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Ask Slashdot: Experiences Working At a High-Profile Game Studio?
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."
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.
Game development sounds fun because games are fun.
Like how being a prostitute sounds fun because having sex is fun.
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Electronics company or game studio, if he's a developer he'll be working crunch time from time to time. What you should be considering first are
a) is the working environment good?
b) is the management good?
If whichever company he goes on to work for falls short on either of the aforementioned, he's in for a grind.
I have a few friends who worked for the bigger companies and their experiences were pretty uniformly miserable. One worked directly for a big company and even though he could make opengl dance they had him working on what was basically build scripting. The others worked for game companies that did the porting of the larger games to the lower tier platforms such as the DS. These companies put a huge amount of effort into glamour (highly photogenic workspaces) but were just thankless sweatshops with the few owners being the only ones making any money.
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.
He will need experience if he wants to go to one of the high-profile studios. So he should take the job, and work hard so he gets a good resume.
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!)
the path that makes him happy.
Based on the experiences of some colleagues, I've avoided getting involved with gaming companies. First, there's tremendous pressure any time a new release goes out. Developers, admins, etc. are all expected to be available around the clock (with many choosing to sleep at the office) for weeks. Second, game popularity is very fickle. Working on a game that loses popularity? Pink slip. Some people view game studios as sexy and edgy, which is fine. Young, single people can afford to take risks that people with families and mortgages just can't afford.
Having left Blizzard in the last year I can say that it was once a really awesome place to be! Just not any more sadly. The politics have stunted too many people's ability to get things done. On top of that revenue is down so the idea of "low base pay with more from profit sharing" doesn't make up for how overly stressful things are. That said, working somewhere where the other "perks" of the Blizzard Culture aren't apparent will make working for a game studio a bit better; just have a decent savings account first and be ready to work twice as much for half the pay you used to get. From my friends that decided to say in the industry many are going to indie developers or starting their own small game companies so they can get back to what they really wanted to do in the first place: make games! On my end I've just created a bit of a "gamer culture" on the engineering teams I've started since I left to get the best of both worlds. My suggestion would really be to take the decent paying job for a few years while making some indie games on the side to make sure that they really want to make games for a living.
I guess he should take the job at Blizzard. There are many ways to learn and build up an experience. There are the easy way and the hard way. Easy way would be to take the 70k job and build up his experience accordingly. The hard way is to follow his dream and ambition and learn for himself if that is the path to take and if that way is for him. To find out the hard way that life isn't always as you expect it and that even tho a company products might be very interesting, they are not always the most pleasant work environment. On the other hand, he might just find out exactly what he was searching for and therefor, good for him.
Your life is what you make of it and what you take out of it. Build your own wisdom from your own experiences, failure or success. As long as you learn from it and move one accordingly. And never stay somewhere that doesn't make you happy and help you thrive and learn. Quoting AE "If you always do as you always did, you will always get what you always got."
If he really, really wants to be in gaming, a big game studio is a place to start. It's better to do it early, get to know the industry, and then go off to a startup or something else. The only way to know if its for you (him) is to try it... That said, large game studios have a reputation for working people to the bone, hiring fast, burning you out, and re-hiring someone else - because everyone wants to work for a game studio, and manager don't always make good decisions (!). That's changing.. A lot of engineers I know are no longer willing to work under these conditions. That doesn't mean they've changed yet, but they will... Really, at an early point in a career it shouldn't be too much about the pain -- because there is similar pain at any company when you get started. Who knows what kind of managers he'll face at the electronics company?.. It should be much more about finding out what one wants to do. There are people who stick with the game studios for 10+ yrs; they've learned that they love it, and over time that balances out the initial obstacles. Whatever it is, you've got to really want it first.
Take the job then look for one in gaming. Having a job is better than looking for a job. Also being employed makes you more desirable than unemployed.
Working in gaming sounds fun at first but think of playing the worst game you have ever played. Now think of playing that same game every day. Oh and it is broken all the time.
Get rich or die grinding
Does he have a piece of paper in his hand from this mythical company that clearly states they are offering him a job and what the compensation will be? Does he have one from Blizzard? The correct choice is whichever of these two he can say "yes" to.
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.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
That is a very relative decision, it all depends on him. As long as he is "convinced" to do X, he will be unhappy at X. If you are asking for differences here are a couple I can think of (in favor of his decision, since you must be informed in your side of view):
- That well-known electronics company will be slow-moving and he will need to deal with significantly more bureaucracy
- It will be harder to make a difference
- Company-hopping makes sense when you are as fresh in your career as possible
- Motivation is a huge factor in efficiency, if he has ever developed a game and liked it, writing verilog code editors will be a huge buzz-kill for him
This is the only time of his life that he's going to be able to take a risky or even stupid decision and not have to worry about the consequences: he (presumably) has no spouse/children, and is (presumably) in good health, so if he wants to do it, then DO IT!
Because he's never going to have that opportunity again.
Anyone who's worked in video games can tell you that unless you really, really, really want to make video games you cannot make an excuse for the state of the industry. He'll be fired after his first project, and the one after that, and the one after that. His benefits will be a joke, and the retirement plan? Die young. It's an experience I'll never forget, but it's something I'll never do again professionally.
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.
Tell him to take the job he was offered. He needs experience. Also tell him that after 6 months or so, he might try www.riotgames.com. One of the best companies in the world, and also has the most played game with leagueoflegends.
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).
