Ask Slashdot: Experiences Working At a High-Profile Game Studio? 189
msheekhah writes "I have a friend who, when he gets out of college, has been promised a job at well known electronics company with a salary around $70k. However, he wants to instead go work for Blizzard or some other game company as a game programmer. I've read enough on here and on other tech websites to know that he should take the job he's been offered. Can you share with me your experiences so I can give him real life examples to convince him to take this job? If your experience is contrary to mine, I'd appreciate that input as well."
What does the job entail? (Score:5, Insightful)
Game development sounds fun because games are fun.
Like how being a prostitute sounds fun because having sex is fun.
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I had not laugh thatmuch in a while. Thank you! :)
Re: What does the job entail? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: What does the job entail? (Score:5, Informative)
After reading several comments that game industry jobs are all sweatshop work, I thought I might share my (different) experience. I work at Unity, so not exactly a games company, but game industry anyways. I've been here for quite a few years no and have always been (and I still am) very happy about my work. While everybody has done overtime work to get urgent fixes done at some time or other, this is not the rule, and we are far from the working conditions in many places described here. The development team has a great culture, we get to work on exciting stuff, and we get plenty of opportunities to try out things which interest us -- as a rule, similar to Google's "20% time", we have FAFF (fridays are for fun) to work on pet projects, as well as regular Hack Weeks, were the whole dev team is brought in to one location to form teams to try new ideas. It's fun.
If you're interested, check out http://unity3d.com/jobs/ [unity3d.com] - but then, I guess your chances of being hired for an engineering position when fresh out of colleges are somewhat slim, unless you have done some really awesome stuff besides your education. But that will not be any different in any of the other larger companies in the industry.
Re: What does the job entail? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm an ex-game programmer, and what you say is not supported by my experience.
Developing a framework is totally different than releasing games.
When you work on a framework, you spend a lot of time on the same project, by incrementally adding new features.
Quality is very important, so you must spend most of your time building quality, by writing tests and writing optimized code.
You also have direct contact with your customers.
When you program games, what is important is the delivery date, especially in large game companies.
Quality is not really important, and all the conception is already done before the game started, so there is not a lot of place for innovation.
Porting games is mostly what large game companies do, since you cannot rely on a single console to earn money.
And when you write games nowadays, your job as a coder is mostly using libraries, because a game is too much work if rewritten from scratch.
The "fun" part as a coder is to write your own routines, so that you master everything, when you rely on a library, you always expect bugs.
And the "fun" part as a gamer is to fine-tune the game, and this is the most tedious task !
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Well, at Unity you are in the cozy position of not having to work much on actual games. Game studios have a lot of shit going down because of the creative and economic aspects of games. Game engines are sort of decoupled from that. Consider yourself lucky in that regard!
Also, you guys at Unity are doing great work.
Re: What does the job entail? (Score:4, Informative)
I work for one of the top 5 developers on console games, as a programmer. Are there crunch times? Yes. Do you get comp time? Yes. I'm going to be taking 35 days vacation this fall. The work itself is vastly more interesting and personally rewarding (to me) than working on business intelligence software, which is probably where I'd be otherwise.
You get what you put into it, and you also get what you put up with. I don't recommend that anybody sacrifice their quality of life simply to be in games, and certainly some studios are worse than others, but in making games for 9 years, if you can put up with a some crunch every year or two, it can be a really fun job. Just put up resistance if you're being treated unfairly (80 hour work weeks? Never.) .. once you get some experience, you can move around. The entire industry is a game of musical chairs, so you should be able to find something at your 'pressure' level. Some people will put up with those insane for the privilege of working on a GTA title, but there is plenty of middle ground.
And as somebody else pointed out above, just because you like playing games (or even making them for yourself) doesn't necessarily mean you'll like making them in the AAA game space. I just wrapped up a title where the credits take about 40 minutes to watch, so there are lots of considerations in terms of how much time you're willing to put in, how much individual credit you're looking for, etc.
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Like how being a prostitute sounds fun because having sex is fun.
When I visit them, they always make a point of telling me how much fun they had ;-)
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Game development sounds fun because games are fun.
