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Revitalized posted:Yeah I was thinking of EA (specifically Respawn Entertainment). I refresh their career page once in a while and I saw in the past they had Associate Producer/Producer gigs. Recently however, I spotted Project Manager for their Apex Legends project. Or they're just different departments. My place (not game dev) has VPs, directors, and senior managers all at the same level on the org chart with similar numbers of underlings.
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Feb 7, 2019 06:30
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tangy yet delightful posted:This is probably the best place to ask, will somebody make a cell shaded Carmen Sandiego videogame in TYOOL 2019?
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Feb 7, 2019 08:54
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tangy yet delightful posted:Thanks mutata, fingers crossed. Is it a good sign if I'm considering turning an old LP I was doing called "Carmen Sandiego Must Die" into a game project but changing the names since I can't get the license?
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Feb 7, 2019 17:03
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This is a specifically PC related question, but it really goes for any platform that can have variable hardware configurations: What goes into picking the hardware requirements for a game? Is it just, "These are the best and worst devices the QA team had access to," or is there something more?
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Feb 7, 2019 23:39
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Warmachine posted:This is a specifically PC related question, but it really goes for any platform that can have variable hardware configurations: What goes into picking the hardware requirements for a game? Is it just, "These are the best and worst devices the QA team had access to," or is there something more?
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Feb 8, 2019 11:25
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Besides hard capabilities your hardware/driver has to support or the game won't run (like minimum DirectX/OpenGL versions, shader capabilities etc.), we kind of just wing it, tell you the truth.
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Feb 8, 2019 18:32
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We target minimum specs for optimization, and if we hit the goal, that's the min spec.
Studio fucked around with this message at 09:35 on Feb 9, 2019 |
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Feb 8, 2019 20:13
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Whatever you choose, people will try and run your game on lower spec machines and complain if it doesn't work at all (hello, anything newer than SSE2.)
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Feb 9, 2019 08:32
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If I ever finish this cyberpunk game, I'm going to put the minimum requirements as whatever the latest graphics card on the market is.
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Feb 9, 2019 11:40
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Akuma posted:Whatever you choose, people will try and run your game on lower spec machines and complain if it doesn't work at all (hello, anything newer than SSE2.) Checks out. Like 99% of our error reports are people trying to run the game on some integrated Intel graphics chipset on a laptop computer from 5-10 years ago.
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Feb 9, 2019 23:10
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We wanted our game(s) to at least boot and be playable through the opening of the game on those potatoes so I spent a ton of time implementing SSE2 versions of all the SSE3+ instructions but it really is a difficult problem because hey, you want everybody to be able to play your games, but budgets are budgets. It's tough.
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Feb 10, 2019 00:18
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Revitalized posted:Yeah I was thinking of EA (specifically Respawn Entertainment). I refresh their career page once in a while and I saw in the past they had Associate Producer/Producer gigs. Recently however, I spotted Project Manager for their Apex Legends project. Late to reply, but I used to work at EA as a Product Manager. At least in the department I was in, you can think of the two roles this way: - Producer/Product Manager: What and why? What is being built, based on requirements gathering from stakeholders, define vision/features, write epics/user stories, etc. Responsible for delivering the end product to the customer. - Project Manager: When and how? Execute the Product Manager's vision. Define timelines and schedules, resource allocation, etc. They own the schedule. If poo poo's getting tight, they tell the Product Manager to start cutting features, beg stakeholders for more time, or add more resources. another loser fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Feb 14, 2019 |
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Feb 14, 2019 02:43
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another loser posted:Late to reply, but I used to work at EA as a Product Manager. At least in the department I was in, you can think of the two roles this way: To my recollection was it intended that Product Manager was supposed to enforce quality while the Project Manager was supposed to enforce deadline/budget and intended to be in conflict? That always sounded like a pretty decent system kind of like the adversarial lawyer position in US courts that the two positions are supposed to take the extremes and then the judge/jury gets to decide who is right. In most places I've seen there is one person whose job it to enforce deadlines and it comes down on senior devs to support quality usually only because they have ego/bonus tied up in making the best product.
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Feb 14, 2019 16:54
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Stick100 posted:To my recollection was it intended that Product Manager was supposed to enforce quality while the Project Manager was supposed to enforce deadline/budget and intended to be in conflict? Yes that's a good way to view it. The Product Manager was responsible for the quality of the end product, but the third head of the development team with a seat at the table was always the Tech Lead, who is responsibility for the quality of the code and to protect their developers from outside bullshit. Similarly, the Product Manager should be shielding the whole team from outside/stakeholder business bullshit. So it was actually a healthy battle between the three people to produce a good end product, on budget, on time, without pissing off your devs.
