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Gaming Industry Engages in a Bit of Nostalgia
An anonymous reader writes "At Gamasutra, the latest answers to their Question Of The Week are up, asking game professionals how they got their start in the industry. Answers range from the classic ("While I was an MIT undergrad, a couple of my closest friends were co-founders of Infocom in 1979") to the quirky ("I got into games because my sister complained that I never called her. She set up an account for me on GEnie so I would at least email her. Not long afterwards, she suggested I check out GemStone III... Eventually, I ended up... [at] my current position as a designer for EverQuest II.")"
No.
It was much more exclusive 10-15 years ago, but now anyone with a C.S. degree (that's not Counter-Strike, kids) can get a software engineer position at one of the big shops e.g. EA, EA, or, hm... EA. Back in the day, you had to be really good at something, or know someone, or get lucky.
I'm a programmer in the industry for 11 years with no degree, but I took the back door in--I started as an artist (didn't need quite as much art talent back then, especially if you were dirt cheap).
I consider myself lucky to be part of the games industry at this point. How did I get in? Well actually it was quite simple.
1)Saw a posting on my current employer's website.
2)Responded by faxing in my resume.
3)Had an interview in which I convinced my boss it was in his best interest to hire me.
4)(And I'm refusing to slack and just say "Profit!") Worked my ass off to prove they had made the right choice.
And here I am, 2 1/2 years later, still working at the same (great) company doing more of the stuff I love to do. Last time I checked that path to employment wasn't anything amazingly hard or unusual. So, what does it take to get a job in the games industry today? The same thing it's always taken to get any job in any industry, drive.
What a horrible thing the ESRB just did to the game industry.
That quote requires a lot of insight.
GemStone III got started circa 1990 and required access through a system such as GEnie or Prodigy. It was a pay-per-hour game and Simutronics didn't have the infrastructure to bill players directly, so they partnered with providers like GEnie.
If GemStone III is famous by any definition, it should be mentioned that the game has always pulled from its players for talent, developers, direction, and decisions. I'm pulling stastics out of the air, but I'd bet 20% of their players are directly or indirectly responsible, on a personal level, for influencing development of the game.
(My claim to fame in that area would have been modifying the magical spell penalties to chain and plate based armor that was implemented as part of the GP2 program. This wasn't some nerfing rant - I presented the charts, statistics, numbers, examples, and argued that a certain 3% adjustment be scaled back to 1% and 2% over a given range. GM Warden thought I was a genius (slight autobiographical liberty taken here) and my suggestion was implemented within about a week. And NOBODY IN THE WORLD CARES which is why I'm telling the ENTIRE Slashdot readership about how geeky I am. RM would have approved, BM would have attempted to murder me, Fighter likes swords, and *yoink* Thief stole my wallet.)
Anyway, my point is that it's hard to "just play" GemStone III (now GemStone IV). Many serious players become developers (all of my friends from GemStone are now developers of some sort) and that led this guy to Everquest II. Of course, none of this was clear from the quote, so I guess I'm informative (and self-promoting. MAN I was smart and right about those armor numbers!)
It is now known as Gemstone IV, and is produced by a company called Simutronics. It's your typical MUD (and one of the most successful ever at that), except it was on AOL, Genie, and Compuserv before they moved to being their own website/independant of these ISPs in the late 90s.
That's because for other programming jobs, it's often unnecessary to say: "Must have a passion for money."