|
Shalinor posted:I think the big difference is that with the scummy internships, they're often treated as actual employees - they are expected to be in the office 8 hours a day, they're leaned on heavily to crunch, they're held accountable if they miss dates, etc. I want to say that was even part of the legal definition that required the minimum wage et al. Of course, laws surrounding internships/co-ops may be different in Canuckistan. I wasn't paid minimum wage, although with the living costs in Vancouver, I might as well have been. GetWellGamers posted:To change the topic, and get more seasonally topical, anyone miss the good old days of easter eggs? Used to be that you'd get goofy easter eggs like custom textures on the holidays, certain entered names causing scenes to play differently, whole rooms put in just because one of the developers felt it'd be funny. Might be a special case since we were basically contractors for multiplayer parts of single player games, but it was still fairly... Clear cut. I should probably include my "breaking into the industry" story, now that I've actually been in it for a few months now...
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 05:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 12:07 |
|
|
The most recent easter egg I saw was an artist working for Splash Damage put the Polycount logo on an object. Mad wuddups to all my fellow Polycountin' goons
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 06:09
|
|
|
Feel free to add me to the OP...Mobile Game Producer at CrowdStar, and I also help run our $10m investment fund for publishing deals with indie developers so if anyone has any questions on what we look for when we invest I'd be happy to help (here's an article on the fund: http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/15/crowdstar-and-youweb-launch-10m-starfund-for-mobile-social-game-development/).
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 07:20
|
|
|
Oh yeh you can add me too. I'm at Trion Worlds - Redwood City as a Character Artist.
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 07:25
|
|
|
Jan posted:Goes beyond the layers of approval, I'd venture. Where I did my co-op, the policy on easter eggs was: "Include an easter egg and you're fired." They're certainly still out there, they're just generally less random than they used to be.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 07:44
|
|
|
I don't remember if I mentioned it, but about a month and a half ago I made it into full-time QA at BioWare Austin.  I always feel a little awkward posting in this thread considering I have little-to-no actual dev skills of my own.Out of curiosity, once you've reached a point where the job seems to be stable, where do you go from a position like that? I mean, I don't mind working it as long as I can, but I'd like to be able to move up in some way or another.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 08:04
|
|
|
mutata posted:I'm a huge supporter of internships and I despise companies that abuse the lax enforcement of the US laws regarding internships, and I think that what you are describing is perfectly fine. Its when a company twiddles their mustache when an over eager student wants to "do anything just for some experience , seriously I'll work for free!" and they bring them on as free labor and exploit their naivety and energy and avoid having to actually hire someone and pay them. That scenario is scummy; what you're describing is bringing someone on as an equal with the understanding up front that the work is pro bono. Huge difference. From the last page, but as a student I think that the best way I would describe my willingness to work in this situation would be on a purely part-time basis. I'm all for doing some volunteer work for an indie company (note: I'm not an artist, I'm a programmer if I'm being generous to my own abilities) to get into the industry, but "volunteer work" does not mean "slave labour". If I were doing an equal amount of work as everyone else, I'd expect to be getting PAID the same as everyone else. I think it would also help a lot if an agreement was reached up front that if the volunteers workload ever reached or exceeded that of the paid employees, they'd either start getting a paycheque or walk away with a positive recommendation - the biggest issue with these kinds of deals is that eager students like myself will sign up for something that ends up being way more than they bargained for, and then feel trapped in that situation since if they leave when it gets difficult, they won't get the recommendation they went to all that effort for.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 09:02
|
|
|
x
anime was right fucked around with this message at 07:03 on Apr 18, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 09:10
|
|
|
Aliginge posted:I think it's worth calling out the people who namedrop and might take advantage of the inexperienced. Far too often I and my talent been straight up USED by skill-less lying fucks with "connections" simply because I didn't know what the gently caress.* Every person in a creative/development position should read this article: Unfinanced Entrepreneurs http://www.povonline.com/cols/COL209.htm It's old (1998) but the information is still plenty relevant. As long as there have been talented folks without business sense, there have been untalented folks without business sense trying to take advantage of them.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 09:20
|
|
|
