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Is it cool to post jobs in this thread? Pretty sure I've seen them before... If there are any Gameplay programmers out there Austin, TX based LightBox Interactive is looking for one! We're also looking for an experienced Tools programmer. jobs@lightboxinteractive.com or PM me for details.
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Sep 2, 2011 16:31
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BizarroAzrael posted:Both these guys I mention are younger than me, which really makes it sting, but I want to understand what could be the difference that leads to these guys getting opportunities that I don't? I get given responsibility and prove that I can lead, coordinate, communicate, adapt and learn, and more besides, but never actually get elevated for it. Do you socialize with your coworkers? Do you get along with them? Do you "fit in" with the company culture? Have you expressed interest in doing other things at the company? These things are important, no one wants to work with the "weird guy" that never talks to anyone, regardless of how good at his job he is. ...and like Shalinor said it could really just come down to two qualified people, but the other guy has made friends with some people at this point. He wins... or it's another testament to how unreliable QA is as an avenue to get a solid foot in the industry.
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Oct 16, 2011 16:38
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So I've got some general game industry rants built up inside me, but I literally don't have time to type it all out. So let me say one thing; If you are going to be a publisher producer, please for the love of god work through at least one cycle of a game on a dev team first, PLEASE. Also I'd like to share this gem a fan posted on our facebook page: "what if you could pick up rocks and throw them at the enemy when you're out of ammo???" Sigh.
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Oct 24, 2011 17:23
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Fizzle posted:It's tough too because I'm going for PR/Community work and there's really no way to hone those skills without being in it.. I hear this a lot from people about various positions, mostly production and community manager type jobs, but this is far from true. I think someone mentioned it, but being a forum "Admin" for a popular game server is some experience. Running a large guild, being a writer/admin for a gaming website helps. I was a writer/moderator for stratics back in the day when it was the loving place to go for UO/EQ and when I was trying to break into the industry and it helped having that on my resume. People seem to forget that most people who make games also enjoy playing them, and they'd rather hire a gamer when they can. So, putting stuff on your resume that shows you have a true passion for games and went the extra step in your free time... that can go a long way. Dinurth fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Oct 28, 2011 |
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Oct 28, 2011 00:04
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Mega Shark posted:I see one or two more Producers in the OP. Any of you active for some Producer chat? Always.
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Oct 28, 2011 18:15
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Mega Shark posted:I didn't see you in the OP, where do you work? http://www.lightboxinteractive.com/
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Oct 28, 2011 18:31
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Mega Shark posted:Ah, nice. What discipline did you come from / how did you get into Producing? My first "real" industry job was at Turbine(LOTRO) as a Senior Game Master for a short contract (about 4 months). Then I moved to Austin, TX and started as a Production Assistant at Midway. I was promoted to an Associate Producer after about 3 months there and worked until we got shut down in January of '09. Lightbox moved to Austin in Sept. of that year and I opened the new studio with them. I've been here ever since - amazing people, great company, awesome game. Couldn't ask for much else (being located in downtown Austin doesn't hurt either). EDIT: I've been meaning to do a "this is how I got into the industry" detailed post, but I just haven't had the time. Dinurth fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Oct 28, 2011 |
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Oct 28, 2011 18:44
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Sigma-X posted:I've worked with a number of folks who went to Full Sail. It's possible to attend and do just fine. However, their success is not a reflection of the school but rather their personal efforts, aptitudes, and self-education. These folks could have attended anywhere and done just as well or better. This is absolutely spot on. I know people who graduated from Full Sail and are now Designers at places like Rockstar and Bioware. Dinurth fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Oct 28, 2011 |
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Oct 28, 2011 23:05
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Mega Shark posted:That is a great background. Care to describe a "typical" day if there is such a thing? Yeah.. typical isn't a word I would use to describe any of my days. I took yesterday off, so here is today so far: Spend an hour going through email (and not get through it all) - Send out various meeting invites - go through local and external bug databases (assign out bugs, answer questions) - localization (updates, checkins, user management) - Update wiki to reflect new dates/dates hit already - install latest build of the game to check some things (then get interrupted and forget about it for 3 hours) - branch setup - forum setup/verification - browse game's facebook page and rage internally - post here That's 2 hours of my day so far. Friday was: Hour of email - Task review for the upcoming milestone - task assignments - playtest - video capture - filling out TRC documentation - another hour of email - feature balance/discussion - fighting with EULA servers, fixed! weekend!
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Nov 1, 2011 17:42
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Mega Shark posted:I appreciate that. I totally understand typical being a bit inappropriate, but it's the best way to ask. What do you use for assigning tasks? What do you use for your local bug database? Jira for tasks and DevTrack for bugs. I despise Devtrack, but Jira is pretty great so it balances out I guess. What do you use? I'm sure pretty much everyone else will find this kind of discussion boring, but I'm always interested in what people use and what they think of it.
