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crazylakerfan posted:I'm just about to join a company in that corporate tree The Gamasutra follow up article mentions that Rockstar Toronto is hiring pretty heavily right now, and offering Vancouver people jobs, so I imagine it's problems specific to Rockstar Vancouver and not the company as a whole http://gamasutra.com/view/news/173824/Max_Payne_3_developer_Rockstar_Vancouver_closing_its_doors.php I doubt many people are going to take the offer to relocate over 2,500 miles, though. vvv Sales numbers seemed OK for a normal game, but for what might be one of the most expensive games ever made, any sales are going to end up seeming poor. Chainclaw fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Jul 10, 2012 |
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Jul 10, 2012 02:27
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I didn't buy MP3 but I watched a Let's Play of it on YouTube. It looked really good. Production values were amazing. I'm surprised it sold so poorly.
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Jul 10, 2012 02:35
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xgalaxy posted:I didn't buy MP3 but I watched a Let's Play of it on YouTube. Even if it sold well it would have tanked with the numbers it had to hit. Some companies have gone full-retard with the "we need to release nothing but super-hits" to the point where it's almost impossible for them to break even, let alone turn a profit.
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Jul 10, 2012 02:39
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NINbuntu 64 posted:Even if it sold well it would have tanked with the numbers it had to hit. Some companies have gone full-retard with the "we need to release nothing but super-hits" to the point where it's almost impossible for them to break even, let alone turn a profit. see Dead Space 3?
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Jul 10, 2012 02:40
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Revitalized posted:see Dead Space 3? If Dead Space 3 manages to sell at least 5,000,000 units I'll build my own loving Marker.
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Jul 10, 2012 02:42
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Chainclaw posted:The Gamasutra follow up article mentions that Rockstar Toronto is hiring pretty heavily right now, and offering Vancouver people jobs, so I imagine it's problems specific to Rockstar Vancouver and not the company as a whole http://gamasutra.com/view/news/173824/Max_Payne_3_developer_Rockstar_Vancouver_closing_its_doors.php Thank god, I can't wait to go make some sports games
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Jul 10, 2012 02:45
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Officially booked for Casual Connect. One of the only game conferences I haven't been to before, but I hear good things. Anyone else going?
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Jul 10, 2012 02:49
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Comrade Flynn posted:Officially booked for Casual Connect. One of the only game conferences I haven't been to before, but I hear good things. Anyone else going? I probably won't go to Casual Connect proper, but I might try and get in on some open bar after parties. I think the Open Feint party I went to last year was for Casual Connect. I do know of a few people who got in trouble with their wives over that poorly named conference. Sounds like a swingers meeting.
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Jul 10, 2012 02:53
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Lord of Sword posted:I got turned down after an interview earlier in the year (thought it went well but they said they'd talked to someone with 'better gameplay knowledge'). They're advertising the same position again now though, but is it a total waste of time for me to apply if they already decided not to hire me the first time? As in you were turned down within the last 6-7 months? Unless you have shipped a game since then I wouldn't reapply.
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Jul 10, 2012 02:53
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Chainclaw posted:I probably won't go to Casual Connect proper, but I might try and get in on some open bar after parties. I think the Open Feint party I went to last year was for Casual Connect. The aquarium party sounds neat.
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Jul 10, 2012 03:08
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NINbuntu 64 posted:Even if it sold well it would have tanked with the numbers it had to hit. Some companies have gone full-retard with the "we need to release nothing but super-hits" to the point where it's almost impossible for them to break even, let alone turn a profit. (I realize that many won't move with the job, but they're actually ADDING positions in the process, not intentionally letting anyone go)
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Jul 10, 2012 03:12
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I'm really iffy on the valve greenlight thing, too. I mean if we're leaving this up to the usual TF2/CoD fanbase that makes up such an enormous share of Steam's traffic, I can see a lot of worthwhile games getting turned down for being about "Some faggy pastel crap" or what have you. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, but no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the average person.
