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It's a fair point when talking about Bayonetta, Dragon's Crown, Catherine, etc, though - all games that hit various folks' over-sexualized buttons. As much as the visual styles of the above listed bothered me, I also can't shake the feeling that it's because I'm American, and was raised Protestant, and for some reason am horrified by boobies in video games yet not horrified at heads exploding. All of the above use sex / sexual characteristics for clear stylistic or narrative reasons. - Dragon's Crown over-emphasizes the gender of EVERY one of its characters, and it does it because the characters are comparitively tiny during gameplay. It gives the small sprites more character than you'd otherwise be able to read at that scale, given the art style. - Bayonetta uses sex as a means of empowering the main character. She's a femme fatalle librarian that summons bondage boots out of thin air, to do battle with avatars of chastity, conformity and moral fortitude. It's honestly pretty drat awesome, thematically. - Catherine's overarching themes are bound up entirely in sex, relationships, and gender-reated differences. If the game wasn't over-sexualized, it flat out wouldn't work. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 03:27 on Jul 3, 2013 |
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Jul 3, 2013 03:22
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mutata posted:Eh, I think that's a different topic entirely. What I said above has nothing to do with "omg think of the children censorship" or nudity or anything. There's been a lot of judging of foreign games based on American cultural norms and ideals in the past few pages. Most of the negative examples I saw were from Asian developers, while the positive examples were from American and European developers. For better or worse, the developer communities are largely segregated. It's not clear how a bunch of westerners whining about Asian games is going to help the issue. If anything, the games will still be made and we just wont get them. To me, that's much worse than gratuitous boobs.
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Jul 3, 2013 03:22
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mutata posted:Eh, I think that's a different topic entirely. What I said above has nothing to do with "omg think of the children censorship" or nudity or anything.
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Jul 3, 2013 03:31
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leper khan posted:I know there's plenty of room for the entire industry to grow up, but why does it seem like whenever these topics come up it's a bunch of westerners projecting their ideals on products from eastern developers? There are tonnes of complaints about western female characters, don't kid yourself. The only issue I would ever point out that's exclusively eastern is the whole "looks like a 12 year old girl in underwear but she's really a 10,000 year old dragon who wants to bang your character!" cliche because it creeps me out on a whole different level. The huge tits, perma-twerk and weird sex attitudes shows up in the western games just as often, like the Witcher's whole deal with collectable sex cards and sex scenes. Or Bioware's weird obsession with alien/fantasy dating sims full of women fitting anime cliches. Or female character's armour in mmo's being way more revealing and sometimes disturbing than their male counterparts. It's just Dragon's Crown is a very easy topic to point at since it's such a blatant example of some of these things. Shalinor posted:- Bayonetta uses sex as a means of empowering the main character. She's a femme fatalle librarian that summons bondage boots out of thin air, to do battle with avatars of chastity, conformity and moral fortitude. It's honestly pretty drat awesome, thematically. Bayonetta is an actual well rounded character who knows she's sexy and is playing off it, but isn't doing it for the audience's sake. I think she would have been forgotten and ignored had they made her simply to be fanservice without any of the self awareness or sass.
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Jul 3, 2013 03:35
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Boy Howdy, announcing the changes to Broken Age right after your other kickstarter gets successfully funded sure looks actively unethical. It's really not great for the whole 'kickstarter' scene in general, really. Banner Saga released a weird, skinned down version of itself before the main event, Broken Age looks like it's going to be releasing half of its game before getting the whole thing out much later down the line which is a little bit concerning. Also, asking for 300k and then, when you get 3.3 million being unable to finish more than 'the first half' of your game is rather concerning. Either your initial goal was way, way undersold or your scope management is terrible and you should probably take a second look at why publishers are such bastards about milestones and deadlines (read: if you give people a lot of money and then take away the publisher, things tend to get a little wiggy with feature creep and project bloat. I'm not saying that having a publisher means your game always stays on scope, on time and on target but I get the feeling that if there was an outside body with its hands on the reins and the purse strings, Broken Age would be more on time, on scope and on budget than it apparently is at the moment.) Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Double Fine splitting the game in half is that they've proved publishers half-right. Double Fine were right about there still being a hunger for 'weird' genres like adventure games (although, arguably, Taletale had already proved this pretty conclusively) but they were way off mark about there being a market for them at the scale they want to work at. If an enormous turnout that gives you 11 times your initial goals doesn't fund your project (in fact, it only funds half of it so, lets say the final price tag is 5-6 million), maybe there's not a sustainable market for product like this? Sion fucked around with this message at 11:41 on Jul 3, 2013 |
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Jul 3, 2013 11:28
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I'm going to be the one to say it. I'm gonna say it. Here it comes. The actual game aspect of games is where Double Fine are their weakest. They do not make good games. They make fantastically fun & engaging settings, stories and characters but their gameplay has always been lackluster.
