knew back when I was making games.
The first one is your marketing. Have you focused on marketing for at least three months before you launch? No? Then your launch is at least three months from now.
And the second one is game development is a marathon, not a race. Take your time and prepare for the journey. And watch your burn-out alert-o-meter (if that’s a thing). It can easily creep up on you while you’re in the ‘zone’. Rest and take breaks, and come back to it with a fresh mind. And most importantly, enjoy it.”
And we have to ask, what are your favourite games?
“Oh, too many to choose from!
I do love RPG and cooperative games. These will always have a place in my heart. Deep Rock Galatic is still probably one of the top games I would rate. The developers made it so that you have to depend on other players around you to get through the game.
But my all-time favourite has to be Anarchy Online. It’s a brilliant MMO with an incredible story and lore. And I just love how flexible it is with the characters. You can build any type of character you want. It’s so open. You want a tank that only uses a dagger? You got it. Or a space wizard who is a rogue? No problem. I’ve found with other games, they tend to limit your options.”
Mo’s your guy if you have any questions
If you have any questions about server hosting, or just fancy ranting about your favourite games, then make sure to pop by our discord channel. We tend to answer any and all questions there.
