Game Jobs Megathread: Wear clean underwear to avoid the smellz.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Game Jobs Megathread: Wear clean underwear to avoid the smellz.

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Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Shalinor posted:

No, the horrible secret is where the catered food on crunch nights comes from.

That's no secret. It's Quizzno's platter subs. 6 nights a week. For 13 months.

It took the team YEARS to even look at a Quizno's without turning 4 shades of green.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2011 00:18

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 18:04

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

EDIT: Nevermind apparently I had the post open for 3 hours and someone else replied with the exact same thing.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2011 02:37

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Akuma posted:

Hey now, programming can be creatively stimulating!

Plus they can actually earn a living, and when you inevitably burn out of the industry there's a huge number of jobs waiting you no matter where you go.

# ¿ Jun 18, 2011 13:56

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

djkillingspree posted:

Hey so I'm esteemed lead designer of the just-over70-metacritic-earning Dungeon Siege 3, if anyone has any industry questions for me shoot away.

Stop taking my co-workers

typhus posted:

shameless plug

My GDC Online session has been posted. If you're coming to Austin this year, plz2attend. Wear top hats to identify yourselves as game jobs megathreaders. Set those top hats on fire to identify yourselves as awesome game jobs megathreaders.

Congratulations. This thread always needs more East Side developers.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2011 17:42

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

typhus posted:

Thanks! And yes, absolutely.

Side note: Is the Seattle IGDA chapter still barely surviving on life support? With the exception of the summit this month I never hear of anybody going to anything on the eastside. I meet more game developers in Safeway than I did at the last meet-up I crashed back in 2009.

There's a regular east-side meetup which I don't attend, and Joe Waters has his West Side monthly that I also don't attend... I think the east side one has been meeting at Wilde Rover in Kirkland, so I really should go.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2011 20:08

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Shalinor posted:

I don't suppose anyone has contacts at Sucker Punch?

Not really looking yet, figure I might try this whole "indie" thing in the near future, but... in a few years... Sucker Punch is pretty boss, and Washington is boss, and the two together would be bosstastic.

EDIT: VV what is modified Assassin?

One of the community managers there is a former cow-orker, and I'm just up the street in Kirkland at WB Games.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2011 18:31

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Lieutenant Dan posted:

Also, EA's complex in Redwood is absolutely beautiful. They have a private gym, and are a few minutes away from the beach if I remember correctly. A bunch of my friends work there, and they say the hours are grueling, but you could definitely pick a worse location to be in.

It's not a beach like you'd think, it's nice to look at but no one would think of swimming in Foster City

The gym is indeed awesome, and the cafeteria is really reasonable too. Redwood Shores is probably one of my top 5 favorite corporate campuses I've been to.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 00:16

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Nagna Zul posted:

I don't know. Play it safe as a programmer, or ask for a design job and possibly regret it?

You like money? Stay a programmer. Work on levels during pre-production time or when the company decides that maybe Multiplayer maps would be a good thing after all.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 05:47

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Monochrome posted:

It's even worse when you're in QA and your boss believes that a higher bug count is inherently virtuous. This is not my situation now, when it was, I wanted to hang myself.

We sure logged a lot of clipping bugs that sat idle and didn't get fixed though!

We had publisher QA on a project who would write more Z fighting bugs than anything else...

"Jump across the broken nav mesh, duck under the broken bind posing AI, shoot 3 times or you'll crash then jump on the crate here, here and here, look up at a 47o angle then left 20o and notice the ceiling texture z-fighting with the light fixture..."

# ¿ Jul 22, 2011 23:58

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Jan posted:

And of course, if it's a crash, then nevermind getting such precise instructions.

"Game crashes in level sewer 1."

*submits, doesn't include a dumpfile*

welp, my quota's good now

I had a bug from a weekend of soak testing, "Game crashes after 88th round."

Steps to Repro:

Play 87 rounds
Observe crash on 88th.

Frequency: happened once

# ¿ Jul 23, 2011 14:43

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Shalinor posted:

Maybe I just have friends in a lot of second-string studios, but we've always looked at the profit sharing plans as being a huge laugh. LEGO's a bit different by virtue of being a big company, they DO pay bonuses, but even so, we're talking 30% of your salary or whatever, not $500k. To me, to make that kind of personal profit, you have to be one of the founding members of a studio... but maybe that isn't actually the case?

