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Shalinor posted:If you want a promotion, apply somewhere. You don't work your way up the ladder by staying at a single company - you get valuable experience at one company, then jump up by applying that experience somewhere else, and so on. I'm pretty fiercely loyal to my company, and in the past few years I've had a lot of opportunities, which I've taken, and acquired more responsibilities, title changes, and I earn 50% more. If you find the right people that are in it for the long haul and want to build a rock solid team, you put the time and effort in and you can be rewarded. It won't happen for everybody in every company, but it's not a myth. Having said that we had to let one of our awesome artists go today, which is always sad  Then I got the bosses to ask Aliginge in for a word and he just about had a heart attack 
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Jul 10, 2012 22:28
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Akuma posted:That's a pretty massive, and cynical, generalisation!  One of the best pieces of advice I was given in the industry was to stay mobile. If you move between studios, you'll find more advancement in 2 years than you might in 5-10 of staying at a single studio. Maybe you've found a solid studio that promotes internally to what they'd pay that person if hiring externally, I've no idea... but it is a very, very rare thing.
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Jul 10, 2012 22:35
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Shalinor posted:And yet, it remains accurate Do you think it's best to just shop around for better opportunities and then give your current employer a chance to counter-offer? I feel like I have a hard time deciding on the timing of looking for other offers and asking about internal promotion.
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Jul 10, 2012 22:39
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Shalinor posted:And yet, it remains accurate As much as I hate to agree, I have to. This is unfortunately how it works 95% of the time, which I personally despise. I've seen people join a company to leave 3 months later for a better offer. I hate that there is no loyalty in this industry. Luckily I think I am in that 5%.
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Jul 10, 2012 22:43
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Dinurth posted:As much as I hate to agree, I have to. This is unfortunately how it works 95% of the time, which I personally despise. I've seen people join a company to leave 3 months later for a better offer. I hate that there is no loyalty in this industry. I feel like most companies are not loyal to their employees, it's just business. So why should the employee be loyal to the company? It's totally lopsided, and I think it's good that employees remain mobile, it encourages companies to try to retain talent instead of treating them like disposable resources.
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Jul 10, 2012 22:45
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MustardFacial posted:
There's nothing wrong with ranting about your lot in the games industry. You remind me of some dev QA guys that I know (In fact I just had to google your username to check that you weren't part of a certain European developer ), but most importantly you still seem to have a positive attitude about it which is great. You clearly don't want to get stuck in a rut.I know what you mean about people advancing past you, I saw it myself and at times I enviously thought "What? THAT moron who compiled dozens of duplicate bugs with terrible grammar and poor information in them? He's being made a game designer??  " What did they have that I didn't? I hated it!The advice I was given (as someone who went from QA to a dev studio as a production assistant, wanting to get into game design or production) was to actively work at it and if you want to do job X, then actually do it. Find a niche that is useful if you can, one that makes you important or even vital to the team. Be on the lookout for little tasks that will help out, but be careful so you don't become the equivalent of a runt dog that's desperate for attention. Getting experience is the typical catch 22, where you won't be given a task by X department because you don't have experience doing it. I tried to do tasks for our designers, but it was mostly chores - data entry, spreadsheet work, video capture, etc. I didn't mind it at all, but it didn't really lead to anything, not even being included in their meetings (aside one where I took minutes). The best task was probably research where I would be given something to do like looking at X mechanic in games and movies, competitor analysis, unique online features in similar games, etc., as I enjoyed it but there was only so much I could be given to do, plus I had to balance it with my own workload. I also kept in mind how much I was in contact with them because I didn't want to be thought of as a pest. I did have an argument with my manager about how I wasn't getting any help to advance; I was basically fobbed off and told to do it myself, to work on my skills in my spare time. I never expected things to be handed to me on a siler plate, but that was still outrageous. How can a studio not benefit from people sharing skills, even if it's just 5 minutes explaining certain concepts?  