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Ask Slashdot: Experiences Working At a High-Profile Game Studio?

Posted by Soulskill on from the hope-you-enjoy-crunch dept.

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."

7 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Not me but friends by EmperorOfCanada · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Not me but friends by interval1066 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have a friend who worked for Zynga during the high-flyin' days; she worked on Farmville. Said it was a sweat shop and the management were terrible overlords. Same thing from another friend at EA, again, during EA's salad days. But then I have another friend who works for Valve and he says its great there. So, I guess you kind of have to get lucky. As for the comment above that goes along the lines of "he's lucky to have an offer at $70K", that seems kind of low. If he knows GL native code or ActiveX, either managed or native, he doesn't have to take that offer, he can get more from someone else.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
  2. It's high pressure and high risk by Drewdad · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:It's high pressure and high risk by Immerman · · Score: 4, Interesting

      >Young, single people can afford to take risks that people with families and mortgages just can't afford.

      Indeed. If his dream is truly to work for a game company and he can get an acceptable offer out of college perhaps he should take it. It may go well or badly, but he may never again have as much freedom to chase a dream for the hell of it as he has now. Better to chase it and be disappointed by what he discovers than spend his life dreaming about what might have been.

      On the other hand if he doesn't have a gaming offer in hand I'd start chasing the offer now, and go for the electronics job if he can't make any headway there. I imagine even gaming companies prefer candidates with a proven work history. Just not so much of one that they demand a reasonable compensation package.

      --
      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  3. Take the decent job for a few years by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  4. be wary by alx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  5. I'm making those mistakes right now, myself. by E-Sabbath · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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. )