Game Jobs Megathread: Wear clean underwear to avoid the smellz.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Game Jobs Megathread: Wear clean underwear to avoid the smellz.

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waffledoodle: Oct 1, 2005; I believe your boast sounds vaguely familiar.

PancakeParty posted:

Thanks for the reply, Sigma-X! Working with Scaleform is right up my alley. I love making interfaces, how should I go about that sort of path? Should I just try creating mock interfaces to build up a portfolio in order to have a little credibility when applying for a position?

You need to show us your portfolio. You'll want to have a few pieces in there that demonstrate you are capable of adjusting to the aesthetic of game stuff, but chances are your web stuff is actually more marketable so you will still want all that front and center. You also have to be careful with the mockups and reskins as they can be a double-edged sword if you don't actually know how designing for consoles and televisions affects things (you said Uncharted, so I'm assuming you're targeting console dev). If you put a reskinned Uncharted menu in there with 11pt font sitting outside of title safe, you will look kinda dumb.

My hunch is that you could walk in and apply for a UI position today without any games stuff in there (if you are able to demonstrate some motion graphics and icon work) and at least qualify for an interview. But once again, we'd need to see dat portfolio.

I spent six years doing print design and web design/development before I got my first gaming gig (via contract, while still working a dot com day job), and the only game stuff I had in there were a few incomplete indie projects. The senior UI artist who preceded me at my current studio had zero games experience and no game reskin/mockup stuff in his portfolio, just a ton of awesome animation and motion graphics work. I believe the dude before him was a web designer who was into video editing.

# ? Mar 12, 2012 16:37

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 02:47

OneEightHundred: Feb 28, 2008; Soon, we will be unstoppable!

Shalinor posted:

The only ones to survive will be the very large players, often with platformer owner backing.

There have been a number of successful AAA startups but they pretty much all boil down to studios that were founded by some existing highly-successful talent, which makes for a much more compelling investor pitch. Rags-to-riches stories are really rare unless you can make a sleeper mega-hit (Red Octane, Neversoft) or convince people to basically work for free (People Can Fly).

devilmouse posted:

Canada is a good alpha/beta market since 1) it's English-speaking and shares much of the same localization/internationalization concerns that a US title would, 2) it's (mostly) located near your (probably) US-located data centers, 3) it's a smaller market to test against and thus easier on load. Basically if you're looking to do wider scale testing, but not a full release and you're a US developer, our great white neighbor makes a pretty good testing arena.

Seems like the load issue could be fixed with a signup limit?

OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Mar 12, 2012

# ? Mar 12, 2012 16:48

mutata: Mar 1, 2003

In keeping with my tradition of posting game art in the game jobs thread, here's one of the things I worked on this weekend:

Patina'd bronze in UDK:

https://instagram.com/mutatedjellyfish/
https://www.artstation.com/mutatedjellyfish

# ? Mar 12, 2012 16:56

Shalinor: Jun 10, 2002; _{Can I buy you a rootbeer?}

OneEightHundred posted:

There have been a number of successful AAA startups but they pretty much all boil down to studios that were founded by some existing highly-successful talent, which makes for a much more compelling investor pitch. Rags-to-riches stories are really rare unless you can make a sleeper mega-hit (Red Octane, Neversoft) or convince people to basically work for free (People Can Fly).

Those stories all took place in a market that no longer exists.

The only ones that can do that at this point are top-level executives founding their own new studios, that are capable of charming money out some very, very nervous people. Even then, they typically go social over AAA. There is some argument for being able to still do it if you have a VERY major shipped game in your resume, and your title on that game was "X Director / CEO", but we're talking about a vanishing percentage point of a percentage point of developers at that point.

EDIT: ... and even THEN, I'd argue they'd have almost zero chance at a AAA $60 game - they'd only have a shot at an original IP $15 XBLA/PSN game, as opposed to the work-for-hire/etc that any less-pedigree'd new studio would be offered.