Anecdotal, but someone doing QA on World of Warcraft brought a Lexus SUV brand new in 2005

# ¿ Aug 4, 2011 15:35

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Carfax Report posted:

On the subject of AAA development, let me toss out a big question. What's everyone's though on the sustainability of the current AAA industry?

I'm coming at this from the management perspective, rather than developer, but my own belief is that the current rate of AAA console development is no where near sustainable and we've already seen the market stabilize toward a new equilibrium of significantly less AAA console game development.

I think you'd need to define AAA first. If I define AAA as being games that sell > 5M units across all platforms, I don't see that there is significantly less AAA console game development. You still have Halo, Madden, CoD, GTA, FF etc...

# ¿ Aug 11, 2011 04:07

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

krysmopompas posted:

Oh that's nothing; you should hear us at 2:30 AM.

A day of fixing bugs that are direct contradictions of bugs you fixed no less than 12 hours ago makes you nothing short of the happiest person on the planet.

After a few days of this I just sent the producer, Engineering Lead, and QA Lead a table I made in outlook with actions on one axis and timing on the other saying, "Pass this on to Publisher QA and Internal QA to fill out, Mark as green where we have it right and red as where we don't. If Publisher and Internal differ on their answer then get them in discussions until they agree. Once done I'll fix bug XXXXX and YYYY and ZZZZ" (All of which were contradictory about the same feature with the two QA groups going against each other, and themselves, each bug marked as A Blocker.)

# ¿ Aug 20, 2011 15:04

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Jaytan posted:

It isn't difficult to make a guess at what a next gen machine targeted for release in fall of 2012 or 2013 will look like.

Probably because the PS3 came out in 11/06, by 8/05 I had already been to two Sony Bootcamps on PS3 development, and had those giant PCs in house for 4-5 months, I don't see that happening right now...

# ¿ Aug 23, 2011 19:05

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Shalinor posted:

I hope they more than double the memory this time. I doubt it will happen, but... I can hope

They did last time though? (Xbox 64M unified => 360 512M unified, PS2 32M system, 4M video => 256M system, 256M video) I still maintain that if Sony had gone further they'd be the dominant platform now. (Specifically if they went 512/512 instead of 256/256, I for one would want to develop on them as my primary platform instead of 360.)

# ¿ Aug 23, 2011 21:32

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Shalinor posted:

... and Microsoft will just release another new console with more memory and a better CPU that supports an easy-to-use superset of DX11.

That uses C# as it's primary development language.

That's the way to try to win the generation. Force large studios to pick between 720 and PS4.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2011 23:59

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

D1Sergo posted:

Starting a new QA contract for Microsoft next month in the building Bungie used to be at. Which is going to be WEIRD coming out of 1.5 years of testing Halo for Bungie themselves in the same building. Should be good times though.

Bog, Bungie isn't next to Pancake house anymore? Or are you talking a different building completely?

# ¿ Aug 30, 2011 01:14

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

D1Sergo posted:

Yep, and Microsoft uses the 434 building now. I presume the 343 Industries group uses it but my interviewer was hush-hush on the project itself so I'll see for myself.

I think I heard 343 is over on Avondale, one of my friends went there after leaving WB, but I could also be talking out of my rear end.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2011 04:13

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Amrosorma posted:

Hopefully in a few years (decades?), we'll look back at the insane sexualization of women in gaming as something of a shameful embarrassment. I can only hope

This will probably happen right after we view the insane sexualization of women in:
- Sports (Cheerleaders)
- Entertainment (Ever see an establishing shot of a Miami based show?)
- Everywhere else in Society
with shameful embarrassment.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2011 19:24

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Comrade Flynn posted:

So I only lasted 3 weeks at CrowdStar...until they promoted me to Mobile Games Producer!

Really loving the company, and my job is finding new mobile game ideas to invest in so it's interesting getting to see what people come up with.

If anyone is looking to get into mobile gaming, we have something like 25 open positions. If you see something that fits you at http://www.crowdstar.com/jobs/ just shoot me an IM at Comrade Flynn and I'll try to help you out (I've got two goons interviews already).

After all of these resume reviews, I feel it's fitting to have a job website review instead.

Where are you located? I clicked through a bunch of links and couldn't figure out where the job was.
On every page hitting 'Home' takes me back to the front page. Hitting home on the support page though takes me back to the support page.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2011 23:15

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

M4rk posted:

In America, the above quote is widely embraced in the startup tech sector. In other parts of the world, though, this sentiment isn't shared. Why is that? Isn't it obvious that it's true?