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Jul 10, 2012 04:10
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GetWellGamers posted:I'm really iffy on the valve greenlight thing, too. I mean if we're leaving this up to the usual TF2/CoD fanbase that makes up such an enormous share of Steam's traffic, I can see a lot of worthwhile games getting turned down for being about "Some faggy pastel crap" or what have you. This is pretty irrational thinking because it assumes that these people are going to be browsing the greenlight program in the first place. The greenlight program is going to skew heavily toward people who have an interest in things like the greenlight program.
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Jul 10, 2012 04:16
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Comrade Flynn posted:Officially booked for Casual Connect. One of the only game conferences I haven't been to before, but I hear good things. Anyone else going? I will be there with Virtual Piggy, who are you with?
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Jul 10, 2012 04:23
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Lord of Sword posted:I got turned down after an interview earlier in the year (thought it went well but they said they'd talked to someone with 'better gameplay knowledge'). They're advertising the same position again now though, but is it a total waste of time for me to apply if they already decided not to hire me the first time? It doesn't hurt you at all to reapply but I wouldn't get my hopes up. Here's the deal: If you apply once, and get rejected, and apply a second time quite a while later, you have a pretty small chance of getting hired the second time. If you apply once, and get rejected, and do not apply a second time, you have a zero percent chance of getting hired. Given the probable hundreds of applications they see for positions, you'd have to go out of your way to stand out as a irritant to have it actually hurt you in the long run (by becoming so annoying that you literally get talked about as a horror story - I only know one guy who did this and it was funny because a buddy and I were talking about these super annoying people we met online and then were like "wait a minute, are you also talking about <dude's name>?") I know of an applicant that responded to the "Thank you for your interest but at this time we do not have a position for someone with your skill set, if this changes we will let you know," with "But I see you still have the position I applied for listed on your site, so you haven't filled it, I don't understand? Clearly you have a position that matches my skillset, I'm a Miracle Grape Engineer and the position is for Miracle Grape Engineering. You need to hire me!" But while that guy certainly isn't going to get hired on later attempts, it's not like he hurt his 0% chance of getting hired, and it's not like he's going to have his name spread around attached to that story. Feel free to apply a second time, because you can't get lower your previous chance of getting hired. If you've had some personal growth in there, picked up some new skills or resume items or whatever, then maybe you'll even raise your chance above 0%. GetWellGamers posted:I'm really iffy on the valve greenlight thing, too. I mean if we're leaving this up to the usual TF2/CoD fanbase that makes up such an enormous share of Steam's traffic, I can see a lot of worthwhile games getting turned down for being about "Some faggy pastel crap" or what have you. Did they explain that there is a "no loving chance in hell" vote option? I assumed it was a positive-votes-only type thing, where interest can be gauged by the number of Likes or whatever.
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Jul 10, 2012 04:40
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Sigma-X posted:It doesn't hurt you at all to reapply but I wouldn't get my hopes up. You can vote ideas up or down and it's apparently based on a review process on top of looking at the amount of votes and the like:dislike ratios. They don't outright state this but it's pretty heavily implied by what they do say. They aren't replacing their entire approval process with this, it's just there to remove the majority of the workload off of Valve and to make the process more consumer oriented than publisher.
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Jul 10, 2012 04:48
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Lord of Sword posted:I got turned down after an interview earlier in the year (thought it went well but they said they'd talked to someone with 'better gameplay knowledge'). They're advertising the same position again now though, but is it a total waste of time for me to apply if they already decided not to hire me the first time? I had a year in between applying to the same company. Didn't ship anything, but did finish a couple of personal projects. Your situation seems to have less time in between, but I would give it a try if I was in your situation, especially if there's anything new at all you could possibly show.