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Feb 14, 2019 18:09
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Any other GoonDevs GDC-ing this year? Trying to make sure I plan the lectures I attend ahead of time this year, so I don't oversleep and miss good ones. Not that I have done that before. Nope.
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Feb 15, 2019 23:06
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How come most studios seem to be living by the margins but every Square Enix game seems to get stuck in development hell for 10 years and gets started over several times, yet they are still successful?
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Feb 18, 2019 10:46
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Video games are only part of Square Enix's business. Manga, light novels and merchandising, a lot of them not based on their game properties, easily offset their video game developers' failures.
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Feb 18, 2019 11:29
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What's the demand like for 3D modelers/animators? I feel like there's a million concept artists out there and I started using Maya recently and it's pretty fun
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Feb 18, 2019 15:31
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CJ posted:How come most studios seem to be living by the margins but every Square Enix game seems to get stuck in development hell for 10 years and gets started over several times, yet they are still successful? Also they publish a pantsload of moble games.
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Feb 18, 2019 16:04
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RossCo posted:Any other GoonDevs GDC-ing this year? I'm probably going as a poor-but-not-poorest, since I'll be unsponsored.
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Feb 18, 2019 17:24
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CJ posted:How come most studios seem to be living by the margins but every Square Enix game seems to get stuck in development hell for 10 years and gets started over several times, yet they are still successful? Also FFXIV is a very successful MMO which basically finances any other Final Fantasy.
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Feb 18, 2019 17:57
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RazzleDazzleHour posted:What's the demand like for 3D modelers/animators? I feel like there's a million concept artists out there and I started using Maya recently and it's pretty fun Demand for 3d artists varies by emphasis where environment artists are always in a steady mid-level demand and character artist jobs are harder to come by. Animation jobs pop up often enough but it seems to me like those are harder to land since the quality bar for entry is higher than other 3d artist jobs.
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Feb 18, 2019 19:01
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ZiegeDame posted:Also FFXIV is a very successful MMO which basically finances any other Final Fantasy.
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Feb 18, 2019 19:31
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Is there any traction in current efforts to unionize the industry?
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Feb 19, 2019 08:02
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Dunno bout the USA but it happened in the UK a few months ago. https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/game-workers-unite-uk-video-game-union-1203090102/ I imagine GDC this year stateside there will be a few talks and a bit more traction Haven't *really* been keeping as much of an eye as I should have home here in Australia though - most people I know in the industry work for smaller companies down here, and our labour laws seem less exploitative than (what Ive been told of) in the US.
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Feb 19, 2019 08:30
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goku i won't do what u tell me
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There's more talk and more of it out in the open than I've ever seen in my almost 10 years in games. I don't think the layoffs and the abuse are happening more frequently necessarily but they are happening bigger, more visibly, and for stupider reasons. There's definitely chatter online about it and the kids coming from game dev school programs are more likely to be carrying that with them too. We'll see what happens at GDC this year and what kind of press it gets, I think that will be telling as to where we're at, but it is absolutely going to be a huge process here in the states.
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Feb 19, 2019 08:45
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Jon Joe posted:Is there any traction in current efforts to unionize the industry? We're all in the middle of it, there's no way to really tell if any of it is going to lead to lasting change but there's been more noise made about it than ever.
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Feb 19, 2019 17:55
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Jon Joe posted:Is there any traction in current efforts to unionize the industry? There has been a fair amount of chatting (and loud arguing) in a dev group I am in on Facebook, so its certainly being actively discussed. I think it might get a bit fight-y, strong opinions on both sides.
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Feb 20, 2019 00:30
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I'll be at GDC as well, Summit pass only so I'll have the rest of the week to hang out and network.
