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SirDrone posted:Honestly I haven't even gotten to the showing my portfolio stage, it's just been sending off CV's but I'm wondering if I'm doing the whole process wrong and should integrate a portfolio with my CV.
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# ? Jan 29, 2021 22:00 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 12:02 |
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So I've been in QA for awhile now and I've been paid a pretty widely ranging set of salaries for the various jobs I've done and everyone I know in QA, both games and software/web testing in general has the same sort of story. I've been asked what sort of salary I'd be looking to get for this role I just had a second interview for and I'm not entirely sure how much I should say cause in my experience places vary pretty wildly in how they pay/value QA. It'd be QA lead/manager at a small place in the UK but not in London, if that helps. Looking at this game dev salary google doc I found it looks like somewhere around 30-35k would be reasonable. I know a few of you are in the UK cause I've seen you posting in the ol UKMT but you might not know what QA are getting paid at your places. Still any advice would be very useful.
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# ? Feb 2, 2021 01:24 |
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thebardyspoon posted:I've been asked what sort of salary I'd be looking to get for this role I just had a second interview for and I'm not entirely sure how much I should say cause in my experience places vary pretty wildly in how they pay/value QA. I don't know about gamedev, but as a rule in software you should always make them make an offer first. If they're willing to pay up to 60k for a job and you say you're looking for 35k, what do you think you're going to be paid? The unfortunate fact of interviewing is that companies have lots of tricks up their sleeve to help them get favorable terms when they hire people, and one of those terms is to get interviewees to name numbers first. It's a simple social pressure trick but quite effective.
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# ? Feb 2, 2021 01:34 |
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thebardyspoon posted:Still any advice would be very useful. Get thee to the negotiation thread. Your best practice will be to say "We can discuss that once we've determined whether I'm a good fit for the position and I can see total compensation" or something like that, but super duper read that thread.
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# ? Feb 2, 2021 01:44 |
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I came up with a question in the context of CRPGs on the topic of pre-buffing, but it occurred to me that it might have broader application, so here I am. The question is how do you balance "encounters" so that a new player can succeed based on the in-game information they're given, and yet still provide a challenge for more experienced players? How much can you do with difficulty settings, even really granular difficulty settings? Do you generally care when a vocal minority complains about the difficulty of your game?
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# ? Feb 2, 2021 06:55 |
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Difficulty settings?
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# ? Feb 2, 2021 08:14 |
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rojay posted:I came up with a question in the context of CRPGs on the topic of pre-buffing, but it occurred to me that it might have broader application, so here I am. One key aspect, at least in non-competitive single player games, is that fun is more important than balance. If a player is challenged or not doesn’t really matter if they want to keep on playing the game. Obviously some balancing is still needed but I haven’t found that particularly difficult. Just err a bit towards the easy side on the main quest stuff and do a lot of testing and you should be fine. In open world RPGs especially you can offer more imaginitive approaches to problem solving (be it stealth, alchemy, weird spell combos or whatever) and more obscure secrets and quests to keep the advanced players happy. The tricky part there is that going the extra mile and solving every secret in an RPG should be rewarded which will naturally tilt the scales even more towards the experienced player. It’s a bit of an inevitability but it’s OK if you don’t let the power levels get out of hand too much and make sure the game stays enjoyable in both ends of the scale. Users can’t really be trusted to accurately adjust the difficulty to suit them so you can’t rely on those too much. Making the settings more complicated by making them granular (if you meant that eg. you can fine tune the difficulty of different systems) will make matters worse for the casual players who might need the adjustments the most so those are rarely considered a solution for this issue. Complaints of difficulty aren’t a big deal if most players are happy with it. Difficulty isn’t something everyone agrees on. You do want to make sure the game finds its right audience though and largely that is done by the presentation (graphics, audio, UI etc) of the game. I would imagine most people understood it intuitively that Legend of Grimrock is a difficult game just by watching a 1 minute trailer.
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# ? Feb 2, 2021 08:16 |
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j.peeba posted:
The granular thing is exactly what I was asking about, and I think I understand. Maybe it's not worth the development time to add something like "how pre-buffed do you want enemy spellcasters to be?" slider. I can't fathom how complicated it would be to program your AI to anticipate what a player might do. On that note: apart from QA testing, how do you determine whether players feel the game is too easy/hard? I suspect this varies from developer to developer, but where do you get the most feedback from players? I have this nagging sense that certain websites have an outsized influence on indie developers, at least.
