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Sigma-X posted:You've raised these concerns with them and have already gone through the negotiation process and they've been unwilling to budge further? Bwahahhahahaha, Ubisoft? Negotiate?
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Dec 29, 2014 01:12
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I'm going to be applying to places and interviewing starting in January, and I'd like any feedback or suggestions on my CV & portfolio that anyone can give. The last time I had to polish it I didn't have as much experience under my belt, so I'm hoping I've formatted them fairly well. My CV is here and the portfolio is here (for which I am eternally indebted to a friend for doing the page design). They each link to the other. I've tried to keep the CV short and to the point, with the relevant experience and skills and contained on one side of A4. The portfolio goes into a bit more detail on what I've done and the key skills I learned from each project, etc. I think this is a good balance of "CV that people will see and skim, the portfolio is there if they want more details/explanation" since I'm not an artist and the portfolio isn't as critical, does that seem reasonable? The portfolio does get quite long, even though there's only a few paragraphs on each item. I'm tempted to merge everything from before I started at Crytek into a single compressed section. I've also put my personal project RenderDoc up first in both, above my shipped titles, since I feel like it's a significant feather in my cap to try and sell myself on. It's also easy to point to and describe since everything in there is my own work. For anyone outside of Crytek it's a bit harder to illustrate exactly what I contributed on other projects since it was mostly invisible behind-the-scenes engine stuff. If that sounds like a bad idea though let me know, and I can rearrange it to focus on the shipped titles.
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Dec 29, 2014 01:57
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Eschatos posted:Hey srs devs, what do you think of FIEA? I just finished my undergraduate degree, and at a party last night my old roommate's father(who works as faculty at FIEA) tried to persuade me to apply. I've heard all the horror stories about degrees in game development, but they seem to have a great game industry placement rate for graduates, and this guy has some serious experience. I'm mostly concerned about the cost, $33,000 for in-state, but also whether or not a degree would be a serious ticket into the games industry. Go to a state university and do internships.
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Dec 29, 2014 06:58
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Eschatos posted:Hey srs devs, what do you think of FIEA? I just finished my undergraduate degree, and at a party last night my old roommate's father(who works as faculty at FIEA) tried to persuade me to apply. I've heard all the horror stories about degrees in game development, but they seem to have a great game industry placement rate for graduates, and this guy has some serious experience. I'm mostly concerned about the cost, $33,000 for in-state, but also whether or not a degree would be a serious ticket into the games industry. A degree isn't a ticket anywhere, and industry placement rate is universally bullshit. I would never recommend a game-focused education, because the more well-rounded you are the better developer you will become... and I paid for one of those game degrees. I still feel like spending time in QA is equally responsible for being good at my job, and I probably would have done just as well if I had taken better programming classes in college the first time. I wouldn't have listened to me in my position, and perhaps it ultimately did work out, but under 8% of the people who started with me still have jobs in the industry now, and more than 75% never worked a non-QA job. Or to put it another way, if you have it, you don't need a game degree, and if you don't have it, a game degree won't get you in.
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Dec 29, 2014 08:00
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Eschatos posted:Hey srs devs, what do you think of FIEA? I just finished my undergraduate degree, and at a party last night my old roommate's father(who works as faculty at FIEA) tried to persuade me to apply. I've heard all the horror stories about degrees in game development, but they seem to have a great game industry placement rate for graduates, and this guy has some serious experience. I'm mostly concerned about the cost, $33,000 for in-state, but also whether or not a degree would be a serious ticket into the games industry. Speaking as someone who's currently attending a 'Gaming School', 'Gaming Schools' are invariably poo poo and it's in your best interest to avoid them at all costs.
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Dec 29, 2014 08:26
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No program is going to give you a checklist titled "Do This, Receive Job". Not a state school, not a game school, not an art school. Using the resources you have available wherever you go to school to work hard and smart in order to produce good work and a lot of it while getting to know as many people as possible in real life as well as online will get you jobs.