I had never previously encountered a company (or, rather, this attitude from a single manager) where I was expected to advance my own career with zero assistance. After all, what was the point of getting into a dev studio if I couldn't learn from the people in it? If it was to get in contact with developers then that doesn't make sense, I may as well have approached them socially, outside of work or something! Ultimately, I wouldn't hold out forever if I was you; you are the one who has to make things happen, as tough as that is without power or influence or whatever. Find a career path and work at it. As someone else said earlier, speak to the people who do the job you want and try to learn from them (I find that a lot of people in life get a egotistical boost when you ask since they enjoy showing off and talking about it). Ask people what they did to advance. The big problem is that passion you have may very well drain away and you'll be left feeling bitter, disappointed and frozen in place. That's what happened to me and I did a full 180, of enjoying coming in to work to being bored out of mind and like a piece of the furniture. At one point I decided to take my experience and get out (Like Shalinor said above), but that doesn't work well with QA or assistant skills because they're common enough, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend that. That said, it wouldn't hurt to look around some games industry career sites for jobs (I can post some links if you want). Apply speculatively and on your covering letter mention several years of experience, list some of your achievements and ask if they need someone like you. Maybe even find people on LinkedIn at those companies and ask them directly or see if you have friends who have friends at those developers (Sometimes it really is who you know). I'd also recommend working on skills in your spare time and put together a full portfolio - I've just started doing this and I'm amazed at how impressive my gaming work is, even if it's just screenshots of maps for StarCraft and WarCraft 3 from over a decade ago, it's still something.  Dinurth posted:As much as I hate to agree, I have to. This is unfortunately how it works 95% of the time, which I personally despise. I've seen people join a company to leave 3 months later for a better offer. I hate that there is no loyalty in this industry. I spoke to one designer who said his plan was to get one years experience and then move on to another company. I was a little shocked but in retrospect it makes perfect sense (especially considering the reputation and abysmal salaries at the company). We're practically mercenaries and there's nothing shameful whatsoever in wanting the best for yourself by finding a better job elsewhere. Get your experience and move on. In the words of a great mind: "Would I ever leave this company? Look, I'm all about loyalty. In fact, I feel like part of what I'm being paid for here is my loyalty. But if there were somewhere else that valued loyalty more highly, I'm going wherever they value loyalty the most." Magic fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Jul 10, 2012 |
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Jul 10, 2012 22:51
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Magic posted:Companies do not give a gently caress about you, they just want your skills to help get their title out the door so they can make a profit. It's a mutual, symbiotic relationship of a sort. Yeah I wasn't really thinking about how lovely most companies are - I'd like to think I'd never work for a company that treats employees like that, but I also know what 9 months straight unemployed feels like.
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Jul 10, 2012 23:29
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Hi, it's me again looking for more talent. This time we're looking for any of you programmers looking to bust into the industry. We're looking to fill several positions for Scripters here at Ready at Dawn Studios. The job description and instruction on how to apply are here: http://www.readyatdawn.com/scripter.php This position is intended to bring in new people who will become gameplay programmers. We're also looking for lots of other things on the other end of the spectrum (senior) but this one is newer and we need quite a few. It's on the description and I've said it here before but just in case it's not clear, we're working on an Original IP, 3rd Person Action Adventure for a Next-generation Home Console.
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Jul 10, 2012 23:37
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Someone convince me of good reasons to go to GDC Austin/Online, because money's semi-tight and I'm indecisive. 
GetWellGamers fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Jul 11, 2012 |
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Jul 10, 2012 23:46
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Shalinor posted:One of the best pieces of advice I was given in the industry was to stay mobile. If you move between studios, you'll find more advancement in 2 years than you might in 5-10 of staying at a single studio. Caveat emptor: Mobility is nice, but it's probably better to actually stay on board and see your project to completion before you decide to move -- especially with low experience. A completed game always looks better on a resume. I joined my current company shortly after they first started up, and this being a new AAA studio and all, the momentum is really slow in building up... But eventually I'll have seen a kickass project from pre-production all the way to release.  Resource posted:I feel like most companies are not loyal to their employees, it's just business. So why should the employee be loyal to the company? The thing is, it wasn't always like this -- it used to be the norm, not the exception, to stay within the same company for the majority of your career. I wish I could find it again, but I read an excellent article a few months back that described how this shift happened, although it could essentially be summed as profit margins gradually taking precedence over employees (and even customers). Suddenly, with this new mindset, it's better to lay off employees when your payroll is starting to get too heavy, instead of keeping them aboard until the next windfall. Of course, the games industry is even younger than that, so there never really was a "stay with the corporate family for your whole career" idea. I think over here, Ubisoft can afford to keep employees aboard between projects, avoiding layoffs... And that's about it. Even that is costing them a lot, and the people between projects (i.e.: in limbo) aren't often happy about it either, but it's better morale than seasonal layoffs. Jan fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Jul 10, 2012 |
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Jul 10, 2012 23:53
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GetWellGamers posted:Someone convince me of good reasons to go to GDC Online, because money's semi-tight and I'm indecisive. That's formerly known as GDC Austin right?
