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FreakyZoid posted:But hey, I guess his HUGE amount of experience at a number of different companies gives him great perspective. Yeah - I was confused. His resume didn't really list (m)any companies where he'd worked to form these opinions.
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Jun 24, 2011 17:37
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FreakyZoid posted:Eurgh. I am not a fan of that article. Working in a big studio won't give you the time to learn, but working in an indie will? Eh? Indies have just as much pressure to perform, moreso if it's one that you set up and borrowed the money for yourself. Yeeeeah, not sure what I should say here due to lack of objectivity. I worked with Simon and was actually his housemate for six months or so. I also know how much more money he got than me, so there's a certain feeling of "you don't know you're born" in there. His experience is, as far as I know, 2 companies, one of which was more a middleware place and the other which I agree is pretty bad, and I think he might be projecting his experience there on the industry at large. He says there's no security in mainstream studios besides for "the people that are the problem", but how secure are you at a small studio, especially if they are paying better wages? What if the "casual" bubble bursts? And what if you want to work on the next GTA or Fable? And the matter of wanting to work as a "generalist" sounds like him wanting to be a special case. No company is going to look for a programmer/artist, they will look for a programmer and/or an artist. That one can't spread his unique butterfly wings into another area isn't the failing of production, it's just impractical in a large team to divide work like that. Yes you can do more diverse work and carve a more distinct niche in a smaller company , but that's not a failing of the big ones, and who is this effecting anyway? Pretty sure he won't read this, I'm saying it here so I don't want to say it anywhere else. He's a friend but he doesn't half talk bollocks sometimes.
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Jun 24, 2011 17:51
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Sigma-X posted:Ignition Games in Austin is apparently dead. Boo-urns. Lame. I had an acquaintance there.
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Jun 24, 2011 17:55
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Alterian posted:I'll send it to your e-mail, if you post what it is! I have to clean it up a bit to make it a little more understandable. Thanks a lot! I'm reachable at CarolinaKeet [at] gmail [dot] com.
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Jun 24, 2011 18:38
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Giant Boy Detective posted:Thanks a lot! I'm reachable at CarolinaKeet [at] gmail [dot] com. Do you live in one of the carolinas?
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Jun 24, 2011 18:46
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FreakyZoid posted:I've never heard a single person ever say "oh sure, once I set up my company I just sat around all day doing whatever. Could barely fill an 8 hour day with things to do." But I've never heard of an entrepreneur working only eight hours a day.
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Jun 24, 2011 19:01
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Sigma-X posted:Ignition Games in Austin is apparently dead. Boo-urns. Wait, what? Are they just moving their staff to cali? http://gamasutra.com/view/news/35438/Ignition_Games_Opens_New_California_Office.php
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Jun 24, 2011 19:12
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Black Eagle posted:One of the founders in my book said, "You don't have enough things to do when you're starting a company because you're sitting around, waiting for people. That was my experience anyway. Despite being a programmer, I wasn't programming games, so I was bored. I discovered a little wireless phone company in an incubator center which I began helping out with production, prioritizing bugs, testing, and that sort of thing." At the start of development of the indie FPS I am working on, the co-founder and I initially spent only a couple hours a day working on game design and programming while we looked for artists (and more programmers). Most of our time initially was just spent looking for people while we played around with quick prototypes to make sure our foundations were solid. This continued for a couple months as we slowly picked up artists and programmers. I feel like it's a feedback loop; people are less likely to be motivated and create lots of stuff that results in progress if they don't see lots of stuff and progress already. This obviously is less of an issue when you're actually paying people, but for indie teams (or mod teams), it's a huge issue. It's also why you're paradoxically going to get more offers from people interested in your project as you progressively need them less. Rappers talk about this paradox often, interestingly enough! In a way, it reminds me of chemical activation energy. You can have all the right bits and parts stewing together, but they will do nothing unless there's a sufficient enough jolt (or appropriate catalyst) to get the process started. We now have 6 artists (three environmental and three working on characters/equipment) and two more programmers and the gigantic asset pipeline has finally started churning a month ago. We're still looking for more artists and programmers (I staked the local Train2Game for a UDK/Scaleform UI wizard but no  ), but we are at least over that hump.It also means a lot less sleepless nights for me 
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Jun 24, 2011 19:16
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Sigma-X posted:Ignition Games in Austin is apparently dead. Boo-urns. UGH! That's super lame. I hope the staff affected land on their feet quickly.
