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Stick100 posted:I don't know about other industries but asking for triple the employee rate seems a bit crazy, but great if you could get it. (yeah, that's about what I ask, and it's what I made for a year, and it's how I funded our current project... except what I asked had a contracting company's fee stacked on top, which I think worked out to $30/hr, so, yeeeaaaah poo poo gets crazy) EDIT: One of my friends, for instance, was making nearly $300/hr from Amazon. The work I was making silly-money on actually came from him - they found him to get a referral to me - and he would have passed on it regardless because it was under $200/hr. "Oh I can get $200/hr a work forever, so this...". Mind you, he's incredibly competent, and I can't imagine I'd ever command THAT high a wage, but point is, they really do go stupid high, and it isn't that unusual for programmers to make that kind of silly money right now. EDIT: All this being said, remember, these are NON-GAMES RATES. You won't get that kind of stupid-money in a games gig. This is for anyone contracting in non-games. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 06:42 on May 5, 2017 |
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May 5, 2017 02:36
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Also remember that there *are* other contractors out there asking for that much money, and asking for less doesn't mean companies will think you're a better value, they'll think you're not as good. I work with a programmer who spent some time freelancing when he was less experienced, and tried getting work by undercutting the competition. He couldn't ever get decent term contracts and had trouble filling his month. When he raised his rates out of desperation, he started getting more and better offers because he was now charging what average programmers charged. It's like lawyers. There are the ones who charge $1000/hr and the ones who charge $200/hr. If you absolutely want the best chance to win your case, you're going to look at the ones who charge the most, because if the cheap ones could get more, they would be charging more, right?
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May 5, 2017 06:11
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It depends more on the type of freelancing jobs you're doing than anything else. Like most finance related things it comes down to predictability. If you're basically a 1099 "full-time freelancer" meaning you're guaranteed 40 hours a week and you're working on a long term project 6+ months, you should basically be charging 50%-75% EDIT:more than a normal employee. This is basically the least you'll be making as a freelancer on the hour since your income is as predictable as a salaried position with the biggest downside of lacking job stability (especially in larger companies where finance may decide to randomly close their contractor budget and your position gets closed despite having key knowledge and literally no one you're working with wanting you to leave, not that I am salty about this or anything). On the other hand if you're taking on small time jobs like to build one-shot apps or what not $300/hr is completely reasonable since you're ultimately going to get like maybe a week's worth of billable hours out of the project at most, and now you're stuck searching for more work which may or may not come, and may or may not be enough before your monthly bills show up. I typically avoided middle of the road-projects that may be a few months long because people are only typically willing pay as a long-term contractor position, but the projects themselves don't last long enough where the commitment allows you to save the money effectively. So I don't have many thoughts that. That being said, this is all out-side of the game industry. I'd imagine the only time a contractor would see those numbers here is they're brought on as a specialist or if a company is slipping the release date really hard and decides to throw money at the problem. SweetBro fucked around with this message at 10:16 on May 6, 2017 |
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May 6, 2017 00:33
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SweetBro posted:If you're basically a 1099 "full-time freelancer" meaning you're guaranteed 40 hours a week and you're working on a long term project 6+ months, you should basically be charging 50%-75% than a normal employee.
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May 6, 2017 08:39
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You're right, fixed.
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May 6, 2017 10:16
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I had this idea that I could do a development vlog as I work on poo poo and put it on my game's youtube page. Right now I'm doing zero social media but it is something that I want to get comfortable with. My question is.. would it be a mistake to do that? To show a bunch of development details and processes on a game that will probably in development for another year.
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May 9, 2017 01:14
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baby puzzle posted:My question is.. would it be a mistake to do that? To show a bunch of development details and processes on a game that will probably in development for another year.
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May 9, 2017 01:25
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baby puzzle posted:I had this idea that I could do a development vlog as I work on poo poo and put it on my game's youtube page. Right now I'm doing zero social media but it is something that I want to get comfortable with. You can even live stream development if you want. I do a little bit of it, William Chyr of Manifold Garden streams development every day. If you do that and live stream to Youtube (I suggest using restream.io to stream to both Twitch and Youtube at the same time) you automatically get very nice archives in your Youtube channel.