The average game developer leaves the industry after 5 years. The reason is that as much fun as it is to play a game at the end of the day, you are never able to play your game until it is complete and by then you are exhausted and burned out and the last thing you want to do is play your game. Of all the games that I have shipped I have never played one of them after they shipped.This is a hard industry and it is not for everyone (most)
The next consideration is that just because you qualified for a job offer outside of the game industry doesn't mean that you'll get an offer in the game industry. Do you have any demos that show that you can make a video game. I can promise you that I won't look twice at a college applicant that doesn't have his own project. It doesn't have to be big, it has to show polish. It can not be a class project, it has to be something that shows me what you can do and are passionate about. If you are not passionate enough to be making games on your own you won't survive the first year.
So if you have an offer, but are considering going into games, the clock is ticking to get an offer from a game developer. If you can't get one before your current offer expires, then take the current offer. If you still have a dream of making games, keep working on your demo (i.e. continue learning) and apply for jobs. It is always easier to find a job when you have a job already.
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.
I take it the job doesn't involve online proofreading, then.
From what I've gleaned (I'm also interested in game development), you'd be best to avoid the very large developers like EA, Activision, Blizzard, etc. They tend to consider their manpower as resources to be exploited and discarded if they stop working properly. The hours are horrible and the salaries don't match up. Instead, try finding small or mid-sized studios; the pay might not be the highest around, but the atmosphere and challenges will usually be a lot better. With smaller devs especially, you get to touch a bit of everything and you're closer to "owning" the project. The hardest part is finding such a studio in your area and getting in, since they usually have very little extra money to go by. It's also a riskier proposition since you can get laid off if even just one project doesn't go well because the developer's fate is hanging in the balance of every new game they make.
Then there's a few really rare developers such as Valve which seem to have kept the ethos of smaller developers while sitting on such an absurd pile of money they aren't rushed. Blizzard probably used to be like that but I think the Activision merger caused the corporate to take over. Good luck getting in such studios as a first job though!
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..and you know what I discovered after I went through the endless programming challenges and interviews with them? Some things:
1) Game companies want MIT-level knowledge, but pay out retarded salaries for the talent, and work the talent to death...all for the glory of being THAT guy that worked on a AAA title
2) For each big game title on a store shelf at Fry's, I see 20 more titles collecting dust
You know what I say to that? BIG WHOOP!
A lot of game technologies are also used in many set-top-boxes, cinema, scientific programming, TV..and (some of) these companies PAY!
Games are interesting pieces of software, but I would rather work on the underlying technologies that make a game come together.
Now, for those game technologists that say I can't hack it, I'd be happy to show you my Linked in profile...I've worked at some NICE companies too, doing similar stuff. I'm allowed to my opinion too ;-)
Now, in the general tech world, job-hunting is almost as competitive as in game world. One really needs to be on top of their programming game with certain companies, and you even have to have some charisma too while interviewing.
Now, if your friend's job lead fizzles with the electronics company, then I'd say he should really pursue Blizzard and follow his dreams. However, dream jobs are still...jobs. He should really think about building up his professional programming experience, and work in the sub-domain he loves.
He'll eventually get there, if he gives it time and determination.
Good luck to him!
Lemme guess... You program in Perl, right?
First, 70$ out of college is unbelievably good. I am willing to bet that some people here don't make that much.
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 make sure he is making an educated decision.
11 year veteran here - I've worked in a number of roles at an independent studio (as a programmer), and my advice to anyone wanting to make games is this: 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. Very rarely do you get to work on games that you are interested in, the last project I was on was a Disney game with a MASSIVE budget. It was hell on earth and I got pretty down about my job - to the point where I considered quitting without having secured another job first. On the plus side - I have gained experience in working with large, complex code bases, and worked under tight deadlines with hardly any budget. I've accepted a programming job outside of games, and I'm counting down the days until I leave.
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 life.
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.
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
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
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
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
(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. )
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 determination to cross the finish-line together
enthusiasm for the work
intelligence and the ability to use it constructively
an expectation of open feedback in all directions
an effortless affection (or fondness if you don't like 'affection') for those around them
charity of spirit (never starting with the assumption that 'the other guy' is an asshole when things go wrong)
These are a few of my favourite things :-) and looking for them wherever I go has had an extremely positive effect on my quality of life and the quality of life for those in my care (both professionally and personally).
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 people at the outset.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
... 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.
I worked at EA Canada on a few sports games. It was, surprisingly, perfectly fine. I heard stories, of course, but the teams I was on were fine. I'm working at an indie now (one that's actualy making money), and it's just great. I'm not going to suggest looking for work in game dev, because there's plenty of not fine teams, but experiences in the industry are not universally awful. I've also heard plenty of terrible tales from other high tech companies, it's not like it's necessary specific to game development. Game dev is higher profile, though, you don't see many payroll software fan sites out there.
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 without some job experience to back it up. Some jobs, like "manager" are assumed to transfer from one industry to another pretty easily, so aiming low might work out better in the long-term.
Developing a small pile of cash quickly is worthwhile. You have a LOT more freedom to do what you want when you have several thousand dollars in the bank, and can afford to pay your bills for a year if other positions don't work out. Or you may find you suddenly need a pile of cash to quickly relocate for the next available job.
Money can't buy happiness, but I've never seen people with a solid savings nearly as unhappy as those with lots of debt hanging over their head, and suffering through a job that makes them miserable because one missed paycheck is going to destroy their house of cards.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
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.