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Jul 11, 2012 00:01
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Shalinor posted:And yet, it remains accurate This might work in the Games Industry (which is what this thread is about, after all), which is very project-based, but if you are in your mid-thirties in a traditional programming career and have a series of 2-3 year jobs you're going to be considered toxic by a good chunk of your employers. If you're not in games, jump jobs at the beginning of your career when no one can hold it against you. After a decade of that, you should be slowing down in career advancement and looking for longer stints.
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Jul 11, 2012 00:03
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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. At EA we had a number of high-quality QA dudes right near us, and then barns and barns of low-quality QA in another state/country that we only interacted with via the bug tracking software.
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Jul 11, 2012 00:04
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Resource posted:That's formerly known as GDC Austin right? Yes, and I wish it wasn't "formerly". 
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Jul 11, 2012 00:08
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I've been to 3 or 4 GDC Austin/Onlines. They're all right. Definitely the little brother of any of the other GDCs. Unless you already have a bunch of reasons to go, I can't recommend going and hoping magic will happen.
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Jul 11, 2012 00:15
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Okay, Epic's still hiring (engine) programmers and I think I might have to give them a go. I'm in a bit of a pickle resume-wise though, mainly in that I don't really have a functional demo, I've never used UDK or done Unreal modding either, and I'm not sure how what experience I do have will be viewed. What I do have: - About 4 years of professional experience as a programmer (mostly .NET) and a LONG time as one unprofessionally (mostly C/C++) - Old screenshots of engine/tools development stuff. GPU-accelerated GI compiler, woo. - I think there's a mid-2000's FPS I rewrote the rendering backend for that at least runs and has some real, walkable levels, but the team imploded and it died in early development - Random projects that are probably competent but even less glamorous, i.e. a programmability API with a C#-like language, and FFMPEG's RoQ encoder I dunno. I feel like I've definitely got the skill set to do it, but I'm not sure how to prove it. Is there anything I can focus on that might give me a decent shot?
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Jul 11, 2012 01:24
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Speaking of jorbs, we're looking for mobile gameplay programmers at Splash Damage. So yeah.
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Jul 11, 2012 01:25
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Akuma posted:Then I got the bosses to ask Aliginge in for a word and he just about had a heart attack  I'll return the favour by dragging you on the biggest rollercoaster that comes to town with the next fair. WHOMP WHOMP  Akuma posted:That's a pretty massive, and cynical, generalisation! Scale that up to the point where a CEO will never even mix among the dev teams and it's a whole different ball game. Everything I'm hearing about triple-A huge scale game development is making me glad I'm in a small company. I definitely have more of a vested interest and loyalty to the company than I think I otherwise would have .
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Jul 11, 2012 01:27
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Mega Shark posted:Hi, it's me again looking for more talent. This time we're looking for any of you programmers looking to bust into the industry. We're looking to fill several positions for Scripters here at Ready at Dawn Studios. The job description and instruction on how to apply are here: http://www.readyatdawn.com/scripter.php Strictly hypothetically speaking, should I mention this post in my application?
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Jul 11, 2012 02:34
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GetWellGamers posted:Someone convince me of good reasons to go to GDC Austin/Online, because money's semi-tight and I'm indecisive. GDC Online is great if you are interested in writing and narrative. The Narrative Summit is fun and the writers know how to have a good time. I met lots of cool people last year in a very chill environment. It's not super hectic like GDC, so I hear. I'll be going this year if I'm able to get the time off.
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Jul 11, 2012 02:46
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Bongo Bill posted:Strictly hypothetically speaking, should I mention this post in my application? While Shark and I are Producer Goons at Read at Dawn, the guy with the jobs@readyatdawn.com is not. We're loving sweet though, come work for us! We have another goon here as well but he just lurks nowadays.
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Jul 11, 2012 03:54
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Aliginge posted:Scale that up to the point where a CEO will never even mix among the dev teams and it's a whole different ball game. Everything I'm hearing about triple-A huge scale game development is making me glad I'm in a small company. I definitely have more of a vested interest and loyalty to the company than I think I otherwise would have .