How many failures did Mark Zuckerberg have before his success? Bill Gates? Larry and Sergie?

Many of the 'big names' went big with their first and to some degree only company. (Yes you can come up with dozens of counter-points but it's not universally true.)

# ¿ Sep 22, 2011 22:51

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

HYMEN.SYS posted:

Bill Gates' first startup involved making a traffic tracking system that completely failed to work and he had to go crying to his mother to help him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traf-O-Data doesn't seem like much of a failure. Particularly for someone still in high school at the time.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2011 23:57

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Chainclaw posted:

I'm always amused how often Urban Dictionary is used in game development to make sure a lot of our phrases and things are clean. We've renamed alien species after finding the names already on Urban Dictionary as slang for genitals in some country or another.

If only EgoSoft(German dev house) talked to a native English speaker before naming their aliens the Khaak. (And who doesn't love the Khaak?)

# ¿ Oct 21, 2011 18:57

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Monster w21 Faces posted:

So it's Movember time! Anyone have a studio team signed up?

We do here though I'm not participating this year, I think I will next year however.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2011 17:48

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Aliginge posted:

I would love to go range shooting with actual guns at some point in my life.

That's why God invented Las Vegas... So you can go to indoor ranges and shoot fully automatic weapons between gambling, alcohol and legalized prostitution...

# ¿ Nov 29, 2011 17:45

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Shalinor posted:

But your repo steps always suck and you make us stay late for broken pixels invisible in normal gameplay!

Bug classification: A Blocker.

Steps to repro.

1. Go to furthest corner of level.
2. Bring down console
3. Enable no clip.
4. Fly through edge of level.
5. Turn around look up approximately 44o.
6. Observe Z-Fighting.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2011 23:54

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

M4rk posted:

He should have paid for your drinks. You need 'em.

He better not, I think I'm on an E-Mail thread with him now and we're expecting great stuff this next week!

# ¿ Dec 3, 2011 01:51

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Of course something not everyone wants to hear is that you don't need to get your first job in the Games Industry...

I graduated college, started an ISP, worked at a Fortune 50 company in Enterprise Systems Management (Monitoring 1000 - 50,000 computers from one location.) did the same thing at a Game Company working on monitoring of MMOs and laterally moved to MMO development. Now I'm doing FPSes. If I tried to get in the industry directly from college who knows if I would have succeeded or not.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2011 00:19

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Senso posted:

That's why I'm a bit depressed when I think of my future. I've been a sysadmin for 4-5 years now but I'd like to eventually move to programming. I don't have a degree but I'm pretty good with Python and a few other languages. I know that even if I get offered a coding job, it would be a junior position and I'm not really ready to take a $20k salary drop (family to support and all)...

Sysadmin until retirement!

I'll just re-iterate what I said last page...

I started in an ops type position (ESM) and now make FPSes all day. If it's what you want there are avenues. Particularly if you get into an MMO company. I took a 5% salary drop going from being a Tech Architect at EA in Redwood Shores to a Sr. Software Engineer at Westwood in Vegas, the cost of living change alone made up for that.

So don't think you'll be losing a poo poo ton of money as well.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2011 16:37

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Senso posted:

How did you go from ops to senior software engineer though? I'm slowly starting to build a portfolio of projects on github to show programming experience but I don't see how I could land a senior position right from the start.

Spot opened up on the MMO on the server team. I was already working with them to set up the monitoring and interviewed for it. It was considered an internal transfer and pretty easy all things considered.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2011 04:59

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

nibe posted:

I sent you an email, I wanted to clean up a few things and post some more writing before I put my portfolio on here, but that's taking too long.

I'm a recently-graduated programmer with what I consider to be a decent portfolio and website for my level of experience, but I could be wrong. I'm open to criticism and suggestions. I'm also trying to think of a new solo project, would an iPhone game be a good idea even if I'm really trying to get into full-size/AAA development?

https://jameslrowen.com

I spent a few moments looking over your sketchpad piece and while some of it is very nitpicky, it makes for a poor showing of a portfolio.

