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Employment chat is depressing because I know I would NEVER get this job (senior programmer) if I applied for it. I have only ever interviewed to be an intern.
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Feb 11, 2014 16:29
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But you now have experience as a senior programmer, thereby qualifying you for that same job. That's how anybody ever breaks in / moves up!
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Feb 11, 2014 17:41
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Well.. actually, I wonder about that. What's the read on how going indie affects hireability in the future? I'm not even remotely planning on it, but I sometimes wonder how employable I am at this point. Sure, I've got LEGO Universe on my resume, and 3 years as "senior graphics programmer," but then the most recent work would be "well I made a ton of quirky games in Unity." I feel like it would hurt my chances at a AAA gig, but be pretty valuable if I was applying to mobile studios or smaller (Runic-sized) studios? Hot Tin Roof isn't mobile, and it'll probably hit next-gen consoles at this point, but my gut says that a AAA studio would still scoff at that experience. Maybe I'm being overly critical, though? Anyways, seems like an issue a lot of people will be facing over the next few years. Jumping ship is very zeitgeist'y.
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Feb 11, 2014 18:26
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Shalinor posted:Well.. actually, I wonder about that. What's the read on how going indie affects hireability in the future? I'm not even remotely planning on it, but I sometimes wonder how employable I am at this point. Sure, I've got LEGO Universe on my resume, and 3 years as "senior graphics programmer," but then the most recent work would be "well I made a ton of quirky games in Unity." I know, at Blizzard and Obsidian (the places I've worked) at least, making cool poo poo on your own definitely doesn't hurt once you get to the interview stage. I know we've hired people who primarily worked on their own projects before. It's hard to know as someone outside HR what exactly gets past filters, and ultimately I think that's the biggest challenge at a large studio - they get a billion apps and making sure someone actually looks at yours is huge. I think the kind of AAA studio that scoffs at a good candidate because they are self-motivated enough to do their own project is the kind of place I wouldn't want to work.
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Feb 11, 2014 19:01
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Shalinor posted:Well.. actually, I wonder about that. What's the read on how going indie affects hireability in the future? I'm not even remotely planning on it, but I sometimes wonder how employable I am at this point. Sure, I've got LEGO Universe on my resume, and 3 years as "senior graphics programmer," but then the most recent work would be "well I made a ton of quirky games in Unity." Making quirky indie stuff on your own time is always a leg-up in my book. I guess the other question is, would you want to work at a studio where it was not?
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Feb 11, 2014 19:31
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http://steamdevdays.com/ Steam Dev Days conference videos are up. Some interesting stuff in there. I'm listening to In-Game economies in TF2/Dota2 for background noise while I art.
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Feb 11, 2014 19:50
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Frown Town posted:http://steamdevdays.com/ I know this is a bit rude to say but Bethesda really should study the poo poo out of this stuff instead of using the old model of game distribution. Awesome link.
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Feb 11, 2014 20:23
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Hmm. We're finding it really, really hard to find good programmers. Like, we've been advertising and looking for 6 months and not had a single decent candidate. Any experienced programmers here fancy a move into serious games? The pay is excellent, the atmosphere is very laid back, and job security is great. We're based in Coventry in the UK, if that makes a difference, and over the past year have poached a number of games people from nearby studios (sorry, nearby studios.) Anyone?