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Jun 24, 2011 21:37
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Superrodan posted:Wait, what? No they are barring the door and not letting my buddy into work. There is an article up now: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35449/Ignition_Lays_Off_Console_Devs_In_Austin.php
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Jun 24, 2011 21:41
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Sigma-X posted:No they are barring the door and not letting my buddy into work.
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Jun 24, 2011 21:55
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Sigma-X posted:No they are barring the door and not letting my buddy into work. My aquantence in QA claims he still has a job.
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Jun 24, 2011 22:25
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Alterian posted:My aquantence in QA claims he still has a job. The article says they laid off the console dev team.
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Jun 24, 2011 22:34
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Has anyone heard of this "Game Boss" show? It fills me with rage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb5ev2Dp4I0
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Jun 25, 2011 20:19
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Alterian posted:Has anyone heard of this "Game Boss" show? 
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Jun 25, 2011 20:30
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welp, it kinda sucks what happen to me, but I was using art school to establish a foundation in animation and drawing, but due to loan situations i can't pursue what i want anymore.The most experience I had in the industry was being a QA Tester for sony, (which is to say not much, honestly) so I had vague ideas how some things work, but not all., so this probably only thing I can to do to stabilize some cash flow so I don't have to worry about the loan I have to pay off. Nevertheless, I"m still going to try to work into this industry, but not by QA. I know that's really impossible and it's not the best way to go. Sure there has been Cinderella stories where a QAer manage to be a producer, or a sound designer. But realistically, that isn't going to happen. Pretty much my plans are to work in QA for money, and work my rear end off to be an environmental artist. I look forward to talking more about this in the future once things really start to heat up. This thread has always got my interest because it makes me feel like I can understand more how the industry works. Looking forward to being in this thread more. Also, from time to time. I think would this be the best place to show off my game eventually..
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Jun 25, 2011 20:36
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Lots of very successful self taught artist. Just start working on Environment Art and post away in this thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2877226&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 Only way to get better is to just do it.
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Jun 25, 2011 20:54
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Alterian posted:Has anyone heard of this "Game Boss" show? ...feminist apocalypse? ...society is doomed. Nerdolocaust 2011 is the only solution.
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Jun 25, 2011 20:59
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Jefferoo posted:...feminist apocalypse? When I see stuff like this, I take solace in the fact that after a dozen or so of these morons in a resume' pile, mine looks like a rockstar's.
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Jun 26, 2011 04:44
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Which is worse, that one or Sony's QA 'reality' show?
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Jun 26, 2011 05:02
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Chasiubao posted:Which is worse, that one or Sony's QA 'reality' show? The QA one, if only because at least these people are competing for a position that's actually worth competing over. Seriously, game tester is not exactly a job worth fighting tooth and nail for. I mean sure the contestants are worse but that's not the premise's fault. Just the people who picked them.
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Jun 26, 2011 06:27
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I watched the first episode on my computer while my husband and I were in our home office and he told me to never watch another one again. It really makes you want to punch faces. Especially all the misogynists. Holy poo poo. If I had to work with people like that that had those sorts of ideas and talked about them, there would probably be a lawsuit.
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Jun 26, 2011 14:09
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Haha the judge isn't even a developer.
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Jun 26, 2011 17:35
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I am officially in the games industry now as a freelance artist. AW YEAHHH. I am so excited, I just hope I can keep it up and keep getting paid.
