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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"
I've always had a bit of a problem with this line of reasoning. It rings too much like: "When opportunity comes knocking, just wait until it's begging on it's knees before you answer the door."
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.
Bunch of reasons.
:) )
Some of them
- NWN is a very mature, very stable game development platform.
- Everyone at BioWare has NWN installed on their machines. Makes it easier to review.
- It has more copies out there (3.x M+)
- It has much lower systems requirements.
- It is cheaper (15 USD vs 49 USD for NWN2)
- The people reviewing the modules are much more familiar with the NWN toolset.
- It encourages people to stick to gameplay over eyecandy.
- Faster to create a NWN module. NWN2 levels are much more complex (and better looking
- The NWN toolset is more friendly (less complex) to beginners
- The documentation for NWN is much more complete after 5 years.
hope that helps
Georg, BioWare.
It's just a contest. You're free to decide whether it's worth it or not. You're also free to decide whether the terms are fair or not.
Camping on quad since 1996.
What if they don't really want a cut sceene, but want builders to demonstrate their ability to create scripted events in the NWN toolset?
www.aleo.no
But it's very hard to find people that can. That's the reason for this contest. For graphics artists and programmers there are art and computer science schools to ensure a minimal level of competence (enough for a junior positon). For level designers there is often talent that floats to the top of the mod community. For gamedesigners the problem is most apparent, because everyone involved in gaming has the basic requirement: a strong opinion of what is fun.
Making games is fun, no doubt about it. It's the ultimate employment benefit and I think many gamedevelopers make their overtime out of passion and pride. That bioware can also introduce this extra hoop to jump through is not because it's a buyers market. Having a portfolio is often one of the few requirements to get hired. That bioware has to create a contest to get people to send them their portfolios actually suggests that they're having somewhat of a hard time filling the positions.
Now if you will excuse me, I'm only at 40 hours so far and it's already friday ;)
A year or two ago I participated in Bioware's writing contest, winning the community voting. I actually did it for the swag they were giving away - I use their coffee mug every day and that Bioware wool cap kept me warm all winter. They'd already offered me a job some time ago, mostly after my NWN modules came out. It was extremely flattering, though the move, disruption to my family, and pay cut made the decision pretty easy. I have a great job in healthcare and a somehow find the time to continue to work on my module building even still. Working for a gaming company can be difficult, though Bioware is one of the best in the industry. I think my decision was to stick with a quality, stable job and having game making be a hobby. For the most part, it's lower stress and I can take the story whatever direction I want.
In terms of the winning module from last year, I actually did two versions. The first was way too linear. The second had lots of choice, from evil to crazy to several flavors of good. There was drama and humor, quality scripting, and polished writing. For folks trying for this contest, I'd keep the cutscenes short, give the player as many choices as you can manage, and make your NPCs memorable. Less is more for these sorts of things. Don't plan an epic module spanning dozens of areas. Just make a couple, with a simple storyline. Play to your strengths - writers should write and scripters should script. You'll have to do both, but emphasize what you're best at.