Black Eagle posted:You've caused my personal friends a degree of stress today. That's simply not acceptable. Do you really want me to look into each and every aspect of your background? Do you really want me to fire off inquiries to your past employers? I can do that, if you so wish, and I'm reasonably certain they won't see me as a "stranger" sending them e-mails from "out of the blue." I just want to state for the record I sent e-mails to two people. I didn't go down your linkedin profile. I didn't drag your name through the mud across your contact list, as I feel you may fear. Any mark on your reputation beyond Erik J on 0AD and Andy on Monaco is of your own doing, I haven't spoke with anyone else. Neither of these gentlemen employed you. If your goal is harassment, as you appear to be suggesting, then that reflects poorly on you, not me. You stated plainly and directly you had worked on Monaco and 0AD and I contacted leads on both projects to verify as neither project had you listed in any of their credits. Both have claimed at this point that you have overstated your effect and position. I spoke with Erik J on 0AD who is referring me to Jason for the time prior to his leadership on the project for additional information, and Andy advised of the previous information. Those were two direct claims. I haven't contacted anyone at Sony to bother finding out if you worked on more titles in Sony QA than the single credit you have on mobygames since I am well aware that QA is not always treated fairly. I haven't looked into anything else, either. You made two specific claims and I researched them and found them wanting. If you would like to provide concrete evidence to the contrary by all means do so. If you are doing fantastic things in the industry and have successfully built a legitimate advisory board that has assisted companies and has success stories, please, share them. At the moment, your claims ring hollow, and the small evidence uncovered with only a cursory check does not lend any credibility to your background. You have consistently provided the thread with two things: some useful legal/business information, and an overinflated ego. One of these is fantastic and the other is acceptable within limits. Yours is not, to the point where many people have spent the past few pages grumbling about it, some choosing to name names, and some not. If you have some fantastic stories of your personal development, career, etc, please share them, they would be much appreciated. If you have useful insight into the legal side of things, please share them - these are useful and interesting and important to all disciplines and careers. Conversely, a story of someone else is less useful, particularly when the primary take-away is that you're name-dropping to shill your book. I'm sure it will be fascinating. I'm sure you're putting a ton of effort into it. We don't need to be reminded every time you post. I'm proud of being an artist. I'm self-trained, have shipped two AAA titles, made Senior Artist in record time due to efforts in mentoring, training, and setting quality bars across projects. I've provided publisher-wide training material, headed a studio-wide art council, and was the first production artist on my current project for the express purpose of visual goal/discovery work due to my capabilities. I'm all for tabling this as I think it's damaging to the discussion, if you want to argue with me personally or have any further questions for me feel free to PM me. In the future do not make outlandish claims and no one will feel the need to question them. You're writing a book, that's great! That's a fantastic accomplishment. Stick to that, and less afternoons as a "recording engineer" and no one will doubt you. Hell, I'd love to know more about how you got into that position, that poo poo seems fascinating and like an accomplishment that you wholly and fully own. I only know a handful of folks who have written books and none have written non-fiction, non-technical work. The issue isn't talking up yourself, it's the fact that you never tell your own story. e: hopefully this isn't too rambly, it's 4 in the morning here and I wanted to fire this off before I crashed  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 10:04
|
|
|
ceebee posted:The most recent easter egg I saw was an artist working for Splash Damage put the Polycount logo on an object. Mad wuddups to all my fellow Polycountin' goons I've seen dozens of them go in our game over the years. Some are subtle or minor (using friends' names for NPC population), others... aren't. My current contribution is pretty danged obvious. We'll see how well it flies, but basically it's in because enough of us on the team love the show. The broader the scope of your game, the easier it is to put in easter eggs. MMOs and open-world games are probably the easiest, followed by long RPGs and such. You're probably not going to find a whole lot of eggs in the next Madden, though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 10:07
|
|
|
If you'd like, you can add me to the OP as a QA Tester at Loot Drop. My first week has been awesome. I'm picking up the rhythm of the team and work cycle, and very quickly learning how to be a competent tester. I think I'll only learn how to be a great one if I do a fair bit of my own research, but I'm regularly amazed at how much STUFF I'm picking up just by being around the wizkids and graybeards. I might be dazzled by everyone's ability due to my near-total lack of experience, but it's still awesome to be surrounded by so much competence. Prior to this, I've only held service jobs where they were thrilled that I was literate. Suffice to say, it's a huge change.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 10:26
|
|
|
You can add me as a Producer but also Designer at Fullfat in Coventry. We do all sorts but more recently iOS games. (and prior to that DS and Wii stuff).
