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

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theysayheygreg: Oct 5, 2010; some rusty fish

Sion posted:

~~Synergize~~Slothygize the gently caress out of those sloths.

Come on, there's a huge opportunity for branding here!

# ? Apr 1, 2013 17:21

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 23:57

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

devilmouse posted:

New plan for making games: Take nascent twitter trends and build for them.

Our goofy sloth hugger is now the #1 result in the App Store when you search for "sloth" and DAU is the highest it's ever been. Time to double down on sloths and become the premiere provider of sloth-related apps and leverage a powerful sloth cross-promo network.

It really is telling that your game about sloths is doing so much better than a bunch of our F2P games in this thread. Talk about a dream killer / "why you might want to think twice about mobile dev" example, yeesh.

In fact... I might ping you when I do the post mortem. It would be hilarious to contrast numbers against hugging sloths.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 17:32

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

Shalinor posted:

In fact... I might ping you when I do the post mortem. It would be hilarious to contrast numbers against hugging sloths.

By all means- though I should warn you, we totally slacked on stats for Sloth and only hooked up google analytics, so getting interesting numbers is harder than it would be if we did it For Real.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 18:42

djkillingspree: Apr 2, 2001; make a hole with a gun perpendicular

Jan posted:

Yes.

In my short time in AAA, I've encountered the bad QA stereotypes described above, just like I've had a kick-rear end team of dedicated QA when wrapping up our last project. During beer fridays and similar company-wide happenings, I got to chat with some QA that had gotten some game design degree and were desperately trying (and failing) to get noticed. Not having seen them in action, I had no idea whether they were any good. Because I can imagine how much it must suck to be in that position, I refuse to make any negative judgment about our testers and their goals.

But, more importantly, during actual development, I don't have the time to notice which testers truly shine and might be worth promoting out of QA. The same applies to the aforementioned kick-rear end QA -- though they a huge asset, I could only say they were great at filing relevant bugs and eventually closing them. Nothing to do with design or other production disciplines.

Of course, as a programmer, I only get technical bug reports, as opposed to designers which will end up with more subjective issues. As mentioned, though, these guys mostly look like they're filing their personal opinion into enhancement or bug reports, and anyone receiving them will have to overcome some prejudice to even take these testers seriously.

All in all, there's just so many obstacles and soul-crushing lack of recognition for me to recommend anyone using QA as a way into the industry. Sure, it happens, but it is far more likely to just break one's spirit.

So, the correct way to get into dev as QA is not:

1) make design suggestions in bugs and try to argue hard for them.
2) work silently as a good QA tester while secretly harboring your desire to be a dev.

The correct way to get into dev as QA is:

secret step 0) Work at a place that does internal development and where QA and Dev aren't totally isolated from each other
1) be a kick-rear end QA tester
2) use the fact that you are already in the company to network with the people outside work hours.
3) Talk to producers (who you should be working with in your role as QA anyways) about stepping up to do extra work, esp. design grunt work that designers probably would like if you did.
4) keep your eyes and ears open for what the devs are talking about and come up with ways to make their life easier.

The lovely part about this way into the industry is that you don't get to do dev right away. The good part is, if you're not taking this way into the industry (for a design position), you probably only get the opportunity to work on crap for your first few titles or you're spending a bunch of unpaid labor building a portfolio that may or may not get you hired at somewhere decent.

Also QA builds practical dev experience in a way that nothing else outside of actual dev work will.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 20:39

AmazonTony: Nov 23, 2012; I'm the Marketing Manager for Amazon's Digital Video Games group. Feel free to ask me questions about upcoming and current deals. We'll also be doing community giveaways, Q&As with developers, and Podcasts with ++GoodGames.

Azereki posted:

Normally I just lurk this thread, but GDC was exceptionally depressing this year. This was my 6th GDC, but I am now also headed into my 3rd year of the design program at DigiPen. While I don't consider myself an awesome designer by any means, I am definitely happy with the (seemingly) crazy amount of progress I've made in the past couple of years. Of course there is plenty about professional game design that I've never been exposed to, but I am constantly trying to figure out how to best bridge that gap. This year, I talked to a few people about what they are looking for in potential designers or what the most realistic approach was for actually getting a shot, here is some of what I found out:

1. Ship a AAA title first or we don't really want to hire you.
2. Get a game into IGF or we don't really want to hire you.
3. Bullshit everything until someone gives you a shot. And, if you get said shot, then work 14 hours a day and hope that you can learn everything you need to avoid getting fired. (Also, no one wants to hold your hand they just want you to sit down in front of a computer and make money for them.)
4. Don't bullshit anything, because there are already too many lovely professional designers. (I did not hear this from Richard Garriott, haha)
5. Apply for our internship program (no elaboration on what makes an applicant stand out).