EDIT2: Hmmm, it looks like we're in the position of putting together a look-and-feel prototype/video thereof for a Kickstarter (for a game we haven't shown yet / project got dumped in our laps), aiming at $25k, and throwing most of our studio's present hopes and dreams on the back of that. There's that, and then an unrelated social game we'll be releasing in a few weeks - which is a huge wild card. Two gambles, and if we lose both, a big portion of our team has to find jobs.

(thankfully, I'm personally pretty solid for a long while - but it would just be me left, with no immediate art support, so that'd be a bit trickier)

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Mar 12, 2012

# ? Mar 12, 2012 17:02

Akuma: Sep 11, 2001

What happened to that platformer you showed a while ago?

Naked Gun got an overwhelmingly tremendous response at GDC, which is nice! Not sure if I'm allowed to say who saw it and what they said, though. But very exciting. I'm so glad I put the brakes on launching in December and spent the time to redesign it fairly extensively. People have staked a decent amount on my "vision" of what this here point and click should be, so it's nice that it's starting to pay off with important players in the sector/genre showing such interest.

# ? Mar 12, 2012 19:15

devilmouse: Mar 26, 2004; It's just like real life.

The hiring continues here at Zynga (oh no!) Boston (oh yes!). We've got open positions for 3D Artists, Animators, and Engineers (primarily AS3/JS, but I don't think any engineer here came on knowing either/both of those). The positions are all full-time, on-site here in Boston (the office is right next to Harvard, so you can feel extra educated while you walk to and from work).

We have solid pedigree, startup mentality but with support of a giant public company, the usual list of perks that you'd find in Silicon Valley, and pay better than the majority of the games industry! Also - as someone who deplores doing uninteresting work, I promise you'll be working on new things in different spaces than FB or mobile are used to. Plus your mom will finally know what you do!

PM me (or post) if you've got questions or interest.

Edit: I'm tempted to go on a tear about how it's actually an interesting place to work and not deserving of the rap we get in a lot of cases, but I'll spare you. If you're on the fence though, I'll be glad to try and convince you!

# ? Mar 12, 2012 19:42

Shalinor: Jun 10, 2002; _{Can I buy you a rootbeer?}

Akuma posted:

What happened to that platformer you showed a while ago?

Still in progress, though renamed and broken into a string of smaller games that build to the single bigger one. It's just that none of that will be done in time to solve immediate financial crunch.

If everything goes pear shaped, I'll still be working on that string of games leading up to the full platformer, and have plenty of time to deliver on it personally. I'd just need to figure out some other art help on it, which would kinda suck. (EDIT: If that does happen, I'd probably be poking around these very forums for interested parties - thankfully, I do have some minor budget to throw at art... a teensy, pittance of a budget, but a budget)

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Mar 12, 2012

# ? Mar 12, 2012 20:22

PancakeParty: Jan 22, 2011

Thanks everyone for the feedback, it's definitely a huge reality check for me, very appreciated.

Another thing I'm curious about, you guys say it's hard for even execs from AAA studios to go off and get funding for new studios - why is that?

I look at the web industry where batshit insane ideas can go get $100 mil in funding and never amount to anything and never make a single penny before the company is ran into the ground.

I look at a game like Uncharted 2 and it costs $20 million to make (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/uncharted-sequel-costing-usd-20-million). Obviously let's add in probably $10 million to cover the reused components from the first game and then another $20 million for marketing. We're at $50 million right there.

As of October 2011, Uncharted 2 has sold 4.9 million copies. Who knows what the actual ROI is, but without question the game has made at least $25 million in profit, but probably more like $50 million.

Obviously the quality of the team and the story, etc... all has to be taken into account, but I honestly feel like if I was a venture capitalist I'd be more interested in putting money an amazing game development team with a great concept than I would some unproven startup idea.

Am I missing something here?