"That's right...I said it."
I know quite a few developers who started out in the gaming sector.
They're extremely bright (cleverer than me, and I'm no idiot) but they all burnt out within five years or so from the difficulty and the bad working conditions.
A job offer of 70k straight out of college is amazing : do that for a few years and then tout your c.v. and home built projects around knowing that you'll always have somewhere to stay if you don't find a job doing what you think will be ideal for you - in the end it might not be and the 'grass is always greener on the other side' is an easy trap to fall into during your first 10 years as a pro.
...and my experience has largely been positive. Sorry about the Anonymous Coward posting, but this is my first post on Slashdot.
At my first job the pay was definitely much, much lower than what I could have gotten from other companies in other industries, but I was happy enough to have my foot in the door in the industry. Worked at a relatively new, untested startup. I started at $32.5k a year as a scripter, and was eventually promoted to a full programmer. By the time the company flopped 2 and a half years later, I was making $52k. It was a really fun place to work with a lot of cool people who are still close friends, even though I live a country away from them now. There was one point where the company had us all working overtime and on saturdays for about six months, which sucked, but you have to go into this industry with the expectation that there will be overtime. All in all, it was an awesome place to work.
Second job was at a slightly larger and more established company. Worked there for about a year and a half before they laid off half the staff because they were unhappy with the pace of development. Funny thing is, they've hired up back to full capacity, and development hasn't gone any faster since then. Still, it was a really cool place to work, lots of awesome people, and relatively low stress. Was not forced into mandatory overtime there.
The company I'm at now is about the same size as my second company. Basically the same story as the other two. Some overtime, but by no means the sweatshop stuff people talk about (In my one and a half years here, I've had a six week period where I was asked to work extra hours, and that's it). The pay is good, the people are fun, and I'm working in an industry I love.
The big key here though is that I've never worked for any of the major publishers. I've never worked for Activision, EA, or Ubisoft. The horror stories tend to come from the larger publishers and their subsidiaries. I've worked for smaller companies, and my experiences with them have been absolutely positive. I love my job, I love all three of the companies I've worked for (Even though I've been laid off from my first two, I've got no hate for them), and I wouldn't want to do anything else. At its best, the Gaming Industry is an amazing place to work. At its worst, it's a true nightmare. The nightmare stories are the ones you hear about the most though.
That all said, the hardest part about getting into the Gaming Industry is getting your foot in the door. If your friend does not have an already impressive resume with independent game projects and mods on it, or internships at existing gaming companies, then his chances of even getting an interview at a company like Blizzard are slim to none. I got my first job in the industry because I knew someone who worked at the company that hired me. Sad to say, but getting your foot in the door is more about either who you know, or the independent projects you've already done, than how good you are at programming.
Take the job, get a bunch of money together on a more stable industry for 5-10 years.
Do game dev on the side and build a portfolio of small, simple, fun and "innovative" games. (latter optional)
In 5-10 years, get a job at a smaller game company and actually enjoy it.
Smaller companies tend to have more passion and love for the industry. There are new ones that pop up every so often.
They might crash and burn, but you can hop to the next one that fills the space and repeat.
If there are currently no good small companies around, take up a temp job elsewhere until one becomes available.
Given you never wasted any of the money in the first 5-10 years from your good stable decently-paying job, it should keep you going for a while.
Game companies come around fairly often, so it won't be that long a wait in a temp transitional job to fill the time and pockets.
And if none do? Start your own. You have the portfolio, you have the knowledge, you likely have some contacts with people from other companies and you'd most likely get financial help easily due to all of the previous stuff.
Just make sure to not destroy yourself in the process. Get some project management experience or a project manager to help focus resources. Make crappy popular social/casual games for majority and have longer-term Good Games as secondary priority. 60:30 to 80:20 seems about right.
Fuck large companies, they are basically sweatshops with no fun or passion, only pain and greed. They put people OFF the industry more than they get people on it.
Don't do Big Games, it will ruin your spirit.
In the end, you can't force them to do anything.
If they crash, be a good friend and offer a shoulder and a drink or whatever else they like to do / eat.
The starting salary for a new college grad software engineer at the big tech companies in the SF Bay area is well over $70K.
As someone who recently landed a job at a AAA gaming company, let me say that it was not easy. These companies are very careful about whom they hire and prefer those with videogame industry experience. Having none, I had to come in with 10 years of experience in my field (web stack) and having created a popular mod for a popular videogame on my own time. I'd let your friend go and interview at Blizzard; he will almost certainly get turned away as someone fresh out of college. Then he can go into the "real world" for a while.
$70k out of college is not unusual. A few years ago I did a brief stint in management at a Seattle company. I had to hire a junior dev and found a recent college grad who did pretty well during our interview loop. When HR brought me the offer they had put together it was $90k base pay + bonus + options. I thought it was high but they assured me it was supported by the market. That particular company is not known for spending money it doesn't have to so I'm inclined to believe them.
There is one detail everyone is glossing over.
Your first IT job is nothing but a cornerstone for your career. If you find yourself in one position for one year...two years...three years...you are doing it wrong. Most companies have no good reason to give big raises to their engineers without promotion into a "new position." With how volatile the world markets have been over the last decade, it has become even more difficult to grow within a single organization.
