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Shalinor posted:There's a ton of arcane business knowledge you need to succeed in the App Store and equivalent markets Go on... 
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Mar 2, 2013 18:18
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Vino posted:@FreakyZoid: Of course, having a fun game is also a prerequisite to making money. My argument assumes all other things equal. Hughlander posted:Hell, it's fair to say as a corporate entity EA doesn't care about building relationship with it's employees. And I say that as someone who through recruitment and acquisition has worked for EA three times.
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Mar 2, 2013 18:30
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Shalinor posted:If this is your goal, make it a priority to work for a smaller but stable mobile studio. Thank you for the advice-- I'm likely going to be working for a financially stable mobile studio (I have an offer, I just need to make sure I'm totally untangled from all my previous employers' stuff) - it's not small, maybe like 75+ people at this point, but they have several projects going on at once so team sizes are still pretty small and intimate. Still, the entire studio is smaller than an entire team might be on a live game at the Facebook games behemoth I worked for, so this is something I'm not too worried about. I think this is the right move for me at this point in my life. Long term, I want to make casual games (or at least stuff that doesn't take monstrous amounts of human resources to complete) that are commercially successful enough to keep a small (2-3 man) studio afloat to grow into something a little bigger and more financially sound. I'm 26 right now; I think this is a good goal to start thinking about into my early or mid 30s. Something I've taken a lot of issue with about this industry is not feeling like I'm really in control of my own fate. It's the shareholders, or someone far above me, making the decisions to lay people off or cut projects. I think a lot of us in Baltimore, who've seen and experienced out fair share of layoffs, are starting to realize we're not comfortable in that situation. I was lucky (unlucky?) to experience a lot of pain early in my career (in console game development) to prepare me for the kinds of tough things I'm expecting to see in existing and developing game markets.
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Mar 2, 2013 18:32
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EDIT: ^^ all I meant by small is "not EA" - below 100 people is great.GetWellGamers posted:Go on... and all.Anyways, 90% of the indies I talk to didn't even know about the Thursday release to increase chances of featuring thing. I knew about the test market pre-release thing, but just ran aground on the fact that you can't do that AND get reviewers in via promocode - which makes it a worthless tactic for indies. Yesterday, I learned that you do indeed set your release to Thursday, not Wednesday, because the App Store trickles it out as each time zone hits Thursday - and that's what causes the gradual release Wednesday night, not any kind of manual wrangling. At this point, I might have blown my release, since I did hit the market (in NZ) already. Though I'm almost positive you hit the new releases list based on your release status per market, not globally, and I'm not sure that matters as much as it did in the 99c days anyways. It also works better than it used to, with how release date wasn't always what you thought it was. (And that doesn't even include all the best practices related to IAP, pricing thereof, where and when to ask the user for a review, friction reduction tricks, the importance of reducing friction between gameplay and store without shoving the store in the user's face, etc, etc) All kinds of weird stuff. Thinking I'll do a big blog post about it, once I see if any of what I've done matters. EDIT VVV: sounds like a solid move, dude. It's a related industry, still, and that + industry experience + the time to make a better portfolio should set you up better than "trapped in QA and too drained to work on personal project." Shalinor fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Mar 2, 2013 |
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Mar 2, 2013 18:39
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On the career shift topic, it looks likely that I'll be offered a QA Manager job at a humongous ad agency that's trying to expand its software development capability and specifically wanted me because of my games experience. I have my doubts about stepping out of games as an industry, but after six years of trying and having some of my content design actually ship while still staying in test I'm looking forward to having a challenge to step to and simultaneously have the time to build my own games as a hobby, means of artistic expression, become an indie-with-a-day-job, something like that. I hope I'm still allowed to post in the thread. 
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Mar 2, 2013 18:40
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No sarcasm at all, I could listen to that kind of stuff all day, though I was referring to more general stuff and not App Store specifics- not that those aren't interesting too. If anybody around these parts was ever asking about charity stuff, you can bet I'd be pontificating as much useful information as I could. I just think it's a great way to draw a map for a business- have someone else point out the shortcuts and landmines and trail markers for you and it's a lot easier to find your way.
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Mar 2, 2013 18:54
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I got approached last night by a recruiter for a AAA studio about a mobile developer job. I've never really wanted to do AAA, but it's mobile... And I do know mobile. Would be nice to get back to real games, but I've only been at my current job since December... In my desperate just graduated and need a job now phase I actually got my second interview there, but completely botched it!
