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icking fudiot posted:Kaos Studios RIP. Worked with some of those guys. Ouch. It's a sad day for NYC's game industry, that's for sure.
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 20:21 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 21:47 |
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Juice Games bit that just today too. Ugh great job THQ.
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 21:34 |
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Had my first day at Ubisoft as a dev QA, it was pretty good. It's in a huge old factory and they have about 1700 employees. There's a god drat medical clinic and gym on the spot. Also lots of room to move up, gonna work my rear end off and be a happy man.
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 22:10 |
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Dev QA is an awesome stepping stone. People tend to listen to you more.
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 22:17 |
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I'm working with a really great team on an indie FPS and one thing we've run into is that we just have way too many art assets to deal with. Environmental assets are finally under control after finding an extra three 3D artists dedicated to environmental stuff. For whatever reason, environmental artists are pretty easy to find. However, we haven't really found many artists interested in working on firearms/weapons/equipment/character stuff. Any gun-nutty 3D artists looking for development experience?
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 22:28 |
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I know that Gauss has been learning to model weapons recently. He's a goon too. http://www.gausswerks.com/
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 22:36 |
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pastorrich posted:Had my first day at Ubisoft as a dev QA, it was pretty good. The office in Montreal? It's a nice building with hardwood floors in some places, it's strange.
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 22:38 |
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icking fudiot posted:Kaos Studios RIP. Worked with some of those guys. Ouch. Game sells a million within the first ten days, studio that made it gets shut down. This industry. These companies would still be around if the incoming Tory government didn't scrap Labour plans for tax breaks. Exxodus to Canada indeed.
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 22:43 |
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I got the impression that THQ really put a lot of marketing dollars behind Homefront.
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 22:45 |
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Monster w21 Faces posted:I got the impression that THQ really put a lot of marketing dollars behind Homefront. yeah, the whole of San Francisco was covered in Homefront posters during GDC, not to mention the balloon stunt.
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 22:56 |
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Are there any legit studios in Houston where I could try to get my foot in the door? Pi Studios is impossible to find, I have tried going to the many places they are listed on Google and I can't find them at all, and even though I have a few things under their belt, I don't think they are active anymore. I really want to find a job that I can enjoy instead of the grind I am doing now, I got to the interview phase for a Community Manager spot at Harmonix in 2008 but it never panned out.
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 23:06 |
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Amrosorma posted:I'm working with a really great team on an indie FPS and one thing we've run into is that we just have way too many art assets to deal with. Environmental assets are finally under control after finding an extra three 3D artists dedicated to environmental stuff. For whatever reason, environmental artists are pretty easy to find. Do you have a link to your mod?
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 23:09 |
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Monster w21 Faces posted:I know that Gauss has been learning to model weapons recently. He's a goon too. Woah! I've been following that guy's blog for a long rear end time. It's a really great resource for designers. http://designreboot.blogspot.com/ Sigma-X posted:Do you have a link to your mod? http://www.smirkandgrin.com/ We're still pretty deep in the making-things-phase so everything is pretty bare
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# ? Jun 13, 2011 23:54 |
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Aliginge posted:Game sells a million within the first ten days, studio that made it gets shut down. Did you play it? It sold what it did because of the aforementioned marketing spend, not because of any degree of quality to the game.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 00:10 |
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Stormin Mormon posted:Are there any legit studios in Houston where I could try to get my foot in the door? Pi Studios is impossible to find, I have tried going to the many places they are listed on Google and I can't find them at all, and even though I have a few things under their belt, I don't think they are active anymore. Pretty much just Timegate: http://www.timegate.com/careers/ They're in Sugarland though. May be a bit of a commute for you, depending on which side of town you're on.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 00:29 |
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Senso posted:The office in Montreal? It's a nice building with hardwood floors in some places, it's strange. It's very rustic, like a gigantic urban cabin. I feel right at home !
