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Monster w21 Faces posted:I think as a gender we've had things pretty cushy up to this point. If I have to stay put for 4 years so that in future I can repeatedly move her around the world it’s a price I’m willing to pay.
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Aug 2, 2011 17:07
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Medical degree. She currently works as a nurse.
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Aug 2, 2011 17:15
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This may just be a personal thing to me, but avoid recommendations from irl friends on LinkedIn. I've been treating them the same as references (in that I've only got one and it's from a former boss) whereas some folk I used to work with have spammed recommendations on each other (and everyone's invariably "the best artist/coder/designer I've worked with") and it just looks...tacky. Oh, and if you keep getting annoying messages from recruiters (if I get one more message that's just "Rockstar North????"...) just politely tell them you're not interested. Then report them for spam.
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Aug 2, 2011 17:22
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Smegbot posted:This may just be a personal thing to me, but avoid recommendations from irl friends on LinkedIn. I've been treating them the same as references (in that I've only got one and it's from a former boss) whereas some folk I used to work with have spammed recommendations on each other (and everyone's invariably "the best artist/coder/designer I've worked with") and it just looks...tacky.
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Aug 2, 2011 17:32
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Smegbot posted:This may just be a personal thing to me, but avoid recommendations from irl friends on LinkedIn. I've been treating them the same as references (in that I've only got one and it's from a former boss) whereas some folk I used to work with have spammed recommendations on each other (and everyone's invariably "the best artist/coder/designer I've worked with") and it just looks...tacky. They're not as useful as recommendations from supervisors, but they give you an idea of how the person will mesh with your team. EDIT: VV Hmmm. Fair enough. I keep it updated because... uh... I suppose because it's as good a place as any to keep track of my work history. I tend to forget how many years were spent at a given employer otherwise, etc. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Aug 2, 2011 |
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Aug 2, 2011 17:48
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Must admit I don't find LinkedIn particularly useful. I've never seen a decent conversation in any of the groups (just endless "as game professionals, what is your favourite colour?" type crap). And I've seen plenty of recommendations of people who I know are insufferable tools (and / or borderline incompetent with destructive and negative personalities) from their co-workers  Yet still I keep my profile up to date. Why is this?
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Aug 2, 2011 18:07
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M4rk posted:What kind of recruiter spams people with a single sentence? Not even customized for the recipient? Lame. Real recruiters make phone calls and get to know their marks before trying to persuade them to make a move. On the day the last studio I was at announced it was shutting down I got a message from a recruiter that started "Hi Scott". My first name's Gordon...  FreakyZoid posted:And I've seen plenty of recommendations of people who I know are insufferable tools (and / or borderline incompetent with destructive and negative personalities) from their co-workers Yeah, this. And it irritates me even more to see genuinely talented and able former colleagues get recommendations from these tools.
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Aug 2, 2011 18:43
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You can have a solid resume but be a no-talent hack. You can have an amazing portfolio and be a total prima donna. You can be a total blast in the interview but have an entirely fictional resume. You can have 10 glowing LinkedIn recommendations and be a total dickweed with no skills. The point is, you don't give full weight to any of these things on their own, you add them all up to get a complete picture of the person you're going to hire. If you seem super nice in your interview, if your resume is solid, and if you've got a great portfolio, why would I just write off a bunch of glowing recommendations as bullshit? Also when I'm helping evaluate potential hires, I like to look for recommendations specifically from ex-supervisors or ex-bosses. I always feel better about hiring someone who apparently left their previous jobs on non-bridge-burning terms.