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Feb 20, 2019 01:58
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RossCo posted:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
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Feb 20, 2019 02:09
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To preface: big companies are exploiting their employees, there is no doubt about that. They hire contract positions under the premise of full-time (with full intent to lay them off), because they know they can't get the numbers they need if they're honest about the temporary nature of the position. At the end of every major project there are enormous layoffs. This has always been the case. Every major company also expects their employees to work overtime without compensation, because they're "salaried" and get benefits like health insurance. I believe this needs better regulation, including painful "kill fees" for trying to lay off employees or mandatory overtime pay for exploiting their hours. As for unions, I have the strong opinion that anyone engaging in the conversation needs actual knowledge about how unions work, what services they provide, how it would impact day-to-day life, and the tradeoffs. I have a feeling most of the people discussing it have never experienced anything to do with unions. Me personally, I've worked with a fairly famous individual from a different industry who was absolutely f'd over by the bureaucracy of his union, and I saw the stress and turmoil he went through during that ordeal which involved public slander and lawsuits. Unions are extremely controlling toward their members, like HOAs on crack, and as a side-effect make getting anything done a laborious and tedious process. They're full of rules and regulations that outwardly appear as utter nonsense to try and protect certain jobs. In a lot of ways it's like installing anti-virus software that just replaces the virus as a nuisance itself. This doesnt mean it's as bad as the virus, but it's not as simple and clear-cut as people make it out to be. The games industry itself is such a complex series of moving parts, changes in direction and unpredictable work loads that I suspect unionizing would magnify that complexity to astronomical levels. I would need more information about a proposed game industry union before being able to decide whether it would even save jobs or wages, or whether it would just be tacking on massive burdens to its workers without doing much to alter the behavior of the employers. Frankly I can't agree with "Well, anything would be better than doing nothing!". That said, it's a brutal industry and I'll be the first to admit I've been pretty lucky. Just my two cents. Chewbot fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Feb 21, 2019 |
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Feb 20, 2019 23:10
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I'm not gonna speak to much of that except that I agree that about now is the time that organizers need to shift into education mode and start rolling out solid platforms and practical data.
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Feb 21, 2019 00:02
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I know that each studio does their own thing, etc, but does anyone have a good, up to date estimates for industry payscales? There's a lead writer/designer position (i.e. non-programming) I'm curious about, but I have no idea what the industry pays in general, and since there'd be a move involved I'd like more details than they're giving to start. The references I've found are naturally focused on programming positions. I don't even have a ballpark range.
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Feb 21, 2019 02:50
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You would preferably want contacts, but it's not a bad idea to peep at the Glassdoor salaries of the company you're applying to, and other companies in that area.
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Feb 21, 2019 03:28
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This is also a good resource for general salary research. Search by company and sort by title. Big companies will yield more results: https://h1bdata.info/
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Feb 21, 2019 03:37
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If you happen to be in the UK, you may find this spreadsheet of game dev salaries of interest for reference. There is also a North American version!
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Feb 21, 2019 08:52
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Chewbot posted:As for unions, I have the strong opinion that anyone engaging in the conversation needs actual knowledge about how unions work, what services they provide, how it would impact day-to-day life, and the tradeoffs. I have a feeling most of the people discussing it have never experienced anything to do with unions. Me personally, I've worked with a fairly famous individual from a different industry who was absolutely f'd over by the bureaucracy of his union, and I saw the stress and turmoil he went through during that ordeal which involved public slander and lawsuits. Unions are extremely controlling toward their members, like HOAs on crack, and as a side-effect make getting anything done a laborious and tedious process. They're full of rules and regulations that outwardly appear as utter nonsense to try and protect certain jobs. In a lot of ways it's like installing anti-virus software that just replaces the virus as a nuisance itself. This doesnt mean it's as bad as the virus, but it's not as simple and clear-cut as people make it out to be. this is not true of every union, nor would it necessarily be true of an eventual games union. a union's only as good as its membership. but on balance, employees do better working under unions than they do otherwise.
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Feb 21, 2019 08:54
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Flannelette posted:Curious about how some mods and small dev team games can produce huge amounts of new high quality models and animations but then other small dev teams (mainly in non english speaking countries) say that they can't afford more than a handful? Is it just if they have someone who can churn them out for free or is there an easier supply of artists in some places I would have though it would all be even where-ever you are on the web? I'm one of the leads on Beyond Skyrim: Cyrodiil, so I can answer this at least for mods. The majority of our 3d modelers are students building a portfolio, along with some hobbyists and a couple people actually in industry. We attracted most of them by either specifically contacting them based off their other work or they heard of us through word of mouth. Some of our modelers started out as total beginners and learned over the course of the project and some came in as experts. A big factor in attracting and retaining modelers and other members has been the reputation that we've built as a project that is not vaporware which has been a really hard sell with something of that scale. Most mod teams also only have a handful of members, Cyrodiil alone has 100 members total only a fraction of which are active at any given time.
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Feb 21, 2019 15:40
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floofyscorp posted:If you happen to be in the UK, you may find this spreadsheet of game dev salaries of interest for reference. Wow, that's brutal. Looking at Programmer jobs (North America) it appears to pay about 40%-60% of the industry norms. Guess I'll stick to working on boring software for financial companies.
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Feb 21, 2019 16:46
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Cool, thanks all for the help.
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Feb 21, 2019 17:03
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