Does your heart skip a beat when you think of PC and PC gaming? At Ubisoft and Massive, it sure does. Our love for all things PC has led to a number of initiatives during the years, and one of them is the NGON YouTube channel.
“We started NGON with the mindset that we wanted to have a space to create content and build a community around our love for PC,” explains PC community developer Gabriel Begorgis.
Since the YouTube channel started, the team has done everything from deep diving into PC settings for Ubisoft games, giving tips to newcomers and making – in Gabriel’s words – “completely irresponsible PC builds”.
“We work super closely with the Uplay team – also located at Massive – to share our passion with the entire Ubisoft PC community,” Gabriel points out. “So chances are you’ve probably have come across one of our videos or articles on the news page.”
And if you have the slightest interest in PC, you might want to check out their Beyond FPS videos, where they will teach you how all of that PC hardware actually works. What is a cache really? Don’t worry, NGON will explain it to you.
But the NGON teaching skills go further than that. In their series Code{}School, Gabriel attempts to learn the basics of programming with the help of Senior Programmer Olafur Waage. “Olafur was always the teacher type of the group, so when we had discussions about what kind of long form content we wanted to make, the idea of teaching someone programming just naturally came up”, says Gabriel. “We also liked the idea of having a teacher and a student in the same video, so the student could serve as the viewer and ask questions along the way.”
Olafur himself started dabbling in programming in the 90s, when his Counter Strike clan needed a website.
“I basically alta vista’d code examples until I had something working,” he says.
“I just kept on practicing, day after day – with some gaming in-between – until many years later I had graduated University with a degree in Computer Science. Then, after a few years of working as a programmer, I applied at Ubisoft Massive. The rest, as they say, is history.”
I just kept on practicing, day after day – with some gaming in-between – until many years later I had graduated University with a degree in Computer Science.
Code{}School now has two full seasons out, and it’s a great place to start if you want to start programming. It is primarily aimed at those new to the subject, but of course everyone is welcome!
And with two seasons under his belt, what has been the hardest part for Gabriel in this learning process?
“The visualization of it all. I had the hardest time picturing how code actually made things happen. There were a few very good ‘AHA!’ moments in season 1 where that started to come together in my head,” he explains.
“Outside of that it’s the basics of formatting and especially calling functions. I think I do an okay job of reading and understanding simple code now, but I definitely need way more practice writing my own!”
You can find Code{}School on the NGON channel. And while you’re there, make sure to check out all of their other PC related content!