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Aug 2, 2011 18:57
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Carfax Report posted:Can you talk more about that last part, it sounds interesting. Games journalism just doesn't gather any real respect. Developers hate you, because your word or score can make or break their livelyhood. All it takes is for a journalist to say "this game is poor" and the gaming masses will shun the game in question. With movies it's different; critiques can range and even the most terrible of movies can still run a profit. People are more willing to forgive the faults of a movie and still go see it either in cinema or DVD. With games though, a person puts a considerable amount of money into the purchase of a game and expects an adaquete amount of enjoyment in return. If that enjoyment is not met with a high calibre - unfortunately and ever increasingly set by scorelines most commonly seen on metacritic - then the person won't purchase the game and the developer will fall into financial trouble. The community meanwhile doesn't even recognise you. I can name of the top of my head five games journalists in the industry. I can name two more that no longer work within the industry. You see, all the community cares about is the score. It's noticable in Eurogamer comments, or IGN, or Gamespot. It's all score, score, score. Nobody wants to read 3 pages of informative commentary on the game, they just want to know the score. Once they know that they make an affirmed judgement that decides whether they are interested in this game or not. Scores are the goddamn bane of the industry; 8/10, 94%, 5 stars, it's all bullshit that means the journalist gains absolutely no reputation whatsoever. Some desperately fight it, coming up with witty paragraphs at the beginning that literally beg readers to read on. Most just accept it and hope they make a difference to the people who read the review. What's worse is that it demeans the writer. If the score is low, but the interest in the game is high then the community will just troll the writer, arguing that they're wrong, insulting the person and not giving the time to actually read and assess why the writer wasn't impressed by the game. This works in vice versa as well (giving a game a considerably high score against user opinion). Then there's the overall reputation to deal with. To put it bluntly, games journalism is absolutely absorbed with nothing more than monkeys on typewriters. Some of the articles written for this industry are good - really good - and to all those who are out there making insightful and good topics, for the love of god keep doing it. And when you're doing it, get it published in as many places as you can. Get it on big websites, get people reading. We need way more of you, because the vast majority of stuff out there at the moment is just terrible. Anyone can write a review, no matter skill or breed. You might think Zero Punctuation is funny - hell even I admit it's funny at times - but this sort of reviewing is what makes the rest of the entertainment critique industry tut, roll its eyes and smirk. It's childish and uninformative. It's crude and unartistic. It gains no notable merit. It gives you 15 minutes of fame before the reader moves on. It's this sort of stuff (i'm not meaning to pick on ZP, i'm using it as an example) that results in gaming critique gaining no progress in being an established and reputable practice. The argument to this has always been "Well the games industry and games journalism is different", but it's a poor one. The truth is that the games industry is as just a part of the rest of the entertainment industry, and the standards of the journalists that write within this sector should be as high as the standards set by the rest of the arts and entertainment world. Okay, even I admit that not everything is as rose tinted as what i'm implying, but i've felt that the accountability and professional reptutation of journalists within the games industry is poorer than anywhere else. So at the end of the long slug as a games journalist, what do you gain? If you talk to developers, hoping to become a developer yourself, your name will likely be mud. They'll look through your history, maybe notice that you criticised a game they produced, and quickly be put off by you. If you talk to the higher echelons of the games journalism world (ie, the ones that are going to pay you a goddamn wage), you'll find that they don't recognise you and have an extremely narrow eyed view of who they want. They'll probably look in-house unless you can give them something worth their time (usually in the name of a fat load of contacts). If you look toward other forms of critique, you'll find stiff suits asking you what exactly you've been doing for so long? Answering them with "playing games and writing reviews" is not an answer. You'll need something else. The TLDR of it is: Don't bother. Develop an application, learn an SDK. Hell, even join a goddamn QA team. It might be poo poo work, but it's there on your CV. Do something that will build your portfolio. DON'T think that "I are written a review about games!" will lead to you working in games. You'll be very disappointed. Sorry if i've ruffled a few feathers.
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Aug 2, 2011 19:00
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WMain00 posted:Games journalism just doesn't gather any real respect. Developers hate you, because your word or score can make or break their livelyhood. All it takes is for a journalist to say "this game is poor" and the gaming masses will shun the game in question. With movies it's different; critiques can range and even the most terrible of movies can still run a profit. People are more willing to forgive the faults of a movie and still go see it either in cinema or DVD. This trend is changing, btw. Smaller, independent gaming blogs with high quality writing are making a name for themselves, e.g., Rock Paper Shotgun, Destructoid (sometimes), Nukezilla, etc. If this shift continues you're going to see "Big Journo" and "Indie Journo" camps developing much more noticeably. Ironically, it's the lack of any decent writing talent at big sites that has caused this. It wasn't always like this -- when I was at Gamespy the writing was much better. But all my colleagues either moved on to CM or QA or production positions, or left games entirely. They were replaced by cheap talentless hacks who live and die in fear of what PR companies would do to them if they DARE badmouth a game. I'd venture to say that this was the running trend through most of the 2000's (the first couple of years excepted.) Of course, the PR industry then wasn't what it was now.