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Mar 2, 2013 19:18
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Oh man I remember all those interviews I botched back in 2011. 10 of them in fact. Most of them were mobile companies. Though I have to say, boy they do love blowing their money on employees.  Nearly every company I went to had arcades or a "break" room of some sort with alot of activities to get your mind off work.To me it doesn't matter where you start. Now if you are one of those people who is trying to go up the ladder through QA, yeah I ought to slap you. This ain't japan. It does make me chuckle and shake my head, that some of my co workers are trying to get brownie points showing their portfolios to devs here. Yeah we are in house QA in all, but come on I know those artists probably just laughed and threw that poo poo in the recycle bin. Speaking of which, my contract is almost up unfortunately. It was a solid good 8 months working for LucasArts. I might end up at Zynga next. I have a few friends from Sony who worked there (few, more like 10 of them). It is as people said, want to get in the industry? Better make friends or have someone in the inside that knows you. In regards to EA and all, it's pretty much an example of an AAA company trying to emulate Activision. What they dont' understand (or they probably do)is that Kotick's structure of how he does things are for shorterm goals. I mean hell dude pretty much ran Guitar Hero into the loving ground. I wouldn't be surprise if Call of Duty gets the same reception. While there have been a few sequels from EA I still don't see them running franchises into grounds. I still view Ubisoft as the dumbasses doing that. I mean christ, an Assassin Creed 4 already, and third one hasn't even been out for a year (if so, you can correct me on that). I have a feeling that rear end creed is basically going to end up crashing to the ground. I do agree with Cliffy B to an extent, but when there are cases like Mafia 2. All I can do is shake my head and be disgusted. That is one perfect example of a game deliberately holding content just for DLC. It's just sickening. I have yet to buy that game because of that principle. Nothing pisses me off more than developers intentionally keeping things out. Although you can also say, what can be judged of what's kept out intentionally considering DLC is always a pre planned thing. I think it's a case by case basis. Probably my only main beef with EA is them doing the same poo poo again regarding DLC "endings". The fact they are doing it with Dead Space 3 just makes me laugh. Bad enough they did that with Mass Effect 3. Still I do congratulate them for at least bringing new series instead of the same old lovely rear end annual Madden game. Honestly the hatered for EA comes from what gamers selfish views. Anytime a company says they are trying to "expand" or "broad" the appeal to more people, it makes people go into a hissy fit. Half of that time that hissy fit is warranted. I still have yet to see a company successfully please both sides of the fanbase. That and having too much of a good thing makes them worry EA is going run that franchise into the ground. Though that can be said for any company. If it sells well, you know there is going to be a sequel around the corner. edit: The most exploitative thing I can think of is basically the old PLAY GAMES FOR A LIVING slogan they throw at you. Every nerd wants to do something in the industry. It's how us QAers are basically expendables. They can just find any eager naive person to come in. The industry has made me slightly jaded but I still enjoy it. Shindragon fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Mar 2, 2013 |
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Mar 2, 2013 19:59
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Monster w21 Faces posted:hiring completely inexperienced people straight out of the Uni so they don't know how much they should be getting paid. As opposed to not hiring anyone with less than 2 years experience, creating a vacuum that graduates can't get out of? I can think of tons of exploitative practices, hiring graduates isn't exactly one of them.
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Mar 2, 2013 20:01
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Jan posted:I can think of tons of exploitative practices, hiring graduates isn't exactly one of them. Hiring graduates for half of what entry-level wok with the skills they require anywhere else would pay is, though. "Oh, you're new to the industry? This has always been your dream? You'll do anything for us? What's minimum wage, again?"
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Mar 2, 2013 20:12
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GetWellGamers posted:Hiring graduates for half of what entry-level wok with the skills they require anywhere else would pay is, though. Can't really speak for TAG, but having asked around, pretty much every studio in Montreal that bothers hiring juniors is rather similar. Secret salary scales are the standard, and there have been plenty of conspiracy theories strewn around that the different studios are fixing salaries. Once one gets past the starry-eyed "omg video games" phase, it's up to them to get informed, work around the secrecy in order to figure out whether they're getting shafted or not, and find a better offer if it happens to be the case. I loving hate it.
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Mar 2, 2013 20:44
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Oh, damnit, I go away for 24 hours and miss another F2P fun-fest!
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Mar 2, 2013 21:02
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devilmouse posted:Oh, damnit, I go away for 24 hours and miss another F2P fun-fest!  ... until I move on to my next game, which isn't F2P, at which point I'll doubtless start talking smack about F2P again. EDIT: VV Son, you be speakin' my language  - I'll be one of the only pay-once indies able to tell people how many foozles have been collected world-wide. Woo!