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# ? Feb 2, 2021 08:40 |
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Tricky Ed posted:Get thee to the negotiation thread. Your best practice will be to say "We can discuss that once we've determined whether I'm a good fit for the position and I can see total compensation" or something like that, but super duper read that thread. It's crazy what can happen to you when you start in a lower paid region and just out your salary to people. If you don't know exactly what your position commands, let them say the first number. If you do, start 10-15% over and let them work you down. Also to all UK goons, your pay scales are unbelievably low across the board. Recently transferred teams, they originally wanted me in the UK. Offer for gross pay was less than my current net savings. They moved the role to one of the US offices which magically fixed that issue.
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# ? Feb 2, 2021 08:43 |
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thebardyspoon posted:I've been asked what sort of salary I'd be looking to get for this role I just had a second interview for and I'm not entirely sure how much I should say cause in my experience places vary pretty wildly in how they pay/value QA. It'd be QA lead/manager at a small place in the UK but not in London, if that helps. Looking at this game dev salary google doc I found it looks like somewhere around 30-35k would be reasonable. A friend of mine was in the same boat (different job, similar problem regarding pay) and I found him a bit of "joke" advice from these very same forums. When asked about his expected pay, he would answer in the most over the top voice he could manage: "well usually I don't get out of bed for anything less than 1 million per month". It's so ridiculously overkill that it is sure to provoke a laugh (and if it doesn't then you either dodged a bullet from a super humorless work environment or just got a massive pay raise) and it sends the ball back in their court. Surprisingly this actually worked out well for him in his own job search and he ended up getting an offer that was 500$ a month higher than he would otherwise have been offered. Experience may vary during contact with real life. Warranty void if actually attempted.
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# ? Feb 2, 2021 09:08 |
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rojay posted:The granular thing is exactly what I was asking about, and I think I understand. Maybe it's not worth the development time to add something like "how pre-buffed do you want enemy spellcasters to be?" slider. I can't fathom how complicated it would be to program your AI to anticipate what a player might do. There's a lot of sources for getting a feel for the actual difficulty of the game. As you probably suspect the process is a bit of a mess and what the mess looks like varies from developer to developer (even within an organization) and by project. Apart from QA, as you mentioned, and logged+analyzed gameplay data people tend to watch other devs, friends or streamers play or read what people write about the game. Reviews matter of course post-release. Discord or forums are good to keep up with and good for talking with the players directly too if you need more insight. The result practically is just a lot of noise that you do your best to filter into getting the difficulty you feel the game needs. Apart from smoothing out the occasion difficulty spike or valley, ultimately the dev will have to do the decision of the difficulty of the game themselves since there's so much data and discussion that you usually can make any conclusion you like. You're always making the game for some perceived audience in mind though so I guess some websites may end up feeling more influential than they actually are if their audience just happens to align with the game's.
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# ? Feb 2, 2021 10:13 |
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Tricky Ed posted:Get thee to the negotiation thread. Your best practice will be to say "We can discuss that once we've determined whether I'm a good fit for the position and I can see total compensation" or something like that, but super duper read that thread. Asking to see Total Compensation is key and a way to kick the ball back to them. That's a really important aspect since some benefits will weight heavily on In the past I'd evaluate from my experience: -How good/bad the health care coverage is if you are in the US, what are the deductibles, is there gap coverage in case of enrollment issues [eg. delayed start date]. -Is there free food (less of a thing now with covid/WFH). Working at places with provided food like Dreamworks Animation or Riot Games where they served breakfast/lunch/dinner/snacks saved me hundreds of dollars per month. -Profit participation/Bonuses... multiplier to base bonuses. Stock options. -Salary or hourly, is there overtime/DT*. This one is tricky, I was at one job where I had OT/DT but half the team didn't, it was really random, some were salary, some were hourly some got paid a day rate. -WFH -> is there a subsidy for anything like power or such (My employer throws an extra $50/mo to cover misc. extra WFH home costs. Will send you an Aeron or Steelcase chair to WFH, etc) -Any training/trips stuff.. eg. a trip to GDC or other conferences every year/other year paid. -Any other perks? Transit pass/carpool? One company I got a $100 visa gift card a month for carpooling at one job, and with 3 of us, it paid for our gas/tolls for commuting. Another company gave us a Rental SUV + a gas card if we could pick up at least 4 total carpoolers for at least 3 days a week. This was in LA and was a huge benefit (no commuting costs!, easily several hundred dollars a month benefit there).