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Aug 2, 2011 19:16
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Diplomaticus posted:This trend is changing, btw. Smaller, independent gaming blogs with high quality writing are making a name for themselves, e.g., Rock Paper Shotgun, Destructoid (sometimes), Nukezilla, etc. If this shift continues you're going to see "Big Journo" and "Indie Journo" camps developing much more noticeably. Clarification: Curse makes most of it's money off of advertisements. If you make an advertiser upset, they'll pull their ads, so why not just give that advertiser free reign over editorial content? Yeah, that sounds swell! 
M4rk fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Aug 2, 2011 |
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Aug 2, 2011 19:37
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WMain00 posted:Some of the articles written for this industry are good - really good - and to all those who are out there making insightful and good topics, for the love of god keep doing it. Have any links to these? I am firmly in the zero-respect for games journalism for the reasons you listed, except I can't think of any articles that I would ever call insightful.
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Aug 2, 2011 21:19
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What is deemed acceptable interview attire? I'm getting a few now. Was going to go with a pair of nice jeans and nicer chucks, and a long sleeve shirt. Not super formal but a bit smarter than I would dress for work.
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Aug 2, 2011 21:24
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Smart casual. Jeans and trainers are very casual, but they aren't smart. No jeans or cargo pants. Or shorts unless they're really nice and it's really hot. Wear a decent shirt that goes with your lower half but isn't too smart. You know, the height of summer is the worst time for interview attire! Edit: If you look like a student, for god's sake don't wear a tie. And pick a shirt that fits. I don't know why it bothers me but it really does when someone comes in and they're wearing this massive bright white shirt like they're still in school wearing some cast off from an older sibling, and some terrible tie. Akuma fucked around with this message at 21:32 on Aug 2, 2011 |
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Aug 2, 2011 21:26
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Akuma posted:Smart casual.
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Aug 2, 2011 21:33
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Akuma posted:Smart casual. Jumpin' in on the fashion talk, you can get some really nice, classy-looking jeans, as long as they are the proper fit for you, they can look nicer than any stupid dockers khakis. I have a pair that I wear to interviews. Generally, I wear whatever I'm most comfortable in that is a step up in classiness from what I usually wear.
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Aug 2, 2011 21:37
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M4rk posted:What if the interviewee had a non-terrible tie? That's a terrible tie and makes you look unprofessional. For dudes: khakis and a polo or button up shirt without a die and undershirt, belt, not athletic shoes. For dudettes:  I usually wear dress pants, a fitted women's button up shirt and nice shoes.
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Aug 2, 2011 21:38
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mutata posted:Jumpin' in on the fashion talk, you can get some really nice, classy-looking jeans, as long as they are the proper fit for you, they can look nicer than any stupid dockers khakis. I have a pair that I wear to interviews. Generally, I wear whatever I'm most comfortable in that is a step up in classiness from what I usually wear. I think the jeans are pretty nice and classy, will maybe wear my black shoes. I think I have an abnormal neck that prohibits ties on any shirt that fits me right, which normally rules out ties anyway. Will have a lot of time ahead of the interview to investigate alternative trousers. I have it on Edit: what about short-sleeved buttoned shirts? Or should I go with polo+jeans or a long-sleeve shirt and jeans/any alternative I find tomorrow? Dad just got made unemployed again and Mum really need something positive now. BizarroAzrael fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Aug 2, 2011 |
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Aug 2, 2011 22:57
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BizarroAzrael posted:I think the jeans are pretty nice and classy, will maybe wear my black shoes. I think I have an abnormal neck that prohibits ties on any shirt that fits me right, which normally rules out ties anyway. Will have a lot of time ahead of the interview to investigate alternative trousers.
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Aug 2, 2011 23:26
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Alterian posted:For dudettes: ... largely because I don't know if I even own a pair of slacks that fits (lost weight, woo) at this point, let alone a skirt.
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Aug 3, 2011 00:11
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I wear a suit at my current job and I just feel strange wearing anything else to work at this point 
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Aug 3, 2011 00:25
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AntiPseudonym posted:I'd love to know where they get the RAM for that there unlimited detail. Notch posted a blog about this video, which does a bit of explaining as to both why it doesn't take up nearly that much memory, as well as some of the key weaknesses of the technology that the video doesn't mention. The heavy amount of instancing you mentioned is the key thing - they talk a big amount about "unlimited detail", but how many unique objects do they really have in there? Sure, each individual object can have basically as many polygons as you want, but if you're limited to having 10 different kinds of object before you run out of memory, that's not very useful. It is an interesting technology, and I have wanted to see voxels get more recognition as a viable alternative to polygons (since they're so much better for deformable/destructible environments, and I love wrecking stuff), but I think there are a lot of limitations to the rendering engine they've built that they just aren't talking about.