For me your portfolio is literally the first impression I have of you, and when I open the zip file the first thing I see is a folder full of object files. Make clean and delete the Debug dirs before zipping up! Likewise I see some machine specific files left around eh 'rowen@rowen-eee' and 'The Champ@The Champ-PC'? Opening up the first source file main.cpp, I see whole functions commented out, and random function calls commented out without a clear reason why.

If someone checked in code to source control that was commented out and it was commented as to why it's commented out I'd go over and yell at them.

Next in the keyPress loop I see about 200 magic numbers. I'd go through the entire code base and 'demagic' it. For instance I have no idea what this means:

code:

// mouse is dragging, update anything being drawn
void mouseDrag(int x, int y)
{
	if (currentMode > 6)
	{
		int xdif = x - clickX;
		int ydif = y - clickY;
		clickX = x;
		clickY = y;
		if (canvas.selectedObj != NULL)
		{
			if (currentMode == 7)
				canvas.selectedObj->Update(canvas.selectedObj->p1.x + xdif, 
canvas.selectedObj->p1.y + ydif, canvas.selectedObj->p2.x + xdif, canvas.selectedObj->p2.y + ydif);
			else if (currentMode == 8)
				canvas.selectedObj->Rotate(ydif);
			else if (currentMode == 9)
				canvas.selectedObj->Scale(-ydif);
		}
	}
	else
		canvas.UpdateAdd(x, y);
}

What's Mode's -1 - 6 and why do they get update add on them? Would this block look better?

code:

		if (canvas.selectedObj != NULL)
		{
			if (currentMode == MODE_DRAG)
				canvas.selectedObj->Update(canvas.selectedObj->p1.x + xdif, 
canvas.selectedObj->p1.y + ydif, canvas.selectedObj->p2.x + xdif, canvas.selectedObj->p2.y + ydif);
			else if (currentMode == MODE_ROTATE)
				canvas.selectedObj->Rotate(ydif);
			else if (currentMode == MODE_SCALE)
				canvas.selectedObj->Scale(-ydif);
		}

or even better maybe:

code:

			if (currentMode == MODE_DRAG)
				canvas.selectedObj->UpdateBy(xdif, ydif);

Again I did say it was being very nit-picky, but as someone who handled first pass resume screens and programming tests for a AAA studio, I'd pass on someone who presented SketchPad as an example of the best code they could write.

I'll also just close it with your selection code...

code:

	if (hits != 0)
	{
		GLuint *p, numNames, minDepth = 0xffffffff;
		p = hitRecords;
		for (int i = 0; i < hits; i++)
		{
			numNames = *p;
			p++;
			if (*p < minDepth)
			{
				minDepth = *p;
				hitName = *(p + 2);
			}
			p += 3;
		}
	}

EDIT: Fixed broken tables, the Update line was 176 characters long with no linespaces.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2011 23:07

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Vinterstum posted:

Well, who's fault is it that there's such a *massive* difference (on average) between a fresh graduate and someone who has just one year of experience? As long as that divide is as large as it is (and it always has been large), of course graduates are going to have a really hard time getting a foot in the door when the market is going through a tough time. Who gives a poo poo whether it's private or public sector? It's just universities in general being completely unable to keep up and stay in touch with the industries (with some exceptions). Though cutting funding obviously isn't the answer.

When I first graduated (in the UK, 2004), I don't think a single professor or a single course even once mentioned the term "source control", as an example. From discussing this with random colleagues over the years, that's pretty much still par for the course. And this is one of the most fundamental concepts of modern software development...

It may be a disconnect between the expectations of the degree and the expectations of the field. When I was an undergraduate I had similar conversations with the head of the program and it basically came down to the fact that the University program was in Computer Science. It was a science degree to teach you how to think in terms of Computer Science. It was not a vocation degree for how to sling Java and use Source Control. It's designed for people who want to do research in Computer Science, to go on and get their masters and PhD in said field. Could that be the disconnect you're seeing? Did you go to a program to be "Game Industry Programmer" or to be a "Computer Scientist"?

# ¿ Jan 11, 2012 17:51

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Jan posted:

It wasn't hacky, it was more like a mathematician improvised himself programmer by following this as gospel. There were so many conditionals which had 2-3 side effects, cryptic one-letter variables and, of course, absolutely no comments through it all. I'm really not trying to be dramatic when I say it was traumatizing.

The proper way of saying that is, "It's more like a Physicist programmed it."