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Feb 11, 2014 20:58
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A Bloody Crowbar posted:Mobile guys who have developed and released something independently: how did it go? What was the process like? I'm trying to get some insight and weigh the numbers in preparation for my own venture. - Getting set up for iOS development is $99, and about a week of super obnoxious setup and form filling out and hair pulling. Just do it fast, like ripping off a bandaid, and you'll be fine. - Jones On Fire took 8 months to develop. - It made about $7k - It was a financial bomb, but opened a ton of doors thanks to being a critical success Right now, I can't recommend jumping into mobile as far as a "take the plunge and burn savings" route. It's stupid competitive, and 99% of the successes aren't organic, they come from traffic buying (or from established developers with lots of users already). Already-positioned mobile devs will probably argue with me, but if you look at the number of successes from developers with under 2 or 3 games released, it's... grim. Going publisher is a potential way around that, but then you're fighting the golden handcuff thing where you don't see much / any post-launch profits. It IS an alright market if you can do it as a nights and weekends thing, and can just keep releasing games until you hit a success. It's almost certainly better than Steam for that strategy, since it's way easier to make a fun and fast mobile game in the evenings than it is to make a "larger" Steam game. As Steam opens this up, this might change, but small games are pretty much the realm of mobile these days. Personally, I would focus on PC/Mac/Linux right now, thinking of mobile as a secondary market. That's what we're doing. There's too much money being thrown in mobile space right now for smaller developers that aren't already situated to stand much chance of breaking through. But I'm a full-time indie, and can't afford to play the nights-and-weekends mobile gamble. If I could, I might choose differently, who knows. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 11, 2014 22:53
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Shalinor posted:Well.. actually, I wonder about that. What's the read on how going indie affects hireability in the future? I'm not even remotely planning on it, but I sometimes wonder how employable I am at this point. Sure, I've got LEGO Universe on my resume, and 3 years as "senior graphics programmer," but then the most recent work would be "well I made a ton of quirky games in Unity." I think the general assumption here is that you're actively stagnating on those old resume items in favor of developing new skills. I'd assume that the overwhelming bulk of work you do now is not rendering based, but rather game design, creative direction, and gameplay programming. You're two years out of the graphics field, missed the jump to next gen and presumably aren't up to speed on much of that, etc. I think if you had a graphics / tech demo then you could easily "refresh" your credentials, but on your current path you're now two years behind. I'm in the same boat - My portfolio is years out of date at this point and honestly I don't have much (any) personal art to bridge the gap. I've got some unshown assets I could put in my portfolio from a cancelled project, and some half-finished projects I could push to completion, or I could jam on some new personal work and get back in the game...but as it stands, I wouldn't hire me for an art position, either. But I've replaced that with a lot of learning and growth in Production, and with those new development skills I'm marketable and applicable to other jobs. In a creative and evolving field you can't bank experience and save it for later - it atrophies every day you're not using it.
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Feb 11, 2014 23:45
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I worked 8 years as a game programmer then got burned out and left the video game industry altogether for four years. I decided to do video games again, applied to one of the two AAA studio still in existence where I live and they hired me almost without hesitation, even though myself I had doubts I'd even know how to work on a real project anymore after wasting four years in a tiny and horribly mismanaged medical software company. The fact some people I once worked with worked at that company and vouched for me helped a lot. But then again this industry is so small that I know people in literally every local game company. Also don't underestimate that AAA studios can't easily find experienced people, as they are either already working for them, working for other AAA studios, or have abandoned the game industry altogether.
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Feb 12, 2014 00:35
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I imagine the answer varies greatly with the position in question. Artists can get behind if they aren't really pushing personal projects, but it's straightforward (if not a lot of work) to refresh a portfolio. It's probably different for programmers or UI artists or what have you.
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Feb 12, 2014 01:28
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I feel like you'll always find work as a programmer in games. It seems like there's an overabundance of artists and an underwhelming amount of programmers. On the idea of being less marketable after going indie, i think that kind of depends. I feel like the majority of people getting hired in the past were doing mods, maps, etc. Now it's similar stuff except people are making smaller games, working on indie projects.
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Feb 12, 2014 05:49
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Shalinor I expect you'd have an extremely easy time getting interviews, but might struggle with the interviews themselves if you are looking at really specialized technical/graphics positions. You'd probably ace generalist/gameplay programmer positions no problem with a tiny bit of refresh on C++.Shalinor posted:Well.. actually, I wonder about that. What's the read on how going indie affects hireability in the future? I'm not even remotely planning on it, but I sometimes wonder how employable I am at this point. Sure, I've got LEGO Universe on my resume, and 3 years as "senior graphics programmer," but then the most recent work would be "well I made a ton of quirky games in Unity." Shorter Shalinor: Don't do mobile unless you're doing it with somebody else's money.