The secret to being successful in IT is to continue growing your skillset and never stay in one place to long. Contracting shorter one off projects is a great place for a fresh grad to start because you can quickly fill your resume. This is very easy to do if you were wise enough to contribute to any ((open source!!)) projects while working through high school and college. Especially in states like Colorado that are preparing to open their public insurance market places in the coming weeks.
Once you have the resume to do consulting full time, you just cant beat it. Digital nomad. It's the life!
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 space as the game developers. (Sony produces most/all of their sports-related games at their San Diego Studio. I worked on back-end stuff for MLB The Show and Mod Nation Racers.)
It's a typical big-company tech environment. They pay standard competitive rates to contractors, and I gather the employees are well-paid and get good benefits. It is definately seasonal, with cruch-time around the holidays, unfortunately, but then the place is nearly desserted in the summer as people use comp time then. Everyone seemed generally happy. It feels like any other well-funded, non-venture San Diego tech company. Laid-back, even looser than normal dress code, really not excessive pressure. (Though one particular night rolling-out the Mod Nation Racers beta just before Christmas got some nerves on edge, as it was their first major deployment on Amazon, and didn't spin-up enough servers for demand. Well, and Rails... So, it was a night of emergency surgery to see what could be taken out to improved throughput and response. A couple of normally-unflappable co-workers got pretty frazzled.)
Dunno about the game development teams, but both groups I worked in were big on Scrum. The good thing is the meetings are only 10 minutes. The bad thing is, you have to get in by the daily meeting time. (Which was conveniently scheduled for the sleep-ins, though, so really not that bad.) (Best Scrum moment - a co-worker passing out from locking his knees while standing. Of course, they had to call EMS as a precaution, and I'm sure it was embarrasing. My boss smoothed it over by remarking that he did the same thing at his wedding! The irony is that the passer-out was a big fitness nut, and won some competition at the complex gym, so I suppose even more embarassing...) At the same time, there were the weekly, typical corporate-style meetings where you all fall asleep around a big conference table and somebody wakes you up when it's your turn. But at least these are kept to a minimum.
If Sony is an option, I'd highly recommend it.
will you continue to be friends if he hates it, you duty as a grind is to dispense advice (if requested or appropriate). and empower the decisions he does make, it is NOT your duty to make sure he makes the decision you like.
Good leaders run toward problems, bad leaders hide from them.
Game developer here. If he wants to make games, then he should make games; they pay just as well as any other software engineering, and he'll be truly interested in what he's doing.
He should just make sure to research the working conditions of any company he's applying to. I've never had any issues with terrible conditions, and have only had a few weeks sprinkled throughout the past decade where I was asked or expected to work more than 40-ish hours. My first large company experience wasn't super great overall, but it wasn't a sweatshop. My current large company is going fine, and I enjoyed several small companies in between. Aim for companies that have lots of married guys with kids, and things are more likely to be sane. If you just buckshot a resume at anything that will hire, then yeah, you're likely to find some shitty places, so be smart about it.
And if he can't find a game job by the time that other one starts, then he can always start at the boring one and move when the better job comes along. The worst thing the engineering company will do to him for leaving early is take back some of the initial signing bonus or moving expenses, so no problem if he plans from the start to give those back.
I've worked as a game programmer for three companies now.
One was a little startup that flamed out in a few months for lack of startup cash. Great ideas, working our tails off trying to get demos that were shiny enough to impress anyone that would give us cash.... and you know what? Nobody wanted to give loads of cash to a bunch of guys with great ideas to turn our dreams into reality. On the other hand, one of the groups we pitched our ideas at was a company (which shall remain nameless) that was about to launch an MMO, knew it was in trouble and needed programmers for Immediate Crunch Time Now, and offered to hire all of us as contractors, because one thing our little demos did prove is that we had some programming skills. So that led to a job as a contractor at a real MMO company
Joining the company right as a game went into pre-launch "Oh crap things are broken" crunch time was the perfect introduction to the stereotypical 80-hour week bull that people complain about. Also incredibly dysfunctional management -- the pointy-haired-guy from dilbert would have fit right in. At the end of my six-month contract, I went to my manager and said "so, my contract is expiring in a week, do you guys want to renew it, hire me full time, or what?", and his response was "huh? nobody told me you were a contractor...". The only way to get a promotion to senior programmer was to get a job offer from another company, wave it at your manager, and says "I'm leaving unless I get promoted today". I could fill a book with management-horror-stories.
Despite the long hours, despite the stress, despite the management suck, despite the fact that I had been making quite a lot more several years earlier when I'd been working for IBM, it was FUN. I got a huge amount of job satisfaction from being able to launch the game, cast a spell at someone, and think "I did that! The only reason that spell exists in this game is because I extended the engine to allow for that kind of effect..." Working as a corporate drone programmer for IBM never gave me that kind of buzz, because I never really got to hands-on use the stuff I created.
From there, I moved to 38 Studios. That was my dream job. Paid well, the people were awesome, and we were working on a really great game. I would tell you that your friend should apply there, except for the part where it went bankrupt last year... but that was the best job I've ever had, great managers, great co-workers, great pay, the hours weren't bad, and the work was exciting. If the people who ran it start a new company, I'll ditch my current job and go work for them again in a heartbeat.
So, the moral here is: it varies by company. 38 studios just rocked all-around. The little startup, well... it had the usual startup problems, and flamed out fast, in a very common way for little startups. And the other one had a lot of the common failures of large gaming companies, including relatively low pay and long hours and bad management, but was still overall a fun place to work. So don't apply to "the gaming industry" -- do your homework, find out about a company, and apply for a job at that company or don't, depending. If it's a local company, chances are someone from your school now works there, so ask them!
