Tales of a Summer Internship at gamerDNA

Editor’s Note: This blog post is written by Adam Krebs, gamerDNA’s Summer Intern who helped out with all of our data input goodness.  We salute Adam as he sails off to college and we wish him luck!

As GamerDNA’s summer data intern, I had the all-important job of keeping the game data up-to-date and the traits on topic while the guys on the product team built the cool new features of the site. I had a lot of fun and learned a great deal, and got to help out with this website we all know and love. My first day happened to coincide with the opening day of E3 and the launch of TweetMyGaming. In fact, one of my first assignments was to live-add the games to GamerDNA and TMG as they were announced. It was especially cool to watch the tweets fly by showing how excited people were about Metroid: Other M just moments after it was demoed on stage.

The guys here have been absolutely relentless about improving the product, and I was consistently impressed at the extent of their knowledge of website design and user experience. I always looked forward to the opportunity to sit in on the design meetings, where each team member provided input into the progress of the latest features. What does that x in the corner do? Why are there two arrows highlighted? How do we communicate enough information without being overwhelming? These conversations gave me a real insight, as a GamerDNA user and aspiring web designer, into how much effort it takes to make a great product that people find useful.

It wasn’t all seriousness, and working at a video game website definitely does have its perks. Whether playing Battlefield 1943 at lunch, or a particularly memorable debate about the Monty Hall problem, the guys approached it with the same level of fun and intensity that I saw them put into the production of the GamerDNA website. Almost every desk has video games or action figures of some sort, and even I managed to amass a collection of Star Wars and Starcraft-related paraphernalia (and an awesome Zombie Hulk, which I got for my birthday). One of my favorite days was going out with the guys to IHOP for lunch, and immediately raiding the comic book store afterwards.

This has been an amazing learning experience and an incredibly fun summer and I thank everyone at GamerDNA for the experience. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to go back to civilian life after working at one of the coolest summer jobs ever. But hey, there’s always next year!

-Adam Krebs

Thanks for doing a great job Adam!

-GamerDNA