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Nov 1, 2011 18:52
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BouncyCastle posted:goons, please tell me your experiences explaining game dev as a job Usually when I say I work at a video game company I get "like grandma's boy?!". I used to say no and try and explain, now I just sigh and say yes so I don't have to talk to them.
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Nov 14, 2011 18:05
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Me
Mid-thirties azn hairstylist
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Maide posted:So, there's this: http://www.dorkly.com/article/27379/the-dorklyst-7-reasons-you-dont-want-to-work-in-the-video-game-industry #5 is the worst. 
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Nov 18, 2011 05:38
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Chalks posted:Does anyone find that working on games that they would play in their spare time sort of takes the fun out of the game? I don't work in the game's industry, I'm just curious. I assume that being involved in testing something every day could get you pretty sick of it when the release rolls around. This is exact reason I would never pursue a job at Valve or Blizzard. I enjoy their games immensely and working on them would ruin it. It's a weird thing... I will absolutely play the multiplayer component of our game when it comes out, but I'll likely never touch the single player.
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Nov 18, 2011 17:34
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Vino posted:Hell no. I would find it much more satisfying to go through the creation process with a team of smart people over a year or two and solve challenges and create something I'm proud of than to just play it in my free time for a day or two. I can always enjoy another company's game. I can't imagine Blizzard has much of a challenge for anything. They have all the time and money in the world. Their games are for the most part already decided, you'd just be making the next iteration. Not so say that wouldn't be great experience, but there is great experience to be had everywhere. I'd hate to ruin one of my all time favorite series (diablo) by working on it for 6 years and literally made decisions about what's in the game. /ruined For me part of the joy of a great game is the ability to lose yourself in it, you can't do that with a game you work on. VV Didn't realize it was a "debate", I thought people were just expressing opinions? Dinurth fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Nov 18, 2011 |
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Nov 18, 2011 20:23
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BizarroAzrael posted:You seem to have made a lot of assumptions here, I've not been trying "the same thing", I've done all I can to develop and have cast the net wide in the hopes of just getting something to get moving again. I don't know anymore than you've told us here in this thread. But the "idiots get hired over me and I get screwed every time" attitude you have in this thread alone makes me think there is more to the story. Clearly if you are getting passed up time and time again and others aren't you have to start thinking "maybe it's me" at some point, right? I often see people with the "this company NEEDS me and everyone else is dumb" attitude... and really they are pretty worthless. I'm not saying you are worthless (I don't know you), and maybe you don't mean to sound the way you do, but that's how I am taking it. Have you been depressed for a long time? Maybe that's just it, is your general demeanor so bad people just don't like spending time with you? I'm not trying to be a dick, but every attempt of advice anyone gives you shoot down pretty quickly, I'm just trying to understand. How long have you been looking? Last time I was laid off it took me almost 10 months to get a job again.
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Nov 23, 2011 17:48
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I was assigning out bugs earlier today and no joke one of the bugs: NPC overreacts See video *watch video, nothing happens* sigh
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Dec 3, 2011 00:01
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Waterbed posted:Yeah, at this point it's been 5 months for me? And I'm really only qualified for junior-mid level design Don't get down on yourself. After Midway Austin shut down I was out of work for 9 months. That's not easy to handle but now I have a job I absolutely love.
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Feb 9, 2012 01:02
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Comrade Flynn posted:Any mobile producers/PMs I can ask a quick excel question to? Not saying I can help as I don't know the nature of your question, but I use excel a lot.
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Apr 18, 2012 02:47
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While it's incredibly annoying to not be able to play a "single player" game during server issues... I actually prefer the "always on" of Diablo 3. Everything is tracked and saved neatly on one little account - I get to have awesome stat tracking, achievements, and saved progress no matter where I play in the world. It also means that the barrier to entry is a lot higher, so I would hope that the quality of people playing is better (less bot spammers). I find the "internet connection" argument part of this to be stupid, who the hell is a "PC gamer" and doesn't have a decent internet connection these days(to echo Sigma-X)? It's absurd... whatever, I prefer it this way, call me crazy.
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May 16, 2012 05:01
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Not crazy, just absurdly myopic to think that everyone is in the same situation as you are. I find it incredibly hard to believe that anyone who has PC good enough to play Diablo 3 would either not have an internet connection at all, or would have one crappy enough to not play. No one bitches about all the phone games that require a constant connection to play even when it is essentially a "single player experience". Would it have been easy for them to include offline? Yes. Does everyone in the world bitching about it change anything? No. Like with most complaints about games, people just want to bitch and call it the worst decision ever despite the fact that they have paid for and are playing the game anyway.