I'm in Blizzard's back yard (working for a different company, though). As a software engineer with a CS bachelor's, I was hired straight out of college at over $70k. I'm no crazy prodigy; I just ran into a company that hadn't hired new grads in a long time, and I guess they had unrealistically generous pay expectations. So, I know that it's not impossible. Looking at my friends and the jobs they landed in though, it's also nowhere near common to start off at that kind of pay. Honestly, I was expecting to start around 55-60k, in my area.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I know it's very location dependent, but am I the only one who's not impressed by that $70k figure?
From personal experience, starting salaries on the west coast are closer to $100k now. $70k is closer to what your friend would have been offered 10 years ago.
About 3 years ago I hired a college grad and HR determined that we should offer him $90k base pay.
In Silicon Valley, I don't think you'd get anybody to sign up for $70k.Bwtween rent and taxes a goof chunk of that would be spoken for.
I guess they had unrealistically generous pay expectations.
No they didn't. They're not fools. They know exactly what they can get away with.
If anything they'll try to lowball but I've never seen an employer offer you more than they should.
During negotiations I once had a company tell me they were thinking of a base salary between x and y. X was way way higher than what I was making at the time and I thought that those guys were crazy. Still, against my first instinct, I told them that if they offered me y, I'd accept on the spot. They didn't even blink. Truth is, I could probably have talked my way into a salary higher than y.
The mistake too many young software engineers make is underestimating their worth. You are in high demand. It is very difficult to find qualified people. And by "qualified" I don't mean "people who have a degree" because truth be told, many people who graduate still can't program their way out of a paper bag.
I worked for the parent of a major studio that recently got purchased by a much larger media company and was shut down, and I was also eventually shown the door. Broke my heart but it was a good run while it lasted.
Your friend is likely young enough to be pretty resilient as far as job prospects go, so he owes it to himself to follow his passion first, then worry about having a steady gig when he's in his mid-30's.
Yes, a lot of studios are sweatshops, etc., etc., but you (ahem, 'he') might find his niche in just the right spot and be the happiest guy in the world. Otherwise, he has a corporate job and will always be wondering what he missed.
Plus, you tend to learn a lot more, and learn it a lot quicker, when you're in the middle of a disaster. The highs are high, the lows are low, but on some level it's always a fun ride.
Looking to the future, if you lose your job because a studio folded, it's easier to get another job. If you leave a job because you're bored, it makes it look like something is wrong with you, you're not a team player, etc. I highly suggest that he not take the job he has on the table if he plans on looking for other jobs and leaving. If he then leaves (or gets asked to leave) the second job, it looks bad. At his age he's gotta grab the balls of that bull and hold on for dear life. Taking the safe route, career-wise, can wait.
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 not a wildly unusual starting salary.
what area is this? Just a general area would be helpful.
Take the game job. Follow his dream. My experience in games is pretty great. I've heard horror stories but I've not personally experienced them that much. Blizzard is supposed to be great place to work so if he can get into Blizzard he should definitely go for it. I've even worked what I would consider massively under paid by I'm still happy for the experience.
I programmed games for ~25 years. The last 5 I did something else (worked at a big IT company). I hated the last 5 years. Hated is a little strong. I had some great experiences but I never really felt into what I was doing like I did when working on games.
I didn't make that at my first job (10 years ago) but that was at a very small startup in Oklahoma. I was making more than 70k three years later at the same place though.
I've worked in the games industry...very briefly, on LEGO Universe before it was canceled. I didn't take a pay cut to do that.
It was a cool company (glad to have had the experience) but the day to day work was the same as anywhere else.
At the end of the day, what is important is that you enjoy what you're doing and making a fair wage doing it. I'd suggest that your friend not write off the rest of the industry because he wants to make games, but there's nothing wrong with it if that's the route he wants to take. There's money there too.
right?
OP must be trolling but at the same time, I can kind of envision a kind of person who would make a comment like his and mean it genuinely.
for those without good friends: this is what friends do! it is kind of defining characteristic...people that care enough about you to do something you might not like, risking angering you, because they feel so strongly you are making a mistake
it saddens me that such a comment as that from OP - 'butt out!' could plausibly be non-trollface. I have met people in my professional life who I can imagine possibly being so disconnected as to think this way...and in a way it hurts our whole industry.
being disconnect from others causes us to make abstract and difficult to use interfaces and methods....further enforcing the tech/non-tech divide and wasting huge ammounts of resources
Thank you Dave Raggett
NFL quarterback said that his biggest question about whether to pursue being a pro football player was when he was actually offered a job as a pro baseball player. He sought advice from his father, who pointed out that as a pro baseball player Jake would make more money in a year than his father had in his life. He decided to turn down the tempting offer, and then in another year or two he got his dream job. Whether or not he was particularly good at his dream job is something than football fans may dispute, but regardless of what those other people think, he was happy that he did things the way he did.
How I know: I saw him live at an event that occurred 4 times during a weekend. At least one of those were recorded:
http://www.cornwallchurch.com/Media/SermonArchives/2012.aspx#3667
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?
