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Edit: You know what, just posting this has answered my question. So thanks, game thread.
pastorrich fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Sep 12, 2012 |
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Sep 12, 2012 21:53
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Irish Taxi Driver posted:Anyone else doing Extra Life this year? It was really fun last year and I can't wait to do it again. Yeah I did my first one last year and have gotten together with a team to do it again. I was really surprised how much fun the whole thing was, even leading up to the event with all the planning that went into it.
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Sep 13, 2012 00:14
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Another one of my friends in BD/Sales got cut today, tough time to be doing Business Development in Los Angeles, looks like I may head up to SF if they want to move up there. If anyone has any spots for BD let me know and I can connect everyone.
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Sep 13, 2012 00:24
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Any level designers (heavier on the design side than the art side) free for work in the UK right now? PM me for more details etc.
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Sep 13, 2012 13:28
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Anyone here work at Microsoft Studios? I need information about a posted job opp.
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Sep 14, 2012 23:11
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I got another design test, it's been a few months since the last one, so I'm excited. Only problem is that it's in sort of broken english (the studio in question has only been using english as the office language for the last year or so) and the test, as it is written, implies... well, uh, I think they want me to send them an executable. I'm applying for a content designer position. And, not that I can't program something, or even that I couldn't program something in 5 days (the time limit) but doing so and meeting the other requirements of the test... maybe they want me to interpret things esoterically? I asked for clarification though, and I think I'm working on something they will like/appreciate. Even then I'm still having to take time off work to get it done, this is pretty easily the most difficult and time consuming design test I've ever seen.
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Sep 15, 2012 03:18
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Comte de Saint-Germain posted:...this is pretty easily the most difficult and time consuming design test I've ever seen. Best of luck! In other news, I feel awesome. I rocked my second phone interview for a dev-QA spot and have a third one coming up. It might all fall through--it can always fall through! But to have something to hope for is to live. As of Tuesday, I'll have moved away from home to chase this dream one full year ago. I don't regret it one bit.
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Sep 15, 2012 05:42
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Diaghilev posted:Best of luck! give it a few years.
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Sep 15, 2012 05:43
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x
anime was right fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Apr 18, 2017 |
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Sep 15, 2012 06:10
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Juc66 posted:give it a few years. Ah, nothing like the cynics to try to drag everyone down with them. 
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Sep 15, 2012 06:12
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Waterbed posted:Pretty sure I know who you're applying for. That test is pretty brutal! It's hard enough that I almost feel like I'm being hosed with. edit: It's totally doable, just really time consuming. On the upside, it is sure to weed out anyone who really can't hack it. I'm worried, though that it might also weed out a lot of qualified candidates who simply don't have the time to make it representative of work. They are an overseas company looking to hire foreigners, so they probably don't want to spend money/time getting someone papers if they blow out in the first three months. I shouldn't worry too much, one thing I have plenty of is time. I *do* wish they had asked me when I wanted to start rather than just have it sitting in my inbox one morning "due in 5 days". edit2: Oh, and don't tell me anything about your design test or how it went, I mean, besides NDA and all of that, mostly I just don't want to get psyched out if yours was way more awesome than mine. Comte de Saint-Germain fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Sep 15, 2012 |
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Sep 15, 2012 08:10
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Diaghilev posted:Best of luck! Dude if your dream was to be dev-QA you really ought to aim higher like vice assistant fry cook or something else that garners a little more respect. I mean, not all jobs are wonderful and someone's gotta clean the toilets, but the guy cleaning the toilets is getting paid more and probably has to deal with less poo poo, and no one hates that guy.
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Sep 15, 2012 08:25
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If all of QA was made up of people who wanted to be in QA, the world would be a better place. The people I know who made it from QA to Dev all did so by wanting to be in QA and wanting to be the best QA tester possible. It's really easy to tell the people who are reliable and who take pride in their work, and those are the people you want to look at if you're promoting from within. So yeah, don't hate on QA. They'll learn how to do that themselves soon enough.
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Sep 15, 2012 08:34
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Tricky Ed posted:If all of QA was made up of people who wanted to be in QA, the world would be a better place. The people I know who made it from QA to Dev all did so by wanting to be in QA and wanting to be the best QA tester possible. It's really easy to tell the people who are reliable and who take pride in their work, and those are the people you want to look at if you're promoting from within. I've known a number of great DevQA folks and a great number of QA->Dev folks, and not many great QA->Dev folks.
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Sep 15, 2012 08:37
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Comte de Saint-Germain posted:It's hard enough that I almost feel like I'm being hosed with. Yup! Good luck dude. It was super fulfilling at least. The challenge was totally worth it.