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Jul 3, 2013 12:06
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Bringing this back to actual Jobs rather than devs shooting the poo poo, I just found this and thought I'd forward it on to the goony UK coder types around here, like SnafuAl who should totes apply for these guys. http://www.neonplay.com/we-are-hiring-for-programmers-server-android.html
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Jul 3, 2013 12:50
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Aliginge posted:Bringing this back to actual Jobs rather than devs shooting the poo poo, I just found this and thought I'd forward it on to the goony UK coder types around here, like SnafuAl who should totes apply for these guys. Cheers for the heads up. I think I actually interviewed with them before, but may as well apply again.
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Jul 3, 2013 12:54
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I'm hiring! Looking for a level designer to work on this game: https://www.mercelite.com/beta The job posting is here: http://bigpoint.net/career/associate-senior-level-designer-mf/ Position is located in Hamburg, Germany.
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Jul 3, 2013 14:03
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Cool, I think my good friend Ayesha is working on that atm.
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Jul 3, 2013 14:09
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Monster w21 Faces posted:Cool, I think my good friend Ayesha is working on that atm. KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN (industry too small'd.)
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Jul 3, 2013 14:13
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devilmouse posted:KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN Don't say her name. It breaks my heart.
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Jul 3, 2013 14:26
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She does work with us, as well as other projects.
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Jul 3, 2013 14:38
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Ah, jeez. I just noticed Jeremiah is there too! BigPoint is overtaking my social networks!
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Jul 3, 2013 15:06
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The top tier of Kickstarter has been full of 5 million dollar games asking for hundreds of thousands or just a million dollars. Obsidian's project eternity was another one that struck me as a bit unrealistic. The strategy seems to be to intentionally ask for less than you need and hope that you triple or quadruple your ask. If you're making a game that's going to take a professional team of any substantial size and more than a year to make, it's probably going to cost a few million dollars. That said, I still love that Kickstarter allows some of these projects to get off the ground and prove interest, even if it doesn't really provide 100% of the funding necessary to complete them.
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Jul 3, 2013 17:05
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Is it common for QA to be called "Game Analysts"? I'm trying to find an actual analyst (you know, someone who likes to ask interesting questions of volumes of data) on LinkedIn and keep running into all these people whose info reads like they're in QA. P.S. We're looking to hire an analyst (or product manager who doesn't mind getting their hands dirty from time to time). If you are one or know of any, send them my way!
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Jul 3, 2013 17:14
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In my job we don't usually have to deal with traditional QA teams, but we did just get this "observe" gem: "5. Observe that background music is audible for fractions of second." I think the proper response is "Unable to reproduce, could not see the audio."
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Jul 3, 2013 17:23
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devilmouse posted:Is it common for QA to be called "Game Analysts"? I'm trying to find an actual analyst (you know, someone who likes to ask interesting questions of volumes of data) on LinkedIn and keep running into all these people whose info reads like they're in QA. I'd say it's fairly common(at least in my experience). Do you have a job description of what you are looking for specifically? I personally love trolling through telemetry data and asking all sorts of questions and organizing it in interesting and sometimes weird ways in excel. I know a few people who share this passion with me.
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Jul 3, 2013 17:30
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devilmouse posted:Is it common for QA to be called "Game Analysts"? I'm trying to find an actual analyst (you know, someone who likes to ask interesting questions of volumes of data) on LinkedIn and keep running into all these people whose info reads like they're in QA. I do QA stuff for my company's mobile apps (a movie channel/streaming service) so I would assume possibly? They call the job I've been doing a "Tech Analyst" which isn't that great since I'm not trained in coding or anything of the sort.