Like how being a prostitute sounds fun because having sex is fun.
Yep. The "game industry glow" wears off pretty damn quick when you're working non-stop 80 hour work weeks. I don't really miss having a sleeping bag by my desk, the perpetual deadlines, low pay, crap benefits, vacations you were never allowed to take, and all the other crap from the game industry. Yeah, it's cool to see your game on the shelf and if you're lucky, good game reviews but that is a small consolation for basically being a sweatshop slave.
The first job I got after leaving the games industry doubl
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Yep. The "game industry glow" wears off pretty damn quick when you're working non-stop 80 hour work weeks. I don't really miss having a sleeping bag by my desk, the perpetual deadlines, low pay, crap benefits, vacations you were never allowed to take, and all the other crap from the game industry. Yeah, it's cool to see your game on the shelf and if you're lucky, good game reviews but that is a small consolation for basically being a sweatshop slave.
You don't actually say it, but this relates to what- as I understand it- is the biggest problem with the games industry in general. In general, it's a "dream job" for young people who've grown up with computer games, and now have the opportunity to be involved in "making" them. Of course, the reality- as others have mentioned- is that a lot of computer game development is monotonous, separated from the design side and poorly paid for what it requires. But the fact is that there will always be college/uni-ag
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Where do I send royalties for using that analogy in the future?
Cheers for hitting that right on the head...
Typically, It's too late. (Score:2)
Not me but friends (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, their resumes now have a golden game programming glow. So they have been able to go out into the indy/startup world and be treated like kings. Way way better than some third rate "game programming" degree or diploma program.
Re:Not me but friends (Score:5, Interesting)
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Haha, ActiveX, hells yeah!
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Re:Not me but friends (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely disagree, coming right out of college and getting 70k is actually damn good. He has no experience and yet they're willing to pay him that? I suppose it depends on which city he is at, though. But, even in expensive L.A. I know developers who make around that who have experience. Though, I suppose it could be potentially low. Just remember, a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. He could apply at Blizzard, get turned away, and then lose the offer and end up sitting on his ass for a year which leaves a big gaping hole in your resume and makes you nigh unemployable. Take the job, and apply at Blizzard. If Blizzard accepts, be a douche and jump ship. Companies have no loyalty to us and can drop our asses at any time for no good reason and they often do, we should have no loyalty to them either. If Blizzard does not accept, you're still making money in the interim and getting great experience. Pad that resume, and you'll look better and better to future employers. If you end up staying at the company every year you get a 4% to 5% raise (assuming you're doing well), after a decade that adds up. Not to mention you'll have benefits in the meantime; insurance (you may be young, but anyone can be hit by a bus or experience health problems), 401k w/ matching (e.g. free money), life insurance (if you met a girl and made her your wife in college and she's having your baby, this is handy), etc.
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I completely disagree, coming right out of college and getting 70k is actually damn good.
Not around here, 70K is actually a low end figure. Coming right out of college or not, they're actually favoring new college grads. Come to sillicon valley and see what nonsense is going on here, with new grad & h1b recruiting. Its a fucking slaughterhouse.
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That's because you have to pay to live in Silicon Valley.
For the same salary he'll have a significantly higher standard of living in, say, Austin, assuming he's willing to live in Austin.
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...Take the job, and apply at Blizzard. If Blizzard accepts, be a douche and jump ship...
THIS!
Part of management training in many organizations is to ensure that no employee is irreplaceable. Redundancy, even in the workforce, is one of their key focus areas. That is –– you are expendable.
OK, not everywhere, but at many places yes. Treat your employer with the same respect they give you, and to your colleagues.
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Knowing GL/DirectX is pretty meaningless in games unless you're looking to be hired as a graphics programmer. Even more interesting these days is that as more of the gaming experience moves online, we're seeing fairly traditional skillsets such as DBA or server side programming become much more in demand. It all depends on what you want to do *on* a game development team. Knowing graphics programming doesn't guarantee you a job anymore than being demonstrably skilled in any other facet of game programming.