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Jun 26, 2011 23:00
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Any casual developers in here? I'd be curious to hear opinions on how that sector of the market is doing these days. It still seems to be growing nicely, and now even blossoming onto iOS. EDIT: There just isn't much press about it - core games don't really care, and casual gamers don't engage as much with the developers as core gamers do. Though that's slowly changing, as quality continues to go up. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Jun 27, 2011 |
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Jun 27, 2011 01:38
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There's an incubator company in my area, NC, that helps start ups get going. So it's doing good around here. I was thinking about applying next year.
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Jun 27, 2011 01:54
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Shalinor posted:Any casual developers in here? From talking to my friends at Big Fish and Hoyle's, they're still raking in the money. They, however, have very different work environments where everyone puts in their time and goes home. There's very little passion (other than the passion for money) or creativity, it's just churning stuff out and cashing in. Despite making gobs of revenue and profit, they're super risk-averse places to work where even a few million dollar bet is looked down upon and they want to mitigate them as soon as possible. But yes, there's still gold in them thar hills.
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Jun 27, 2011 11:57
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devilmouse posted:From talking to my friends at Big Fish and Hoyle's, they're still raking in the money. They, however, have very different work environments where everyone puts in their time and goes home. There's very little passion (other than the passion for money) or creativity, it's just churning stuff out and cashing in. Despite making gobs of revenue and profit, they're super risk-averse places to work where even a few million dollar bet is looked down upon and they want to mitigate them as soon as possible. It seems like it'd be worth considering as fill work in a small studio, as opposed to leaning on work-for-hire. Flip-flop from core to casual to build up reserves if a core game under-preforms, etc. Pretty sure there are studios out there that do this, just no idea which ones. EDIT: VV That was an unpleasant read  All of these hellish stories from the staff, and the CEO is asked to respond, and every time it's just "that's how I do things, that's just how it works - this is GAMES, and that's the price you pay to make GAMES!".
Shalinor fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Jun 27, 2011 |
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Jun 27, 2011 15:07
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Life at Team Bondi http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/117/1179020p1.html Thought this was interesting enough to pass on here.
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Jun 27, 2011 15:14
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Shalinor posted:It seems like it'd be worth considering as fill work in a small studio, as opposed to leaning on work-for-hire. Flip-flop from core to casual to build up reserves if a core game under-preforms, etc. I know you'll hate this suggestion, but if you've already "stooped" to considering casual games to cover burn and shore up against risk of your core titles, you should also think about tossing something up on Facebook. A good arcade game can happily stay up for months without an update and pull in a pretty penny with no further work required once it's fun, stable, and shipped.
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Jun 27, 2011 15:24
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devilmouse posted:I know you'll hate this suggestion, but if you've already "stooped" to considering casual games to cover burn and shore up against risk of your core titles, you should also think about tossing something up on Facebook. A good arcade game can happily stay up for months without an update and pull in a pretty penny with no further work required once it's fun, stable, and shipped. ... and I mean, it really isn't stooping. Every studio does some degree of poo poo work in lean times, whether it be contracting or acting as an outsourcing studio or work-for-hire or whatever else - and casual games (and, yes, even social) are at least more entertaining and original than those things. I don't know if this is an uncommon view, but I'd rather have creative and scheduling freedom but have to make a game in some way about shopping/serving beer/etc, than be locked into a death march with no IP flexibility but on a game with guns/explosions/core stuff. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Jun 27, 2011 |
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Jun 27, 2011 15:31
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Shalinor posted:True, but Facebook apps do require support and some back-end work, and need more of an ad spend to get them up to the point of traction - casual games are fire-and-forget and relatively well supported by Gamehouse/Big fish themselves in terms of ad spend (afaik). I can't claim any intimate knowledge of how much games sold to BigFish make for the developer, but I imagine it's decent enough given the number of people clamoring to work with them. I think I've mentioned them before but a pair of friends tossed up a game, got it into Applifier (a cross-promo bar across a bunch of indie games), and their game putters along with a minimum of support and makes them a few thousand dollars a month for beer and living expenses. When I think of what I'll do after this job runs its course, it involves traveling the world, and assuming FB is still a viable platform, writing niche games on it. The games aren't limited by the platform, only by the current market trend towards "We need 1M+ DAU to be successful!" It's a shockingly easy way to access massive numbers of potential customers and to have them do the marketing for you. quote:I don't know if this is an uncommon view, but I'd rather have creative and scheduling freedom but have to make a game in some way about shopping/serving beer/etc, than be locked into a death march with no IP flexibility but on a game with guns/explosions/core stuff. We agree! I know I'm probably an anathema among the developer community, but after making HARDCORE games for so long, the change of pace is not only interesting and new, but it also allows me to enjoy playing core games again instead of nitpicking them to death. That and gaming in 5-15m increments is just too drat appealing...