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# ? Feb 2, 2021 17:10 |
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I considering applying for programmer openings. Is it worth it to wait until I have some cooler stuff to show off in a portfolio/resume before applying or should I start sending stuff out ASAP? Like, if a place turns me down tomorrow because my resume isn’t interesting, will they give it another look if I apply again in a few months with more stuff on it? On one hand I’m afraid of “blowing it” by applying too soon, but on the other hand I’m also afraid of never feeling like I’m ready enough to apply.
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# ? Feb 11, 2021 17:11 |
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You won't get blacklisted for applying without whatever it is the company is looking for. And for all you know you'll be a perfect fit.
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# ? Feb 11, 2021 17:28 |
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:You won't get blacklisted for applying without whatever it is the company is looking for. And for all you know you'll be a perfect fit. It's also possible that they'll see your resume and not think you're suited for the job you're applying for but think you might be a good fit for some other position. If your resume is actually ignored because they don't think it's interesting they're very unlikely to remember it the next time you submit given just how many resumes get sent in for even marginally competitive positions.
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# ? Feb 11, 2021 18:23 |
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Really good points! This is what I needed to hear. Now I’m out of excuses to get off my rear end and send out some applications.
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# ? Feb 11, 2021 18:33 |
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giogadi posted:I considering applying for programmer openings. Is it worth it to wait until I have some cooler stuff to show off in a portfolio/resume before applying or should I start sending stuff out ASAP? Like, if a place turns me down tomorrow because my resume isn’t interesting, will they give it another look if I apply again in a few months with more stuff on it? You won't get turned down because your resume doesn't have cool stuff. But HR may drop you in the bin if they can't pattern match your resume to the role. I have a languages/tools section that's basically just there so I can get keyword matched through filters. I strongly recommend crafting your resume to pass keyword filters or getting referrals.
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# ? Feb 11, 2021 18:55 |
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giogadi posted:I considering applying for programmer openings. Is it worth it to wait until I have some cooler stuff to show off in a portfolio/resume before applying or should I start sending stuff out ASAP? Like, if a place turns me down tomorrow because my resume isn’t interesting, will they give it another look if I apply again in a few months with more stuff on it? I'm an engineering hiring manager on a 9 figure franchise. Post the resume anonymized or PM it to me if you want comments.
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# ? Feb 11, 2021 21:14 |
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Hughlander posted:I'm an engineering hiring manager on a 9 figure franchise. Post the resume anonymized or PM it to me if you want comments. I'm not giogadi but if you don't mind I'd definitely appreciate you taking a look at my resume. PMing you.
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# ? Feb 11, 2021 22:44 |
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I'm going to have an interview for an internship doing data analysis for one of the big battle royales. I think I'm a pretty good fit - I have a lot of experience working in the tools they use - but I haven't done any data analysis in this context before, and don't really know what to expect. It sounds like some of what they do is the more standard, 'how do we optimize this battle pass' kind of thing, but they also like, analyze how players move around the map over time and work with designers on incorporating that info into design choices. Does anyone have any insight re: what teams like this do, and what kind of skills I should emphasize? I'd also def. appreciate any general tips for interviews like this - this position seems absurdly cool, and I want to give it my best shot. e: Also, just because it seemed interesting, I made a little battle pass simulation thing in the language they use, to get an idea of what it might be like. I figure at the very least I can add it to my portfolio for future stuff. Is that the kind of thing it would be worth bringing up in the interview, i.e., here's an example of me doing the kind of thing I'd be working on over the summer? foutre fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Feb 11, 2021 |
# ? Feb 11, 2021 23:25 |
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Getting back into the industry has been a hell of a thing so far. Months and months of applications and the few replies I get are being not selected for a job or being told 'plz contact us on our totally legit telegram from my e-mail address that has an extra letter inserted into the domain name but am totally from the HR dept. of said company'. Starting to feel like I should've gone and just worked at Gearbox so that I'd at least have contacts in the industry who might be able to hook me up with a job.