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 00:40 |
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Stormin Mormon posted:Are there any legit studios in Houston where I could try to get my foot in the door? Pi Studios is impossible to find, I have tried going to the many places they are listed on Google and I can't find them at all, and even though I have a few things under their belt, I don't think they are active anymore. Are you trying to go to the studio?
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 00:53 |
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coeranys posted:Did you play it? It sold what it did because of the aforementioned marketing spend, not because of any degree of quality to the game. That's not relevant though. The game had strong sales either way for a time. Either the criteria for avoiding being shut down was to actually outsell CoD or the studio was going to be closed anyway so the company can save money relocating to Canada. If I do get this job I'm interviewing for on Wednesday, I'm putting aside hefty amounts for a Get Out Of Dodge fund.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 01:28 |
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Aliginge posted:If I do get this job I'm interviewing for on Wednesday, I'm putting aside hefty amounts for a Get Out Of Dodge fund. You should do this no matter what company you end up with. The game industry is a fickle beast and will happily spit you out after a product cycle for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with your game's quality, sales or how awesome and essential you are to the team.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 01:56 |
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Stormin Mormon posted:I don't think they are active anymore.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 02:07 |
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Amrosorma posted:http://www.smirkandgrin.com/ You haven't even hit the untextured AK-47 'media release' phase yet. Impressive How are you managing to attract quality folks to the team? I'm not trying to poo poo on you but as a dude with a few hours a week that he would love to devote to making cool FPS guns for his portfolio I am woefully unimpressed.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 02:22 |
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Aliginge posted:That's not relevant though. The game had strong sales either way for a time. Either the criteria for avoiding being shut down was to actually outsell CoD or the studio was going to be closed anyway so the company can save money relocating to Canada. Strong sales due to an overly high marketing spend and not quality or word of mouth often means the product's profit margins are low or loss. Most estimates are that the game has not broken even on combined development and marketing costs; though the overly high marketing spend is not the fault of the studio, its sales would likely have been considerably lower without that spend. The studio closure is a separate issue. It's possible Kaos could have been shut down even if the game was successful enough to breakeven. Though, while there are exceptions, shut downs of profitable studios with quality product are uncommon. I would be interested in hearing people's thoughts on what those exceptions are.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 02:30 |
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EDIT: Nevermind apparently I had the post open for 3 hours and someone else replied with the exact same thing.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 02:37 |
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Sigma-X posted:You haven't even hit the untextured AK-47 'media release' phase yet. Impressive That's something I consciously want to avoid, haha. quote:How are you managing to attract quality folks to the team? A lot of the people I met through college/networking and others through just sheer dumb luck. quote:I'm not trying to poo poo on you but as a dude with a few hours a week that he would love to devote to making cool FPS guns for his portfolio I am woefully unimpressed. If it's any better, here's a screenshot: please give me guns
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 02:37 |
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Aliginge posted:If I do get this job I'm interviewing for on Wednesday, I'm putting aside hefty amounts for a Get Out Of Dodge fund. Aye. Anyone who works in this industry and doesn't have a huge emergency fund in either money, food storage, or both is kind of kidding themselves. If you never end up needing it, good for you! Just roll it into your retirement, but chances are you'll need it at some point and when you do, you'll be drat glad you have it.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 04:10 |
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Sigma-X posted:You haven't even hit the untextured AK-47 'media release' phase yet. Impressive It's all about the networking, and who they knew / people who wanted to work with them already. And bacon, apparently. Their website is now disappointingly polished. Alas. EDIT: ... speaking of startup studios, our team is now bigger, will be a further +1 officially in a little while, and some (small) stuff is happening, and we finally have a proper URL on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/glassbottomgames - yaaaay! There'll be some news popping up over the next few weeks. Small news, but hey, news. Bigger news won't be until later this fall. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Jun 14, 2011 |
# ? Jun 14, 2011 04:31 |
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Glad things are progressing for Glass Bottom Games, Shalinor. We've got two new guys coming in for a trial week on Monday. Finally, someone that seems capable! I won't name any names (because they'd have done it by now if they wanted to, I figure) but they both came from this thread. But it's the last week of the last milestone of my project that week, though, so I'll be mega busy
