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Started a new job today, this chap sits at the desk next to mine: FreakyZoid posted:All the rumours I heard were that they were taking funding intended for other places, and funnelling it towards the games course because that was the place's USP and shining star. I've heard those rumours and some other ones that are much, much worse. Probably just rumours and hearsay though...
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Jun 1, 2011 19:25
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The Oid posted:Haha, I think I know where that is too. If it's where I think it is, then I used to work in the same building. Yup, I'm at 4J Studios in what used to be the VIS building (made evident by the giant VIS sign that's still up outside). Apparently the seagull's called Steven, by the way. Steven Seagull...
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Jun 6, 2011 00:16
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FreakyZoid posted:Oh, also all of their stuff is apparently TIGA awarded now, which seems well dodgy to me, given that they're supposed to be representing the games industry. Skillset do accreditation for games courses and they seem to be a bit more, what's the word, rigorous? The members of their computer games skills council seem pretty impressive (although that list is maybe just slightly out of date...).
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Jun 22, 2011 18:39
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This may just be a personal thing to me, but avoid recommendations from irl friends on LinkedIn. I've been treating them the same as references (in that I've only got one and it's from a former boss) whereas some folk I used to work with have spammed recommendations on each other (and everyone's invariably "the best artist/coder/designer I've worked with") and it just looks...tacky. Oh, and if you keep getting annoying messages from recruiters (if I get one more message that's just "Rockstar North????"...) just politely tell them you're not interested. Then report them for spam.
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Aug 2, 2011 17:22
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M4rk posted:What kind of recruiter spams people with a single sentence? Not even customized for the recipient? Lame. Real recruiters make phone calls and get to know their marks before trying to persuade them to make a move. On the day the last studio I was at announced it was shutting down I got a message from a recruiter that started "Hi Scott". My first name's Gordon...  FreakyZoid posted:And I've seen plenty of recommendations of people who I know are insufferable tools (and / or borderline incompetent with destructive and negative personalities) from their co-workers Yeah, this. And it irritates me even more to see genuinely talented and able former colleagues get recommendations from these tools.
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Aug 2, 2011 18:43
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Hughlander posted: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.) Vita's making me hopeful for the next generation. The original PSP was 32Mb (64Mb on later models), Vita's 512Mb RAM + 128Mb VRAM.
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Aug 23, 2011 21:49
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I went to a games industry wedding recently and there were Storm Trooper ushers. And a Tetris cake. And champagne glasses arranged in the shape of a Space Invader. Good times. At the interview for my current job I wore black jeans (£27.99 from Burton's menswear), a chequered shirt with the sleeves rolled up (£19.99 from H&M, the sleeve rolling I had to do myself) and black Adidas trainers (£24.99 from Deichmann on Dundee High Street). I was clean shaven but if it'd been a couple of months earlier I'd have had a full beard. My head was also shaven (a 3mm setting on the hair clippers IIRC).
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Sep 11, 2011 23:33
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We got a letter from a kid in New York (we're in Scotland) on yellow paper written in pencil saying how much he loved Minecraft and how he played it all the time and how he wanted to build a big castle in the side of a mountain with secret passages and towers and a moat and a drawbridge and how he'd really really like to help us test the 360 version of the game...
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Sep 13, 2011 16:14
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I believe Codemasters announced the closure of their Guildford studio last month and there were reports of redundancies at EA Bright Light (also in Guildford) last week. The most, most important thing to remember about going out drinking is that if it's a school night under no circumstances should you check anything in the morning after. Wait until around 2pm when the hangover starts to recede and you can be sure you're not about to submit "#define ENABLE_SLOW_CODE_AND_FLYING_DICKS_EVERYWHERE 1".
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Oct 17, 2011 19:24
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I think we're all missing the most important thing here: how did the interview with them go Aliginge? Do you think you'll get offered the role?