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# ? Feb 12, 2021 01:18 |
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We're hiring, by the way: https://irongalaxystudios.com/careers Chicago and Orlando, we do a lot of contract work on major AAA titles as well as some original stuff. Positions in basically all disciplines (I don't think we have audio openings at the moment, but we would certainly take a look at the right person). No crunch, actually, for real. If you're still in the office when I'm done going for an after-work run, I'm going to tell you to go home. Focus on stability, mentorship, and work/life balance. Everything remote for now, we'll be going back to the offices once things are "back to normal".
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# ? Feb 12, 2021 02:14 |
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foutre posted:I'm going to have an interview for an internship doing data analysis for one of the big battle royales. I think I'm a pretty good fit - I have a lot of experience working in the tools they use - but I haven't done any data analysis in this context before, and don't really know what to expect. It sounds like some of what they do is the more standard, 'how do we optimize this battle pass' kind of thing, but they also like, analyze how players move around the map over time and work with designers on incorporating that info into design choices. Yes. I do this. Not specifically on our BR, though. It's hard to give specifics based on someone else's team structure, but we put a higher value on how people think through a problem than their tools. A decent SQL or Python coder is fine. Unoptimized code is usually functional. Bad hypothesis testing wastes potentially months and good hypothesis testing can save/make millions (even if it's just not sending dev effort into something that will definitely fail and you can identify it). As long as you can show ability to pick up "tools" in general, I give a pass there. Your battle pass sim fits really well into a monetization or game economy designer roles. If that sounds fun, lean into it, but also understand what the goals are for those BP sims and have a empirical strategy once players get into your system to see if your simulation meshes with reality (it won't, so think through where it'll differ, if that's okay, should you iterate or switch to frequentist models or agent based etc). To be clear: absolutely loving bring that up. It will look good. Have results or a web page or whatever so you can reference it like a portfolio. Everyone in my team would be on your sim screwing with it the same way we all stopped to futz with Steam's recommendation algorithms when they come out. It sounds like you're looking at a pretty holistic team if it's including gameplay analytics and game economy stuff. I think getting an idea of what you'll be doing is important. Some studios will segment analytics into different groups or roles. The missing piece usually is having a background in the softer skills: requirements gathering (probably not going to be expected of an intern) and delivering work on deadline and with attention to detail. It will be nice to see people who can get from vague request from stakeholders to actionable data, so if you've done that before queue that story up. I don't have PMs but happy to talk things through if you'd like. I can talk all day about this stuff.
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# ? Feb 12, 2021 02:44 |
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more falafel please posted:We're hiring, by the way: https://irongalaxystudios.com/careers Man, that'd save my bacon right about now. I'm a generalist developer but I'm gonna send off an app for a programming position right now. (https://www.forgottenworkshop.com/) I'd love for To Ash and Ember to be a big hit and save me from the last drips of my savings running out but it's not even reached late alpha yet. I thought having about 10 years of experience working remotely 'before it was cool' on full-rear end games production would give me an edge during the pandemic but it seems like it's not much of one at all to most companies. Firgof fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Feb 12, 2021 |
# ? Feb 12, 2021 03:03 |
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Is there a community where indie game devs get together and talk about what they're working on, look for staff, exchange experiences and help each other one? Maybe a very active subreddit? A Discord? A Slack? A conference where everybody meets on a regular basis? I've never gone deep in the "community", so I'm curious if you all knew of such places.
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# ? Feb 12, 2021 05:28 |
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There's tons of indie gamedev discords. SA has a couple of spinoff ones that I know about : The Dogpit and Awful Jams. There's also the (not SA affiliated) Indie World Order discord, though that one's so huge that it doesn't have much of a community IME, it's mostly just devs advertising their projects at each other. TIGSource is an indie-gamedev online forums, itch.io is where pretty much everyone puts their demos and game jam games (and a lot of commercially released games too), uhh...those are the main ones that come to mind.