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Jun 27, 2011 15:50
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Got a content editor interview tomorrow with EA Criterion. Got a good feeling for it, though I'm not the biggest gearhead. I like Burnout much more than other racing games though, and have testing experience on one of the previous games. When talking about the company's history, should I avoid things like Black, since the team for that is now doing Bodycount for Codemasters? Or does this sort of thing not matter to the sort of people I'm likely to talk to?
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Jun 27, 2011 16:43
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I heard Criterion had quite a high rate of turnover during the Burnout Revenge days, so you're probably fine - whoever's interviewing you is probably from Paradise / NFS: Hot Pursuit.
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Jun 27, 2011 17:34
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I had the AP interview today and it went really well. I think it was quite apparent that I have a lack of Production experience and this may be my downfall unfortunately. I thoroughly enjoyed the interview and I would LOVE to work there but I'm not optimistic. Again, really enjoyed it though!
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Jun 27, 2011 21:38
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Carfax Report posted:Life at Team Bondi http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/117/1179020p1.html Thought this was interesting enough to pass on here. This McNamara dickhead is everything that is wrong with the games industry. Also a very strong argument for never working for a company where the founder is involved in day to day operations, like a wannabe "auteur."
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Jun 27, 2011 22:31
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Backov posted:Also a very strong argument for never working for a company where the founder is involved in day to day operations, like a wannabe "auteur."
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Jun 27, 2011 23:00
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Backov posted:Also a very strong argument for never working for a company where the founder is involved in day to day operations, like a wannabe "auteur." Founders are indeed going to be involved in the company, unless it's massive. It's just that being involved shouldn't mean "dictating terms to specific individuals from a position entirely outside the reporting structure." An involved founder is, instead, often going to be found in a Director role, most often the Design Director role, acting as the vision holder, and driving toward their ideal game... while listening to and taking feedback from the other directors, and letting their team fill in the blanks with their own creativity rather than trying to micromanage every last detail. Ideally, that founder was previously a Lead at another studio, or has similar experience that demonstrated the necessary skillset for their position. EDIT: Even "auteur"-type founders won't necessarily look like McNamara. "auteur"-type founders are just going to listen less to design critiques and push harder on their tech/art/etc teams if they feel that the resultant game isn't up to the standards/ideal it should be. I can't say I'm a fan of the management style, but it can work, and can be an ok place to work. It just requires a founder that isn't an egomaniac and also values his/her staff. McNamara isn't an auteur, he isn't even just an over-involved founder, he more sounds to be a straight-up control freak bad manager. That's a whole other ball of wax. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Jun 27, 2011 |
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Jun 27, 2011 23:03
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Andio posted:I had the AP interview today and it went really well. I think it was quite apparent that I have a lack of Production experience and this may be my downfall unfortunately. Can you elaborate on this? Like, what were the skills you were apparently lacking?
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Jun 27, 2011 23:11
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GetWellGamers posted:Can you elaborate on this? Like, what were the skills you were apparently lacking? Do you have an interview there too? Edit - I don't particularly feel comfortable elaborating until a decision about the role is made as there may be someone in this thread who has also applied. Is this wrong of me? Possibly. Andio fucked around with this message at 23:24 on Jun 27, 2011 |
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Jun 27, 2011 23:18
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