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Jul 10, 2012 04:50
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anime was right fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Apr 18, 2017 |
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Jul 10, 2012 04:59
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NINbuntu 64 posted:This is pretty irrational thinking because it assumes that these people are going to be browsing the greenlight program in the first place. The greenlight program is going to skew heavily toward people who have an interest in things like the greenlight program. Again, the optimist in me knows this, but the part of me that's watched big-company focus tests and seen consumer data keeps nagging me that there's an awful lot of morons out there for every intelligent, thoughtful reviewer.  I'm sure I'm worrying for nothing. Just pessimistic lately.
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Jul 10, 2012 05:03
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Gameloft is looking for Producers willing to move to Vietnam. Here's the job description. No need to speak Vietnamese. It can be a hard job (overtime) but it's a good opportunity for people who want an excuse to live in a cool/weird city and make enough money to live nicely here. Most producers here did not have any experience in the gaming industry before.
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Jul 10, 2012 05:15
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Comrade Flynn posted:Officially booked for Casual Connect. One of the only game conferences I haven't been to before, but I hear good things. Anyone else going? I'll be there. It's a much calmer show than GDC or GDC Online, which I like. And definitely much calmer than E3. Only problem is I got swallowed by a lot of meetings in the Seattle area and I am not sure how much I will go into the show itself!
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Jul 10, 2012 06:25
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Yeah I'm sure a smart company like Valve are about to throw everything away by letting gamers have complete control over the store submission process.
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Jul 10, 2012 08:42
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Man I hate waiting for BG checks. They always take a while, especially after July 4th. The starting date is the 16th, I just really hope it clears by then. 
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Jul 10, 2012 08:59
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Freelancepolice posted:When you say bottom of the ladder, what was your last position? I enjoyed working in QA but I never ever saw myself staying there forever. I did it for almost a year and then got into a dev studio at the company. I was practically a production assistant, making and testing the game builds, handling IT requests and stuff. I absolutely loved the job for the first year - I actually looked forward to going into work each day - but eventually that wore off. I was only just surviving financially and advancement was non-existent (I couldn't get into actual Production or Game Design without experience), plus I disliked how I was treated like a resource ("I know you're just about to leave for the day, but I need you to stay tonight until that project is finished" - I went hungry) and then a whole host of issues happened after I basically complained about my situation, I was fobbed off with excuses and then for the first time in three years I had HR procedures made against me.  I left after that was concluded with a bitter taste in my mouth. I've been told there are worse companies out there, but I know people who've had similar lovely experiences and treatment. You'd think companies would be wiser by now but ... nope!I'm glad I beared in mind the advice of one Peter Molyneux in a PC Gamer interview: have some skills to fall back on in case things don't work out. NINbuntu 64 posted:This may have something to do with it: Magic fucked around with this message at 10:49 on Jul 10, 2012 |
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Jul 10, 2012 10:45
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Scary if you spend $200m on a game.
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Jul 10, 2012 11:00
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Should have waited for the usual 80% off during Steam sales rather than paying $200m.
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Jul 10, 2012 11:10
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Very interesting article but I'm not entirely sure if I agree with it. You can't really argue about the figures but she seems to pretty much say that making stuff look good is killing the industry because it costs so much, so the industry should stop trying to make stuff look better. That's not really a solution because consumers will always want better looking stuff. Surely a "solution" would be to work out how to price technological advancements better, but if I knew the answer to that I would be rich.
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Jul 10, 2012 11:46
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concerned mom posted:That's not really a solution because consumers will always want better looking stuff.