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Jul 3, 2013 17:47
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Dinurth posted:Do you have a job description of what you are looking for specifically? I personally love trolling through telemetry data and asking all sorts of questions and organizing it in interesting and sometimes weird ways in excel. I know a few people who share this passion with me. Not really, no. This is the first position that we're having to go outside of our personal networks to fill and, as such, we've never had to actually write up a description. Off-the-cuff though, we're a small team doing tablet/mobile F2P stuff. There are two of us right now who are "product" focused doing all of the design, product, metrics, etc work and we're still spending most of our time doing engineering. We're looking for a 3rd product person! One who can be responsible for a lot of the analytics work, who can focus on things like experimentation, pricing, growth, and so on. Since we're a startup, we're all wearing multiple hats daily so ideally, the person has some coding chops, isn't afraid of (No)SQL (or other databases) or R/Tableau/etc, and would happily own our metrics end to end (so I'm not stuck implementing keen.io calls, writing dashboards and reports). I'd be happy to talk more about it (and actually come up with a Real Job Description), but we're pretty fluid as to requirements and such. If someone was really keen on doing growth, acquisition, optimization, etc, we'd work with that. If someone was a really hardcore technical analyst, we'd work with that. We've basically got 2 positions to fill with 3 people's worth of jobs... Yay startups!
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Jul 3, 2013 18:12
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My buddy Jordan does all of that, and his title is "Player Experience Researcher" but I don't believe that's a common nomenclature.
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Jul 3, 2013 18:51
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On the topic of game jobs, as much as I love indie game studios they really make finding an art job a lot harder. There are quite a few in my area that even failed or have closed but they haven't taken down their site. On top of that, a lot of them are just 3-10 people who don't want any new employees. It's so annoying when they only have contact forms instead of an email address too arrrrgh.
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Jul 3, 2013 18:51
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Horrible Smutbeast posted:On the topic of game jobs, as much as I love indie game studios they really make finding an art job a lot harder. There are quite a few in my area that even failed or have closed but they haven't taken down their site. On top of that, a lot of them are just 3-10 people who don't want any new employees. It's so annoying when they only have contact forms instead of an email address too arrrrgh. Finding any art job can be difficult- especially if it's your first one; I don't think indie studios are particularly challenging, unless you're trying to go out of state. The chance that the art director looks at your portfolio, versus getting filtered through a general HR/Recruiting person first, when applying to a smaller studio is going to be a lot higher. The downside is that, because there often isn't a department exclusively dedicated to hiring talent, applying as an outsider can be un-obvious and word-of-mouth-y. Applying to AAA/console/huge studios is equally frustrating as your stuff's likely to get lost among hundreds of other applicants; at least having someone there to vouch for you as a human being can give you an enormous leg up. Do you have any connections to those local studios? Honestly, every single one of my jobs in this field have been because someone at the company recommended me; I have never successfully cold-called a place. I guess this is the one upside to being laid off so many times - connections from former jobs end up landing in interesting places.
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Jul 3, 2013 19:09
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Frown Town posted:Finding any art job can be difficult- especially if it's your first one; I don't think indie studios are particularly challenging, unless you're trying to go out of state. The chance that the art director looks at your portfolio, versus getting filtered through a general HR/Recruiting person first, when applying to a smaller studio is going to be a lot higher. The downside is that, because there often isn't a department exclusively dedicated to hiring talent, applying as an outsider can be un-obvious and word-of-mouth-y. Applying to AAA/console/huge studios is equally frustrating as your stuff's likely to get lost among hundreds of other applicants; at least having someone there to vouch for you as a human being can give you an enormous leg up. A lot of my connections are out of country unfortunately. If I moved to Britain or even Australia I have several people in some pretty big companies that could vouch for me but here in Ontario I don't have much to go on. I also prefer to do 2d work with limited animation and a tonne of my contacts are all in animation studio jobs. I'm in that awkward transitioning stage going from freelance in to studio work too, so that probably doesn't help much. The few companies I've contacted I've called and asked for the art director's email so I hopefully have a direct link to them instead of just being a random nobody. I've been doing trading card game art for a while as a freelancer but it's just a pain in the rear end if you don't get enough every month, or the client is super bitchy and the company can't pay you until you change the breast size of the character for them hahaha.
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Jul 3, 2013 19:21
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Yeah, I can second that. Every job I've had, it was in part because I knew somebody inside that could vouch for me.