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Sep 15, 2012 09:22
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Sigma-X posted:I mean, not all jobs are wonderful and someone's gotta clean the toilets, but the guy cleaning the toilets is getting paid more and probably has to deal with less poo poo, and no one hates that guy. Having cleaned toilets, showers and a gym changing room for a living before my current job, I'm calling bullshit on that. Abuse, Lowest Pay, poo poo, I got it all. I'd take QA every time over that.
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Sep 15, 2012 14:00
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Waterbed posted:Yup! Good luck dude. It was super fulfilling at least. The challenge was totally worth it. Sounds like it would be a worthwhile exercise even if you aren't particularly looking to change jobs. Or would that be bad form?
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Sep 16, 2012 02:25
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Anybody know of any places looking for a Character Artist in Boston or LA area? I've got a year and a half of experience and 3 shipped titles. PM or email: akaikami@gmail.com
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Sep 16, 2012 02:34
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Sigma-X posted:Dude if your dream was to be dev-QA you really ought to aim higher like vice assistant fry cook or something else that garners a little more respect. I feel like I understand, in a limited way, where you're coming from. My dream has always been to land a content design position. So far, my games career has been seven months at a single company doing developer QA. That was my break into the industry, and I've been looking for a new spot since I left that one in May. I didn't move across the country to do QA--I moved to make games. In some ways, I hosed up my last position by being the guy who is doing QA but is very vocal about wanting to move into design. I wasn't a complete shithead about it, but I talked about it more than I should have. Not wanting a repeat of that for myself or my potential coworkers, I've since confined my design interests to personal projects. I feel like I'm still progressing toward my ultimate goal, and as a bonus I'm not annoying the piss out of the people who hired me. I'm looking forward to the point when I have the luxury of being picky about my positions. For now, I'm happy to find a spot that allows me enough free time to improve my design skills through personal projects, where I can build my experience through exposure to a professional development environment, and where I can also earn enough money to do a little more than just keep the lights on. Design remains my long-term goal. For now, my goal is to make folks say, "That guy is the best loving QA dude I've ever worked with." If this post comes across as over-aggressive, I apologize. I don't take any issue with what you've said! I have a lot of drive to chase this down, but I also realize that I could be going about it in entirely the wrong way. Looking for guidance from people who have already done what I want to do is why I post in this thread, after all.
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Sep 17, 2012 00:09
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Diaghilev posted:I feel like I understand, in a limited way, where you're coming from. My dream has always been to land a content design position. So far, my games career has been seven months at a single company doing developer QA. That was my break into the industry, and I've been looking for a new spot since I left that one in May. I didn't move across the country to do QA--I moved to make games. I totally understand wanting to be a designer, and thinking QA is a good way into it. The issue I ultimately take is that QA is really a job near game development, but isn't entry level development. I'm glad you talk about having personal projects on the side, because that's the most important thing to be a good designer. I've known people who have made it from devQA->Design but I've never known a great designer that made that jump (I know a good writer who made the jump, and I know some not-great designers that have made that jump). The reality is that the majority of junior design positions go to people with QA experience because being in QA isn't a requirement for the position because you don't learn poo poo about design in QA. You maybe learn a bit about production by being near it, but you don't pick up any design or art skills. QA is a position physically close to game development but but not actually related to it - in the same way that being a waiter is not cooking food. I guess ultimately my point here is to not treat devQA as a stepping stone into design, because it seldom is, and developing side projects (which is hard with the amount of time QA spends crunching) is really your best bet into making that jump. The notion of up and moving for a devQA job that most likely starts at $9-$10/hour seems like such a waste to me, especially since if you're not in a game-development hotspot you probably live in a place with a cheaper cost of living that will allow you more money/time to develop side projects. Maybe I'm just a jerkass unfairly hating on QA.
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Sep 17, 2012 08:11
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I might not have learned much about design from working in QA, but I sure learned a ton about how to be a good professional designer from that time. I'm rigorous about documentation and transparency, and I make sure my stuff actually works when it gets to their hands. I let them know what build my changes will be in so they don't waste time testing things that aren't there. I track my own changes and can back them out if needed. I put in a ton of debug information so that people can tell exactly what is happening behind the scenes. You don't have to have worked in QA to do all that, but you do learn the lesson better when you're walking the miles in QA's shoes. I take about 3-5% longer to get my systems tasks done than my predecessor did, but I get about 10% of the bugs he did and spend far less time fixing them. So, yeah. Being in QA won't make you a better designer. It won't make you write better (though you'll get better at proofreading), balance better, or design levels better. It will make you a better person to work with, and it will teach you about how games are made. It will teach you common pitfalls and where to look for them. And you'll get to know the horrible feeling of shipping a game with a bug you were responsible for but missed. Think about it this way: Being a draftsman probably won't make you a better artist, but you will get more technically proficient when making art. You've still got to develop your own style and you've still got to keep working on your own stuff in order to get better, but you're getting paid to get practice in the technical parts of art. It's not an insignificant benefit, in my opinion. You also might be a crappy artist and you'll never be a good one, in which case no amount of drafting experience will help, but at least you'll have skills in another occupation.