# ¿ Jan 16, 2012 22:27

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

BizarroAzrael posted:

I'll ask here since I expect several people in the thread have done this before, how do you deal with a long distance move on shortish notice? I may be starting in Newcastle in less than 2 weeks and I need to arrange accommodation, meaning viewings and the like, but it's far enough that a day trip isn't going to work with the amount of travel. I get some money from work to help with the relocation, I just need to figure the most effective thing to do. Staying in a hotel until I find somewhere might work, but it's not cheap, but I suppose it can't work out worse than rushing into a commitment to a place that turns out not to work in some way. I'm going to try calling some of the letting agencies they recommended and see if there is anything on offer short-term, so I can perhaps move with a car full of my stuff and have some time to pick somewhere more permanent, and rent a van to fetch the rest of my stuff. Or I can just sink a couple of hundred pounds into visiting for a couple of days and viewing all that I can, which might put me in the right place straight away but might not, and could end up being a bit of a mad rush.

Not much time if I want a few days grace in a new place before starting work. Magic: Dark Ascension preview events are that weekend so I'm going to want to play with the cardboard crack.

I've done it several times with basically the same Modus operandi, set a start date for 3 weeks, give 2 weeks notice. Arrange for new company to pay for movers, have movers show up last week of work to pack and load. Finish work, fly out/drive out to new place, start looking for housing, get bank account etc... Sometimes if I knew someone there ahead of time I would open a PO Box in the new town and have everything forwarded there. Other times I'd arrange for up to a month of corporate housing and have my mail forwarded to that. In that week I'd either find an apartment to rent and tell the truck where to deliver my stuff to, or realize I'm going to buy and have the movers move it into storage with a second delivery in the contract. (I'm not paying for it, why not.) Usually in that month I can find a place, buy it, and have the movers deliver to it without having to pay anything out of pocket for either the corporate housing or the moving costs.

Did it for NY => CO with a flight out and a rental, CO => CA driving, CA => NV driving, NV => CA driving, CA => WA driving.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2012 17:32

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

dunkman posted:

Phone interview with what is definitely my top choice job opportunity tomorrow!

Wish me luck!

Got excited for a moment since I have a phone screen with a great (on paper) candidate today, so them being a goon would be a nice plus, but checked your post history and it's not you.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2012 17:07

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

cgeq posted:

Considering how often I see an article about executives and vp's jumping from one company to the next, I'm not sure such behavior could hurt as much as you imagine. I think the biggest and maybe only exception I've ever heard of is Jaffe's recent announcement that he'll be leaving EatSleepPlay in a few months, after all the post release business is taken care of.

Maybe, but at the rank and file level it's different. While somewhat specific to the circumstance there's someone that left a company I was at quite suddenly. (Went on 2 week vacation, called mid vacation to give notice, came back and left 2 days later.) He's tried to return several times and has some management backing him to return, any developer on the project he was on at the time sings in unison, "Not just no, but hell no."

# ¿ Feb 8, 2012 16:35

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Shalinor posted:

I wouldn't disagree but for different reasons. You'd basically need to hire a lawyer to look over the contracts to ensure that said friend really does have code rights. (Is he going to indemnify you if it turns out he's lying/misinformed/misrepresenting things?) Then more contracts to get his cut. Are you going to agree to auditors for his cut? Better add that to the fee. You'd have to balance his cut vs the cost to license the engine. If you sell 1000 units you'd probably be better off with noname engine, but what if you hit the motherload on the app store and make that top 10 list, what does that do for your earnings? And if the use of the engine is a one-off you need to as you point out balance the time invested in learning the engine for this one project vs increasing your Unity knowledge to make games 2, 3 and 4 even better. Too much risk for not enough reward.

Somebody fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Feb 14, 2012

# ¿ Feb 14, 2012 01:52

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

Shalinor posted:

I have a question for any current PS3 and 360 devs.

Do they support C++11 yet? Hoping at least 360-side does?

No on PS3, and I haven't heard 360 not supporting anything dev studio's compiler generates, but we're still on 2008.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2012 01:03

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 18:04

Hughlander: May 11, 2005

mutata posted:

I'm gonna power through KhanAcademy and finish calc 2 just to prove how badass an artist I am.

Got a link for that? (Calc 2 in specific that is.) Last time I went looking the site was organized oddly...

# ¿ Feb 22, 2012 00:28

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Game Jobs Megathread: Wear clean underwear to avoid the smellz.

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