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Oct 26, 2011 16:49
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From a page or so ago...BouncyCastle posted:Hey game audio goons, which sound engine are you guys using? Wwise/FMOD/internal tech/Frostbite I worked (partly, it was mostly another coder) on an in-house audio solution using Sony's Scream/Multistream stuff on some PS3 titles and it was...ok. Nothing fancy, but passable. I got to do some DSP stuff which worked out pretty well. For the PSP Minis title I worked on (Me Monster: Hear Me Roar!, coming to a Scottish Bafta awards ceremony near you soon) we used FMOD and it worked out really well. The audio guy I was working with was really great and the game ended up sounding pretty nice, I think. We used the adaptive audio stuff for music and he did a great job of it, sounded really seamless (just a shame he was asked to change it away from the reggae theme we had going to begin with). He's always spoken highly (and longingly) of Wwise, I'll need to point him towards the Frostbite stuff and see if I can make his ears melt in envy...
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Oct 28, 2011 00:25
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Let me tell you about how I became a programmer in the games industry: I studied Computer Games Technology at the University of the West of Scotland. In my final year I did my honours project on "Multithreaded Game Physics on the PlayStation 3" and ended up graduating with a 2.1. Shortly before my final exams I attended the Game in Scotland recruitment event in Dundee and got invited for an interview with Cohort Studios. That went incredibly well and by the time I drove home I had a job offer from them, starting a week after my final exam (along with a uni colleague who I ended up sharing a flat with). At Cohort I got to work on porting 3 Buzz Junior titles from PS2 to PS3 and a Move title called The Shoot. Unfortunately Cohort had to downsize a bit when the Shoot project finished although I was lucky enough to get kept on. I then got to work on Me Monstar: Hear Me Roar! for PSP Minis which was a shitload of fun. I did all of the gameplay programming (and a lot of the rest as well) and a fair bit of design. I'm incredibly proud of the finished game (especially the projectile vomit, I consider it my best ever bit of work) and it reviewed pretty well. It wasn't enough to save Cohort, however, and they closed earlier this year. I was again quite lucky in that I got asked to go for an interview at 4J Studios (again in Dundee, just round the corner from Cohort) after being recommended by my boss, who was also heading there. I was offered a job and started a week after being made redundant. I've been there for about 5 months now and have got to work on a flash game for the social networking site Friends Reunited and am currently working on the 360 port of Minecraft. So yeah, that's my story.
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Oct 28, 2011 21:57
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Obviously I can't say anything that hasn't already been announced (so the port exists, it's being done by 4J and it's being demoed at Minecon) but, yeah, it's pretty fun. Especially since I was already a fan of the game.
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Oct 28, 2011 22:07
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Sigma-X posted:I love this kind of stuff I genuinely am really proud of it. All the powerups in the game were based around food/bodily function - you eat a chilli and can belch a fireball or chomp some curry and can fart a shockwave (complete with "parting" animation). We had one for eating cheese and it produced a kinda bouncy vomit projectile but I didn't really like it (a bit too similar to the fireball). I suggested something similar to the vomit scene in Guesthouse Paradiso, mocked up a quick particle effect and it kinda spewed forth from there... 
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Oct 28, 2011 22:24
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Category Fun! posted:So you're working in Dundee now? Do you know much about the courses at Abertay? I'm doing GDPM there and I'm wondering how appropriate it is for local jobs. Yes, I've been working in Dundee for about 3 and a half years now. We had a producer (my producer on the 3 Buzz games in fact) that I think did the GDPM course and two intern producers that almost certainly did. The first was maybe only a year or two older than me and was a joy to work with, better than some more experienced producers I've encountered. The interns were more than capable as well and fitted in with us without any issue. In terms of jobs in Dundee it's starting to look a bit healthier now after the redundancies and closures in the last year or so. Outplay and Tag both seem to be growing just now and there's murmurings of other new studios opening in the near future. That Abertay fund seems to be spurring a bunch of startups as well. Plus the dozens of other studios, of course. However, I will say that of all the folk I worked with at Cohort the vast majority moved South after it closed simply because there weren't enough opportunities in Dundee. If you open yourself up to opportunities across the whole of the UK you'll probably have a much easier time than if you just focus on Dundee. Edit: After a little bit of LinkedIn stalking...the first producer I mentioned is now at Sony Liverpool (I though he was still at Activision in Ireland) and one of the interns is now down at Codies. And I've discovered there's a guy that was a couple of years above me in high school back home in Lanark that did the GDPM course and is now a producer at YoYo Games. The more you know... Smegbot fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Oct 28, 2011 |
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Oct 28, 2011 23:06
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Category Fun! posted:Thanks for the advice. Dundee seems alright for jobs but it's definitely pretty small. Honestly the dream would be to do some indie development before moving to an actual studio, but I'm only in second year so I'm not so sure how feasible that would be. There are definitely still some cool opportunities around here (Minecraft, for one thing!), so I'm interested in seeing what comes up next year. For QA as long as you're literate and aren't *mental* (see the previous list re. turning up outside offices, baked goods, etc) you should be able to find something. Most of the QA folk I've worked with were from Abertay. Internships I think are starting to get more common up here, probably because there's so many students. The prototype fund startups might be worth keeping an eye on, one of the prerequisites for getting the cash is that they have to employ students.