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Sep 17, 2012 08:35
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So on the topic of QA, I actually just accepted an offer for a position as a Technical Analyst with a studio in LA; going to be writing tests, developing automation, and generally working on the code side of the QA process. Essentially it's an entry-level position doing Test Engineering. I've worked through How Google Tests Software, started brushing up on my PyUnit, JUnit, stuff like that and just overall really taken a plunge into the test environment. Currently starting on Continuous Development which, along with HGTS, covers the two recommended reading suggestions I received while interviewing. Is there anyone out there that works in a similar test-driven position (as opposed to I guess more manual QA stuff) that might be able to recommend resources, be it books to read or blogs or mailing lists or what have you?
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Sep 17, 2012 21:29
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I just accepted a position in Germany. Now to figure out this whole relocation business.
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Sep 18, 2012 00:03
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EgonSpengler posted:I just accepted a position in Germany. Now to figure out this whole relocation business. That's the company's job! Just sit on your couch and let them move you. (I wish)
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Sep 18, 2012 01:59
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EgonSpengler posted:I just accepted a position in Germany. Now to figure out this whole relocation business. Don't know if it's for the same company you're currently working for, but when I was transferred to Asia I got these benefits: - Round-trip tickets for my wife, son and me - $1500 - Two weeks paid at the hotel when we arrived - $1000 to buy a private insurance - All costs for paperwork (visa, etc.) covered by my employer. And I did not even negotiate that much, some people were able to get them to pay for cargo (moving furniture, etc.) Of course, if it's a new job, you might not be able to negotiate a lot of benefits but just make sure you don't end up having to PAY to work for them.
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Sep 18, 2012 03:41
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Senso posted:but just make sure you don't end up having to PAY to work for them. 
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Sep 18, 2012 11:44
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If it's anything but a pre-funding startup, you should be getting at least USD $10K for relocation costs and probably way more given that it's an international move. Don't pay out of pocket for ANYTHING that's not reimbursed and make sure all this stuff is written in to your employment contract!
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Sep 18, 2012 12:24
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Some people who move overseas can get a yearly return flight in their contract too. My friend who moved to America got this recently.
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Sep 18, 2012 12:44
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concerned mom posted:Some people who move overseas can get a yearly return flight in their contract too. My friend who moved to America got this recently. Wow, really? That sounds really nice, and maybe it'd stop my mum panicking every time I talk about going to Canada or the US(someday~)...
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Sep 18, 2012 13:54
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floofyscorp posted:Wow, really? That sounds really nice, and maybe it'd stop my mum panicking every time I talk about going to Canada or the US(someday~)... Every 2-4 weeks that we have to spend at a non-home office, we can expense a round-trip ticket back home (or a ticket for our SO/family to come out to visit). If it's a short commuter flight (say, under 2 hours - basically won't require a loss of a Friday or Monday due to flight), the company will pay for you to fly back every weekend. The travel takes its toll on you though!
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Sep 18, 2012 14:06
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floofyscorp posted:Wow, really? That sounds really nice, and maybe it'd stop my mum panicking every time I talk about going to Canada or the US(someday~)... I moved from Canada to Vietnam for work and was able to get a round-trip ticket home for vacation, for my family.  It did took weeks of discussion and countless email threads to get it but it's nice.
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Sep 18, 2012 14:14
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I've got a reasonable budget for the move, but it's the details about moving from North America to Europe that make it difficult. Different voltages mean a good chunk of my appliances need to be replaced, my vehicle won't be practical to move over there so we need to sell it, and we generally need to liquidate all of the junk we no longer need. At least I'm unemployed in the short term and have time to deal with all of this.
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Sep 18, 2012 15:56
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EgonSpengler posted:I've got a reasonable budget for the move, but it's the details about moving from North America to Europe that make it difficult. Different voltages mean a good chunk of my appliances need to be replaced, my vehicle won't be practical to move over there so we need to sell it, and we generally need to liquidate all of the junk we no longer need. Awesome, congrats I've been interested in moving back to Germany for a long time. Seems hard to connect with jobs over there.Was this for a senior position? How did you go about finding the job? Is it a large company?