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 taking the blame and sharing the credit and we had a lot of freedom and enough budget to build a proper team (devs, gamedesigners, artists, etc.). Then I switched departments after the product was cancelled - which is a normal thing btw., markets change all the time. The dept lead in the new department was a douche, there was infighting between my new teamlead and the head of dept. just as I came on board, the internal tool/product was crap, the tech used wasn't wanted throughout the company, etc. ... It sucked. I left 9 months later because of that.
So, as you see: It depends. If your friend get's a job with Blizzard, by all means, he should take it. With Blizzards track record of turning everthing they build into gold he'd be stupid not to. Blizzard is the Apple of the gaming world, I doubt a crappy team / dead-end crew exists for longer than a few weeks at Blizzard before getting torn to bits and reassembled into something usefull. But he should be prepared. A company like Blizzard has their pipeline designed right down to the color of the paperclip that comes with the weekly progress report. He'll learn professional software development alright, but I doubt many companies are as thorough as Blizzard - he'll have to move on to Lockheed Software Group or the folks that build software for nuclear power plants or something if a job change is not supposed to become a serious downshift.
Ever since my gamedev gig I've been working with web agencies. It's like moving from fine cuisine to McDonalds. Not a nice thing.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Ask people who worked at Curt Schilling's 38 Studios...not pretty.
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 the commute is long and the hours are long. At the same time, he really enjoys what he does, which is ultimately what is important.
I think, tho, the key to him is that a lot of what he does is built on what has come before in his previous work experience. I have a feeling those who come straight out of school wouldn't have as good of a time with someone who has gotten some experience in the field in general. It is good to get a feel of how projects are run in the real world and figure out for yourself what works and what doesn't. That kind of experience will help you anywhere. Build up some experience heading in that direction, then peruse your dream.
I worked as a programmer at a big AAA game shop for 4 years then another for 14 months or so.
Short version is: game industry is hell, but back off man, let the guy do his thing.
I landed my first game job 3 months out of college after I quit a cushy web consulting firm gig where everyone thought I was crazy to go work in games
Maybe I got lucky but for the first couple years, you couldn't get me to NOT work a 16hour day, and come in on the weekends. It was truly an awesome job and a blast.
3 years in, I got pulled off a project that I really enjoyed working on, and put on the death train of the company's cash cow game. 2 weeks before that game shipped, they laid off 20% of the 110ish person team. From that time on, it was hard to pull an 8 hour day, let alone the usual 10-12 hour days that you typically need.
I switched studios to Big Huge Games, same kind of deal, though it was a nice change of scenery. Until the company ran out of money and went bankrupt and still owes everyone 3 weeks pay, (or in some cases worse). I've been on hiatus from the game industry since.
TLDR: It was a dream job at first, but I got it out of my system and probably won't be going back to the big AAA game industry anytime soon. Making games is really fun. Shipping games, especially console games, is a TOTAL NIGHTMARE. All that said, I'm glad to have done it and you shouldn't screw with your friend if he really has his mind set on it.
And make your own software on the side. Don't do games, though, unless they're butt simple and sell like hotcakes. You have magical powers. Know this --> You can create a product that can be reproduced for no cost. Go for the largest number of customers and where you stand a chance to compete in the current market.
I've worked in the games industry at an independent company for 8 years (all at the same company).
Before that I worked at a startup on EJB apps (and many other odd jobs), and before that I worked at a small company writing and debugging embedded systems software and hardware. All the jobs had their benefits and drawbacks, but if you can find a good game developer to work for (as I feel I have) it's well worth it. Our games have been relatively successful, and profit sharing from those games has resulted in my average compensation to be almost double my salary. I've definitely worked long hours during my time, but when you're working on something you and others around you believe in (as has almost always been the case) it has a completely different feel than the 12-hours-a-day-7-days-a-week periods I was forced to work in my previous job.
The problems are hard, and solving them is fun. The people are incredibly smart, and they're the kind of people I'd want to hang out with outside of work.
You might get paid less than working at a consulting firm, but in my experience the atmosphere and problem space is much more interesting.
It doesn't matter which game company he goes to work for -- they're all making MOBAs, DOTAs, or action RPGs (Diablo III clones).
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
If you want to make money and games, go for military simulations.
I'd say it depends on the relationship between you and your "friend". If you're a parent, relative, etc, then IMO, stop hovering. Let your son/daughter/relation make their own mistakes. At the point of career, it won't hurt too much, wherever they end up. While I would say working for a large game company like Blizzard has its drawbacks, you cannot deny that working there wouldn't give some eye opening experience. However, if this friend is a lover/husband/wife, then the question I would ask you is whether you're planning on having children soon, and whether you mind having your spouse/lover/mate away working 60-80 hours. If the answer to either question is yes, then you really should rethink whether you want to be in a relationship with this person. And why do I say that? Because working at a big company in IT isn't that much different than a game company. Yes it can be more stable, but it doesn't have to be, and many of these companies are sweat shops. I'd not be surprised to see 50-60 hours at least, possibly more. If you can't handle that, then the problem will likely be you. Sure, game companies can be worse, but so can any other company. If you're just a friend, I'd tend to go with the parent/relation and let your friend make a mistake. I might say it will suck for you working at a game company, and you'll likely hate it. I may even go so far to grab the worst title I can find at BestBuy and say how'd you feel if you spent 18 months of your life making that. And if the friend wants evidence? Tell him/her to Google it.