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Jul 10, 2012 12:05
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Magic posted:This is pretty scary. There was also the weird (?) issue where she appeared to be saying that "PC" development was one of the huge cost areas, lumping it in with the 360/PS3 rather than the more "clever" Wii - I don't believe that's true (at least in all cases) if nothing else because one of the companies she was talking about having to have had lay off staff - Disney Interactive - developed the PC version of one of their most recent titles - Toy Story 3 - in common with Wii rather than PS3/360. Next, I am in no way an artist - and the ones I know all work in comics / animation rather than technical positions in the games industry - but how true is the claim that the upcoming generation of consoles will require more, better art? I'm fairly confident that textures / models are already made to a much higher quality than is used, then simplified for use, and Epic at least have been boasting about how their new engine makes that process faster and simpler. The journalist seems to be correct that the games industry is in a worrying place right now - I am very relieved that I never took up the opportunities there that I had - but it strikes me that one of the places they could save a huge amount of money is by dropping the huge spend on advertising that has become common now.
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Jul 10, 2012 12:31
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Bit of a dumb question -- is it standard practice in large AAA studios to have a full team of QA on the floor right next to programmers? I appreciate our in-house QA and all, but I must admit I liked them more when they were on their own floor, instead of discussing bugs all day long right next to me, distracting me in spite of noise cancelling headphones.  
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Jul 10, 2012 14:12
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Jan posted:Bit of a dumb question -- is it standard practice in large AAA studios to have a full team of QA on the floor right next to programmers? I appreciate our in-house QA and all, but I must admit I liked them more when they were on their own floor, instead of discussing bugs all day long right next to me, distracting me in spite of noise cancelling headphones. It's more common to hide QA away from the developers. I've found having some good QA folks mixed in with the dev guys to be highly beneficial, but I think that's more of an exception than the rule.
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Jul 10, 2012 14:18
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seeing as how I would update you guys in this thread, I got a job at IBM for Java programming. while it is not a Games Industry job it does mean I can stop being all  about finding a work to pay off student loans, allowing me the peace of mind to learn a few more things I should have already learned and make new portfolio pieces. Also I should be able to afford to go to the next few GDCs, so that is good too.
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Jul 10, 2012 15:45
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Magic posted:This is pretty scary. What I see when I see that list is a set of games which had some pretty awful development cycles and overextended their budgets anyway. KoA from 38 was a stop/start from Big Huge Games and it's development cycle was thrown out of whack with an acquisition, not to mention the project was halted by THQ. Max Payne 3 was all over the board as well shifting from one main dev house to another with just as many stop starts as Alan Wake. (With that said it was one of the best games I have played all year) The problem with game development is coming from upper management and old hat turn key managers that cannot understand production schedules. They are irresponsible with the money, and the people above them think that throwing more cash at it is a way to ship a game out the door. Development companies and their perspective publishers need to work smarter, keep their staff on pace/track, keep realistic milestones and hit those in a timely manner, and keep costs under control with better management and less wasteful spending. Now I am not saying development costs do not go up because of a new generation, but what I am saying is that costs are spiraling out of control due to piss poor producers in the business, and their ability to somehow migrate from company to company because all that means on a resume is if you shipped a game, not if it was actually successful or not. This would have been a good article had it not been so lopsided with illustrating games that have had terrible development cycles, stop/starts, acquisitions, or (insert tangible reason why the budget was blown out of whack "here"). Utnayan fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Jul 10, 2012 |
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Jul 10, 2012 15:58
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Juc66 posted:It's more common to hide QA away from the developers. I really like accessible QA, it's rare to see anyone, let alone a whole studio or company, understand how important good QA is.
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Jul 10, 2012 16:06
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Resource posted:I really like accessible QA, it's rare to see anyone, let alone a whole studio or company, understand how important good QA is. Most of the time we deal with terrible QA. I hate offsite QA so much.
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Jul 10, 2012 16:24
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Irish Taxi Driver posted:Most of the time we deal with terrible QA. I hate offsite QA so much. This. I understand and appreciate the value of good QA. The problem is finding good QA is difficult. Most competent people tend to move from QA into other positions such as game design. And offsite QA is the worst.