# ? Mar 13, 2012 04:30

Bongo Bill: Jan 17, 2012

PancakeParty posted:

Thanks everyone for the feedback, it's definitely a huge reality check for me, very appreciated.

Another thing I'm curious about, you guys say it's hard for even execs from AAA studios to go off and get funding for new studios - why is that?

I look at the web industry where batshit insane ideas can go get $100 mil in funding and never amount to anything and never make a single penny before the company is ran into the ground.

I look at a game like Uncharted 2 and it costs $20 million to make (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/uncharted-sequel-costing-usd-20-million). Obviously let's add in probably $10 million to cover the reused components from the first game and then another $20 million for marketing. We're at $50 million right there.

As of October 2011, Uncharted 2 has sold 4.9 million copies. Who knows what the actual ROI is, but without question the game has made at least $25 million in profit, but probably more like $50 million.

Obviously the quality of the team and the story, etc... all has to be taken into account, but I honestly feel like if I was a venture capitalist I'd be more interested in putting money an amazing game development team with a great concept than I would some unproven startup idea.

Am I missing something here?

The game world isn't driven by great concepts the way the web world is. Compounding the issue is that nobody's quite sure what is the most significant driver of commercial success.

There's a web-like investment bubble in small social games, but to my knowledge there's never been anything like that for the AAA side of things.

# ? Mar 13, 2012 04:36

Paniolo: Oct 9, 2007; Heads will roll.

PancakeParty posted:

Thanks everyone for the feedback, it's definitely a huge reality check for me, very appreciated.

Another thing I'm curious about, you guys say it's hard for even execs from AAA studios to go off and get funding for new studios - why is that?

I look at the web industry where batshit insane ideas can go get $100 mil in funding and never amount to anything and never make a single penny before the company is ran into the ground.

I look at a game like Uncharted 2 and it costs $20 million to make (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/uncharted-sequel-costing-usd-20-million). Obviously let's add in probably $10 million to cover the reused components from the first game and then another $20 million for marketing. We're at $50 million right there.

As of October 2011, Uncharted 2 has sold 4.9 million copies. Who knows what the actual ROI is, but without question the game has made at least $25 million in profit, but probably more like $50 million.

Obviously the quality of the team and the story, etc... all has to be taken into account, but I honestly feel like if I was a venture capitalist I'd be more interested in putting money an amazing game development team with a great concept than I would some unproven startup idea.

Am I missing something here?

Well first of all I don't know of anything that's gotten a hundred million in funding with nothing to show for it even in the web world. And second, nobody ever became a billionaire by publishing video games.

# ? Mar 13, 2012 04:37

wasabimilkshake: Aug 21, 2007; North Carolina votes yes.

At GDC this year I gave a presentation at Autodesk's expo booth, along with a former professor, about a project I worked on in college. I tried to cram in an inspirational message for the kids while also saying a bunch of nice things about Maya and Scaleform:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbmCpVh-ozM (I am the guy at 13:22)

The (gracious and appreciated) feedback I'm getting from friends and family is putting me into a rather vainglorious mood, so if anyone has any scathing critique, feel free to hurl it my way.

# ? Mar 13, 2012 05:43

Funkmaster General: Sep 13, 2008; Hey, man, I distinctly remember this being an episode of Spongebob.

Paniolo posted:

And second, nobody ever became a billionaire by publishing video games.

Gabe Newell would like a word with you.

# ? Mar 13, 2012 07:46

devilmouse: Mar 26, 2004; It's just like real life.

On the off-chance that any of you are going to be in Boston for PAX, there's a free schmoozy party thing at Microsoft the night before PAX: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2793410165

PM me for the freebie discount code.

# ? Mar 13, 2012 21:14

OneEightHundred: Feb 28, 2008; Soon, we will be unstoppable!

Shalinor posted:

Those stories all took place in a market that no longer exists.