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Sep 18, 2012 16:12
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devilmouse posted:If it's anything but a pre-funding startup, you should be getting at least USD $10K for relocation costs and probably way more given that it's an international move. Don't pay out of pocket for ANYTHING that's not reimbursed and make sure all this stuff is written in to your employment contract! For international moves in Europe $3000 +airfare is far more likely than $10000 for expenses - though I've hopped around Europe I'm relying on the experience of US folks who came into Germany while I was there. It's also very likely that this will turn up after you submit expenses, which can take some time. On top of that the German standard is 1/2 months in hotel/company-owned apartment and usually limited help sortimg out the burgerburo/finanzamt for residence and taxes. I know people who turned up from the US and weren't allowed to set foot in the offices because the paperwork hadn't been started quickly enough and this was at VP level. Having said all that, German games firms have a habit of treating people very well. Free beer, breakfast, lunch and afternoon cake meant I almost never had to buy food for any reason other than gluttony. Resource posted:Awesome, congrats There are a ton of companies hiring who spam me on a regular basis through UK based recruiters, so if you are wanting a constant stream of positions I'd suggest linking up with one of the European based agencies. You might have resistance if you aren't an EU citizen but you'll at least have more places visible. There are a regular ton of UK based ones who deal in German positions - the ones with whom I've had decent experiences are change-job.com they have been very pro-active in offering me interviews in a nice variety of places opmjobs.com - have come up with a good number of positions mainly tailored to me but some obvious desperate attempts amiqus.com - mainly quantity rather than quality datascope.co.uk (though some of their people are blithering fools there are good ones who make up for it) I only had contact with one German agency - https://www.ganz-stock.de they got me my first German position and were very happy to shop me around to suitable looking places. They do, however, work on the basis of only dealing with companies who contact them with specific positions to fill, so are far from complete in their coverage and will never land you speculative positions. Also putting your location in LinkedIn as Germany or having it as a tag will guarantee you search hits and offers from within the country 19orFewer fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Sep 18, 2012 |
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Sep 18, 2012 16:31
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19orFewer posted:It's also very likely that this will turn up after you submit expenses, which can take some time. Pulling this out from the specific to the generic... This should be in your employment contract. I've seen people get screwed by just assuming costs would be covered but not having anything in their contract. If you expect moving costs to be paid, make sure you've got it in writing (this goes for any job!).
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Sep 18, 2012 18:39
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All this stuff about qa- it really depends on the company. I worked at Obsidian, and at the time at least, they promoted the poo poo out of QA.
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Sep 18, 2012 18:47
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Resource posted:Awesome, congrats The connection came through a former colleague who currently consults with the firm. It is a senior producer role at a large company. I'm being moderately careful about naming them in public forums until I learn how much they care about that sort of thing. 19orFewer posted:For international moves in Europe $3000 +airfare is far more likely than $10000 for expenses - though I've hopped around Europe I'm relying on the experience of US folks who came into Germany while I was there. It's also very likely that this will turn up after you submit expenses, which can take some time. As a Canadian under 35 I can trivially get a 1 year working visa for Germany without being sponsored. I'm still sorting through the visa details, but worst case scenario I get the 1 year visa before I leave and let them sort out the permanent sponsorship while I work there. Getting into Germany as a legal migrant worker looks to be much easier than getting into the United States.
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Sep 18, 2012 20:06
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Looks like Ray and Greg (the two remaining BioWare co-founders) are retiring from games now. I liked those guys, well not that they're dying, but BioWare is going to be way worse off without them.
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Sep 18, 2012 20:17
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Juc66 posted:Looks like Ray and Greg (the two remaining BioWare co-founders) are retiring from games now. Mostly, I'm kind of glad to see two industry leaders leaving on at least seemingly good terms for once. No studio washouts, drama explosions, angry buyouts and departures, just - hey, they're retiring, they're kind of done with games for now. It's a nice change, from the usual industry news. Unrelated - does anyone have any info on the humble store? In the near future, I might do a PC/Mac/Linux release as a pay-what-you-want, and was curious if their systems were set up to support that automatically.
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Sep 18, 2012 21:46
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Juc66 posted:Looks like Ray and Greg (the two remaining BioWare co-founders) are retiring from games now. What's the over/under on the time until they put up a Kickstarter?
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Sep 18, 2012 22:29
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