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Jul 11, 2012 04:00
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Shalinor posted:Honestly, I'd definitely do everything I could to stay at that scale from now on. This is the era of the small studio, 'twould seem. Big budget AAA is just kind of eating itself at this point, and while some are optimistic, I have a hard time seeing it doing anything but flaming out in the next 5-10 years. I still don't why people keep saying this. AAA games keep raking in money. Some fail, some succeed. As long as some great games are making ridiculous amounts of money, companies are going to throw money at them. Big studios aren't going anywhere. We may see some changes (AAA games are stupidly cheap for the amount of hours of entertainment we get out of them) but they certainly aren't 'dying out'.
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Jul 11, 2012 04:19
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oswald ownenstein posted:AAA games are stupidly cheap for the amount of hours of entertainment we get out of them The problem is games are getting more expensive to buy and the hours you get out of them continue to drop. The majority of the single player games out now can be completed in under 8 hours. That's about $9 per hour of enjoyment which is better than a movie but I wouldn't call it cheap. If, as I suspect, games of the "next generation" increase to $70 release price I don't think I could justify the cost to myself anymore. And I think a lot of other people feel the same way too. It's getting too expensive on both sides of the equation.
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Jul 11, 2012 05:07
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Bongo Bill posted:Strictly hypothetically speaking, should I mention this post in my application? No reason to mention this post, just apply.
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Jul 11, 2012 05:07
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xgalaxy posted:The problem is games are getting more expensive to buy and the hours you get out of them continue to drop. The majority of the single player games out now can be completed in under 8 hours. That's about $9 per hour of enjoyment which is better than a movie but I wouldn't call it cheap. We're putting more and more time into them to hit that new level of realism. Problem is the content has to scale back to keep that quality bar high. It sucks, but I really don't want to spend 5-8 years of my life working on content for the same game.
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Jul 11, 2012 05:54
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Edit: Whatever, I reread what I posted and it wasn't fair because I was talking out of my rear end. Basically, my point is that I think wise devs and smart publishers will continue to produce AAA games by leveraging assets and putting in the time to build smaller, licensed games in order to build things up slowly. Crazy/unwise devs and publishers will continue to bet their proverbial farms on high-risk/high-return AAA and either tank or succeed. It isn't necessarily AAA development that's the problem, I see it as more of a management/risk assessment thing. mutata fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Jul 11, 2012 |
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Jul 11, 2012 05:54
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Acethomas posted:I will be there with Virtual Piggy, who are you with? I'm with Kabam. Seems like a few goons are going; we should grab lunch or drink until we no longer feel pain.
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Jul 11, 2012 06:11
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xgalaxy posted:The problem is games are getting more expensive to buy and the hours you get out of them continue to drop. The majority of the single player games out now can be completed in under 8 hours. That's about $9 per hour of enjoyment which is better than a movie but I wouldn't call it cheap. I've spent $110 on Battlefield 3 between the base game and Premium. It's worth every cent since I've played for about 100 hours and have 3 more big DLC packs on the way. Hell yes my 30 hours of Skyrim was worth $60. Consumers have viable gaming options at every price point from $0 to $100+ and the top tier games are coming out way on top at any price and on any platform. Those options didn't exist in the past and the awesome thing about game dev right now is that all those business models, platforms, and price points have their place.
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Jul 11, 2012 06:13
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My good friend/former colleague's game was just rejected without explanation by Steam. The game was the #3 best-selling indie game on the Xbox.com Marketplace, and the #5 best-selling indie game on the Xbox Live Dashboard. Over 100,000 downloads on XBLIG, with over 25,000 copies sold. Something about that process is utterly ridiculous. I really hope that Greenlight fixes this issue. Leif. fucked around with this message at 07:39 on Jul 11, 2012 |
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Jul 11, 2012 07:37
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Diplomaticus posted:My good friend/former colleague's game was just rejected without explanation by Steam. This exact situation seems to be what Greenlight is built for. Can a previously rejected game can be resubmitted when Greenlight comes out?
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Jul 11, 2012 07:45
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Violently Car posted:This exact situation seems to be what Greenlight is built for. Can a previously rejected game can be resubmitted when Greenlight comes out? I would assume so, if for no other reason than that it would be a waste of a Valve employee's time to go down the Greenlight list looking for previous rejects.
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Jul 11, 2012 07:47
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You can resubmit to steam as many times as you want already, so I don't see how greenlight would change anything. I thought MS had some kind of exclusivity thing, though, where once you submit on XBLA/XBLIG you can't submit anywhere else for some long period? And what was the game, Diplo?