With that said, you need to be happy at your job and if game development makes him happy then why not? I did some game QA for Sony many years ago before jumping into web development but web development wasn't cutting it for me. Sure, the starting average salary for a rockstar programmer is $80k and up but it leaves a void inside of you if it's not your passion. That's why I got into the indie scene as a side-job. Game development has always been a passion of mine and I've been doing it since I was 12, except now I'm working on my own libraries instead of using precompiled ones. Getting into the game industry is very hard, incredibly competitive and from what my friends say about the professional side of the industry, it can be a cage. My recommendation is that while he's young, jump into indie game development. There's always a chance to get rich from it or at the very least enjoy working on something tasteful instead on something that is focused strictly from demographic numbers. But again, gaming into the industry is very hard and losing your job there is very easy and not because you've done something wrong.
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
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
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.
-Bill
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 personal experiences for someone else's opinion. They've given me more insight and experience about the industry than anyone could summarize for me. They have become part of how I interview and look for new jobs.
Then the you guys have a very big problem as the Chinese will eat your tech jobs for breakfast in a couple of years time. That's a stupid starting wage for a graduate.
If you do what you love, it won't be work. --Mybad Iforget
I don't have a college degree in IT. I make more than "friend" does, nearly six figures. I work for a very prestigious organization, with excellent employment benefits. I do IT security work, and I hate it. I want to work in the foreign language department of a library, but I'm stuck. My family needs the income level I provide now (expenses grow to match and/or exceed income) and I can't escape. The transition to librarian would cost money and take time to complete the necessary degree.
So, "Run friend, Run!" And you might want to think about the value of your relationship with someone who wants you to be sucessful, rather than happy.
And why would you not be concerned first and foremost, with your friend's happiness? The support you're trying to give should come from his Dad or his career counselor.
Nice analogy on the face of it, but it really speaks to something else. Both are driven behaviors that are fueled primarily for profit. And one of the core things about money and being a cog in the "big machine" is that money ends up making you do things that you wouldn't necessarily want to do.
I'd tell this kid to take his $70k job, because honestly he'll be able to do his "20% time" (which got sacrificed at Google for profit-only reasons, how ironic), while he is working sane hours. He's much better off trying to be an indie guy, because he can build a portfolio of things HE wants to work on, without going through the typical "Okay, just slap some shit in here, make it work mostly right and hurry up because we have to SHIP IT NOW" mentality... Driven by what else, fucking profit.
And before the wonks on here give me the third degree about "well, companies are supposed to make money, hurr durr", there's a fine line between being sustainable, and being greedy as fuck. And the problem here is, AAA studios are largely greedy as fuck, so the "art" and "craft" is only honed to boost the BUCKS, not the story, not the characters, nothing else. If the new trend in gaming was characters with their heads stuck up their asses, they'd make sure it met those expectations to get PAID, not to do anything else.
Which gives me great satisfaction when I see crap studios like Zynga get nailed to the wall when their exploitation and cloning strategies finally start to FADE, even with the mouth-breathing clicker-cows that have nothing to do but play games on Facebook all day. When you make stuff just for the money, you are at the mercy of both your stockholders (if you're publicly traded) and growth factors. Once you fall short, you start the death spiral - unless you can get some real design talent going.
I hope the AAA studio trend goes the way of their industrial revolution predecessors, the real sweatshops and child labor in factories. They deserve as much.
I have worked at two major game studios, helped found a small indie studio, and currently work as a senior rendering engineer at an Autodesk subsidiary working on middleware.
I first started at EA Tiburon in 2005 as an entry-level software engineer working on Superman Returns. Retrospectively, it was the perfect project on which to cut my teeth, as the experiences I had helped me to shed my youthful idealism pretty quickly about how the industry actually works. I got to see it be brought up from the very beginning. We crunched for 3-4 months on an 'X05 convention demo that didn't even end up being shown publicly, then we decided that we were using the wrong libraries and started re-writing that portion of the engine. Our designers were all fairly new and had that classic "kid in a candy store" mentality towards features. I still remember when Chris Gray, the executive producer on the project, known for such blockbuster titles as "Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O' Fun", insisted that the engineers help the designers implement an altitude meter for Superman. Why? Because it would be cool! Designer, artist and engineer time was wasted implementing this feature, and sure enough in the next round of focus testing, people didn't get it at all, and he just had it taken right back out. This very process was repeated over and over again as we crunched almost endlessly: The tool with which designers were supposed to make levels, Zod, wasn't ready until well into the alpha stretch. It was five days before we were originally slated to go to manufacturing (May 10th) and there was about *one* finished level. The writing was on the wall, we were going to have to slip the release date, but that didn't stop the managers from effectively forcing us to work 60+ hour weeks under the illusion that somehow everything was just going to fall into place.
After Superman Returns shipped (six months late), they stuck me on their internal Flash UI team, "ION", writing ActionScript - never mind the fact that I am first and foremost a C++ engineer and had never coded a lick of ActionScript in my life. ION was a popular scapegoat for the main game teams, as it was chronically understaffed, and while there may have been five other reasons for why a given deadline was missed by the game team, they would primarily blame us. I eventually worked on NCAA '08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08 before jumping ship in late 2007 to go work for Vicarious Visions.