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Aug 3, 2011 00:29
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Sigma-X posted:Have any links to these? I am firmly in the zero-respect for games journalism for the reasons you listed, except I can't think of any articles that I would ever call insightful.
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Aug 3, 2011 01:05
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Black Eagle posted:I hate to keep jumping on the "your definition isn't broad enough" train, but "game journalism" also includes the trade press. You lot are specifically talking about the consumer press. Brandon Sheffield does great work at Game Developer Magazine and Gamasutra, and I'm not just saying that because he's one of my advisors. Also, N'Gai Croal and Stephen Totilo had/have fairly substantial reputations as journalists on the consumer side; unfortunately, this was frequently the reaction to their work. ... which kind of goes to show the issue with consumer press period - I don't really read reviews anymore, I follow people with interesting opinions and tastes. I glance at metacritic occasionally, but that's it. Well, that and Zero Punctuation, and sometimes Extra Credits.
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Aug 3, 2011 01:09
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FreakyZoid posted:Must admit I don't find LinkedIn particularly useful. [...] Yet still I keep my profile up to date. Why is this? Adraeus fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Aug 3, 2011 |
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Aug 3, 2011 01:16
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Shalinor posted:I think next time I'm job hunting for non-layoff reasons, I'll just go totally casual - a nice but basic t-shirt'y top and jeans - and see what happens. I usually just buy a new outfit when an interview comes up. So far I've had to buy one for when I graduated, and one for when I got laid off. That's not so say I don't ever dress up, but if I need to dress up for a special occasion, its usually not business casual. I don't think the dress I bought for a friend's wedding is really the best to go to an interview in.
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Aug 3, 2011 02:22
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Personally I find LinkedIn extremely useful when looking for work. In fact, I think every company I interviewed with, the last time I was job hunting, I either got in contact with via LinkedIn, or found the job advertised there. Having some decent experience, and a well filled out profile, will often mean that you get contacted by internal recruiters at game developers, which takes a lot of the hassle out of applying for jobs, as it breaks the ice and means that your CV will get properly looked at, instead of potentially being discarded by a recruiter that's just skimming through it. With regard to recommendations, I think to some extent that it's possible to tell the difference between bullshit recommendations and genuine ones. At least for programmers. Recommendations with bullshit cliched phrases like "second to none", or no real substance are pretty obviously fake anyway.
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Aug 3, 2011 02:27
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Shalinor posted:I follow N'Gai on G+ these days, he throws up interesting stuff. For similar reasons I pretty much stick with Dtoid, Giant Bomb and Rock, Paper, Shotgun. I read Dtoid because I have met/am friends with and crashed on the couches of/shared a bed with (fully clothed get your mind out of the gutter), a few of their writers and they're solid people who are in it for all the right reasons. That and Jim Sterling and I are bros. Say what you will about his work but the guy has passion for what he does and wears his heart on his sleeve. Giant Bomb is just all around great. While my tastes in games differ from almost every member of staff at WM, it's impossible not to see their combined worth as an honest, character based news outlet. Rock, Paper, Shotgun is also a great site, honest PC centric information (far too few of these) that brings back fond memories of my youth and PC gamer. Monster w21 Faces fucked around with this message at 09:02 on Aug 3, 2011 |
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Aug 3, 2011 08:57
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Monster w21 Faces posted:That and Jim Sterling and I are bros. Say what you will about his work but the guy has passion for what he does and wears his heart on his sleeve. What he does is be deliberately obtuse to the point of trolling. Everyone can have opinions, but some of his stuff is just so objectively flat-out wrong they read like Sarah Palin's "opinions" on Paul Revere, just completely disconnected from the reality the rest of the world recognizes. ...To quote one of my favorite lines from the Legacy of Kain series, "Hate me, but do it honestly." If you're going to slam something, do it for its flaws, not because you're bored and feel incendiary.