He needs experience (Score:1)
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He will need experience if he wants to go to one of the high-profile studios.
I'm building a career plan. What's a good way to get such experience? Will, for example, a low-profile studio pay someone enough to afford relocation?
First rule of working (Score:5, Insightful)
It's really simple:
If you have a job, you can get a job.
If you don't have a job, getting a job is harder.
"Promised" is an elusive word, but assuming that the $70K offer comes thru, why not take it unless he has a gaming company offer in hand? which I assume he doesn't. It's always a good thing to be able to afford housing and food while looking for the job of one's choice.
Besides, he might be surprised, and like the promised job. (Or, it might be a small step above a Siberian work camp. One never really knows about these things until one tries it; but of course the same goes for the "dream" job at a gaming company!)
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he should pursue (Score:5, Insightful)
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Unless that path is surfing, living with your parents and getting Food Stamps.
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I find this highly inapplicable advice. Very few people enjoy work, just ask yourself and co-workers as to who still would come to work if they won a lottery.
Assuming he is a normal human being, he won't enjoy work. The best he can hope is fulfilling career with adequate compensation. You can trade increase in fulfillment for decrease of compensation, but "happy" is definitely out of the question. Happy is what happens outside of work. If
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If you dread going to work every day with no bright points, you really do need a different job or different employer.
For example, I have to deal with whiney instructors who don't follow directions, who check out completely 3 months of the year (and are proud of it), and who ignore emails or manage the work related messages they have after returning from 3 months off by saying "there were too many so I just deleted them all".
But, I also get to play in our teaching zoo, work on setting up webcams, experiment
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Still stand by my comment...
Lets look at the guy who mops the bathrooms at mcdonalds
Option one is to work at location A with manager A who is a real A hole. "Clock out for your bathroom breaks" or "I told you to do this 3 seconds ago why are you still here filling your water cup" or similar.
Same job, same pay, store B across town with manager B who simply says "You've been doing this for more than a week, you know the routine, you know what I expect of you I can pretty much leave you alone to do your job".
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I might do different work if I had Infinite Money, but there are things I work on for $DAYJOB now that I would likely continue to work on if I had free time and no other obligations.
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Same here. If I came in to a lot of money I'd probably go back to college to brush up on a few things, but I'd definitely want to stay in my line of work.
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the path that makes him happy.
The path that makes him happy for a year, or the path the makes him happy for the next decade but not so happy next year?
It's high pressure and high risk (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's high pressure and high risk (Score:5, Interesting)
>Young, single people can afford to take risks that people with families and mortgages just can't afford.
Indeed. If his dream is truly to work for a game company and he can get an acceptable offer out of college perhaps he should take it. It may go well or badly, but he may never again have as much freedom to chase a dream for the hell of it as he has now. Better to chase it and be disappointed by what he discovers than spend his life dreaming about what might have been.
On the other hand if he doesn't have a gaming offer in hand I'd start chasing the offer now, and go for the electronics job if he can't make any headway there. I imagine even gaming companies prefer candidates with a proven work history. Just not so much of one that they demand a reasonable compensation package.
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Best to take interviews at many companies, not just game companies and ask to see where people will be working. Just for working space alone, there's a whole variety of floor-plans for desks. I've seen some places where everyone just got 80cm width of desk space and were sitting side by side on benches. Other place gave everyone a desk, but it's open plan face-to-face side-by-side for the whole open plan office area with no windows for a hundred people. Slightly better is, everyone gets a desk alongside a w
Take the decent job for a few years (Score:5, Interesting)
It's Simple, Really. (Score:5, Insightful)
If your friend doesn't have this dubious "$70k as a college graduate" offer/promise on paper, signed, and in his possession , then such a position doesn't exist. Period. If he believes otherwise, he's gonna have a bad time.