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May 16, 2012 05:11
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NINbuntu 64 posted:No, it's pretty terrible this is happening and always-on DRM (and it's not even that) is a terrible idea for far more reasons than it's a good one. See, this isn't just DRM. Nothing is hosted client side except what basically amounts to a WoW client. All enemy routines, all event triggers, everything is handled by the Blizzard servers. This means a lot of things. This is another thing I find incredibly interesting, other than the launch day shenanigans are you one of "these people"? I don't get why people are defending situations that don't effect them. Is it just the inherent hatred towards DRM for some reason? I'm not saying there isn't downsides to an always online game, 'cause obviously there are, but why are you (and a lot of people) defending situations that don't effect them? If everyone really hated it that much they should not buy the game and show Blizzard that the people don't stand for this. But as usual D3 is going to blow sales out of the water despite all the hate they get for this, and all the apparent sales they lose out on because it requires online.
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May 16, 2012 05:18
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Senso posted:MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, that's who. Think Asia, where MILLIONS of people don't own PC or they have one but no internet connection, or they have internet but it's really lovely. I agree they are alienating a lot of fans, but South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan have some of the fastest (average) internet connections in the world. The US isn't even in the top 10. I realize not everyone has access to decent internet, but gently caress they were recently talking about making internet access a RIGHT in the US.
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May 16, 2012 05:22
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:No one's playing the game right now in the Americas, the servers have crashed. What does this even mean? I have a laptop made roughly 2 years ago with Wifi and pretty much everywhere I go I am connected - I've played TF2(and other games) at airports, coffee shops, and other random places just fine.
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May 16, 2012 05:25
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Juc66 posted:That's pretty substantial in my opinion, I've seen major engine decisions based on catering to as little as 4% of potential customers. Yes, but that company was not Blizzard. Blizzard can afford to lose a potential %4 customer base and not give a gently caress. Remember how much people hated Steam when it first came out? "You mean I have to DOWNLOAD the game and be online before I can play it? gently caress THAT" There is a lot of assumption going on around this entire thing. At the end of the day Diablo 3 is going to sell a fuckton amount of copies and Blizzard is going to make a fuckton of money. Edit: again everyone is talking about this from a reasonable not Blizzard perspective. I have personally sent new PS3's and router to players to help diagnose issues because I give a gently caress about our fans(and the goodwill is nice). But this is Blizzard, WoW launch was like this, SC2 launch was... actually somewhat decent. But the point stands, Blizzard is such a powerhouse they don't have to care. Dinurth fucked around with this message at 05:32 on May 16, 2012 |
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May 16, 2012 05:29
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The Cheshire Cat posted:I think this is what it boils down to. Even in this very thread people have said "if it was any other game I wouldn't buy it, but Diablo 3!". As much as they might bitch, they're still going to buy it. WoW is losing players, that's true, but I think that's more of a symptom of the game being nearly 8 years old than because people have suddenly gotten really mad at Blizzard for their decisions related to the game - it's just an old MMO and there are probably more people who have already played it and gotten bored of it than there are people who would try it but haven't gotten the chance yet. Didn't they just claim WoW had started to climb again? Anyway, the only thing I even originally wanted to comment on was how I find it absurd that PC gamers don't have an internet connection. I'm not sure why everyone is so defensive about this. How many users does Steam have? It's like saying "you know what some people don't have cell phones!" This is absolutely true, some people have lovely connections or no connections at all, and I'm sorry they don't get to play D3. A collection of people at Blizzard came to a decision to make D3 an online only game, and if we assume they are telling the truth it was not motivated by any corporate influence - to the end that they believe it will provide the best overall gameplay experience. Edit: sorry I'm done on a massive derail in in the games job megathread. Dinurth fucked around with this message at 05:48 on May 16, 2012 |
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May 16, 2012 05:45
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NINbuntu 64 posted:They claimed it had stopped the death spiral it had been in for the last year and a half, not that it had started to climb again. And the problem isn't the lack of an internet connection, but the quality of said connection and its impact on the single-player portion of the game, on top of the DRM-scheme making it so that you can't play, regardless of connection. Your comparisons are completely worthless because you're ignoring the core issues here. But I was never even debating these "core issues". My only comment was that I find it a little ridiculous that any "PC gamer" doesn't have a somewhat decent connection, at least decent enough to connect to and play D3. If you connection isn't good enough to play, then you bring the game back or you are smart enough to know it isn't good enough and you don't play it in the first place. Not that is't possible, but it would be amazing to see how many people played D2 online vs single player by themselves.
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May 16, 2012 05:54
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NINbuntu 64 posted:You can't return PC games, only exchange them for another copy if the product is broken. Unless you are an informed consumer - I haven't actually seen the retail box for D3 but I assume it says "internet connection required" on it. Where are you unable to return PC games? I know of plenty of places that offer full refunds for a unhappy customer regardless of the reason.