Well, that's actually the catch, Guitar Hero and THPS were both aimed at markets which weren't really thought to "exist" in anywhere near the size that they blew up to. I think that doing THAT as a startup is still perfectly feasible, but it's an incredibly long shot to be the Next Big Thing and neither really expected a smash hit to begin with.

Painkiller is probably a story we won't be hearing any more of though.

# ? Mar 13, 2012 22:04

Chainclaw: Feb 14, 2009

Well, the knock-off game development Kickstarters are out in full force:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/120873716/your-world

This man wants $1.1 million to build guild bank: The MMO

quote:

Who creates a game with guilds and doesn't give you a bank right off the bat. All the games! Its sad.

If there's already a thread on this, point me to it. It looks about Crimson Haze levels of special.

The comments are pretty great, as well: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/120873716/your-world/comments
I wouldn't be surprised if this gets troll-funded up to a few thousand.

Kotaku has an article on the guy
http://kotaku.com/5892917/millionaire-wants-your-million-dollars-to-make-his-first-game

# ? Mar 14, 2012 00:26

anime was right: Jun 27, 2008; death is certain
keep yr cool

Chainclaw posted:

Kotaku has an article on the guy
http://kotaku.com/5892917/millionaire-wants-your-million-dollars-to-make-his-first-game

I actually know that guy's son. Wow.

# ? Mar 14, 2012 01:12

SpaceDrake: Dec 22, 2006; I can't avoid filling a game with awful memes, even if I want to. It's in my bones...!

Waterbed posted:

I actually know that guy's son. Wow.

Is he (the guy, not the son) as completely dense IRL as he comes across in both the article and the kickstarter? Seriously, his writing ability is low-teenager level at best.

# ? Mar 14, 2012 04:27

Shalinor: Jun 10, 2002; _{Can I buy you a rootbeer?}

Chainclaw posted:

Kotaku has an article on the guy
http://kotaku.com/5892917/millionaire-wants-your-million-dollars-to-make-his-first-game

quote:

"I am the idea man. I think it, get other investors, and hire the right people to make it happen. Been playing games since Pong. I know what I like and what others have said they would like. I will hire those needed to make it a reality."

... bwahaahhaahah.

# ? Mar 14, 2012 05:36

wodin: Jul 12, 2001; What do you do with a drunken Viking?

My heart goes out to the Obsidian people who got bad news today.

Seems like it's an ugly month to be a developer in SoCal. I imagine that Beer Wednesday is going to be particularly interesting tonight - hopefully everyone lands on their feet and there's no more of this nonsense.

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/3/14/2870865/report-obsidian-hit-with-layoffs-next-gen-project-canceled-south-park

# ? Mar 14, 2012 19:14

LowPolyCount: May 16, 2004; Transform... for Justice!

Sigma-X posted:

You will want to learn LUA as well, as it's the most common scripting language for game/UI designers and I believe scaleform uses it as well (I am not very familiar with scaleform though, as we don't use it here. Our UI guys wish we did, though, as our homebrew tools don't handle 3d like it does)

I use Scaleform extensively at work, it plays flash movies in a C++ application. I've been really happy with it as it works pretty much as advertised. There have been some performance issues, but with 4.0 (and 4.1 coming out next month) it's not as big an issue if you know what you're doing.

# ? Mar 14, 2012 19:23

nibe: Feb 23, 2008

wodin posted:

My heart goes out to the Obsidian people who got bad news today. Seems like it's an ugly month to be a developer in SoCal. I imagine that Beer Wednesday is going to be particularly interesting tonight - hopefully everyone lands on their feet and there's no more of this nonsense.

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/3/14/2870865/report-obsidian-hit-with-layoffs-next-gen-project-canceled-south-park

Oh wow, that sucks. I was actually contacted with a programming test from them a week or two ago (I had applied a few months ago), and just yesterday was told my test had been passed on to the team. I've been trying to keep my excitement in check, but this is just a huge bummer, especially the bit about the guy being laid off in his first week... :ohdear:

What a terrible feeling that would be.