Unfortunately, this advice wasn't stuff that I honestly felt was actionable information.

Hopefully this doesn't come across as whiny, it's more or less just pure frustration stemming from anxiety and uncertainty. I definitely know enough to do everything I need to put together my own games, be it analog or digital (and have done so multiple times already), but jack-off-all-trades just don't seem very desirable to companies. I used to think that I wanted to work at a studio, but now it seems like I will always be faced with the inevitable Catch 22 of previous industry/AAA experience. Of course being able to say that I am just going to make my own job is awesome and all, but it also isn't a financially sound idea right off the bat (especially with any amount of student loans waiting to be paid back). I feel like it might not be so bad if my school didn't own all four years of my work, but I also didn't understand the significance of what I was signing away upon getting accepted.

TL;DR: I want to make games for a living, but it seems hopeless. Is there anyone who is/has been in a similar situation in recent years and got it figured out? Also, is my school robbing me blind?

Cheers fellas.

Hey dude,

First off, way to ask the question in a setting where you'll get some real feedback. Second, I'm a business dude so my context for stuff like moving from QA to Design, or what should go in your portfolio is limited.

That being said, there are a couple things I've noticed in your and other's responses to this comment that I can comment on:

1. The industry is extremely insular - This will have context below.

2. The foot in the door mentality works but for different reasons that most people believe. Getting your foot in the door and then immeidately "gunning" for the position you want generally leads your co-workers and direct supervisors to carry around some level of resentment about the fact that you don't really want to do the job you're hired to do. Oftentimes this is subconcious but it is there. Instead, you should look for that entry level job you think you can add a ton of value to, kick rear end at it, and then let your manager(s) or those senior to you in the company advocate for you. Happy to share my personal experience in this regard, but that is how I got into the industry.

3. I've seen multiple references to "Parties" at GDC or other industry events. One comment (again not sure if it was you or someone else) referred to there not being much difference between a "party" and "mixer". Who cares? Refer to point 1, the industry is insular. If the guy that is going to hire you for your next job going to be at the Minecraft party jamming to Skrillex and lighting his hair on fire, you should probably grab some glowsticks and a fire extinguisher and saddle up. If you're young and trying to break into any industry, not just games, you should be finding any way possible to form a connection with the people that work with or for the people you want to get a job with. Again, you don't have to, but the odds that you'll get an back after someone in person at an event is MUCH higher than if you have no personal context for that individual.

4. Apply to jobs, don't just "network". You have to do both. Set a goal for yourself, "I am going to apply to or follow up with X jobs this week". When I was on the job hunt I set this goal at 15, it was aggressive and depressing but it definitely worked. Also important to note, your disappointment is far from over, the single worst part about job searching is the crushing sense of defeat that comes with applying to hundreds of jobs and only hearing back from a few, compounded by the potential you won't get an offer from each one.

5. Practice interviewing with people who have the jobs you want. Start doing this now and don't stop until you have a job. If you don't know any designers/developers, the IGDA is a great place to start.

Hope this helps man!

If you're in Seattle (not sure if Digipen has schools elsewhere) and ever want to meet up and talk about the industry in general let me know, happy to grab lunch/dinner/drinks whenever. You have to like dogs though, Paddington comes with me everywhere.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 20:46

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

AmazonTony posted:

You have to like dogs though, Paddington comes with me everywhere.

But Paddington is a BEAR!!!

Edit: vv: Ok, that's a stunning likeness.

devilmouse fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Apr 1, 2013

# ? Apr 1, 2013 20:49

AmazonTony: Nov 23, 2012; I'm the Marketing Manager for Amazon's Digital Video Games group. Feel free to ask me questions about upcoming and current deals. We'll also be doing community giveaways, Q&As with developers, and Podcasts with ++GoodGames.

devilmouse posted:

But Paddington is a BEAR!!!