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Oct 28, 2011 23:45
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There's an important lesson to be learned here: there are often disagreements in the games industry, so conflict management can be very important. I've heard numerous stories of people getting into actual physical fights and have seen first-hand a programmer scream "gently caress you" at the top of their voice in a crowded office and quit spectacularly.
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Oct 29, 2011 13:48
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A good way to wind up, say, a group of annoying Computer Games Development students from your local technical college is to drop the line "Isn't indie just another word for amateur?" into their conversation about Minecraft vs. Fez. Calling the university they attend a technical college also works.
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Jun 22, 2012 01:00
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Is it the 4J thing? They've just laid off half their development staff (including me). It seems some people are somewhat annoyed that the management decided to make staff redundant despite the runaway success of Minecraft 360...
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Aug 9, 2012 12:42
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As usual, there's stuff going on behind the scenes which led to the redundancies. I doubt it'll really cause waves. I think it's shocked some folk given the stability of 4J until now and the success of Minecraft but when it comes down to it it's only 5 people being let go. On the upside, I don't need to work in that shitehole of an office any more with it's lovely leaking roof and 1980's masonic hall toilets.
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Aug 9, 2012 15:05
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Shalinor posted:... and canning the studio behind the most successful game on XBLA right now? On come the hell on. Going to guess it's something like "our contract with Mojang of course included no profit sharing or anything else, and we can't find enough work to keep the doors open any longer"? It's not the entire studio, it's the folk that weren't full time on Minecraft. I don't really wanna start going into details (not least because the redundancy process is ongoing and I don't wanna rock the boat) but as far as I'm aware 4J has done very, very well out of Minecraft.
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Aug 9, 2012 15:22
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SnafuAl posted:Aren't you in Dundee? Summer only lasts for two days, man up. Hey! Dundee is Scotland's sunniest city, apparently. I think I've posted this before, but this was the view from my desk (until a fortnight ago): Monster's giant skylight is to the right and forward a bit, incidentally.
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Aug 24, 2012 02:00
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djkillingspree posted:HEY CAN I COME IN I WANNA PLAY YOUR GAME HEY HEY LEMME IN Seriously, seagulls are the most annoying birds on the planet. Monster w21 Faces posted:Did you apply to us btw? Not yet, something else has come up that I'm prolly gonna get involved with.
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Aug 24, 2012 16:58
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Seems like a good time to post this, originated from VIS Dundee I believe:quote:Office TCR (Toilet Checklist Requirements) Other examples of famous Dundee games industry emails include "do not bring samurai swords to work" and "do not attempt to flush items of clothing down the toilet".
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Oct 12, 2012 23:36
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Chernabog posted:I vote this for new thread title. Every company in the building got an email saying pretty much that. Can only guess that someone had disgraced themselves, attempted to dispose of their soiled undergarments by flushing them and caused a blockage in the plumbing somewhere.
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Oct 13, 2012 12:43
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Mango Polo posted:Well, to pull this back a bit more towards the game industry proper. You'd need to be mental to attack Rab Florence, he's lethal with a 2 litre bottle of ginger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZthGdjGX0E
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Oct 25, 2012 23:14
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So I'm the technical director of a brand new games studio now: http://www.develop-online.net/news/42352/Beartrap-Games-is-latest-Scottish-developer We've been talking about doing something for ages now (since Cohort shut it's doors a year and a half ago, in fact), getting made redundant (again) was kinda the final push to get going. I'm equally excited and utterly terrified at this point...