Shalinor fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Mar 2, 2013 |
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Mar 2, 2013 21:37
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Shalinor posted:Baybe, so long as we're in this thread, it's ALWAYS a F2P fun-fest It's ok - once you go back to pay-once, poor-forever ("PoPf"), we'll have to "only" relate over metrics. C'mon, I know you've got a statistician hiding inside of you. edit: ^^ Awwww yeah. "Dayuum girl, gonna grind up on you so hard we'll need to use the Weibull Distribution to model it." Ahem. I actually can't wait for the time when the pendulum swings back towards pay-once and they/you/we all learn from what worked in F2P and applies it back there. There's too often a knee-jerk reaction to "F2P BAD AND EXPLOITATIVE!!" without understanding all the good that came come from it. Metrics-a-go-go. devilmouse fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Mar 2, 2013 |
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Mar 2, 2013 21:51
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Jan posted:Can't really speak for TAG, but having asked around, pretty much every studio in Montreal that bothers hiring juniors is rather similar. Secret salary scales are the standard, and there have been plenty of conspiracy theories strewn around that the different studios are fixing salaries. Once one gets past the starry-eyed "omg video games" phase, it's up to them to get informed, work around the secrecy in order to figure out whether they're getting shafted or not, and find a better offer if it happens to be the case. One of the best things I like about On a side note, anyone looking for a tools programmer in the SoCal area?
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Mar 3, 2013 06:20
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SAHChandler posted:On a side note, anyone looking for a tools programmer in the SoCal area? You should start coming to Beer Wednesday at the Auld Dubliner in Tustin if you're in the SoCal area. All my recruiter friends are always saying how hard it is to find good tools programmers.
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Mar 3, 2013 06:57
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GetWellGamers posted:You should start coming to Beer Wednesday at the Auld Dubliner in Tustin if you're in the SoCal area. All my recruiter friends are always saying how hard it is to find good tools programmers. Uhhh, duder. I'm there every week. (Red Jacket)
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Mar 3, 2013 07:53
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Then you're not networking hard enough? Everyone in this town bitches about tools. There's gotta be something out there for you. 
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Mar 3, 2013 08:39
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GetWellGamers posted:You should start coming to Beer Wednesday at the Auld Dubliner in Tustin if you're in the SoCal area. All my recruiter friends are always saying how hard it is to find good tools programmers. Every time I see a cool meetup in "SoCal" I get semi-excited until I realize they mean LA. Us folken in the true "So" part of "Cal" get shafted when the "NoSoCal" folken get together north of Camp Pendleton. (I live in SD)
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Mar 3, 2013 17:43
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I bet you're one of those NoSoSoCal squares, though. The true SoSoSoCal is right on the border with NoBaCal.
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Mar 3, 2013 18:02
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wasabimilkshake posted:I bet you're one of those NoSoSoCal squares, though. The true SoSoSoCal is right on the border with NoBaCal.
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Mar 3, 2013 18:32
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Vino posted:Every time I see a cool meetup in "SoCal" I get semi-excited until I realize they mean LA. Us folken in the true "So" part of "Cal" get shafted when the "NoSoCal" folken get together north of Camp Pendleton. I've driven up to IGDA LA events, and when I was running IGDA SD (when the chapter wasn't a UCSD DAC/AICASD student gathering and actually had events for professionals every month), some of our regular guests came down from LA and OC. Also, the SD developers who post to the IndieGamer.com forum arrange meetups, which are infrequently announced in the Indie Life subforum. There hasn't been a local meetup in awhile because the primary organizers (Buck, Schatz, and Shores) have been too busy. Garcellano hosts small, monthly meetups, too, but I've never attended.
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Mar 3, 2013 18:48
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The SF Game Dev Drink up is a lot of fun if any of you guys are in the area.
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Mar 3, 2013 19:17
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Is it bad form to show up at an interview wearing a hat because your forehead is covered in BB hits? #airsoftlol
GeeCee fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Mar 3, 2013 |
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Mar 3, 2013 20:05
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Aliginge posted:Is it bad form to show up at an interview wearing a hat because your forehead is covered in BB hits? #airsoftlol Instead, break the ice with "sorry about the forehead, I was air softing." This will make you a cool dude in their eyes, because you have hobbies outside of work. EDIT: VV Yeah, true that. If we're talking massive recent welts, consider finding a girl friend to help you with some concealer. Chicks dig men who wear makeup to cover their scars as appropriate. Or something. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 20:43 on Mar 3, 2013 |
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Mar 3, 2013 20:08
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Shal basically said was I was going to. Showing up with unconcealable evidence of interesting non-gaming related activities is the interview equivalent of "Chicks dig scars". Be tasteful about it, of course, but there's always that "Can you hold a conversation about things outside of gaming?" question that never gets asked but is always gauged. That said, I'm wondering how fresh they are, because coming in with welts less than a day old could reflect negatively on your planning. I know I wouldn't go paintballing the day before an interview, but if I took a nasty hit and it was 3-4 days old, "Yeah, sorry, he really got me, they normally don't last this long", etc.