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May 16, 2012 05:59
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Sigma-X posted:The shittiest part of being a producer now is that I bitched up my ankle a week and a half ago and this job is way more active than making art all day and I spend way too much time walking around on my hosed up foot You clearly need some sort sort of motorized razor scooter with a chair badly duck-taped to it.
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May 25, 2012 19:10
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For any of those interested in the Austin area, we are looking for a couple programmers, specifcally a Tools programmer, a Gameplay programmer, and an AI programmer. You can see the jobs posted here: http://www.lightboxinteractive.com/jobs/ (AI programmer has not been posted quite yet).
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May 25, 2012 19:41
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NextTime000 posted:I may not be in the Austin area (or Texas, for that matter), but I still sent my resume in Sorry totally missed this. They aren't really entry level positions, certainly not the AI or the Tools positions. The gameplay programmer position we have hired a fresh person for in the past (who worked out amazingly well). If you can survive an interview with our Programming leads you are in a good spot.
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May 31, 2012 17:02
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Excellent! Looking forward to this one, and this time around I'll actually have a decent amount of free time to play each game instead of rushing through them.
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Jun 1, 2012 18:08
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Shalinor posted:And yet, it remains accurate As much as I hate to agree, I have to. This is unfortunately how it works 95% of the time, which I personally despise. I've seen people join a company to leave 3 months later for a better offer. I hate that there is no loyalty in this industry. Luckily I think I am in that 5%.
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Jul 10, 2012 22:43
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Magic posted:Companies do not give a gently caress about you, they just want your skills to help get their title out the door so they can make a profit. It's a mutual, symbiotic relationship of a sort. Yeah I wasn't really thinking about how lovely most companies are - I'd like to think I'd never work for a company that treats employees like that, but I also know what 9 months straight unemployed feels like.
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Jul 10, 2012 23:29
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GetWellGamers posted:Welp, my panel fell through, so no pax for me this year. Anyone going to GDC Austin? My studio is downtown Austin, literally a couple blocks from where it's held. I'll be around downtown most likely entertaining business partners with alcohol or crashing GDC parties.
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Jul 19, 2012 01:46
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Senso posted:Gameloft is looking for Producers willing to move to Vietnam. Here's the job description. No need to speak Vietnamese. It can be a hard job (overtime) but it's a good opportunity for people who want an excuse to live in a cool/weird city and make enough money to live nicely here. Most producers here did not have any experience in the gaming industry before. I realize this was a ways back, but... Does anyone legitimatly have anything to say about Gameloft? I honestly love my current company but the opportunity to live in Vietnam for awhile is a bit enticing.
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Jul 24, 2012 22:50
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Shalinor posted:Programmers would be at the top of that chart. No contest. I dunno, I bet QA drinks the most overall just by merit of being (generally) younger and single. Your point stands, I know in the last 4 months of our project every lead and producer had at least 1 bottle of something on their desk. poo poo, I had a fan send me a bottle of Maker's Mark as a thank you for the long hours type of thing.
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Aug 8, 2012 22:57
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Acethomas posted:So I just got back from LOGIN and now I'm heading to GDC Online shortly, who all will be there and where are we partying? My studio is in downtown Austin and I will be entertaining out of town people all week - I'm up for meeting some new people for anyone that is coming to GDC Online.
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Sep 28, 2012 21:00
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GetWellGamers posted:So we're a week out, and I've seen interest in a goon meet, but anyone got ideas for anything concrete? We need something like the San-Fran Checvy's, somewhere close to the convention and accessible that goons can just show up to and know there'll be other goons at. The convention center is right in downtown Austin close(walking distance) to hundreds of bars and restaurants. It all depends on what kind of place people want to meet at, and as mentioned there will be a ton of parties going on, most of which only require a expo ticket/badge to get into. Jackalope is a good go-to dive bar that also serves food. Recess is an interesting little place on 6th that has a bunch of old arcade machines, most of which are free. Gingerman is a great place with an insane beer selection. Buffalo Billiards is a huge place with tons of pool tables and shuffle board tables that would be good if the crowd is big.
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Oct 3, 2012 18:51
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Hadlock posted:I thought they were closing the downtown gingerman due to a lease dispute? That's a great venue but it's also completely packed on weekends. Not sure your context here, do you live in Austin? They moved locations a couple years ago due to a lease issue but to the best of my knowledge have not had any issues at their new place.
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Oct 4, 2012 00:23
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Shalinor posted:How did you come to be eating BBQ at Britannia Manor? Most game devs (in austin) party at his place every summer. The IGDA summer picnic is held as his place and it's always pretty awesome. It's a trip the first time you are stuffing your face and he just sits down next to you. Dinurth fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Oct 4, 2012 |
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Oct 4, 2012 01:14
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