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May 9, 2017 04:00
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devilmouse posted:Lazy mode: Your desired salary / 1080 * 1.5 will give you a good hourly rate for freelance. Lol they offered me $25/hr. To move, with no relo, on a six month contract. Thanks I'll keep my salaried six figgie job I'm only mostly content with. I wouldn't have taken that straight out of school, let alone where I'm at now. Is this normal behavior for a AAA studio?
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May 18, 2017 19:49
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leper khan posted:I wouldn't have taken that straight out of school, let alone where I'm at now. Is this normal behavior for a AAA studio? Is it an Activision studio? If so, add one to your sample size. 
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May 18, 2017 20:22
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Jan posted:Is it an Activision studio? If so, add one to your sample size. Zenimax
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May 18, 2017 20:26
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leper khan posted:Lol they offered me $25/hr. To move, with no relo, on a six month contract. I don't know, man. $4 300 a month isn't that bad. I wish I could make that. Maybe I just live in poorer areas, though. Love Stole the Day fucked around with this message at 21:31 on May 18, 2017 |
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May 18, 2017 21:28
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It might be good for a fresh grad who was already local, but it's pretty bad for a six month contract that would involve moving (without assistance) an employee who currently makes six figures. Like, really insultingly bad.
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May 18, 2017 21:36
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Starting at Motiga on Monday to work on Gigantic! Super excited, will be joining up as a Senior Character Artist  Can't wait to work with the team and help Gigantic grow as much as I can as an artist.
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May 19, 2017 01:43
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Wow, leper khan, that story sounds pretty familiar. And in my case it WAS Activision :P
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May 19, 2017 02:18
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Wasn't yours in the bay area too?
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May 19, 2017 02:36
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mutata posted:Wasn't yours in the bay area too? yuuuuuuup
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May 19, 2017 03:26
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My game now has some programmer art. I paid for some concept artwork but all of this is done by my hand. Obviously a bunch of it is rough, but hopefully it will get better over time. This is more development of the "tutorial" level which I think I posted in the game dev thread. Obviously nothing is done yet but I hope I'm going in the right direction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FK0AhfK8B-w
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May 19, 2017 04:18
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ceebee posted:Starting at Motiga on Monday to work on Gigantic! Super excited, will be joining up as a Senior Character Artist Good luck! Gigantic looks great, but yeesh Motiga has been having trouble for a while now.
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May 19, 2017 04:38
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Motiga definitely has had some rough patches but I know what I'm getting into, have friends who are there now and some who have left. For me it's an awesome new opportunity to work on a game I think is super awesome looking with artists that I admire. It is a whole lot better than other opportunities I was getting offered, including one I was able to get out of that I didn't enjoy at all. It's a risk, but it's one I'm totally willing to take if I get to make fun art or work with good people.
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May 19, 2017 06:11
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ceebee posted:Starting at Motiga on Monday to work on Gigantic! Super excited, will be joining up as a Senior Character Artist
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May 19, 2017 15:42
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leper khan posted:Zenimax ...oh  I guess now would be an awkward time to mention that I'm going on my one month mark at Bethesda Game Studios Montreal? I hope they're not where the contract was. Anyway, it's a very unexciting story involving burnout and fundamental disagreements. It turns out that when you care too much about a project and yet disagree fundamentally with its direction, the better and healthier thing to do is to just walk away.
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May 21, 2017 03:21
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Jan posted:...oh Nah, I haven't put in to any non-us places. If i keep getting low balled that hard I'll probably need to at some point though.
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May 22, 2017 06:30
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Hey people! So good news. Currently I have a whole lot more free time on my hands, which means I can now partake in game development. That being the case, anyone have any leads on any companies needing QA work in the L.A. area?
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May 23, 2017 03:32
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Mr Interweb posted:Hey people! Sony Santa Monica is staffing up pretty heavily right now http://sms.playstation.com/careers/132/hiring-qa-test-analyst/
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May 23, 2017 08:22
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eshock posted:Sony Santa Monica is staffing up pretty heavily right now http://sms.playstation.com/careers/132/hiring-qa-test-analyst/ Haha, of all the places that happen to be hiring, it had to be that one...
