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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."

9 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. What does the job entail? by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Game development sounds fun because games are fun.
    Like how being a prostitute sounds fun because having sex is fun.

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    1. Re: What does the job entail? by eulernet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm an ex-game programmer, and what you say is not supported by my experience.

      Developing a framework is totally different than releasing games.

      When you work on a framework, you spend a lot of time on the same project, by incrementally adding new features.
      Quality is very important, so you must spend most of your time building quality, by writing tests and writing optimized code.
      You also have direct contact with your customers.

      When you program games, what is important is the delivery date, especially in large game companies.
      Quality is not really important, and all the conception is already done before the game started, so there is not a lot of place for innovation.
      Porting games is mostly what large game companies do, since you cannot rely on a single console to earn money.

      And when you write games nowadays, your job as a coder is mostly using libraries, because a game is too much work if rewritten from scratch.
      The "fun" part as a coder is to write your own routines, so that you master everything, when you rely on a library, you always expect bugs.
      And the "fun" part as a gamer is to fine-tune the game, and this is the most tedious task !

  2. First rule of working by kschendel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!)

  3. he should pursue by csumpi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the path that makes him happy.

  4. 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.

  5. Re:Not me but friends by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I completely disagree, coming right out of college and getting 70k is actually damn good. He has no experience and yet they're willing to pay him that? I suppose it depends on which city he is at, though. But, even in expensive L.A. I know developers who make around that who have experience. Though, I suppose it could be potentially low. Just remember, a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. He could apply at Blizzard, get turned away, and then lose the offer and end up sitting on his ass for a year which leaves a big gaping hole in your resume and makes you nigh unemployable. Take the job, and apply at Blizzard. If Blizzard accepts, be a douche and jump ship. Companies have no loyalty to us and can drop our asses at any time for no good reason and they often do, we should have no loyalty to them either. If Blizzard does not accept, you're still making money in the interim and getting great experience. Pad that resume, and you'll look better and better to future employers. If you end up staying at the company every year you get a 4% to 5% raise (assuming you're doing well), after a decade that adds up. Not to mention you'll have benefits in the meantime; insurance (you may be young, but anyone can be hit by a bus or experience health problems), 401k w/ matching (e.g. free money), life insurance (if you met a girl and made her your wife in college and she's having your baby, this is handy), etc.

  6. 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.

    1. Re:be wary by turbidostato · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "If writing games is your passion"

      Ask him first how many games has he already written.

      If the answer is "nil", then his passion is not writing games. He only thinks so, probably over the wrong information and for the wrong reasons.

  7. 11 year veteran by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.