Slashdot Mirror
Breaking Into The Games Industry Discussed
Thanks to GameZone.com for their interview with Marc Saltzman discussing his book, Game Creation and Careers: Insider Secrets from Industry Experts. The book includes interviews with many leading creators, plus design docs from Chris Taylor of Dungeon Siege/Total Annihilation notoriety, as well as "..everything from how to protect your game idea, how to sell it, getting a job at a development studio or publishing company, setting up your own development house, working with headhunters and agents, doing it yourself by selling games online (shareware, etc.), proper game testing, marketing, public relations and key organizations, conventions, Web sites and schools." He also tries to address the paradox stumping many wannabe game professionals: "..how do you get experience when no one will hire you without any?"
A breaking into the games industry article? Is it Friday already? Oh crap, I'm goin home then!
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
If you really want to know how to break into the games industry you should read this Slashdot thread on pitching games, and check out this guide to submitting games from the International Game Developers Association. Why waste your money on a questionable book when you can get better information about breaking into the industry for free?
As for Marc Saltzman, read this post about what he's really about. The top post is quoted below but I suggest you read the whole thread.
MORE HERE
Marc Saltzman is a total, for the lack of better words, asshat.
I've read many of his articles, seen him on tv, heard him on the radio and even bought one of his shitty books. This guy knows absolutely nothing about games and nothing about editing.
All he does is email some people he knows and asks them to write an article about getting into the gaming business and then he staples them together and calls it a book. I have "Game Design: Secrets of the sages" (or something like that) from him and it's a total piece of shit.
You'd think it would go into great detail about things since its quite a hefty book but it definately does not. Just about every second page is a new letter from a different person and 90% of the content is the same in each letter. A proper editor would of compressed the useful information of this book into a backpocket paperback.
This guy knows nothing about computers, he's just a guy who can talk infront of a camera and somehow get people to write books for him and get away with him.
He's almost as much of a poser as Kevin Rose.
Phew.
How about some tips from slashdotters about breaking into the entertainment software industry? /. for wanna be game professionals.
Lets turn all this negativity into something positive! Make it an ask
My tip, I know its tired but I can say for certain that it works, put time in at the publisher QA level. I have a couple friends who have gone on to be titled designers DIRECTLY from this route and many more who are titled producers both at publishers and developers. This works best of course if you happen to live near a major publisher (ie LA if you are in the States). Check out the publisher's websites (they are almost always hiring) and be an in-house QA tester, public betas will get you nowhere fast.
Its cliche but I can verify it works.
I don't know how he's lasted this long on The Screen Savers and Tech TV.
...
And I don't know how the people there who are actually quite intelligent and knowledgeable let him walk arround labelling themselves a hacker.
I've often seen him find plans to build something online, do it on the show and take complete credit for it.
I remember before he was a main "star" of the show he was just some lacky in the background and he claimed to had discovered the "flaw" in windows that is the Messenger Service. Yeah, thats right, he claims he discovered that it could be used for spam.
Someone needs to start a petition to get him off The Screensavers along with his stupid girlfriend.
And don't get me started on the new format for Extended Play!
"He also tries to address the paradox stumping many wannabe game professionals: "..how do you get experience when no one will hire you without any?" "
Who needs experience when you can just tell them your slashdot karma?
Why do so many people have such a grand view of what life is like a game developer. Life as a professional game developer sucks. It is long hours and pay low compared to the rest of the IT industry. And don't forget about the whole sale firing/hiring that is going on in the gaming industry.
Stick to Mod development where there is no pressure and spend your week days working for company X developing business applications.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
I make hiring decisions for programmers at Troika Games, a PC RPG developer. We get a lot of resumes, most of which don't ever get an interview. What's going to make you stand out to me isn't your college degree or your years of work in web development while you wished you were doing games. The thing that will most likely get your hired is a piece of runnable code that shows both your abilities, and your passion and motivation. A little shareware project, a graphics demo, work on an Unreal mod...you get the idea. The fact is that the people who will truly excel working on games already ARE working on games because it's so much a part of them that they can't do otherwise; they just need a salaried position on a well-funded team. :)
Speaking of which, there's an entry-level programmer/scripting position that we're looking to fill on the team for Vampire: The Masquerade. Impress me.