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Jul 11, 2012 07:51
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oswald ownenstein posted:I still don't why people keep saying this. AAA games keep raking in money. Some fail, some succeed. As long as some great games are making ridiculous amounts of money, companies are going to throw money at them. Not dying out, but it's pretty undeniable that a large broad collection of studios are consolidating into a few gigantic players. If anything the competition combined with the economic downturn is destroying the middle of the industry, leaving the largest, most budget-heavy studios to devour the As and double-A studios that don't quite make the millions as the smallest studios attempt to carve out their own little niche and not directly competing with the big boys.
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Jul 11, 2012 08:39
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Dinurth posted:Yeah I wasn't really thinking about how lovely most companies are - I'd like to think I'd never work for a company that treats employees like that, but I also know what 9 months straight unemployed feels like. I still got paid, I got free games and on several occasions at Christmas everyone got two bottles of wine; there were benefits that the company didn't necessarily have to do. Overtime ranged from a fantastic bonus arranged by the studio manager that lead to everyone pitching in to reach it and help out the company, to one group being told "You are doing unpaid OT for several months". I've seen some utterly shocking treatment, all stemming from arrogant managers at the top who don't take any responsibility for their games not selling, instead letting go whole departments. oswald ownenstein posted:I still don't why people keep saying this. AAA games keep raking in money. Some fail, some succeed. As long as some great games are making ridiculous amounts of money, companies are going to throw money at them. I definitely think we'll see fewer major AAA studios. There are so many horrible cases of ones being shut down after the teams spent 6+ months on hellish overtime trying to get it out on time, then the game doesn't sell enough according to the publisher (Homefront managed 3 mill but that wasn't enough and they closed - there were other issues but still...) so they get shut down. Thanks guys, bye.  Anyone who goes into a studio should understand the risks at least. Magic fucked around with this message at 09:18 on Jul 11, 2012 |
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Jul 11, 2012 09:14
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GetWellGamers posted:You can resubmit to steam as many times as you want already, so I don't see how greenlight would change anything. Cute Things Dying Violently. There is an excellent but very very long postmortem here. https://www.apathyworks.com/articles/view.php?id=21
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Jul 11, 2012 10:02
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Comrade Flynn posted:I'm with Kabam. Seems like a few goons are going; we should grab lunch or drink until we no longer feel pain. I'm down. I am eating Monday with Meteor then I should be free for lunch on Tues/Wed. Probably open for dinner/drink Monday night.
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Jul 11, 2012 13:50
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Jan posted:Of course, the games industry is even younger than that, so there never really was a "stay with the corporate family for your whole career" idea. I think over here, Ubisoft can afford to keep employees aboard between projects, avoiding layoffs... And that's about it. Even that is costing them a lot, and the people between projects (i.e.: in limbo) aren't often happy about it either, but it's better morale than seasonal layoffs. Funny timing, this editorial came up on our mailing list. It's an interesting little read, but the bottom line seems pretty much to be that not everyone can actually afford not to do the periodic layoffs thing. vvvvvv I don't work at Ubisoft, I just work with a bunch of ex-Ubisoft people. The Montreal studio really is a huge machine with hardly any equivalent in the industry, so yeah, there's lots of shuffling across different production teams. Jan fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Jul 11, 2012 |
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Jul 11, 2012 17:32
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So Jan, you guys have bench time inbetween projects? Or was it some other kind of limbo? I'd assume that someone as big as Ubi would have a lot of ways to keep people busy between projects, between staggering two projects so that they're in discovery/pre-pro while the other is in post production, doing "in-sourcing," etc. We had bench time back when I was at Volition, but only a handful of people ever made it on there - although we did have a few pre-productions that were a bit bloated in terms of staff size without having a plan on how to use them.
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Jul 11, 2012 17:44
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I would just like to warn no one in particular, anyone that might have broken into the industry in the last year and is now watching their first game take a bit of a beating, that leaping to its defense is often A Bad Idea. Sometimes it can work, other times, you get burned out of the forums. The dude from Mercenaries 2 that used to post on here, for instance. There is talking about it positively and taking criticism, and then there is telling people they are wrong and that the game is perfectly good because see look at these review scores. The former works. The latter can blow up in your face. Not that that is being done, quite, even though it's getting close, just - a general warning. To you know, like, anyone that might be in that position. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Jul 11, 2012 |
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Jul 11, 2012 21:19
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