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Jul 10, 2012 16:30
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EgonSpengler posted:You are asking the internet when you are literally surrounded by people who can better answer your questions at work every day. I've been doing both A and B everyday since I left your team and moved upstairs. Granted I haven't been applying for any positions primarily because I didn't think I was qualified, so I could start doing that. Also, I've never intentionally given the impression that I'm the bored tester that needs to be promoted to stay interested. I still quite enjoy doing what I do (partly because I've taken it upon myself to learn how the systems work so I can test them better) and I still come into work everyday and give it my all. For me, it's not a situation where I'm sick of doing QA, it's a situation where I'm beginning to wonder if I've gone as far as I can in this company. I've seen everyone I started QA with get promoted and move on to bigger and better things while I stay where I am. I'm not bitter about it, those guys are my friends and they always will be I'm more than happy for their success. But it does start to make you wonder what they did that yielded that favourable result. On our last project I was doing real genuine design work. Stuff that made it into the game, I even got a design credit for it. Nothing happened after that though. It's just a little disheartening to come so close and then have a series of unfortunate circumstances (publisher pulling the sequel, moving to another team, mass layoff) push that one goal further and further away from you. And while this whole diatribe probably sounds really bitter and yeah at times it's really depressing, by and large I still love what I do and thank my lucky stars I get to do it. I fully intend to continue giving 110% to testing with an additional 100% to design work on the side in the hopes that I get another chance to prove myself properly again, but this studio has changed since you left. There are fewer people here, fewer teams (it's looking like it's going to be just one big team), and thus fewer opportunities for advancement. That much was outright told to us in a Friday beer meeting thing. On top of that, this place doesn't seem to want to hire internally anymore. We don't get those hot job alert emails anymore, and in lieu of all of the designers that have left, the positions that were needed have all been replaced without so much as a hint they were looking for anyone. I almost get the impression that all of us (the entire internal QA team) have become too valuable as testers to risk losing us to another discipline. It's because of that that I wonder if the only way for me to advance is to take a chance somewhere else. The sense that I'll never accomplish what I set out to do is making me feel so much like a failure I almost can't take it anymore. TLDR version: I try to explain the situation but it ends up coming out all E/N. MustardFacial fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Jul 10, 2012 |
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Jul 10, 2012 18:22
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MustardFacial posted:TLDR version: I try to explain the situation but it ends up coming out all E/N. Company loyalty is more or a less a myth at this point, both in and out of the games industry. Internal promotions seldom result in more than a title change and the lumping on of more work in addition to what you were previously doing.
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Jul 10, 2012 18:38
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Offsite QA is usually terrible simply because it's offsite. The guys who are working there might be alright, hell even if they're all geniuses, without talking to the developers on a regular basis they miss out on knowing what sort of bugs the developers expect to pop up, when various things are ready to test, what bugs are giant wastes of time, and so on and so forth. The way we were able to get adequate usefulness out of offsite QA is by having an onsite guy pretty much manage a handful of them. He would use them for labour and he would filter thier bugs, provide feedback, ensure they're involved, get them to message the appropriate developers when neccessary and generally facilitate communication. It took a lot of effort and a lot of time, but the offsite guys were generally useful once we started doing that, and it drastically cut down on the bugs along the lines of "When you go by the place with the stuff, something happens" issues(that was an actual bug, turns out the bug was talking about a wind animation existing) But generally I say if people can hire onsite QA, do it. Onsite guys are super useful.
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Jul 10, 2012 18:43
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In addition to what Juc mentioned, we've also started to give some of our other teams our own internal QA tools, and the training documents to go with them. Which tools are given to each each team varies due to things if they're external or contractors, etc., and it took a bit of work to decouple them from assumed network settings, but once they had our toolset, editors, and documentation, the offsite QA members were fairly close to our internal ones. That was also helped by the fact that our external QA guys were being included in standups, were having daily video calls with our internal QA and development teams, and had, in many cases, worked on previous titles in the IP, so that they were fairly familiar with the expected standards and workflow that we use.
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