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# ? Feb 12, 2021 05:42 |
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:There's tons of indie gamedev discords. SA has a couple of spinoff ones that I know about : The Dogpit and Awful Jams. There's also the (not SA affiliated) Indie World Order discord, though that one's so huge that it doesn't have much of a community IME, it's mostly just devs advertising their projects at each other. TIGSource is an indie-gamedev online forums, itch.io is where pretty much everyone puts their demos and game jam games (and a lot of commercially released games too), uhh...those are the main ones that come to mind. Appreciate that, very helpful! Hypothetically, if one were to say "here are (free) services I have to offer to your game / team as a dev", where would one go? At some point in the future I'd like to make a contribution to a small indie project to get a bit of real-world hands-on practice in a lower stakes environment.
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# ? Feb 12, 2021 05:59 |
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DreadCthulhu posted:Appreciate that, very helpful! Find game jams, they tend to have looking-for-group services available where you can advertise your skills. And game jams are exactly what you're looking for in terms of building experience. You can search on Itch.io for active jams.
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# ? Feb 12, 2021 06:11 |
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Find game jams, they tend to have looking-for-group services available where you can advertise your skills. And game jams are exactly what you're looking for in terms of building experience. You can search on Itch.io for active jams. Fantastic, thank you!
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# ? Feb 12, 2021 06:12 |
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DreadCthulhu posted:Is there a community where indie game devs get together and talk about what they're working on, look for staff, exchange experiences and help each other one? Maybe a very active subreddit? A Discord? A Slack? A conference where everybody meets on a regular basis? I've never gone deep in the "community", so I'm curious if you all knew of such places. It takes awhile to build up a network but honestly twitter has a lot of super active indie devs posting what they're working on or that they're looking for work.
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# ? Feb 12, 2021 20:31 |
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Zaphod42 posted:It takes awhile to build up a network but honestly twitter has a lot of super active indie devs posting what they're working on or that they're looking for work. Noted! Is there a particular tag that people like to post that kind of activity on?
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# ? Feb 13, 2021 03:34 |
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DreadCthulhu posted:Noted! Is there a particular tag that people like to post that kind of activity on? #indiedev and #screenshotsaturday are the main ones I know of. You'll see a ton of activity on those though. The alternative is to follow a few big names and then pay attention to who they amplify by retweeting. Rami Ismail for example is a good follow, he talks about indie gamedev a lot. You're probably not going to form a two-way relationship with him on Twitter though, just because he's so big.
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# ? Feb 13, 2021 04:03 |
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:You won't get blacklisted for applying without whatever it is the company is looking for. And for all you know you'll be a perfect fit. This is how I got my first industry job! I applied for a gameplay engineer position at ArenaNet, didn't get it but they passed on my resume to the tools team, who hired me on. I've been doing tools professionally for the last 5 years now! Also, hi everyone, I am industrygoon too. I currently work at System Era Softworks, creators of Astroneer after getting laid off from Anet early 2019.