He might be part bear...

He's also a Master Chief

# ? Apr 1, 2013 20:55

Sigma-X: Jun 17, 2005

On the whole getting into the industry bit, you can totally jump into AAA design without going through QA or whatever the gently caress. I would personally strongly argue against getting into QA, because if you are going into QA because you can't hack the jump straight to dev, it means two things:

A) You don't have the skills to be on the dev side yet
B) You won't have the time to develop those skills because you will be too busy/drained working QA

I've seen people make the jump (a lot of production, and some designers), but it takes a long time and I don't think any of the people I've seen make the jump are improved by their time in QA.

Our very own Irish Taxi Driver jumped from school to making Call of Duty:

http://www.danmerboth.com/index.php

everything that he has there that comes before his CoD stuff was done while he was a student. It's a pretty impressive body of work, but you kind of have to be pretty impressive to get into AAA.

Which leads me to a corollary to the "network all the time, because your next job will come from a guy you know, not an ad you saw" bit:

You need to be really good to get a job in games. You need to be professional, shippable quality to get into games. Networking isn't a shortcut to skills or an alternate route. Additionally, being really fuckin' good at something is a networking tool. Everyone wants to be the guy who knows the guy that can solve your problem. Your network is a bunch of people who you would recommend, and people want to recommend quality people, and will go out of their way to hook you up if you're really good because it reflects well upon them. No amount of networking as a lovely student making stuff that wouldn't get past steam Greenlight is going to pay off.

Azereki - you need to post youtube videos of your games on your portfolio so people can actually see what they're like without downloading notavirus.exe from dropbox (which is blocked by a lot of companies). Your screenshots presumably don't do the gameplay justice.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 21:05

AmazonTony: Nov 23, 2012; I'm the Marketing Manager for Amazon's Digital Video Games group. Feel free to ask me questions about upcoming and current deals. We'll also be doing community giveaways, Q&As with developers, and Podcasts with ++GoodGames.

Sigma-X posted:

On the whole getting into the industry bit, you can totally jump into AAA design without going through QA or whatever the gently caress. I would personally strongly argue against getting into QA, because if you are going into QA because you can't hack the jump straight to dev, it means two things:

A) You don't have the skills to be on the dev side yet
B) You won't have the time to develop those skills because you will be too busy/drained working QA

I've seen people make the jump (a lot of production, and some designers), but it takes a long time and I don't think any of the people I've seen make the jump are improved by their time in QA.

Our very own Irish Taxi Driver jumped from school to making Call of Duty:

http://www.danmerboth.com/index.php

everything that he has there that comes before his CoD stuff was done while he was a student. It's a pretty impressive body of work, but you kind of have to be pretty impressive to get into AAA.

Which leads me to a corollary to the "network all the time, because your next job will come from a guy you know, not an ad you saw" bit:

You need to be really good to get a job in games. You need to be professional, shippable quality to get into games. Networking isn't a shortcut to skills or an alternate route. Additionally, being really fuckin' good at something is a networking tool. Everyone wants to be the guy who knows the guy that can solve your problem. Your network is a bunch of people who you would recommend, and people want to recommend quality people, and will go out of their way to hook you up if you're really good because it reflects well upon them. No amount of networking as a lovely student making stuff that wouldn't get past steam Greenlight is going to pay off.

Azereki - you need to post youtube videos of your games on your portfolio so people can actually see what they're like without downloading notavirus.exe from dropbox (which is blocked by a lot of companies). Your screenshots presumably don't do the gameplay justice.

/agreed totally. My point regarding networking was not meant to be taken as "yo dude, go party your face off an all the bros you meet will get you a sick job", it was "unless you've created the next Hotline Miami, it is going to benefit you greatly if you can string a sentence together and the people who are going to hire you like hanging out with you".

Again, totally agree that you need to be awesome at whatever you're trying to do (which I think I covered in point 2), it is hard to objectively dismiss the value of networking though.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 21:10

Irish Taxi Driver: Sep 12, 2004; We're just gonna open our tool palette and... get some entities... how about some nice happy trees? We'll put them near this barn. Give that cow some shade... There.