We recently interviewed Electronic Arts director of advanced technology John Buchanan, CORE Digital Pictures VP Doug Masters (himself a former EA developer) and Side Effects' Robert Magee for an article about major shifts in the games industry and how they affect job prospects.
They said some surprising things that should give anyone thinking about pursuing a career in games a lot of food for thought.
Most surprising was this statement from EA's John Buchanan, which seems to shatter a commonly-held belief among hopeful game developers about what it takes to make it in the industry:
"We now have a huge problem in our industry of engineers, who used to be the gods of gaming, now becoming subservient to the artists."
After you read the full feature article, if there's enough interest in more on careers, let us know -- post in this thread -- and we'll add some of the career-specific tips that were left out of the main article.
Instead of selling my soul to Old Scratch to get so much as an interview, I'd prefer to try the do-it-yourself approach. It may not be glamorous or even well paying, but there's a certain charm to that particular branch of the industry. Sort of like a little red brick home surrounded by town house developments.
lead designer of fallout? If so, I worship him as my god, and wish he was working on fallout 3.
Has anyone out there made money off there small, homegrown game? By this, I mean, has anyone asked for a small fee for a full version, or asked for donations to help keep development going? Does a fee or donations work better? Does anyone actually pay the fee or give donations? I have unemployed friends making games for fun, but who are wondering if they can get any money to further progress.
--joeware
Reading the article, I noticed this:
There's lots of games that have come out in the last couple of years that are technologically inferior to their competitors, and yet, sales and reviews have been far above what their competitors do," he said. "You don't sell a game with the technology anymore."
and this:
The danger is that people play it safe too much and you get a lot of uniformity," which could result in an industry collapse similar to the one that occurred in the 1980s, Masters warned. "The games industry, whether they know it or not, are going to have to deal with that."
To avoid that disaster scenario, the games industry will increasingly need skilled, creative and innovative business and marketing professionals who will be able to apply branding principles in a way that keeps gamers coming back for more, Masters said. "Branding is here to stay. That's one aspect of this business that ain't going away.
I see that this is perspective of EA, and the underlying issues have validity, But I'll also note this "Brand is king" was the exact philosophy of General Motors which has allowed them to lose half of their US market share in the past 25 years, and generally be regarded as inferior in mainstream product to many of the world automakers.
For some time now software engineering has been falling down the status ladder at EA. However, I can't say the same about developers like Blizzard, Valve, Id, and so on...
Not to toot my own horn too loudly, but as long as we're on the subject... John Carmack was out at SMU here in Dallas on Monday to talk to the first group of students entering SMU's Guildhall game development program. I'm the videogame reporter for The Dallas Morning News, so I went out to SMU and sat in on Carmack's speech and discussion. Here's the article (free reg. required) I put together afterwards, if anyone's interested.
You misunderstood and misattributed the comments.
EA director of advanced technology John Buchanan was saying you can no longer sell a game on technology ALONE. His point was that the emergence of gaming middleware -- off-the-shelf engines anyone can buy -- makes it possible for anyone to build get a game whose look, physics, stability, etc. is so polished, that virtually the only way in which you can make your game stand out is to have good gameplay and storylines.
In other words, the overwhelmingly distinguishing characteristics of games of recent history -- that they look great -- doesn't cut it anymore, and you need a lot more than good programmers to make a good game.
CORE Digital Pictures' VP Doug Masters is the one who talked about branding. His point was that the games industry has evolved from being the domain of a bunch of geeks toiling in their parents' basements, and is now a serious international multi-billion dollar industry whose sales outstrip Hollywood. He says it's unavoidable that when there's that much money at stake ($5 to $10 million to develop a major game title), along with it comes all the trappings of major business, including problems like companies cranking out the same stuff in different packages every year.
If you read the paragraph above the article's conclusion, you'll see he warned about the dangers of following that path, and said it's already happening.
He points out that in order to avoid a collapse of the industry and financial disaster, the brand and marketing guys are going to have to be creative in their approach to their products -- they won't be able to lean on their laurels just because they have a strong brand and past successes. Instead, he argues they'll have to be creative right through the product development cycle from start to end, and make sure people know their product is unique among the thousands of new offerings every year.