# ? Mar 14, 2012 20:40

Chernabog: Apr 16, 2007

Any advice on what to put on a follow-up email for someone I met at GDC?

# ? Mar 14, 2012 21:48

GetWellGamers: Apr 11, 2006; The Get-Well Gamers Foundation: Touching Kids Everywhere!

Chernabog posted:

Any advice on what to put on a follow-up email for someone I met at GDC?

Hi, (Name)-

-OR-

Mr./Ms. (Surname)-

Greetings, my name is (Name) and we met at the (Place) during GDC last week. I just wanted to drop you a line to thank you for your time, I really enjoyed talking about (topic) with you. [Insert light apropos flattery of their work/company/etc.]

Thanks again for your time, it really helped make this a great GDC for me!

Regards,
(Name)

# ? Mar 14, 2012 22:57

Chernabog: Apr 16, 2007

Hm... that's what I had in mind but I was wondering if it wouldn't be too plain. Thanks.

By the way, I had a fun time at the goon meet, thanks for organizing it GWG.

# ? Mar 14, 2012 23:04

GetWellGamers: Apr 11, 2006; The Get-Well Gamers Foundation: Touching Kids Everywhere!

Chernabog posted:

Hm... that's what I had in mind but I was wondering if it wouldn't be too plain. Thanks.

By the way, I had a fun time at the goon meet, thanks for organizing it GWG.

Well, I mean, it's always great to personalize it, but I can't have any idea about how you would do that and still present it as a template.

And really, the GDC Tuesday Night Chevy's is one of the things I look forward to doing most at each year's show. Even if I usually do wind up getting stiffed $40-80 every time. :unsmith:

# ? Mar 14, 2012 23:06

Chernabog: Apr 16, 2007

Yeah, I wasn't going to copy paste a template, I just wanted a sense of what sort of thing to write.

Oh man, that sucks. If I go to the next GDC I'll throw in a few extra bucks

# ? Mar 14, 2012 23:17

BizarroAzrael: Apr 6, 2006; "That must weigh heavily on your soul. Let me purge it for you."

Very sorry to hear about Obsidian, I was looking forward to seeing what was coming up from them.

In more jolly news, anyone else looking at joining in the PeterMolydeux game jam at the end of the month?

# ? Mar 14, 2012 23:18

milquetoast child: Jun 27, 2003; literally

I just accepted an offer for a Community Manager position at a new start up in San Francisco, I start on the 9th of April!

It's been a long two months of unemployment, but it's good to have the light at the end of the tunnel.

Now all I have to do is sell my car and get moved out there.

# ? Mar 15, 2012 01:08

Carfax Report: May 17, 2003; Ravage the land as never before, total destruction from mountain to shore!

https://twitter.com/#!/grumpygamer/status/180049762123390976 Check out the link in Gilbert's post. Definitely the best application for an adventure game this side of Tim Schafer's original. (Also at http://www.doublefine.com/news/comments/twenty_years_only_a_few_tears/ )

# ? Mar 15, 2012 01:51

Paniolo: Oct 9, 2007; Heads will roll.

Anyone using Awesomium for a project? I love the concept but I wonder how responsive it is, particular with Chome's separate-process model. I also dislike that they don't let you hook directly into V8, instead having to add Javascript hooks via their API. And the name is stupid.

Still, being able to design a UI in HTML is fantastic.

# ? Mar 15, 2012 04:47

Shalinor: Jun 10, 2002; _{Can I buy you a rootbeer?}

Paniolo posted:

Anyone using Awesomium for a project? I love the concept but I wonder how responsive it is, particular with Chome's separate-process model. I also dislike that they don't let you hook directly into V8, instead having to add Javascript hooks via their API. And the name is stupid.

Still, being able to design a UI in HTML is fantastic.

We used it for the in-game browser in LEGO Universe.