Sigma-X posted:

Our very own Irish Taxi Driver jumped from school to making Call of Duty:

http://www.danmerboth.com/index.php

everything that he has there that comes before his CoD stuff was done while he was a student. It's a pretty impressive body of work, but you kind of have to be pretty impressive to get into AAA.

Pretty flattering, but I had a lucky 1 in a million shot happen. This is probably crazy ramble y because I've been modifing it for 20 minutes (also probably time I wrote one, since I'm nearing my 2 year anniversary), so if it doesn't make sense in a spot I'm sorry.

This Is How I Got Into The Industry / Life Story:

I started out making doom maps when I was maybe 8 (1995/6 or so). I'd draw them on my notebooks and take them to my cousin who'd try to translate it into a level. Playing those was pretty mindblowing, I had no idea how games were made before then. Around 2000 I got into model hacking for Half-Life, mashing models together to create new and unoptimized horrors. I started dabbling in level design again. The next 7 years was map after map, for various Half-Life mods / Source mods.

Around 2007-ish Fishbus made a pretty awesome level for Team Fortress 2 called 'cp_steel'. I contributed some MSPaint level graphic tweaks (red circle signs for D and E, "spraypainted" (read: mouse + brush style) points onto other signs, the hud icons), and the level got picked up. When Valve decided to do the "Thanks to: X Y and Z for making this map!" thing, my name went on it. If it said what I had contributed, I doubt the rest of this would've happened (Fishbus was hired at Splash Damage because of cp_steel, and hes still there today!).

Around early 2010, someone from Treyarch contacted me about a possible temp job for over the summer. She said she had seen my name in TF2 and thought I could do it. I built that portfolio site in a week based on some PHP that I learned through school. I did a phone interview with their lead level builder, did a week long test for them, and they came back a week later and said thanks but no thanks.

While I was doing that, I had to formally apply for the job through their website. While doing THAT, I saw Raven Software had a senior level design position open. I applied for it thinking "Theres no way in hell."

Month later, I get an email from Raven's design director. He said they're interested based on my portfolio and would like to see a test for an internship. I asked Treyarch if it was okay to send the test to Raven, they okayed it. I did a phone interview and was working at Raven 2 months later.

When I got here I tried to integrate into the internship stuff as much as possible. The Raven that I remember had a reputation for hiring out of the mod community, and that went away in the years before I was hired. I made a huge push to my boss to get into the mod communities I frequented to find people that were good and had trouble getting noticed. For example, one of our relatively new artist hires is Rexy from the TF2 community and hes been kicking a lot of rear end here. I try to regularly give struggling LDs advice because I understand how large and imposing the wall is between the industry and the community (if you're reading this and want some feedback, feel free to add me on steam). I try to keep in mind how lucky I was/am.

Things That Really Helped Me Get In:

-I did optimization on the level test (Portals, clipping). The lead designer at Raven who reviewed it said hes never seen anyone do it, and it was a big factor in me getting hired / displaying I knew what I was talking about. These days I'm getting consulted by the senior LDs about how best to portal stuff. Aasbandit told me to stop bugging him about portalling because I was just using him as a sanity check (still bugging and theory-crafting with him though). No one expects you to do this. Our new batch of interns that I had a hand in hiring, one of them did this and hes turned out to be one of our best and most consistent LDs in terms of content produced. I'm glad hes around to help haze the new group in August.

-I was familiar with their products and what they had been working on. Since our design director was relatively new he was interested in hearing my thoughts on stuff Raven had did in the past. I also showed enthusiasm for what they could be working on (didn't know at the time, turned out to be MW3), and familiarity with the brand in general.

-My portfolio was robust, easy to browse, and had detailed explanations of what was in it. I tried to do huge writeups on my design philosophy and problems I had encountered so they could see what my workflow was. I included pieces where I worked with others to show what I could do as part of a team (the other half of cp_upland, Mark 'honeymustard' Sinclair, is a designer at Creative Assembly now.). I included varied content to show I could work in multiple settings and under different constraints.

_{I intend to do writeups for Boardwalk and Decomission, but thats a little trickier because it needs to be okayed before I post it, so I haven't gotten around to it. I also want some in-development shots, so thats trickiest.}

EDIT: Fixing poo poo. I've had a lot of coffee today.