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May 23, 2017 20:08
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Last week was a real milestone for me. For the first time ever, I was actually paid money for making videogames in Unreal (much less for doing computer programming stuff). I never thought the day would come! I am now officially good enough with Unreal to have a real job doing it. Does that mean I'm a professional now and not just an amateur/hobbyist anymore? Love Stole the Day fucked around with this message at 09:34 on May 31, 2017 |
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May 31, 2017 09:27
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Mr Interweb posted:Haha, of all the places that happen to be hiring, it had to be that one... I did a speedrun thing there a couple years ago and Sony SM seemed like a pretty chill place. I can safely say that they have no plastic bottles (if they haven't changed buildings). The most important info.
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May 31, 2017 10:06
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Passed my three month probationary period at work last week! Shuffling polygons around for money is kinda nice.
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May 31, 2017 10:14
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Love Stole the Day posted:Last week was a real milestone for me. For the first time ever, I was actually paid money for making videogames in Unreal (much less for doing computer programming stuff). I never thought the day would come! Yes you are literally a professional game developer.
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May 31, 2017 11:45
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The time has come for you to learn our secret handshake.
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May 31, 2017 15:13
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Chernabog posted:The time has come for you to learn our secret handshake. I thought that was just a reminder to keep 20lb bags of rice and beans on hand in case the job goes up in smoke.
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May 31, 2017 15:25
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leper khan posted:I thought that was just a reminder to keep 20lb bags of rice and beans on hand in case the job goes up in smoke. Common mistake
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May 31, 2017 16:09
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leper khan posted:I thought that was just a reminder to keep 20lb bags of rice and beans on hand in case the job goes up in smoke. The beans... well, drunk you will think the gas is funny, so it works out. EDIT: VV leper khan posted:Lol if you have enough money for an alcohol habit. Shalinor fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jun 3, 2017 |
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Jun 2, 2017 07:27
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Shalinor posted:Also, you can turn the rice into booze, to keep up with the alcohol habit you will soon develop as a dev. Lol if you have enough money for an alcohol habit. 
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Jun 2, 2017 12:51
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Studio posted:I did a speedrun thing there a couple years ago and Sony SM seemed like a pretty chill place. I can safely say that they have no plastic bottles (if they haven't changed buildings). The most important info. Oh the studio itself is fine, it's just that I've had some...history there.
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Jun 3, 2017 01:43
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Mr Interweb posted:Hey people! Not sure if Irvine is too far away to consider, but we have several QA openings including a senior spot in battle.net. (I'm a senior test analyst embedded in a battle.net engineering team) https://careers.blizzard.com/en-us/openings/quality-assurance/all/irvine/all/1 fargom fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Jun 7, 2017 |
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Jun 6, 2017 23:57
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So now that we've got the PS Pro and the XBONEX I imagine we will stay in this generation for at least a couple of years more? Maybe the the industry will stick with their backwards-compatible platforms and keep providing hardware improvements from now on? IMO we are getting diminishing returns from the hardware so after 60 solid fps and 4k I can't imagine significant fidelity improvements. I guess they could still improve other areas such as physics, shaders and effects. Meanwhile Nintendo is still doing its own thing. I think they should kill the 3DS once the Switch takes off and then diversify it like they did with the 3DS line.
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Jun 12, 2017 15:09
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GODDAMN IT I finally got my foot in the door with one developer I''ve been desperately trying to get into for several years, but I think I hosed up one of the questions on their test. What really pisses me off is that I knew the answer to the question, but I didn't bother to be specific, which seems really important. UGH fargom posted:Not sure if Irvine is too far away to consider, but we have several QA openings including a senior spot in battle.net. (I'm a senior test analyst embedded in a battle.net engineering team) Sorry, just saw this reply. Thanks for the response. Unfortunately I'm in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, and as much as I love Irvine, I don't think i'd be able to make the commute. At least, not at this point.
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Jun 20, 2017 02:04
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Mr Interweb posted:Sorry, just saw this reply. Thanks for the response. Unfortunately I'm in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, and as much as I love Irvine, I don't think i'd be able to make the commute. At least, not at this point. How's Culver City? I'm at a mobile company there now that at least has a QA Lead listed on the website. PM me if you're interested.
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Jun 20, 2017 02:46
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