It's pretty awesome, if you want a web browser. We all kind of balked at the jscript hook thing, though these days, I'd laugh at the consternation. Oh, how web dev changes us. I would NOT recommend it for an in-game UI, though - you use ScaleForm for that.

... but definitely, for "I want a web browser / web window in my game with minimum fuss," it's the best option we found on the market, bar none. Everything else was horrible to get operational, and typically required more or less writing your own web browser that just happened to hook into their API. Good if you want ultimate control, but not if you just want a dratted standard browser window.

EDIT: And yes, any time we talked about it to any of the producers, their first response was "Awesomium... really? That's the name?".

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Mar 15, 2012

# ? Mar 15, 2012 04:58

Maide: Aug 21, 2008; There's a Starman waiting in the sky...

Paniolo posted:

Anyone using Awesomium for a project? I love the concept but I wonder how responsive it is, particular with Chome's separate-process model. I also dislike that they don't let you hook directly into V8, instead having to add Javascript hooks via their API. And the name is stupid.

Still, being able to design a UI in HTML is fantastic.

It's very fast to implement and have working, but I would not use it in place of a UI. If you need a couple web pages in your game, it's good for that, but I wouldn't use it for much else.

# ? Mar 15, 2012 05:59

Leif.: Mar 27, 2005; Son of the Defender
Formerly Diplomaticus/SWATJester

Wasteland 2 + $600,000 on kickstarter = :3:

I'm probably one of the few people who played the poo poo out of the original Wasteland. Most Fallout fans have never heard of it.

# ? Mar 15, 2012 07:23

GetWellGamers: Apr 11, 2006; The Get-Well Gamers Foundation: Touching Kids Everywhere!

Are you making GBS threads me? Those are nearly fighting words around these circles. ^t :mad:

# ? Mar 15, 2012 08:12

Monster w21 Faces: May 11, 2006; "What the fuck is that?"
"What the fuck is this?!"

dunkman posted:

I just accepted an offer for a Community Manager position at a new start up in San Francisco, I start on the 9th of April!

It's been a long two months of unemployment, but it's good to have the light at the end of the tunnel.

Now all I have to do is sell my car and get moved out there.

Congratulations man. What happened with Crytek?

# ? Mar 15, 2012 08:14

Foiltha: Jun 12, 2008

I don't work in the game industry (just your average software developer) but is this actually a common thing in the game industry:

https://twitter.com/#!/ChrisAvellone/status/180062439394643968?

No royalties at all and a bonus based on a metacritic score? That sounds just horrible.

# ? Mar 15, 2012 08:23

krysmopompas: Jan 17, 2004; hi

Foiltha posted:

I don't work in the game industry (just your average software developer) but is this actually a common thing in the game industry:
https://twitter.com/#!/ChrisAvellone/status/180062439394643968?
No royalties at all and a bonus based on a metacritic score? That sounds just horrible.

It's uncommon simply because royalties and bonuses alone are fairly uncommon at the development level.

# ? Mar 15, 2012 08:39

milquetoast child: Jun 27, 2003; literally

Monster w21 Faces posted:

Congratulations man. What happened with Crytek?

Crytek was going good, but I would rather stay in the US. Crytek really impressed me with their resources and WarFace looks awesome. I got to play it at GDC and I know it's going to do really well.

# ? Mar 15, 2012 15:57

Monster w21 Faces: May 11, 2006; "What the fuck is that?"
"What the fuck is this?!"

Yeah I bet the culture shop of moving to a country where you don't speak the language would be pretty severe.

# ? Mar 15, 2012 17:35

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 02:47

mutata: Mar 1, 2003

Monster w21 Faces posted:

Yeah I bet the culture shop of moving to a country where you don't speak the language would be pretty severe.

Culture shock? It's not too bad. At least it has phases that are fairly well researched and demarcated so you can kind of educate yourself on what to expect. Immersion language learning is definitely not for everyone, though!

# ? Mar 15, 2012 17:39

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Game Jobs Megathread: Wear clean underwear to avoid the smellz.

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