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I was listening to the radio last night and they reported the top job desired by children is that of reality star. I see this in a number of high school and college graduates as well. They want to be a star working at a star company. For jobs that do not really create anything, CEO, lawyer, doctor, that is OK. But for an engineer, who should be innovating everyday things that makes our lives better, that should be making the world safer, it does. Of course a game developer is likely more like a lawyer than an engineer, but still. I would say find somewhere you can make a difference, not somewhere you can be a star. It is not a bad thing to know that you went into work and did something meaningful. Of course that could happen a Blizzard. But if someone is offerring you a job at a firm where what you do matters, and you are getting well compensated, I think that is a good thing.
I think working on a project that would likely make millions of people happy (even if only for a few hours each) is pretty damned meaningful. Sure, entertainment isn't life-or-death, but it's got to be more rewarding than, say, accountancy.
let him make his own mistakes (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy isn't exactly wanting to go into drugs or some such. Nothing good will come from trying to interfere with him. If he never starts at the game industry he will always keep some romantic vision of how it would be.
Going into game dev can be a tough choice, but if that's what he wants to do there isn't much you can do about it.
Let him work it out himself if it is for him, he will find out the reality soon enough after starting there. Also, if he can get 70k offers now, I'm sure he will be okay after a year at a gamestudio finding a new job too.
Clock is ticking (Score:2)
The next consideration is that just because you qualified for a job of
be wary (Score:5, Interesting)
I had an offer from Bioware that I ended up passing on because I had another offer from another company to do full time iOS development which is what I really wanted to do. A friend of mine ended up taking the same job at Bioware that I had been offered. I left a year later. His experiences can best be summed up in a single line from a chat he and I had one time -- "they cancelled Christmas" ... he had been working 80hr weeks for almost a year by that point. I felt like I dodged a bullet.
If writing games is your passion, and you can't live without it, and you don't mind doing it ALL the time, then that is the only time I would say it's okay to work for a games company. If you do, try to find an indy shop that works a sustainable pace. The other downside is that the people working there were very grouchy and mean. Not a happy place.
Re:be wary (Score:5, Insightful)
"If writing games is your passion"
Ask him first how many games has he already written.
If the answer is "nil", then his passion is not writing games. He only thinks so, probably over the wrong information and for the wrong reasons.
Avoid the large ones (Score:2)
Reality Check... (Score:2)
I'd say your friend is quite fortunate to be wanted straight out of college, but here's the thing: the electronics company only PROMISED him a job when he graduates. As the old adage goes: promises are made to be broken...and in the tech world, so are verbal agreements and temp jobs.
SHOULD the electronics company follow through, he should still take the job, and find satisfaction in getting whatever real-world experience he can get out of it!
I had this idealistic dream of working for Blizzard, EA, etc..a
Your friend is making a huge mistake (Score:2)
Second, Blizzard, or any other gaming studio will be very high-demand low-reward position. Your friend will be knowingly taking less pay for more work.Plus his work at gaming studio won't translate well into broader IT field, a lot of gaming technologies are not used elsewhere. (e.g. programming gaming engine will not help him get a job at CISCO or Google)
Don't try to stop your friend, but ma
11 year veteran (Score:5, Informative)
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Console qualifications (Score:2)
it's hard bloody work, which doesn't pay that much, and you'd be better off working on your own games in your own time.
But how does working on one's own games in one's own time produce verifiable "game industry experience" that one can show to a publisher or a console maker?
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Write a web game, post it online.
Contribute to an open source game, be able to point to the github repo or list of contributors or whatever.
When I was interviewing people for a gaming studio, we had people do both, and they both looked very good on the resume -- they show both your technical skills, and your passion for gaming. You are clearly excited enough about this to go do it in your spare time, which means a lot!
not enough info (Score:2)
70 grand? 70 grand in LA or New York isnt shit, 70 grand in Atlanta is a good living, where is this magical electronics company?
Whats the job position? programming a microwave timer may suck, programming the UI to the new BMW might be cool, or whatever
Why Blizzard? They do not generate enough projects to keep every wishful nerd with a BS in the world employed "just cause they like starcraft"
Why are you so worried to convince him when you obviously do not have all the info? Worry about screwing up your own l
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programming a microwave timer may suck, programming the UI to the new BMW might be cool, or whatever
You might be surprised. By and large, I had far more fun programming point-of-sale systems for petrol stations (US: gas stations) then I did the far more glamorous world of TV digital effects systems. Once you got over the initial eye-popping "oooh wow" factor, it was a sheer grind most of the time. The analogy with "being a prostitute is fun because sex is fun" that someone made up there is spot-on.
promised a job is not an offer (Score:2)
promised a job is not an offer and they can say stuff like we where banking on a big deal to happen and it did not so we can't hire you. Upper management is moving a different way and we don't need people with your skills, ECT.