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Dec 29, 2014 08:33
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Eschatos posted:Hey srs devs, what do you think of FIEA? I just finished my undergraduate degree, and at a party last night my old roommate's father(who works as faculty at FIEA) tried to persuade me to apply. I've heard all the horror stories about degrees in game development, but they seem to have a great game industry placement rate for graduates, and this guy has some serious experience. I'm mostly concerned about the cost, $33,000 for in-state, but also whether or not a degree would be a serious ticket into the games industry. What is your current degree in? I'd try real hard to leverage that. If that doesnt work, I'd do a 2nd undergrad in computer science at a state school and take an internship at a place like EA and then go from there. It's pretty easy to get an internship (maybe not at EA, but overall). The thing about placement rates is that even if 6 months later you're working at gamestop they'll count it as being placed successfully so you can't believe that. I've worked with FIEA grads and they're not incompetent or anything, but regardless of the school it's just bad value to get a game degree in general. baldurk posted:I'm going to be applying to places and interviewing starting in January, and I'd like any feedback or suggestions on my CV & portfolio that anyone can give. The last time I had to polish it I didn't have as much experience under my belt, so I'm hoping I've formatted them fairly well. This looks pretty darn solid to me. - I guess if you can, throw in some stats for RenderDoc? I'm not a programmer so I don't know how popular it is and neither would HR. - "Ability to work well with Art/Tech Art in support and development of rendering. / Quickly able to understand and work with new systems and technologies." I just hate these type of sentences. I'd rather see you throw in something like attending scrums or reviewing design docs or writing test plans. Even if its stuff you barely do, at least its stuff and not fluff. Or depending on the job description, change this line to be something that fits it. - I don't see any education on here. If you're self taught your skills and titles will be enough anyway, but if you have any sort of degree put it on there too. Bicuspid fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2014 14:07
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I want to point something interesting out about times changing.. as competitive games like LoL are becoming more mainstream, people who just play games are getting more opportunities to get into the industry. I know a friend who was just really good at LoL with some prior experience at microsoft(nothing related to game design) that got a game designer job at Riot games.
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Dec 29, 2014 14:12
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Is it better to specialize or to have a broad skillset? I'm working on a CS degree now, and I'm pretty sure I want to be a programmer. But I'm also interested in writing and design. Is there such a thing as a programmer who also does that? Would I be better off using my electives to study writing or more CS (though some of the hours have to be non-CS - if I decide to go with pure programming, what would be the most useful field for those)? And within CS, are my chances of getting a job better if I specialize or not?
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Dec 29, 2014 18:16
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Akumos posted:I want to point something interesting out about times changing.. as competitive games like LoL are becoming more mainstream, people who just play games are getting more opportunities to get into the industry. I know a friend who was just really good at LoL with some prior experience at microsoft(nothing related to game design) that got a game designer job at Riot games. It's hardly a reliable trend though. Even if the whole industry shifted across to producing things with a lifespan of stuff like LoL or TF2, just being a big gamer isn't going to suddenly become a rainbow road to being a junior designer.
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Dec 29, 2014 18:26
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Specialize for big AAA teams, generalist for smaller teams. You probably won't be very specialized after graduating, that'll come over time.
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Dec 29, 2014 18:26
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Bicuspid posted:This looks pretty darn solid to me. Thanks for looking over it. I'm glad it's mostly pretty solid. I'll look at finding some kind of stats or specific information for RenderDoc to add as another bullet, the issue is that I don't collect any usage statistics for privacy reasons and I wouldn't feel comfortable name-dropping studios that I know use it or anything like that (especially if I might be applying to some of them!). I might be able to find something though. I will also try and put on my education, I squeezed it out partly for space and partly because it's not really relevant anymore, but maybe it's worth including still. I see what you mean about those generic-ish sentences. I'll try to rephrase them to be more concrete since it is a bit 'fluffy'. The thing is that is pretty much the kind of thing I do, and I don't know if I'd want to completely replace them with something I barely do just for the sake of being more concrete.
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Dec 29, 2014 19:54
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baldurk posted:I'll look at finding some kind of stats or specific information for RenderDoc to add as another bullet, the issue is that I don't collect any usage statistics for privacy reasons and I wouldn't feel comfortable name-dropping studios that I know use it or anything like that (especially if I might be applying to some of them!). I might be able to find something though. I will also try and put on my education, I squeezed it out partly for space and partly because it's not really relevant anymore, but maybe it's worth including still. For what it's worth, I recognize it and any studio that runs their CVs past rendering programmers most likely also will.