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Oct 29, 2012 20:33
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Cheers folks... I have a somewhat eclectic taste in music but I've found I work best with some ska or reggae on. It's hard for me to stay grumpy or overly stressed if I've got something like Streetlight Manifesto, BtMI! or The Skints playing...
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Oct 30, 2012 01:07
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As a Scotsman all I can think is "Why isn't it battered and deep fried?". Oh, great, now I've made myself hungry...
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Nov 2, 2012 00:04
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I've been made redundant twice in the last year and a bit (it wasn't my fault, honest) and have encountered being given a new contract to sign and from my experience I would say what they're doing sounds incredibly dodgy. You want to get legal advice. I would try ACAS to begin with, they're the government body that's meant to deal with this.
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Nov 5, 2012 23:35
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Monster w21 Faces posted:Big desks. I recognize those desks! They were ace - room for 3 monitors, a devkit, a PC, multiple keyboards and still plenty of space for assorted Star Wars merchandise and some Lego. The drawers were handy as well. You'll know if you've got my old set, the handles were on the inside...
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Nov 6, 2012 17:41
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Monster w21 Faces posted:The desks are new (and are totally awesome, I want one for home) but we totally stole the drawers (they're on wheels) from Cohort across the street when they shut down. We must have stolen like 20 of them... The desks are ex-Cohort as well, I sat behind one for 3 years... 
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Nov 6, 2012 18:15
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I've dropped you an email. While I'm posting, some of my former colleagues have just formed a studio as well: http://www.develop-online.net/news/42491/Stormcloud-Games-forms-in-Scotland They're awesome guys, hoping it works out for them.
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Nov 12, 2012 20:53
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I quite enjoy Dundee. It gets a bad rep from some places but I've been here 4.5 years and have no desire to leave any time soon. I heard an interesting explanation as to why Dundee's so big for games developers. Back in the 80s the ZX Spectrum was £150 to buy (about £600 in today's money) unless you were in Dundee where it was £20 and 2 packs of Lambert & Butler round the back of the Timex factory...
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Nov 15, 2012 18:11
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Irish Taxi Driver posted:Pretty easy to post while compiling Obligatory xkcd.
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Dec 6, 2012 19:29
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Jan posted:Man, now I want to work there. My job frowned on my wearing my quad skates to get around the office. "Blah blah blah occupational hazard blah blah" One of my colleagues quit EA many years ago after being told off for running in the corridors...
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Dec 15, 2012 01:43
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Lemon King posted:Its partial code and some design, the overview for the interview mentioned I should bring a portfolio. A chap I used to work with had the best goddamn coder portfolio I've ever seen. It was mostly screenshots/videos of the projects he'd worked on along with short text blurbs that explained each project a little and what he'd done on each. He is a goon so if he's reading this he might pop in and show it off...
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Dec 15, 2012 02:17
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The real reason that we started our own studio revealed:quote:if you cant sneak the odd knob joke in a press release then whats the point
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Dec 17, 2012 17:17
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I tried to do register for the Apple Developer thingy before xmas. It must be different in the UK cos I got the DUNS number no problem, it took about 30 seconds from filling in the details on their website till getting the number. When I put it in the Apple website it hosed up though and found the wrong address, I've not got around to contacting them to get it sorted yet. Also, that sloth is awesome. You should send it to Kristen Bell.
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Jan 4, 2013 23:08
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Thought I'd drop these in here if anyone's interested, the folk I used to work for are hiring for Minecraft (artist in Dundee, coders in Edinburgh):quote:With the continuing success of Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, 4J Studios is looking for a Texture Artist in our Dundee studio. Artists should also be confident doing pixel art and UI design skills would be advantageous. This would initially be a 3 month contract . Drop a c.v. to jobs@4jstudios.com , please include a link to your online portfolio. No agencies thanks! quote:With the continuing success of Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, 4J Studios is looking for experienced console programmers to expand our East Linton studio. Drop a c.v. to jobs@4jstudios.com please. No agencies thanks!
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Jan 10, 2013 14:54
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