I'm making those mistakes right now, myself. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, I'm sort of in the same situation. Except that in my case, my friends and I decided to start our own company. We're building a MMO. No publishers.
We're not just out of college, we're veterans in a number of fields, and this is my point.
Education is transferable. If you know how to code, you can start in a good job, and move over later. Or, even better, do your own game. If it was art, I'd say, join a studio. But for coding? Sadly, you're replaceable. But you can replace them as well.
If you've got a good offer, go for it, but don't kill yourself. Go for the job, spend a year or two, and if you don't like it, move on, then come back as a more experienced person, and get back in higher in the food chain. Just out of college is a great time to try out something risky, that looks great on the resume.
But don't let them abuse you. Work hard, work well, but you are not a chew toy. The one thing most people right out of college miss, though, is that every project has to be finished and polished to be done. The stuff you do for class is under too tight a deadline to actually finish, you just get it working. This stuff, follow through on. Ask your boss about what I mean, if you get the job - knowing to ask that question can mark you as someone with a future.
I've had some good education from the following books:
Making Fun is a book about how a game is put together, the various jobs that exist and how they relate.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007RV3UTS/ref=oh_d__o08_details_o08__i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 [amazon.com]
Interactive Entertainment is a book about the life cycle of a game, and the various fields of gaming that exist.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0041T4HG4/ref=oh_d__o07_details_o07__i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 [amazon.com]
Level Up! is a book on game design. Once you know about what a game is, and how it's put together, this is pretty handy to dig style with.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0046REX10/ref=oh_d__o02_details_o02__i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 [amazon.com]
They're all a little generic, but they're also solid starting points.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0046REX10/ref=oh_d__o02_details_o02__i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 [amazon.com]
(For those curious about my personal project, it's a spiritual successor to City of Heroes. The MAN shut it down. Well, we can make our own game! With blackjack! And... forget the blackjack. With superheroes! And costumes! And all kinds of awesome stuff. And the best part is that in the ten years since CoH launched, the industry's come a long way - we can do all kinds of crazy stuff now.)
( www.missingworldsmedia.com if you're interested. )
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Except that in my case, my friends and I decided to start our own company. We're building a MMO.
Everyone's building an MMO. It seems to be the default I-want-to-make-this-kind-of-game genre (just like building an OS is the default for big software engineering projects -- just look how many hobbyist OSs there are out there!). Perhaps you shouldn't let this discourage you, but still worth thinking about.
If we're onto book recommendations, there are a couple more:
A Theory of Fun, Raph Koster. If you read his blog, it turns out there's a new edition due out soon, so may be worth waiting for it, but thi
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I love Raph... but mostly I love to disagree with him. About so very much. That being said, his statements existing to disagree with are absolutely essential. If that makes sense. I love reading his work.
I'm working on a MMO - but this guy might not be. What I was posting about was basic level books on the field in general. I hope they prove helpful to him.
It's About Culture (Score:2, Informative)
As someone who recently start working for a game studio that is profitable, incredibly player-focussed and protects its culture with both hands, I just want to say that genuinely good opportunities do still exist in the gaming industry - though it would be disingenuous to pretend that they're the norm.
However, more fundamentally, forget gaming or any other domain for a second and demand that the people you work with embody and project as much of the following as possible...
integrity
compassion
kindness
a deter
Does he have a job offer in the gaming industry? (Score:2)
This situation kind of reminds me of the character played by Randy Quaid in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," where his wife explains that he's been out of work for close to a decade because "he's holding out for a position in upper management."