At the time I was an enormous Guitar Hero fan, to the extent that I had even written my own 2D clone of it based on data I had managed to rip out of the game before anyone else had. Apparently this was what piqued interest at VV, as at the time they were working on Guitar Hero 3 for the Wii. I ended up getting the job, and got to work on nearly every Wii version of Guitar Hero. Aerosmith, World Tour, 5, Band Hero, Warriors of Rock. That was also another lovely experience, because it made me realize just how little a monolithic publisher actually cares about a given game itself. Guitar Hero 3 hit massively at the proverbial box office, so what's the most sensible thing to do? Make a new version every three months, of course! Never mind the fact that those of us rank-and-file employees who actually cared about the franchise were basically screaming to anyone who would listen what a horrible idea it was. We were all so very relieved when it was communicate to us in a meeting that ATVI recognized that the peripheral market was saturated, and then so very not surprised when three months before release, white plastic die-shots of the all new peripheral arrived and we were told to add support. After the release of Warriors of Rock, those of us at Vicarious Visions were slated to work on all three SKUs of the next Guitar Hero, but the plug was pulled in early February 2011, also known as The Great Guitar Hero Layoff. ATVI cut about 500 jobs company-wide, with about 50 of those jobs (a third of the staff) being cut at Vicarious Visions, myself included.
Hit it on the head - when a new release HAS TO GET OUT (because, oh yeah, its about making money folks, not craft) you're chained to your desk until it gets done. You know, just like slaves in roman times were chained to the galley so they'd row all the way to where they were going.
Companies treat people like cogs and replaceable parts. This is one of the most destructive things that exists in our "modern" society, and also is why the current trend is to job-hop your ass off, and not work at the same place gaining experience for an actual stable career.
It is no wonder that most young people don't give a crap about a "career", and are doing as little as possible to get by. I wouldn't want to participate in this shit system either if I had a choice. Hopefully this will pressure changes as companies "rotate" out their older staff, as they usually do, for cheaper and more expendable labor, only to find that there isn't much quality or quantity left.
I've been a programmer at Bioware Edmonton for 8 years. I love my job and always have.
I have not experienced crunch on any scale that would make me discourage anyone from joining the industry (maybe a couple weeks at a time a couple times a year). It is well known at this point that extended crunch reduces productivity to the point of being useless.
One thing I would highly recommend against in any position is putting in extra hours to complete your work faster, appear more productive, and move up the promotion ladder faster. That is a great way to burn yourself out.
I was working a $65-70k IT job. I left it to go back to school full time to get a degree in game development (2 years). I'm now back at that job to pay off some debt.
I hate every damn day. The job, the high level management (my direct sup is pretty good), and the culture. I'm not being creative, but I can't afford to leave right now.
There's no point of your friend taking a high paying job that will make him miserable. Sometimes it's just not worth it.
Some people are saying he should take the job while looking for another. I agree if money is an issue, but if not, he'll make better clout with the gaming companies by taking the time working on a project that he's not getting paid for.
A lot of the time, by the time you hear that ABC place is the really cool place to be, the people who made it a really cool place to be have moved on to other locations, having been replaced by other people who have all these other ideas as to how a shop should run (which do not involve being cool), and now that really cool place to be is now "meh, not so much" similar to investing is stocks, by the time the mass market gets in on it you may be on the wrong side of the curve.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I know I am late to this thread and not having spent the time to read all the replies I am sure I'm simply repeating what others have probably posted. Even so! I must have my say!! Anyway, if the friend takes your advice and regrets it, it is YOUR fault. It isn't really, as he would have made the decision and should be responsible for it, but that is simply how human nature works. The friend should follow their heart. Yeah, it's probably a grind. Yeah, working for Blizzard may seem to some to be the worst thing ever. But maybe your friend is up for that kind of abuse and will actually thrive on it. I threw an entire career in IT out for a chance, just a chance mind you, to get in to medical school...and it worked! Now I work 80+ hours and will for many years. But I am very, very happy doing what I am doing. People who took the easy and secure route have no idea what I am talking about. I have no retirement and will barely make enough to retire because I am entering the field much later than my colleagues. And there is plenty of abuse at work. But I survived my intern year and things can only get better. Probably its like that as an intern game programmer. Things will only get better. But if it doesn't work out, chances are that if he got a 70k offer right out of school, he'll probably do even better in a year with 80+ hour weeks under his belt, willing and able to do more that he could've just out of school. So don't discourage your friend. Sure, tell him what it's like, then say, "but you know what, if anybody can do it, you can." It is cheesy, sure, but it is true - good, friendly support and encouragement goes a long, long way.
Join the job he has been guaranteed. Put his resume in at the games companies he would like to work for. Get the job you want, give two weeks move on. Don't get the job you want. Have the pretty sweet gig already making you money.
If so, video games might not be the industry for him.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
The only upside to working for a game company is having your name in the credits of an entertainment product and likely being searchable via the Internet. My name shows up on mobygames.com, hoo......ray. As a neat party trick I can crash a game released 10 years ago, hoo......ray. I would rather have a career with an electronics company than be laid off because a publisher got a new CEO that wanted to outsource everything to Korea.
Also, most women will find a career man working for an electronics company far more attractive than someone working on videogames. Sad but true. They want stability in their man's paycheck.
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 showcase. Even if they do hire right away then all he is going to get is a menial junior level Q/A position or such and may not even touch a line of code for years. Probably not going to get 70k doing it either.
Instead he could work on his own side projects and get some real experience programming for another company and then apply as a much more attractive hire in a few years and skip the menial BS.
I mean, if he applies for and gets a real dev position then there is nothing wrong with dropping the electronics job and going for a gaming job, even if the timeline is like 3 months. But I think it will be a lot longer and far less likely to land that dream game job right away.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.