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Dec 29, 2014 20:26
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That was my hope certainly, yes  . But it's a fair point from Bicuspid that if HR are screening the CV first before it gets to any tech programmers, then it won't necessarily mean anything just on name/description alone.
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Dec 29, 2014 20:30
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Sam. posted:Is it better to specialize or to have a broad skillset? I know a studio in MD (Firaxis) whose designers typically also need to program because they need to prototype their ideas. At my studio in CO, it's helpful if designers can also program for the same reason (not mandatory though). Prototype teams in huge studios and smaller indie/mobile/social studios benefit from designer/programmer hybrids, if you want to pursue that route. Personally, I'd go for writing electives and do the extra CS stuff on the side - writing is just a solid skill to have, in general, even if it just means you can write coherent/eloquent/persuasive emails and specs. Caveat is that I'm an artist-- but being able to write a good cover letter, communicate with outsourcers, send hilarious emails to off-topic, pitch game ideas... all really important for getting jobs and excelling at them. I have read some pitch documents that were great ideas, when presented to me verbally, but didn't gain traction because they were also exceptionally poorly written (to the point of being incoherent). It kind of makes me sad, but that's a rant for later. Jan posted:Specialize for big AAA teams, generalist for smaller teams. You probably won't be very specialized after graduating, that'll come over time. This is true. But if you're not entirely sure where you'll end up post-graduation, specializing in one or two things while being pretty decent in other areas is a solid strategy. I can't speak to the specifics within programming (I've heard that graphics, AI, systems, back end, tools are things but not sure if there are more categories), but if you're a well-rounded specialist, you'll do OK, esp if you have to start in another industry entirely. The market is changing a lot because new platforms (social, mobile, etc) and ways to sell games (Steam, iTunes, etc, vs big box retailers) have emerged. When I was graduating, everyone told me to specialize, because AAA/Console/PC and large teams was all that existed in my area at the time. And then social and mobile sprung up seemingly overnight, and let me use a much broader skillset because I was on much smaller teams -- I had to implement my own art, for instance, which meant digging into XML and operating with as little programmer support as possible. And then those teams grew, and I started leaning more on my specialist role(s) for the sake of efficiency. The moral of the story is be prepared for change. Frown Town fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Dec 29, 2014 |
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Dec 29, 2014 22:25
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Frown Town posted:This is true. But if you're not entirely sure where you'll end up post-graduation, specializing in one or two things while being pretty decent in other areas is a solid strategy. I can't speak to the specifics within programming (I've heard that graphics, AI, systems, back end, tools are things but not sure if there are more categories), but if you're a well-rounded specialist, you'll do OK, esp if you have to start in another industry entirely. As an artist, in school I resisted the pressure to specialize because it rang more like pigeonholing to my ears, but it is very true that larger companies aren't going to hire someone who only has "Artist" at the top of their resume. I ended up focusing a lot on environment art, but wherever possible I tried to integrate as many other departments as I could. Characters in the form of statues for example. There's a LOT of overlap in games so you can find ways to kind of ride the line between specialization and being well rounded. Just design your portfolio projects around it and go the extra mile to force yourself to dabble in other areas in order to make the project even more polished.
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Dec 29, 2014 22:50
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Sam. posted:I'm working on a CS degree now, and I'm pretty sure I want to be a programmer. But I'm also interested in writing and design. Is there such a thing as a programmer who also does that? That is what I do (and I work at a large AAA studio.) I am firmly within the engineering org chart but do a significant amount of design work, generally working closely with designers to help them evolve their ideas into something that fits our tech. While it is true that large studios will rarely have dedicated generalist positions, it's an incredibly valuable skillset. Focus your education primarily on programming (it's easier to break into the industry, and more lucrative, from the engineering side) and develop your design skills on your own time.
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Dec 30, 2014 03:06
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Hi baldur, didn't realize you were a goon. A pleasant surprise. In your portfolio you have a typo: user-focussed should be user-focused. Also I'm not sure I agree with the decision to separate the highlights and details the way you did. The details are brief enough to be highlights themselves and separating them along that odd diagonal makes for an awkward page layout. I would suggest to eliminate one or the other and focus on your message. Specifically in response to the positioning of RenderDoc, my eye scanned right past it to the words I knew better - Crysis and Crytek. I'm even familiar with RenderDoc and a hiring manager probably wouldn't be, so maybe Crytek is the bigger eye catcher. That's not a suggestion, it's just some information for you to assimilate
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Dec 30, 2014 17:51
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The weekend after New Years: the worst time for moving to a different state.