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 11:06
|
|
|
Game Jobs Megathread #3: Devs gone wild (user was probated for this post) Diplomaticus throw me on the OP as a Level Designer at Splash Damage
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 12:26
|
|
|
Freelancepolice posted:You can add me as a Producer but also Designer at Fullfat in Coventry. We do all sorts but more recently iOS games. (and prior to that DS and Wii stuff). When are you guys going to get a website up and running that lists available roles? The Jobs link opens up an email address. I may a CV over soon but I've been hoping you get a website up and running at some point. One of a few companies I'm interested in joining in the Midlands.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 13:01
|
|
|
There's an important lesson to be learned here: there are often disagreements in the games industry, so conflict management can be very important. I've heard numerous stories of people getting into actual physical fights and have seen first-hand a programmer scream "gently caress you" at the top of their voice in a crowded office and quit spectacularly.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 13:48
|
|
|
On the topic of Easter Eggs, a friend of mine at EA put in the name of his WOW character (our guild's tank) as one of the boss names in a game he made. It was especially difficult for me to kill him, as I was the guild's main healer, and seeing his health bar go down was hard to take. It felt like when you interlace your hands with the wrong finger on top.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 13:55
|
|
|
errybody updated.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 14:02
|
|
|
I'd like to throw in some perspective and hopefully calm things down. The reason people get so passionate about credits and what they've done is that this is an incredibly hard business to get into, regardless of the discipline. When someone in the business sees something that doesn't make sense or someone appearing to be riding coat tails, then they get defensive. I've seen plenty of people like Black Eagle who work from an entirely different angle who have tangential relationships with game development. This doesn't make his perspective irrelevant, it makes it different and it's still useful. The biggest thing, though, is to be clear about your own role and viewpoint so that we all know where you're coming from.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 14:11
|
|
|
Part of the problem also is that as an industry we have a really lovely system for defining, managing, and recording credits/titles. It is quite common for people to be entirely left off of credits for a work they may have participated greatly in.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 14:15
|
|
|
Diplomaticus posted:Part of the problem also is that as an industry we have a really lovely system for defining, managing, and recording credits/titles. It is quite common for people to be entirely left off of credits for a work they may have participated greatly in. I agree 100%.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 14:25
|
|
|
If only employees could somehow establish, demand, and enforce the implementation of sane, manageable, and clear crediting standards. Maybe if we made a game out of it we could figure out a way...