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# ? Feb 13, 2021 21:45 |
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Pseudoscorpion posted:This is how I got my first industry job! I applied for a gameplay engineer position at ArenaNet, didn't get it but they passed on my resume to the tools team, who hired me on. I've been doing tools professionally for the last 5 years now! I enjoyed playing Astroneer with a couple of friends
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# ? Feb 15, 2021 17:33 |
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more falafel please posted:We're hiring, by the way: https://irongalaxystudios.com/careers Having an interview tomorrow. Hoping that even if the interviewer decides I'm not a fit for programmer after all that there's still a position in there somewhere for me. I just want to work and not have to worry about keeping a roof over my head in the middle of extremely low temperature weather in the middle of a pandemic but it seems it's tough for everybody right now. The current job I have is a (presently unpaid) internship where I'm seeing folks with multiple years of experience working for basically peanuts (and no peanuts for two weeks despite 40 hours of unpaid investment during those) on what should be such an entry level position that it should probably only be applying to folks fresh from highschool. Still, thanks for the shoutout. Even if I don't ultimately get a job there at least there was a bright moment where I actually got to interview with someone legitimate. Meanwhile Ysbryd is taking a look at my solo-dev game but, despite efforts, I'm doubtful I'll stick that landing just because I'm still so early in alpha at the moment. Hoping y'all are doing well out there and that your projects are doing fantastic. Firgof fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Feb 15, 2021 |
# ? Feb 15, 2021 22:14 |
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Firgof posted:I'm seeing folks with multiple years of experience working for basically peanuts (and no peanuts for two weeks despite 40 hours of unpaid investment during those) on what should be such an entry level position that it should probably only be applying to folks fresh from highschool. "passion industry"
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# ? Feb 15, 2021 22:17 |
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Hope the interview went well Firgof! Got my first round tomorrow as well, fingers crossed. MJBuddy posted:I don't have PMs but happy to talk things through if you'd like. I can talk all day about this stuff. Hey, sorry got real busy and didn't get a chance to respond yet but thanks for this post! I'll definitely share my little sim - it's not the most well-organized thing, but I can definitely talk a bit about how I'd change it given other data, why I made my choices, etc. I'd definitely appreciate talking through stuff some if you're up for it - if you'd be up for talking about it a bit more specifically/if email would be a better medium for it, I'm at foooutre@gmail.com. Just writing it out I realized I actually have a lot of questions. I guess the most basic one is just, but what do the projects you do look like? Like for hypothesis testing, I've mostly done it in research or less business-ey govt contexts and am curious how it translates. The only other person I know who's doing data stuff in games came via a psych PhD, so I don't really have a good sense of what a normal route is to this kind of work. What kind of background do people on your team have, or if your up for talking about it, what was your route to this stuff? Basically, I'd love to hear more about what your job's like in general! Until hearing back from this company I didn't realize how much more excited I was about doing this stuff for games than other industries. foutre fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Feb 18, 2021 |
# ? Feb 18, 2021 23:26 |
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foutre posted:
I'll shoot you an email in a bit once I get my kids down. I did this stuff in government admin and in home security call centers before gaming. Gaming is a lot more fun. I'm not going back.
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# ? Feb 19, 2021 01:55 |
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foutre posted:Hope the interview went well Firgof! Got my first round tomorrow as well, fingers crossed! Round one went pretty good but it was more or less a 'confirmation you actually want to interview' type of interview. Next one I've got is with the tech. director and they're wanting to quiz my general and C++ specific knowledge. I'm hoping that I'm majorly a C# developer won't bite me much there and that my general programming skills may be enough to pull me through, but I know it's dicey given how big Unreal is in the industry. I've got lots of intermediate programming knowledge. Delegates, pointers, anonymous functions, and polymorphism are all things I don't use much and don't really 'understand' yet but I use pretty much everything else that I know of (e.g. overloads, inheritance, constructors, etc). I'm fairly confident that I've got enough knowledge to tackle anything that doesn't touch crypto, non-basic 3d maths (not including stuff like dot product), or netcode. Of course, being a C# major dev without much netcode under my belt has been pretty limiting. Feels like the cross-section of developers who use Unity and C# to develop client-only games at a professional level is very small. e: I'm still throwing out applications as fast as I can along with continuously developing my game in hopes something will land. The tooth I have that's been infected for at least two months now needs to get taken care of but I have zero money to do so, some of my cards are already max'd, and I'm one bank account month away from being unable to pay my bills. It's bad enough I'm considering I might just launch To Ash and Ember straight into Early Access way ahead of schedule just in hopes I get some money to take care of myself even if I'm fairly sure this will sabotage its long term sales. Firgof fucked around with this message at 15:49 on Feb 19, 2021 |
# ? Feb 19, 2021 15:03 |
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# ? Apr 18, 2024 12:02 |
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Is taxonomist/digital librarian/some-other-term a thing at game companies? My wife is an academic librarian and was tipped off from a friend about a job at The Pokemon Company for a taxonomist. They wanted someone to organize their data, manage workflows, admin their gameplay databases to maximize utility for designers, etc. She got through a competitive interview process but they ended giving the job to another candidate because they had greater TCG experience. She's a video gamer and hadn't ever really played TCGs but she tried to cram once she applied. Though she didn't try to front with them and was honest about her TCG experience. Is this position common or was it a one off at Pokemon?
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# ? Feb 22, 2021 00:36 |