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Dec 30, 2014 20:44
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Thanks for all the advice! What's the best way to build up my resume over the summer? It seems like gaming doesn't have internships as much as other fields (at my school's CS job fair there were hundreds of companies and only one game studio). Should I get a software internship (any particular field?), work on mods and stuff (which is what I've been doing so far, but a little extra money would be nice), or am I just not looking hard enough for game internships?
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Dec 30, 2014 22:53
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Sam. posted:Thanks for all the advice! I'd look at a moving out of state temporarily for an internship. Maybe look for an 6+ month one too if your school can fit that. Unless you work in city that is a hub for games, moving is something you need to think about if you really want to have a good chance at getting into the industry. mutata posted:The weekend after New Years: the worst time for moving to a different state. And on that note I'm moving countries to San Fran in 2 weeks. If anyone can recommend neighborhoods to look at or avoid near downtown SF that would be sweet. I can swing 2500 rent max for a 1 bedroom, but I'd prefer to keep it to 2000 or below (might not be realistic for DT SF I guess).
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Dec 31, 2014 00:02
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Sam. posted:Thanks for all the advice! I can't really speak for your school, but if it's anything like mine the lack of game studios is because there's not a ton of relationships between the games industry and universities yet, unlike the much more established tech industry. My school's CS job database has 450 listings, and maybe a dozen of them have anything to do with games. If you really want a game internship and can't find any postings for one, message some game studios in your area about hiring you even if they're not advertising. Amazingly it does sometimes work, it landed me a co-op I start on Monday.
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Dec 31, 2014 03:31
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Kabanaw posted:I can't really speak for your school, but if it's anything like mine the lack of game studios is because there's not a ton of relationships between the games industry and universities yet, unlike the much more established tech industry. My school's CS job database has 450 listings, and maybe a dozen of them have anything to do with games. If you really want a game internship and can't find any postings for one, message some game studios in your area about hiring you even if they're not advertising. Amazingly it does sometimes work, it landed me a co-op I start on Monday. Oh this is such a good point. My university likewise never bothered to develop relations with the game studios in my city and being a naive kid at the time I saw the universe of possible intern jobs as only what was on our intern website. So I ended up interning for IBM in as a Java developer, which is completely the opposite direction of where you want to go as a game dev and cost me three years to correct (try applying to game companies with Java dev exp ... it's almost literally worth nothing to them). You should totally go to studios websites/recruiter linkedins and see if they're offering internships.
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Dec 31, 2014 04:08
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I'm in Austin. What good studios are there in that area?
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Dec 31, 2014 05:17
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Sam. posted:I'm in Austin. What good studios are there in that area? GameDevMap is your friend. http://www.gamedevmap.com/index.php?tool=location&query=Austin
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Dec 31, 2014 05:25
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Vino posted:Hi baldur, didn't realize you were a goon. A pleasant surprise. Hey, yeh I've been on the forums for a while now. I'll see if I can rewrite some of the highlights/details parts. I think there is a value in allowing a hiring manager to skim and see bullet points of what I learned or accomplished on each project without having to read technical details about precisely what I implemented, at least that's what I was aiming for. Maybe the balance is a bit out of whack if the details sections still read quite brief. I can understand that RenderDoc isn't going to get the instant reaction that Crysis/Crytek/Cryengine will - in a way that's why I put it up top because otherwise it will definitely get ignored if I put it elsewhere. I still think that even if I have to sell or explain its existence, it's worthwhile since it's a good way to be a recognizable candidate distinct from others. I definitely appreciate that it's a tradeoff though. Oh and focussed is just a british spelling variant . Thank you though! More opinions are always useful.