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 15:59
|
|
|
ceebee posted:Oh yeh you can add me too. I'm at Trion Worlds - Redwood City as a Character Artist.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 16:44
|
|
|
cgeq posted:If only employees could somehow establish, demand, and enforce the implementation of sane, manageable, and clear crediting standards. Maybe if we made a game out of it we could figure out a way... I'm not endorsing either side, but I believe this is why Hollywood has unions.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 16:52
|
|
|
Diplomaticus posted:Part of the problem also is that as an industry we have a really lovely system for defining, managing, and recording credits/titles. It is quite common for people to be entirely left off of credits for a work they may have participated greatly in. This is true, and as demonstrated, it leaves a gap that is easily exploitable by both employers and individuals. I've known folks who have worked many years on a project only to leave before a game went gold and find their name missing from the credits, or had removal from the credits held over people's head as a dishonest 'incentive' to keep people on an abusive work cycle. Conversely, with these gaps, it's quite easy to make false claims under the guise that you were unjustly left out of the credits, as those sorts of positions can be hard to verify, especially given the liquidity of the workforce and the number of studios that close. This is why is it important for all folks involved to be able to accurately define and describe their roles and provide a portfolio when possible. As far as I know, this is fairly common in the vfx and film industries as well. Let's not forget that the first video game easter egg was a disallowed credit page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_%28Atari_2600%29
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 17:24
|
|
|
Sigma-X posted:This is true, and as demonstrated, it leaves a gap that is easily exploitable by both employers and individuals. I've known folks who have worked many years on a project only to leave before a game went gold and find their name missing from the credits, or had removal from the credits held over people's head as a dishonest 'incentive' to keep people on an abusive work cycle. Not to mention as MMOs, DLC and other long-tail content becomes more prevalent, there are people who come on board after a game goes live and may never be listed.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 17:30
|
|
|
Sigma-X posted:e: hopefully this isn't too rambly, it's 4 in the morning here and I wanted to fire this off before I crashed Please, everyone, just drop it. Take it outside the thread if you must continue. There's enough information in the thread for everyone to make up their own mind now, and picking at each-other further will serve no purpose whatsoever. Move on. Let's just talk about video games as a business.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 18:00
|
|
|
Well, now that Shalinor's laid down the law:GetWellGamers posted:So, I'm finally applying for a junior 2D Designer position, and I made up this laser-relevant portfolio of just my 2D stuff. Any criticisms/advice/etc.? I had some UnrealEd stuff and a few others, but the ad was specifically for 2D games so I left it out. As for the extreme This got buried in the Black Eagle shitstorm, and I'm still hoping to get some advice since it's my first 2D design portfolio.  vvvvv Edit: Fixed. vvvvv GetWellGamers fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Oct 29, 2011 |
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 18:48
|
|
of the "Design Notes", that's in there because I overheard a local recruiter at GDC saying that when he looked for designers he wanted to know their entire thought process, why they did what they did and what led them to that decision and so on. It got pretty drat verbose, though, so I hid it behind a collapsible button in case they just wanted to skim the meat without the motivations. Good idea/bad idea?
|
GetWellGamers posted:I'm still hoping to get some advice since it's my first 2D design portfolio. That aside, I really don't have feedback, aside from wondering why there aren't more pieces there. I'd learn Stencyl and make something new, if for no other reason than to get your head back in the proper space for interviews. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Oct 29, 2011 |
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 18:59
|
|
|
GetWellGamers posted:Uh oh, dad's home! Our QA teams all get checklist tasks at various points in the project to make sure we don't have any easter eggs left in the game for when we ship. I've seen lots of projects with them in during development, but they all get taken out before ship. Diplomaticus posted:Part of the problem also is that as an industry we have a really lovely system for defining, managing, and recording credits/titles. It is quite common for people to be entirely left off of credits for a work they may have participated greatly in.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 20:19
|
|
|
Hot Coffee is a strong reason unscheduled / unplanned Easter eggs will rarely show up in games anymore. It might not seem directly related, but it was of those industry moments that really got publishers to have their QA and production keep a much closer eye out for unscheduled additions to a game. Unscheduled / unplanned Easter eggs are generally bad for development, anyways. Every junior coder will get that idea at some point of "If I work late 4 hours tonight I can get this sweet Easter egg / feature in!" thinking they are only burning their time. No matter how small of an Easter egg you think it is, it will eat some some of the already over scheduled QA time, if it uses any placeholder art an artist might be pulled in to replace it with real art, producers will lose time to meetings discussing whether it's best to cut the Easter egg or schedule more time into it. If it's a good enough Easter egg idea, present it in some schedule discussion early on and get it made official. Cheat codes are especially on the outs due to the huge amount of QA and development work involved in making sure each cheat code is "safe" on a real console. Once you start scheduling time for safe for release cheat codes, when it comes time to start making feature cuts to get the schedule with a more lined up release time, it's far easier to say "We'll cut the cheat codes" than cutting some boss fights or levels.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 20:35
|
|
|
Chainclaw posted:Hot Coffee is a strong reason unscheduled / unplanned Easter eggs will rarely show up in games anymore. It might not seem directly related, but it was of those industry moments that really got publishers to have their QA and production keep a much closer eye out for unscheduled additions to a game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 20:56
|
|
M4rk posted:Hey ceebee, you've probably worked with one of my favorite forum members. She's a concept artists at Trion, I think (or she was a year or two ago). We don't currently have a female concept artist. I just got hired almost 2 months ago. However I think we're picking up a female concept artist, I forget her name but she's never worked for us before outside of freelancing.