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Jul 3, 2013 19:30
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devilmouse posted:Is it common for QA to be called "Game Analysts"? I'm trying to find an actual analyst (you know, someone who likes to ask interesting questions of volumes of data) on LinkedIn and keep running into all these people whose info reads like they're in QA. The title you're looking for is Business Analyst. If I'm understanding correctly what you're looking for. For example, this posting for Manager, Business Analytics at a bank had these requirements. If they look similar (just not game flavored), then that's what you're looking for. quote:The main responsibility of Manager Business Analytics is to provide high‐quality methodological design, data collection, and statistical analysis of USD 42 billion residential loan servicing portfolio. Basically they play with your data and develop obscene SQL queries to find out interesting things that make you better. Leif. fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Jul 3, 2013 |
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Jul 3, 2013 19:32
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Diplomaticus posted:The title you're looking for is Business Analyst. Paydirt! Thanks... Weirdly, all my consultant, ibanking, and hedge fund friends all just called them Analysts, so I'd been barking up the wrong tree.
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Jul 3, 2013 19:35
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Yay, glad that's what you're looking for.
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Jul 3, 2013 19:36
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Sion posted:If an enormous turnout that gives you 11 times your initial goals doesn't fund your project (in fact, it only funds half of it so, lets say the final price tag is 5-6 million), maybe there's not a sustainable market for product like this? Sounds kind of like when a person wins the lottery and irresponsibly squanders it not expecting to run out.
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Jul 3, 2013 22:26
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Yeah, what would have happened if they only made 100% of their target? Would we be in the same situation? I'm a backer of this one btw.
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Jul 3, 2013 22:33
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Monster w21 Faces posted:I'm going to be the one to say it. Tim Schafer isn't very well known for gameplay. I love psychonauts but there are some mechanics of that game that isnt' fun. I'm look at you Meat Circus. That and his hybrid it acts like an RTS but isn't one and is open world Brutal Legend was a bit all over the place. Thank god he really knows how to write though. I really think Tim is the only one to getaway with it because his stories are actually good. Still want Psychonauts 2. 
Shindragon fucked around with this message at 22:48 on Jul 3, 2013 |
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Jul 3, 2013 22:40
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dunkman posted:Yeah, what would have happened if they only made 100% of their target? Would we be in the same situation? I am as well, completely forget about it until I see a post about it on SA. 
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Jul 3, 2013 22:51
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That sort of thing is exactly why I'm so leery about video game kickstarters, I see the amount they're asking for and alarm bells start going off because it's an insanely low budget to do anything with. I've backed a handful of kickstarters, and they've all been physical item kickstarters, and most of them by people who already have businesses doing what they're kickstarting, so I trust them to be able to deliver.
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Jul 3, 2013 23:45
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mastermind2004 posted:That sort of thing is exactly why I'm so leery about video game kickstarters, I see the amount they're asking for and alarm bells start going off because it's an insanely low budget to do anything with. I've backed a handful of kickstarters, and they've all been physical item kickstarters, and most of them by people who already have businesses doing what they're kickstarting, so I trust them to be able to deliver. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Jul 4, 2013 |
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Jul 4, 2013 01:40
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Sion posted:If an enormous turnout that gives you 11 times your initial goals doesn't fund your project (in fact, it only funds half of it so, lets say the final price tag is 5-6 million), maybe there's not a sustainable market for product like this? I can absolutely guarantee you that the pre-Kickstarter plans for the project will bear only a superficial resemblance to the post-Kickstarter plans for the project.
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Jul 4, 2013 04:19
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Burn rates are easy to predict, but the speed of successful development is not that easy, even for experienced teams. The only thing different about Double Fine's Kickstarter project is the majority of backers are new to video game investment.
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Jul 4, 2013 08:36
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Sigma-X posted:My buddy Jordan does all of that, and his title is "Player Experience Researcher" but I don't believe that's a common nomenclature. Player Experience Researcher can cover telemetry related stuff, as Jordan's role does, but also includes people who moderate usability research sessions with players. I think "Research Analyst" is our internal term for people who look exclusively at data, pricing and market trends.
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Jul 4, 2013 10:09
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superh posted:In my job we don't usually have to deal with traditional QA teams, but we did just get this "observe" gem: Well, "observe" can also just mean "notice" 
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Jul 7, 2013 09:49
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Any 3d (mostly) environment artists in the midlands uk area we're hiring, let me know if you're interested. http://www.full-fat.com/
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Jul 7, 2013 21:20
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Maybe grats Frown Town on Hasbro buying 70% of Backflip? I hope you've got some sweet sweet stock action over there!
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Jul 8, 2013 21:40
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