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Dec 31, 2014 13:18
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Hey Baldurk, we've been hiring a lot of Crytek people here at CDP Red and we've currently got an opening for a graphics programmer. fyi
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Dec 31, 2014 14:31
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Sam. posted:Thanks for all the advice! Game companies don't need to advertise their internships to fill them. Also, consider that 1/100 of the companies being games isn't weird, because less than 1/100 of existing companies are game companies. theflyingorc fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Dec 31, 2014 |
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Dec 31, 2014 16:40
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edit: nvm. I'm dumb and found what I was looking for.
rizuhbull fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 07:17
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Happy New Years, Professional Nerds!
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Jan 1, 2015 19:28
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Mega Shark posted:Happy New Years, Professional Nerds! Thanks, nerd.
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Jan 1, 2015 22:25
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Taking up some gamemaker study in my spare time. Gonna make me some games! As an artist with an aversion to code, this may be tricky. Also no idea if/how it's going to reflect on my resume/job prospects later on, but it's probably the first bit of post-uni games-related content I've done in my spare time not related to old FOLIO. GeeCee fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 22:26
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Anyone got any advice on contacting and getting in touch with game industry people online? Every article talks about networking being key, but it's all focused on actually meeting people and going to events and such. If that's not an option, what are the possible avenues online? Most developers don't really keep much of an online presence, since social networks are kinda impersonal, and it's extra hard to not look like just another fanboy.
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Jan 2, 2015 01:23
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It is much harder now than it used to be, a certain movement or whatever you'd like to call it has had a side effect of making a lot of devs and people in the industry totally lock down their social media accounts and not really talk to their fans anymore or just people wanting to talk about the industry with specifics because of the whole phising and stalking things that have happened. It sucks but there you go. Good luck!
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Jan 2, 2015 01:30
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SupSuper posted:Anyone got any advice on contacting and getting in touch with game industry people online? Indies are all over Twitter, so get going there if that's your goal. That kind of networking will (eventually) get you contracting gigs on indie/mobile/smaller projects, but it isn't great for landing AAA gigs. Though experience of any kind (indie/mobile included) on your resume is probably a requirement before you could land a AAA gig at whatever studio you have your heart set on. Like it or not, the kind of networking that lands you AAA gigs tends to be in-person. You kinda need to be in a hub, and find the local beer night, and go to it. Every hub has one - including Denver, tiny as it is. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 01:51
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SupSuper posted:Anyone got any advice on contacting and getting in touch with game industry people online? Where are you located roughly? What are you looking to do?
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Jan 2, 2015 05:27
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If you're an artist and you want to network you should make Polycount's forums your homepage and post your work. Real-talk.
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Jan 2, 2015 05:27
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I'm honestly not sure networking of any kind helps for getting in to AAA. Once you're in? Yeah, it helps a lot for being able to move around and up. But being one of a dozen resume/portfolio clutching kids trying to chat people up at the local beer night is unlikely to get you closer to a job.
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Jan 2, 2015 05:40
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Networking totally helps, I got a lot of freelance and job referrals from networking (pretty much 80% online) and yeah while it may not be a guaranteed way to break in, it's at least a way for you to make a name for yourself and get people talking about your stuff if you're good enough for a AAA position. If you're a student with a portfolio first thing you should focus on is making sure it doesn't look like a student portfolio. Make a portfolio that's better than your fellow students and potentially better than some experienced artist's portfolios. It's not that difficult if you're willing to put the work in. We hired a 19 year old artist pretty much fresh out of high school recently because his work was just as good if not better than some of our internal artists and he proved he's not an immature doofus during the interview process. ceebee fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 05:49
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The thing I've learned about "networking" from first being a student who aspired to be employed and later from being employed is that a lot of people (students and beginners especially) think of it as a one way thing. They're expecting to show up at GDC or a beer night, say a couple of code words, and then they get a spot at the club table where the brass rogue with the heart of gold monologues to them about everyone else's nicknames and past legendary feats. Making industry friends has to be a 2-way, mutually beneficial conversation, and it helps if you're a genuinely likeable person. In order to network as a newbie you usually need an admission ticket: a great portfolio or a new game you've made or SOMETHING beyond just a body and a mouth. There needs to be a reason for vets to talk to you because they want to "network" (aka talk to cool people with whom they would like to make fun games) too and that means producing something first. In my opinion, that is. At the VERY LEAST, get someone who HAS produced something to vouch to others for you.
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Jan 2, 2015 07:01
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