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Aug 3, 2011 10:20
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I don't know what to think of Jim Sterling at times. It's nice to see some enthusiasm within what can be a very generic world, but as GetWellGamers points out, he has a tendency to go over the top.quote:Have any links to these? I am firmly in the zero-respect for games journalism for the reasons you listed, except I can't think of any articles that I would ever call insightful. Some of the articles on the Sunday Papers in Rock Paper Shotgun can be quite informative and well written. Walker's recent investigative journalism on Fox News reporting Bulletstorm was absolutely brilliant and there should be far more investigative articles out there. Communist Bear fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Aug 3, 2011 |
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Aug 3, 2011 10:42
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GetWellGamers posted:Sarah Palin's "opinions" on Paul Revere http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2011/06/sarah-palin-says-paul-revere-warned-the-british.html quote:As it happens, though, such phenomena are regular occurrences in American politics, reminding consumers of news to be wary when some fresh story seems to fit contemporary assumptions so absolutely perfectly. /offtopic I am gonna hold off on this week's e-mail to Riot; then next week I will include a small apology about the last e-mail I sent before posting here stating that I understand that he is in some sort of crunch time right now. Then if I am to secure this part-time job I applied for at a local Marina (My Dad does a stellar job on security and a very-long time family friend is a co-owner, I really don't see how I CANT get this job) I can let him know that any urgency for me to get the Riot job can be alleviated, since I could then finally start paying off my student loans. NextTime000 fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Aug 3, 2011 |
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Aug 3, 2011 17:28
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Worst case scenario you can put your loans on forebearance/deferment if you're unemployed. But it is a good idea to get some part-time work and start paying at least interest on the loans.
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Aug 3, 2011 17:38
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NextTime000 posted:I am gonna hold off on this week's e-mail to Riot; then next week I will include a small apology about the last e-mail I sent before posting here stating that I understand that he is in some sort of crunch time right now. Then if I am to secure this part-time job I applied for at a local Marina (My Dad does a stellar job on security and a very-long time family friend is a co-owner, I really don't see how I CANT get this job) I can let him know that any urgency for me to get the Riot job can be alleviated, since I could then finally start paying off my student loans. They don't care if you really truly need the job, or if you really truly don't so you know whatever. Send a polite contact email every one or two weeks checking in and wishing them well. The only personal information should be whatever is relevant to the position - ideally, you're working on your portfolio continuously, so that every week or two you can say "oh and by the way check out this other thing I just uploaded." That's it.
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Aug 3, 2011 18:24
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Black Eagle posted:I hate to keep jumping on the "your definition isn't broad enough" train, but "game journalism" also includes the trade press. You lot are specifically talking about the consumer press. Brandon Sheffield does great work at Game Developer Magazine and Gamasutra, and I'm not just saying that because he's one of my advisors. Also, N'Gai Croal and Stephen Totilo had/have fairly substantial reputations as journalists on the consumer side; unfortunately, this was frequently the reaction to their work. I would not put N'Gai and Totilo together in the same category, but that's because I have major issues with the latter's legal reporting.
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Aug 3, 2011 18:27
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NextTime000 posted:now I would be the last person to defend Sarah Palin, but I do want to make sure that people are bashing her for the right reasons.
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Aug 3, 2011 18:52
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Interview tomorrow, What sould I keep in mind and what questions should I be ready to answer? ''give me two qualities and two bad things about you''? It's for a junior environmental artist position.
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Aug 3, 2011 19:10
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Odddzy posted:Interview tomorrow, What sould I keep in mind and what questions should I be ready to answer? ''give me two qualities and two bad things about you''? It's for a junior environmental artist position. Bam, one bad quality down, one to go.
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Aug 3, 2011 20:37
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"I would say my greatest weakness is kryptonite, which nullifies the powers granted to me by Earth's yellow sun." Some day I want to use that as an answer in a job interview. Because I would love to work at a place where that line would get me hired. Nobody ever uses the phrase "weakness" anymore, though. They always say "Areas of improvement" or some other HRspeak term for "Say something bad about you, but not something so bad that it would affect your ability to perform this job in any way."
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Aug 3, 2011 20:42
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The Cheshire Cat posted:"I would say my greatest weakness is kryptonite, which nullifies the powers granted to me by Earth's yellow sun." "Well, I feel like my Agility is a bit low. I thought I'd squeak by, but I keep failing my Downsizing rolls."
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Aug 3, 2011 20:45
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Shalinor posted:"In what areas do you feel you could improve?" "You know what they say. You can't get exp without grinding jobs, you can't grind jobs without enough exp."
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Aug 3, 2011 20:51
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