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Feb 12, 2014 06:02
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Yep, all seems reasonable. I suppose the LEGO Universe still "counts" as far as AAA experience goes, it's just the domain skills that no longer apply. So I could probably still land a AAA gig if I so chose, but now I'd be looking more at, like you say - gameplay programming, maybe a Lead role, Tech Producer, whatever. I've given up the rendering specialization, but gained way more gameplay/generalist skills, and a TON of skills more on the management/production side of things. Which is fine, really. Rendering has kind of dead-ended into sweat pores and slightly more accurate penumbras, so I'm not sure I'd want to be a AAA graphics programmer anymore anyways. Now the Tech Artists do what I used to love, but entirely within WYSIWYG shader mixing tools.  DancingMachine posted:Shorter Shalinor: Don't do mobile unless you're doing it with somebody else's money. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Feb 12, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 06:02
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le capitan posted:I feel like you'll always find work as a programmer in games. It seems like there's an overabundance of artists and an underwhelming amount of programmers. As a programmer, I've never struggled to find work, just to find good work.
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Feb 12, 2014 07:04
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Would you all say it's probably more worth it to attempt something on PC for that indie space instead? Like throwing something on greenlight or whatever when that time comes.
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Feb 12, 2014 08:30
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A Bloody Crowbar posted:Would you all say it's probably more worth it to attempt something on PC for that indie space instead? Like throwing something on greenlight or whatever when that time comes. Probably would be the easiest on pc since you have unity, several game engines, and greenlight.
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Feb 12, 2014 16:37
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Condolences to anyone that just got kicked out of Turbine. Rumor mill says it was a 20-30% layoff. EDIT: Sounds like it was mostly LOTR and DDO. Like, they cut their entire OPS department... you know, the guys that do all the deployment. For their entirely online games. 
Shalinor fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 23:41
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It was about 70 folks.
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Feb 13, 2014 00:07
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Shalinor posted:Condolences to anyone that just got kicked out of Turbine. Rumor mill says it was a 20-30% layoff. My buddy just started a co-op there, I hope he didn't get hit. 
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Feb 13, 2014 00:09
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Kabanaw posted:My buddy just started a co-op there, I hope he didn't get hit. Not good to lay off interns and co-ops. They're gone in a couple of months anyways, so why spend the 
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Feb 13, 2014 00:11
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Chasiubao posted:Not good to lay off interns and co-ops. They're gone in a couple of months anyways, so why spend the That's true, I just get worried about these things because another co-op from my school got tossed out when Zynga Boston got shut down.
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Feb 13, 2014 00:14
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If the company shuts down, then yeah, but otherwise it would be really very unusual to layoff interns. They're cheap and if you hire well, they're worth far more than they're paid and most of the time come with built-in end dates. I got to watch layoffs at both of my 2 internships, actually... An accurate introduction to the industry, I guess. 
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Feb 13, 2014 00:25
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It was a pretty brutal culling. They're really putting all their eggs in that one LoL basket. It's super sad watching what's become of a company I once loved and sweat blood for when there were only 30 people there total.
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Feb 13, 2014 02:03
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Shalinor posted:Condolences to anyone that just got kicked out of Turbine. Rumor mill says it was a 20-30% layoff. Surprising since everyone I knew in their Ops department left in the last 4 months. I figured I missed the layoff announcement already.
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Feb 13, 2014 03:20
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Well, on a brighter note, our game went live today. Any y'all with XBL Gold accounts can go ahead on and shoot some tanks. We peaked at around 61,000 concurrent users, and everything went very smoothly. As for a belated New Years recap, I've been with the company (and therefore the "industry") for about 5 months as an engineer on the Web Services team, and it's been a blast. Wargaming's technology stack is really impressive, and I'm learning a ton. My last job was with a soul-sucking corporate telecom giant, so it's a real pleasure to work with a smaller company that invests in its employees.
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Feb 13, 2014 03:49
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Chosen posted:Well, on a brighter note, our game went live today. Any y'all with XBL Gold accounts can go ahead on and shoot some tanks. We peaked at around 61,000 concurrent users, and everything went very smoothly. Congrats! That's super exciting, it's nice to hear some uplift amongst all this layoff business. Some of the guys I work with love the "world of" games.
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Feb 13, 2014 04:29
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Chosen posted:Well, on a brighter note, our game went live today. Any y'all with XBL Gold accounts can go ahead on and shoot some tanks. We peaked at around 61,000 concurrent users, and everything went very smoothly. EDIT: HOLY CRAP we made the cover of HYPER (big Australian gaming mag). Scans of full article are here. 