But on the other hand, why is it your job to tell him what to do with his career? It's his life, let him live it for better and for worse. Any mistake he's intent on making is his to learn from, and most great successes looked like suicide missions to other
Use reason.... (Score:4, Informative)
... take the bird in the hand (the job offered).... then work at the company making money and gaining reputable XP while trying to apply to blizzard and get in there....
Nobody is going to think less of you for working in your field. If anything, the xp will only help validate your friends' skillset and give more power to the application to blizzard.
Also, who the hell considers turning down a job offer in this economy? I had to win a grant to get my job.
Entry level is HARD (Score:2)
This is NOT an "either-or" situation. He's not going to die in two years, he's not committed to the job offer for life, and a gaming company isn't going to see electronics work on his resume and blacklist him.
Entry-level is HARD, and a college degree is worth very little with
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That timing makes it harder, but that's a low enough salary requirement that you should be able to get in, somewhere.
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BTW, noticing your .sig I think I should mention that pretty much all discussion of politics and religion is off-limits in interviews, resumes, and mostly verboten even in the office once you are hired. Those are the two big hot-buttons you want to stay away from. Work life and personal life are best kept separate, anyhow.
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Sony (Score:2)
Sony is a big electronics company AND a gaming company, so perhaps your friend can have his cake and eat it too. (Or perhaps it's a lie...)
I spent a couple years at Sony San Diego Studio as a contractor, albiet not as a "game programmer". Two contracts doing Ruby/Rails backend stuff, first working on internal software that manages configuring back-end servers and deploying them, and then working on back-end admin and console services. The latter was definately much more fun, since it was working in the same
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It depends ... (Score:2)
Experiences depend on various things:
1) How well is the company doing?
2a) What products are their business model?
2b) If they're building a new product, do they have the cashn/ provide the cash to finance a prototype and the time it takes to develop a good product?
3) How good is the team / teamlead / project manager / internal pipeline / development method?
I've worked as a dev and later on as a Scrum Master for a gaming company on a product/prototype team. It was plain awesome. The lead was very good at taki
Speaking for a friend of mine in the industry (Score:2)
First off, if he has a job offer in hand from the first company, then he should take it no matter what his ultimate desire. Once you have a job, it is easier to start looking for the perfect job.
I have a friend of mine who desire has been to work in the game industry. First he worked at a board game company and now he works for a high profile video game company. From what I know about what he's doing, he's not making as much money as he'd like and he's not doing ideally what he'd like to be doing. Also
Get the day job. (Score:2)
Games at game companies. (Score:2)
Programming in a "company" is likely a lot less fun.
Personal temperament can make anything fun or anything dull and lacking in adjectives.
Big bucks from games is possible but so is winning the lottery.
There is still some VC money for game companies but less and less makes it into the hands of creative programmers.
Youth.... go for it, what ever it is..... ... games maybe not but there are some great game companies.
Wife and kids
Game dev here (Score:3)
I have worked at 3 game studios - Amaze Entertainment (now Griptonite), Sony Online Entertainment, and now Microsoft. I've worked on the PSP, PS3, PC, and Xbox One. I have worked on relatively short cycle year long games as the main programmer, I've written back end software for MMOs as a core-tech guy (mostly removed from the game) and as a part of the game team. I've worked on more MMO titles than most devs.
The closer you are to the game, the more hours you're going to work. SOE was particularly bad - I worked there for 6 years and only had a single real raise. The first two years was on a core tech team that was really awesome. My manager was super experienced, and we set time lines and expectations for raises, and he followed through. I learned a lot, and was making my way up. But then the team evaporated and I was put directly on a game team. I was promised bonuses that regularly fell through. "When we hit Alpha in June, you'll all get bonuses!" - Great! Oh... the game doesn't hit Alpha in June? Well, there goes June.. July... August... Game gets a facelift... Alpha the next year in June! Or July, or August. Get used to that. And promotions? Few and far between, and they always pull the "no promotions until we ship" card, which if you're working on a 6-year long dev cycle for an MMO doesn't make sense. I don't know of a single programmer who got a promotion while at SOE for the last 4 years when I was working there. At most places, if you're not directly on a team, you get a standard bonus at the end of the fiscal year - it's not huge, but it's pretty reliable. If you are on a game team, you get milestone bonuses instead, which get pushed around, and without fail they always claim that the parking lot will be filled with Ferrari's.