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Mar 3, 2013 20:23
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Shalinor posted:Instead, break the ice with "sorry about the forehead, I was air softing." This will make you a cool dude in their eyes, because you have hobbies outside of work. Star Trek is also on the list.
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Mar 3, 2013 20:25
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Akuma posted:This assumes the person interviewing isn't weird about things. I know a very experienced, very senior (like, run a bunch of successful companies) guy that has a "no martial arts" policy. If you let on that you're actively into certain things on a malleable list of stuff (that includes martial arts) your chance of getting the job goes way down. What the gently caress?! My brain, it hurts.
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Mar 3, 2013 20:35
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Akuma posted:This assumes the person interviewing isn't weird about things. I know a very experienced, very senior (like, run a bunch of successful companies) guy that has a "no martial arts" policy. If you let on that you're actively into certain things on a malleable list of stuff (that includes martial arts) your chance of getting the job goes way down.
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Mar 3, 2013 20:37
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The appeal of working for someone with a weird agenda against karate and Captain Kirk is close to null, so it sounds like it all works out in the end.
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Mar 3, 2013 20:40
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Shalinor posted:So he's unwilling to hire 70% of the industry, and of the remaining 30%, probably only the obese ones? Seriously, enjoy basically throwing everyone out. Hell we have a guy who loves Star Trek, working in LUCASARTS of all places. Oooooooooh.
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Mar 3, 2013 20:42
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Akuma posted:Star Trek is also on the list. To be fair, if someone said Voyager or Enterprise, I might give them the "really??" eyebrow.
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Mar 3, 2013 20:52
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Shalinor posted:Don't wear a hat, it makes your face look stupid. (not necessarily true, but the intersection on a Venn diagram of SA poster and "looks good in a hat" can only be seen with an electron microscope) Fortunately the marks have calmed down to something not very noticeable now. I kept getting hit in the goddamn forehead today but nothing that broke skin or anything.  I am however gonna hate the journey up to dundee again this time with muscle pain from all the running about I did today. 
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Mar 3, 2013 21:03
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Adraeus posted:I've driven up to IGDA LA events, and when I was running IGDA SD (when the chapter wasn't a UCSD DAC/AICASD student gathering and actually had events for professionals every month), some of our regular guests came down from LA and OC. Thanks I'll check those out. I was doing the meetup.com thing for a while but the SD group almost never meets, and don't have time or money to be driving up to LA all the time. drat, the indiegamer forums... those still exist? I used to hang out there but I outgrew them at some point and lost interest.
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Mar 3, 2013 21:39
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Shindragon posted:Seriously, enjoy basically throwing everyone out. Dude, we all know about JJ Abrams.
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Mar 3, 2013 21:48
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Matlock posted:Dude, we all know about JJ Abrams. Hah! The co worker is a huge sperg about Star Trek. Haven't gotten into a fanboy arguement with him though. Which is rare. I thought Trekkies and Star War fans hated each other. Also yeah screening drug test. There also goes half your crew. Let's face it, people find ways to relax. The industry can be very VERY stressful during crunch times. Some cope with by drinking alot or someone just lay back and smoke a few to relax. Shindragon fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Mar 3, 2013 |
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Mar 3, 2013 21:54
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Akuma posted:This assumes the person interviewing isn't weird about things. I know a very experienced, very senior (like, run a bunch of successful companies) guy that has a "no martial arts" policy. If you let on that you're actively into certain things on a malleable list of stuff (that includes martial arts) your chance of getting the job goes way down. What the ungodly gently caress? In my interview at Ready at Dawn, just to gently caress with me, I got a Star Trek question thrown in (and loving nailed it - "What name did the Borg give to Picard after assimilating him?"). I'm not even that big of a Star Trek fan. Screening against Star Trek seems like it would be worse than drug testing for ruling out potential applicants.
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Mar 3, 2013 21:54
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Sigma-X posted:What the ungodly gently caress? Dude, you wore prosthetic Vulcan ears to work.
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Mar 3, 2013 22:38
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I would also fail that test, given I know next to nothing about Star Trek. 
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Mar 3, 2013 22:48
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Aliginge posted:I would also fail that test, given I know next to nothing about Star Trek. I only know the answer to that question because I unironically love the Picard Song
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Mar 3, 2013 22:57
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