|
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 21:08
|
|
|
GeauxSteve posted:Cheat codes suck to test. For every cheat code there is, you have to test it in every single mode and with every other cheat code combination to make sure things aren't broken. Its a huge pain. A Bug: If you use Cheat X with Cheat Y and your controller is low on batteries the game crashes 10% of the time. ... ... C Bug: Game isn't fun yet.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 21:40
|
|
|
cgeq posted:If only employees could somehow establish, demand, and enforce the implementation of sane, manageable, and clear crediting standards. Maybe if we made a game out of it we could figure out a way... Unionize! If Hollywood and television can do it, why not the games industry?
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 22:20
|
|
|
Amrosorma posted:Unionize! They're not a bandaid fix. Done wrong, you end up with trade agreements that price all labor entirely out of the realm of independent studios / small products. Unions historically have not dealt well with the concept of wage being dependent on project size or location, and the games industry is always in flux. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Oct 29, 2011 |
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 22:22
|
|
|
Chainclaw posted:A Bug: If you use Cheat X with Cheat Y and your controller is low on batteries the game crashes 10% of the time.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2011 23:23
|
|
|
djkillingspree posted:ugh, I know, right. The worst part is QA leads who will fight to the death for the first bug and let the other one slide >< The whole traditional QA process for game development never made much sense to me. This is why I'm glad a few years ago our studio started assigning QA leads to project from nearly the beginning, and would have them help out over the entire course of the project. Keeping A bugs squashed all of development means less A bugs overall because you aren't building a broken system on top of another broken system. It also means the schedule stays sane, because you're not "hiding" the back cost of a lot of features after alpha for bug fixing, and you're schedule becomes more realistic as you work with the testers to polish up each feature as it comes online, and you finish the task when it's had a few passes at bug fixing, instead of whenever you tell your programming lead "I'm done." It also gives so much extra time after alpha for polish, gameplay tweaks, usability passes, and lots of C bugs.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2011 01:40
|
|
|
djkillingspree posted:ugh, I know, right. The worst part is QA leads who will fight to the death for the first bug and let the other one slide >< In our department, a lot of that sort of thing has to do with QA having its own goals for productivity, fix rates, etc and Dev having their own separate goals. There is a clash there with everyone trying to hit their own goals while still putting out a quality game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2011 01:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 29, 2024 12:07 |
|
|
Shalinor posted:Because unions gutted independent film in Hollywood until relatively recently, and there's little reason to assume that Games unions would magically start better than Hollywood unions did? First time I've heard that one. I'd say easier access to film creation tools is what really pushed independent film. Not really sure where you got unions from that. All I know is that working for union animation studios in film beats the hell out of working for the other ones. Pulling 8 months straight of unpaid overtime only to be laid off in a right to work state sure sucked rear end.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2011 01:57
|
|