Management is usually bad. My last boss seemed bipolar about my performance. One month it was "Great! On track for a promotion at alpha!" to "We really expect you to put in 60 hours a week." When you're young and fresh into the industry, don't have a wife or kids, you can do 60 hours a week. But you're going to feel miserable doing it when you're trying to have a reasonable work/life balance, and with experience you'll realize that 60-hour weeks for a year is not sustainable. There was a month when I did 90+ hours every week to help a project ship on time - I didn't get a bonus, didn't get any time off, nothing, even though my manager for the project praised my work.
Of course, there is a reason I still work in games. The most passionate programmers are working in games. You get to do something you absolutely love, with really smart people, and make pretty good money doing it. At Microsoft I'm a bit more removed from the game team - which means I do my 40 and I go home. I think that you have to strive to find the balance that you want. I can't see myself ever trading my job for some boring programming position outside of games.
let him experience the good and the bad (Score:2)
Can you share with me your experiences so I can give him real life examples to convince him to take this job?
No. It's better to learn what type of job you enjoy on your own. If he is talented he will be fine; maybe he will hate it and quit, maybe he will like it, who knows. If he likes it you'll just end up looking like an asshole. The important thing is he will probably learn and move on. There are good and bad jobs across industries in technology, I've had my share of both and I would never trade those pe
Bird in the hand worth two in the bush (Score:2)
The gaming job is not guaranteed, the electronics one is.
If you are a good friend your ONLY advice is to take the electronics job now and then apply for the games job. Telling him to turn down a promised job and shoot for his dreams will only mean you will probably have your friend sleeping on your couch because he is jobless and broke.
Not sure of many gaming companies that are going to hire someone straight out of college unless he has a pretty damn good portfolio of his own independent gaming projects to
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Even better than that is the incongruence of
I've read enough on here and on other tech websites to know... If your experience is contrary to mine, I'd appreciate that input as well.
Is OP only interested in hearing from people who've read that working in the games industry can be fun, or does he actually want to hear from people who've done it?
(For what it's worth, I spent five years working in the games industry, and the two years at Jagex was the best job I've had. I'm no longer in games, but it still winds me up when people think that everywhere is as bad as EA).
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I have a friend who, when he gets out of college, has been promised a job at well known electronics company with a salary around $70k.
[citation needed] Sorry, I don't buy the "my friend is being offered $70k/year straight out of college, but wants to work for Blizzard instead" line. I'm gonna call bullshit on this one.
Imma have to agree with you on this too. I have never heard of anyone making that 'right out of college'. Maybe within a few years if you're good at that thing you do, hit a great idea or are one of the rare prodigies.
However, if this is true, I'd say, 'take the 70k job, work a few yrs to get some experience and then move on to follow your dreams.' That's what I did. Not with programming though.
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The starting salary for a new college grad software engineer at the big tech companies in the SF Bay area is well over $70K.
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6 years ago I was right out of school with an undergraduate degree. My starting salary was almost 80k for a software development job, and it wasn't even at one of the high cost-of-living areas. Not a cheap area either, but certainly not Silicon Valley or New York. People start with around 90k there now, partly because of inflation but mostly because of across-the-board raises to keep ahead of the market.
I might understand the bullshit call if that was claimed to be an average starting salary, but it's no
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what area is this? Just a general area would be helpful.
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A gaming job wouldn't necessarily suck, not if it were at Bethesda or something. At Blizzard it would suck.
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I say keep striving for what you want.
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Most gaming jobs seem to suck though. Bigger companies would suck in different ways than smaller companies though. Ie, you're poor because the big company is stingy with payroll, versus you're poor because the tiny company has no revenue, and at either place you will be on a forced death march because it is always crunch time. New grads are basically cheap labor who don't have the experience necessary to switch to less exploitive jobs. On the other hand, it beats being an IT jockey doing user help desk.