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 07:27 |
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waffledoodle posted:Pretty much just Timegate: http://www.timegate.com/careers/ I forgot about them, I am up in The Woodlands. I stopped in to them last year when I was job hunting then as well and never got a call back. krysmopompas posted:They re-formed as Category 6 Thanks for pointing that out I did not know that. Alterian posted:Are you trying to go to the studio? Yes I was trying to hand deliver my resume as well as the on-line application I sent as well.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 09:57 |
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Stormin Mormon posted:Yes I was trying to hand deliver my resume as well as the on-line application I sent as well. A lot of studios won't let random people in because of the crazies. Whenever we have anyone stop by, our secretary refers them to the website and sends them on their way. This isn't the best way to do it and can hurt your chances. A lot of studios don't give out their addresses for reasons.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 10:53 |
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Alterian posted:A lot of studios won't let random people in because of the crazies. Whenever we have anyone stop by, our secretary refers them to the website and sends them on their way. On the other hand, a good friend of mine only got his gamedev job because he hounded the poo poo out of the team he wanted to work for. He called once a week, sent an email once a week, went to the address he found with some google-fu (which was wrong), more social engineering got him the actual address. Eventually he got lucky and they were a lax bunch who admired his persistence. I don't recommend this approach for everyone or every studio.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 11:19 |
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Hence why I am on the shoot to kill list at !"£$%^&*
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 11:23 |
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Better to find out where the office is, then work out where the nearby bars and places to grab lunch from are, then hang out at those places. You'll spot the game devs, they'll be wearing their industry uniform.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 11:41 |
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FreakyZoid posted:Better to find out where the office is, then work out where the nearby bars and places to grab lunch from are, then hang out at those places. You'll spot the game devs, they'll be wearing their industry uniform. What? T-shirts with the name of the company and games they've worked on or from software they use? My husband and I could wear shirts we've gotten from work for an entire week and not wear a dirty shirt. Mido posted:On the other hand, a good friend of mine only got his gamedev job because he hounded the poo poo out of the team he wanted to work for. He called once a week, sent an email once a week, went to the address he found with some google-fu (which was wrong), more social engineering got him the actual address. Eventually he got lucky and they were a lax bunch who admired his persistence. I don't recommend this approach for everyone or every studio. This is probably a unique case and most of the studios I'm aware of because I have friends at, this wouldn't fly. I have a funny story to go with this actually. I worked with someone who was not a good artist at all and not a good person in general. He went down to Epic studios, rang their door and asked through the intercom to be let in cause he wanted to talk to someone about getting a job. They just told him to leave. I know there is the stormtropper guy at epic, but he did have the talent to back it up and was pretty unique. The vast majority of the time a good way to get on a studio's poo poo list is to stop by and keep hounding them. Alterian fucked around with this message at 11:49 on Jun 14, 2011 |
# ? Jun 14, 2011 11:45 |
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Naked guy ran around our building a few weeks ago. This industry brings out the crazies.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 12:24 |
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Alterian posted:What? T-shirts with the name of the company and games they've worked on or from software they use?
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 13:28 |
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Question to character artists. Is it still common practice to model different parts of a character as seperate pieces Quake 3 style or is that stuff handled by bones these days?
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 13:36 |
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Do you mean like heads and arms or armor type stuff?
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 13:48 |
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Heads, torsos, legs.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 14:11 |
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Monster w21 Faces posted:Question to character artists. Pretty much any Quake 3 practice is not used today. Nowadays, characters are usually a single mesh, with removable props/armor/etc as separate meshes. These are all rigged to the same skeleton and then have an animation (or several) played on that skeleton.
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 14:13 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 21:47 |
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What about faces though? I mean if you were to use a standard body mesh how would you save memory and yet have varied heads?
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# ? Jun 14, 2011 14:15 |