Shalinor fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Feb 15, 2014 |
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Feb 13, 2014 04:31
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So this just appeared in my Scottishgames feed today.  http://scottishgames.net/2014/02/17/artists-zapcoder-wants-you/
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Feb 18, 2014 15:41
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Holy ouch. Irrational is basically closing down. http://www.irrationalgames.com/
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Feb 18, 2014 18:45
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Am I the only one who thinks this a little selfish of Levine? I mean it's one thing for Muzyka to step down so he can drink beer or whatever, but shut down the company as well?
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Feb 18, 2014 18:51
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I can't wrap my head around why Levine would do this, unless Bioshock Infinite was secretly a huge failure. If you want to "refocus my energy on a smaller team with a flatter structure and a more direct relationship with gamers", why not split into two teams at Irrational, taking control of the smaller one and letting someone else handle the larger team? This is the last studio I would have expected this from. It's super lovely. I had a phone interview with Irrational about three years ago; kinda glad it didn't go any further than that.
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Feb 18, 2014 18:57
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Infinite was wildly late and over budget. This is probably not Levine's selfish decision so much as Take-2 having no confidence in Irrational's ability to produce a new title.
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Feb 18, 2014 19:00
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devilmouse posted:Holy ouch. Irrational is basically closing down. gently caress, that's a huge bummer. I'm particularly sad to see Boston and other East Coast studios hit by closures/big layoffs
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Feb 18, 2014 19:13
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SUPER HASSLER posted:Am I the only one who thinks this a little selfish of Levine? I mean it's one thing for Muzyka to step down so he can drink beer or whatever, but shut down the company as well? If you read that and thought Levine intended to say "We have plenty of money and I just want to fire a lot of people and close a studio" rather than "we can't admit to this being a huge financial failure and our studio is in turmoil" then I guess you haven't read enough of these things. Given the long delays and amount of high profile lead turnover during the development of Infinite, and the long delays between DLCs, it seems like Take Two lost all faith in the studio's ability to deliver a real project, but wanted to keep some of the leadership around.
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Feb 18, 2014 19:14
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Frown Town posted:gently caress, that's a huge bummer. I'm particularly sad to see Boston and other East Coast studios hit by closures/big layoffs Between Harmonix, Turbine, and now Irrational, in the past 2 months, Boston has basically shed 2/3rds of its AAA workers. It's a pretty sad time.
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Feb 18, 2014 19:15
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Paniolo posted:Infinite was wildly late and over budget. This is probably not Levine's selfish decision so much as Take-2 having no confidence in Irrational's ability to produce a new title. I was going to post that it seems really unlikely that Bioshock Infinite could have been that big of a failure, since it was so critically acclaimed and it at least seemed like everyone was playing it, but apparently it "only" sold about 4 million copies across all platforms (compared with The Last of Us, which sold 4.1 million on it's lone platform). With how much it costs to make a AAA title these days, I could see how it might not have done much more than break even.
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Feb 18, 2014 19:19
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TorpedoBeetle posted:I was going to post that it seems really unlikely that Bioshock Infinite could have been that big of a failure, since it was so critically acclaimed and it at least seemed like everyone was playing it, but apparently it "only" sold about 4 million copies across all platforms (compared with The Last of Us, which sold 4.1 million on it's lone platform). With how much it costs to make a AAA title these days, I could see how it might not have done much more than break even. For a game that has probably been in the works in some capacity since 2007-early 2008? Yeah, that's a problem. I was genuinely shocked at the level of press Infinite got. I'm not saying it got NONE, but it faded from public consciousness a lot faster than Bioshock did.
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Feb 18, 2014 19:28
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Sigma-X posted:Given the long delays and amount of high profile lead turnover during the development of Infinite, and the long delays between DLCs, it seems like Take Two lost all faith in the studio's ability to deliver a real project, but wanted to keep some of the leadership around. That makes more sense. I think I'm just bitter at how it seems like even the best devs can expect at most to be at one gig for around 2-3 years now, regardless of personal ability or contribution. I'm probably old enough now that it seems like too much stress for the effort, particularly in AAA. I started in localization a decade or so ago almost 100% in the field of games and now it's more like half games, half stuff that's really boring, but pays the bills a hell of a lot better and is predictably stable.
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Feb 18, 2014 19:47
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