Re:Stop Interfering (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you should let your friend do what the hell they want and stop being such a busybody? You're not his mom. Maybe the electronics job would suck, maybe the gaming job would suck, you're not in a position to judge.
He's a friend. Do you have friends? Do you care about your friends? Do your friends care about you? If you saw a friend making what you think might be a mistake, wouldn't you perhaps talk to them. If your friends saw you making what to them might be a mistake, wouldn't you want them to talk to you?
Of course, if all you have is acquaintances, then, hey, you're not their mom, what do you care if they make a mistake. (and hey, they're not your mom, what do they care about you if you make a mistake).
Personally, I can understand where the Original Poster is coming from. He's a friend to his friend. It's what friends do.
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He's a friend. Do you have friends? Do you care about your friends? Do your friends care about you? If you saw a friend making what you think might be a mistake, wouldn't you perhaps talk to them. If your friends saw you making what to them might be a mistake, wouldn't you want them to talk to you? Personally, I can understand where the Original Poster is coming from. He's a friend to his friend. It's what friends do.
When someone is taking their first job out of college I think that they should be given lots of advice from those with more real world experience. The first job often sets up the whole of your career. If you start in banking, you will probably stay in banking. Ditto for defence. Once you have two years experience in any industry it will be very hard to change to another industry. It's not impossible of course, but it may involve a period of unemployment and a pay cut. But, if you have dependants by then (wh
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In this case, we don't know what the job is with the electronics company. Is is a programming job? If so, it may be easier to switch from ind
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Agreed, it may be difficult to change directions once employed, but it is possible (I once worked with someone who resigned a programming job because she'd just got a job with the police - something she'd always wanted to do. Someone else gave up a project management job to do a Radiography degree. And others I've known have resigned to travel the world for a year).
Agreed, it is possible to change career direction - particularly if you are strongly motivated for the new career, and have savings and/or other backup.
I think the trick is not to get "locked in". In this case I would possibly advise to take the job that is definitely there, but tread lightly until you get the job you want. Don't buy a house, don't get married, and don't have children, until it is certain that the games programming job isn't going to materialise.
I really liked this observation! Indeed, when you are young and independent is the best time to take a risk with your career. While it is never easy to change direction, it is certainly easier now than it is once you are financially locked in. After that, it'll be twenty years - if you are lucky!
In the end, an interim job is better than no job at all (or flipping burgers).
That seems to be the unanimous advice here.
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I see both sides.
If I witness a good friend who I think is about to walk off of a cliff (metaphorically or literally) then I usually say something, but it has to be pretty serious because otherwise I don't think it is my place. I'm sure the person posting the question to /. does think this is serious, as he is worried his friend is turning down a lot of money and an excellent opportunity for something that won't pan out. Yet at the same time, if this person wants to go work for a game studio that kind of im
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One of my personal rules is never to tread on the dreams of people I know. To take your example, some people who dream of being rock stars do indeed become rock stars. Then again, if I had a friend who couldn't sing, couldn't play the guitar (or any other instrument) and had no musical ability, then I might suggest them trying an alternative career (you know, in the short term, while they manage t
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I've been keeping up on the discussion and I guess I'll have to now put myself in the "see both sides" camp as well...
See, I came from a small farming town in the midwest, and I had friends who, while trying to be a 'good friend' actually held me back intellectually...their advice sometimes narrowed my horizons...
However, in my life (and I suspect but can't prove that it'll be true for everyone) that the net effect of my friend's advice has been decidedly positive.
See, I also had a friend back home who gave
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This. Game development is something you should get involved with only if you can't imagine yourself doing anything else. It's almost more of a calling than a profession. Not something anyone should be pushed into.
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You'd get that if you went to one of the traditional universities (Russell Group) and did an Honours or Masters by research in a subject like computation finance or fluid dynamics. But be careful of what the job description is - that £45K in the UK might be for a senior engineer, team leader or an architect, so you'll spend more of your time attending meetings, writing specifications, pair programming or extreme programming.
Re: Stop Interfering (Score:2)
All of them got at least 70k.