Irish Taxi Driver fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Apr 2, 2013

# ? Apr 1, 2013 22:07

djkillingspree: Apr 2, 2001; make a hole with a gun perpendicular

Sigma-X posted:

On the whole getting into the industry bit, you can totally jump into AAA design without going through QA or whatever the gently caress. I would personally strongly argue against getting into QA, because if you are going into QA because you can't hack the jump straight to dev, it means two things:

A) You don't have the skills to be on the dev side yet
B) You won't have the time to develop those skills because you will be too busy/drained working QA

I've seen people make the jump (a lot of production, and some designers), but it takes a long time and I don't think any of the people I've seen make the jump are improved by their time in QA.

Our very own Irish Taxi Driver jumped from school to making Call of Duty:

http://www.danmerboth.com/index.php

everything that he has there that comes before his CoD stuff was done while he was a student. It's a pretty impressive body of work, but you kind of have to be pretty impressive to get into AAA.

Which leads me to a corollary to the "network all the time, because your next job will come from a guy you know, not an ad you saw" bit:

You need to be really good to get a job in games. You need to be professional, shippable quality to get into games. Networking isn't a shortcut to skills or an alternate route. Additionally, being really fuckin' good at something is a networking tool. Everyone wants to be the guy who knows the guy that can solve your problem. Your network is a bunch of people who you would recommend, and people want to recommend quality people, and will go out of their way to hook you up if you're really good because it reflects well upon them. No amount of networking as a lovely student making stuff that wouldn't get past steam Greenlight is going to pay off.

Azereki - you need to post youtube videos of your games on your portfolio so people can actually see what they're like without downloading notavirus.exe from dropbox (which is blocked by a lot of companies). Your screenshots presumably don't do the gameplay justice.

Also note that I'm sure each of us has experiences that are colored by where they've worked and what kinds of games they've worked on.

A very large percentage - maybe like a third? - of designers I've worked with have come from QA at some point in their careers. I don't know any single avenue that as many designers have come through as that.

But I've also worked at RPG places where the set of skills required of a general designer are pretty different than those of most game companies and it's actually really hard to demonstrate your chops in a portfolio.

What I found to actually be really useful was working in QA during my college summers. QA is the *perfect* summer job for the game industry IMO unless you're lucky enough to score an internship. Many places hire a shitton of people around the summer time for holiday releases, and I used my summer job experience to get into a production QA position, which is much easier to get into dev from.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 23:07

Bruegels Fuckbooks: Sep 14, 2004; Now, listen - I know the two of you are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but you have to understand that as far as Grandpa's concerned, you're both pieces of shit! Yeah. I can prove it mathematically.

Friends don't let friends do QA for game developers.

If you do QA for say medical software or financial software you'll make easily triple your game QA salary for less actual work. No joke.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 23:16

djkillingspree: Apr 2, 2001; make a hole with a gun perpendicular

hieronymus posted:

Friends don't let friends do QA for game developers.

If you do QA for say medical software or financial software you'll make easily triple your game QA salary for less actual work. No joke.

If your career end goal is QA, this is true, but if you are using QA as the mail room equivalent of a game company, that doesn't really work.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 23:22

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

Irish Taxi Driver posted:

Wait, you guys still use an engine that requires portals? That's so cool :3:

The last time I saw those was map making for Max Payne... 1, I think it was, though maybe 2 as well. EDIT: I even wrote a portal-based engine back in the late 90's - but soon after, everyone decided "gently caress that, let's use octrees and focus on streaming."

Shalinor fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Apr 1, 2013

# ? Apr 1, 2013 23:43

Doctor Yiff: Jan 2, 2008

hieronymus posted:

Friends don't let friends do QA for game developers.

If you do QA for say medical software or financial software you'll make easily triple your game QA salary for less actual work. No joke.

Pretty much. I left games for web QA for an ad agency, got a 50% raise, a two title grade bump and half the workload. The contacts I made and networks I built are invaluable for when I try to get back in - but trust me. Don't start in the industry in QA. Just don't.

# ? Apr 1, 2013 23:51

Jan: Feb 27, 2008; The disruptive powers of excessive national fecundity may have played a greater part in bursting the bonds of convention than either the power of ideas or the errors of autocracy.