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BioWare Holds World Design Contest
grayblob writes "BioWare is holding a World Design Contest to find talented level designers to work in Austin on their first MMORPG. To enter you must create a module with a 20-40 minute playtime in the NWN1 toolset. The module should include 'a cut scene, intricate puzzles and interesting NPC behavior.' The contest ends July 20 and like the writing contest doesn't guarantee employment for the winners."
I absolutely love this kind of thing. Contests seem to inspire innovation. My favorite contest in recent years was the x-prize - that result was great!
After all, competition made life: Just so long as it does not become conflict, it is healthy.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
Good way to get new ideas. Wasn't there a band that held a similar contest to find a new guitarist and just copied all the good riffs they heard on the day?
Who retains copyright over submitted works? No mention of it in the agreement.
I like this bit:
VGH Austin is under absolutely no obligation whatsoever to:
(a) acknowledge receipt of the Materials and/or this Agreement;
So you have to sign an agreement which they can deny ever receiving. Nice.
firstly i promise it'll have a clause in it stating they will own your idea's and submissions.
In addition, employers like this like the breed this idea that you will need to accept any terms and any pay they offer because clearly they are doing you a favour.
employment is not a favour, it's an arrangement. your labour and idea's are VERY valuable. without people these companys make nothing, always remmeber that.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
As one of the so called 'inexperied young hacks' that was hired about 4 years ago by BioWare, I'd like to offer a few observations on the topic.
- The community member to hire ratio is more like 10-12 out 2.000.000 active members or so, which is slightly better than 1 out of 1.000.000.
- None of out projects has yet gone 'flounders' and no development team has ever been laid off at BioWare. In fact, there have never been lay offs as a result of a project ending or due to 'operational circumstances' at BioWare.
- The 'young, inexperienced hacks' you're talking about have mostly worked in other high tech industries before coming to BioWare to do more interesting, rewarding work. Most taken a paycut for moving into this industry - in return for higher job satisfaction and a great work environment.
- That said, I'm paid a competitive salary and I wouldn't trade my job for a job paying twice as high in vanilla IT anytime soon.
The benefits of going this route for us are:
- We get applications from people that have a background with Bioware games and understand what our games are about.
- We get people from outside the industry to think about applying. Especially making an MMO, it is important to have people who have an outside view on things instead of having been shaped by the 'establishment'.
- We get people really interested in the job, not burned out people looking for another quick assignment.
As mentioned in the article, we ran a contest for a writer position a while back and hired a great writer as a result - from outside the industry.