15 posts tagged “career”

And now for a random post!

Nepotism and Shoddy Voiceovers go Hand & Hand. I understand cost cutting needs. You could probably get some insane anime fans at a community college who dream of being voice actors to do the job for a beer or something.

Game Stop has been liquidating some of their floor sample copies of games for 50% off or so. These games were opened and placed on shelves for players to peruse.

Given the success of Age of Conan, I'm curious to see if Capcom will localize Monster Hunter Frontier to English. It simplifies the number of attacks you can use which I like. The use of timing, positioning and attack choice looks rich, which I also like. Oh MAN it's bloody too! Blood isn't a huge turn off to me, but I don't seem to go seeking out the bloodiest games I can find anymore.

I'm being cautiously optimistic about a job I recently interviewed for. I had 2 good prospects; one was a long shot for a senior position. The company liked my potential, but in the end they really did want someone with at least twice my experience. I knew it was a long shot, I'm glad that I made it as far as I did. So I'm down to 1 really super prospect that fits my experience and will help me overcome a lot of my present shortcomings. I so don't want to jinx myself for this position.

It's a week until Etrian Odyssey 2 comes out, I entered a contest for it. If by some random chance, I both win and have to buy a copy, no worries, Etrian 1 is fetching prices over MSRP on the gray market. Atlus has conservative print runs; buy early.

I'm enjoying Kotaku's review of Ninja Gaiden II. This is really what I'd like to see. No numeric score or letter grade, since they really don't make sense to me. How is a 98 game better than a 97, especially when they're usually entirely different kinds of games. Tell us what's going on, what works and why(yes, that is an opinion...) and make the reader feel ready to decide for themselves whether or not they want to buy, rent or skip the game. 

I looked at Gamasutra's list of their top 20 influential women and I was disappointed. The list was mostly of female executives; while I am happy to see that these women are climbing to high positions such as "executive VP of global marketing" and all, I was hoping for a list of amazing women who worked like crazy in the development trenches creating and innovating awesome games. The women were instrumental in the creation of original IP and exciting experiences. Here it is, in order of me coming up with their names.

1. Reiko Kodama. She was one of the co-creators of the Phantasy Star series of role playing games for the Sega Master System and producer for Skies of Arcadia. It seems like she does everything from design games, create pixel art to managing the production of a game. Considering how much I loved Phantasy Star as a kid, I consider her to be an idol of sorts. I dream to meet her some day.
   
2. Mieko Ishikawa. A composer and now producer at Nihon Falcom. She was one of the original composers for Ys, an action RPG franchise known for having some of the greatest music ever in a video game. Mieko continues to take part in shaping Falcom's products. Falcom is a special company for sure, making a good deal of money on live concerts of their music(I'm pretty sure arrangements of Mieko's original pieces still persist) and arrangements of their music that weren't in their games.
   
3. Minae Matsukawa. Producer of the Phoenix Wright series. She's worked office jobs, a security guard job and just wanted to get into games. She did so with great success and I admire her for it.
   
4. Rika Suzuki did game design for Hotel Dusk: Room 215, Trace Memory and the first 3 Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior games.
   
5. Kim Swift. Right from graduate to Game of the Year winning pro is a leap many envy. She was one of the members of a group of students that made a project that became Portal, one of the greatest gaming phenomenon of recent times. Props to her and the other members of the student team that Valve snapped up in a jiffy.
   
6. Amy Hennig. Directed Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver. I enjoyed this game on the Sega Dreamcast, and thought is was pretty darn groovy that a woman directed it. Props to her!
7. Rhianna Pratchett. Writer and story designer for Overlord, that amusing game of causing mayhem through a combo of action and real time strategy. Thank you for making lines worth reading.

That's it for now, if I think of any more, I will add them to the list.

Yeeow, $175.00 for the basic expo pass. I've enjoyed a full pass that gave me access to all the talks before and I'm gonna miss that.  But for almost $1000, yeeeeeeeeow, hopefully I'll be able to pick up some recordings of the lectures I was interested in. So far, there aren't too many lectures I feel like I absolutely have to see. Shocking, given how many absolutely amazing games came out recently; a Mass Effect postmortem would seriously have me ponder that $1K ticket.

On an unrelated note, Cursor^10 is a crazy, interesting game. It's co-op. With yourself.

I thought about leaving the games industry, especially since I've been having a terrible time getting a permanent position. I spoke with a recruiter from NextGen Talent that gave me some advice and I hope, some job leads. I know most games people look down upon recruiters. I was approached by a shady woman who gave me no last name, no company she represented. No call back number, no email address either. I guess she got my info off Monster and who knows what. Sheesh, I'd better make sure this person isn't about to go stealing my identity or something...

I had an interview for a QA position outside of games. It pays nicely in the corporate software world. Supposedly, there is less nonsense that typically

Although there is a bit more money in it, software outside of games is still marred by the troubles I somehow thought games seemed to have the corner on:
-Horrible hours.I would have looked at some 60-70 hour weeks. Company seemed to have no interest in doing anything differently as far as releases went. Do your annual release with some minor updates.
-Documentation? Durrr...I really don't understand..Spend a bit of time to do that and you'll make things easier down the line.
-Ease of use of tools. When you sell a service to produce something digital or whatnot, why not care about ease of use? When some of my level design tools just had interface bugs and issues that made making maps highly inefficient, I brought the issue up. Having a shoddy tool can hurt your bottom line. Am I nuts for wanting to take the time to make a good, solid tool set?

Stability was one thing this company did have above game jobs. Back to looking for game design positions.

To Do: Brush up resume, register for Game Developers Conference and so forth.

I was recently contracted to play through a game. I am under an NDA so no, I won't divulge any identifiable details about the game in question whatsoever.

I wanted to get through the game as quickly as possible. I wasn't there for the game itself, I had ulterior motives. The game did feature leveling up your character. I found myself running through levels, not fighting too terribly often then occasionally getting into trouble when going up against the boss. I'd go back to older areas where enemies were easier to kill to grind and build up my persona.

Then, I started to wonder. Why am I doing this? Why am I avoiding encounters that would give me a chance at much needed experience during the actual levels, only to begrudgingly grind elsewhere? In the case of this particular game, it doesn't abide by standard RPG rules of letting you enjoy your level ups as soon as you get them. You only enjoyed the fruits of your labor after successfully completing an area. So of course I go back to easy areas, unless I do something really foolish, I'm absolutely positive I will win and gain the ability to power up my character.

I realize, though, this is by far not the only game I've avoided encounters like mad. I'm an RPG enthusiast, Unless I've got some insatiable urge to utterly dominate the ins and outs of a certain game, I have a tendency to go through under-leveled. This is true for games whose combat I've enjoyed. If a player hates the game, then

What is with under-leveling and why should it matter? Under-leveling is a balance issue. A very important balance issue, especially for RPGs. Chances are, if a gamer goes to an encounter and gets horribly beaten down multiple times, their reaction may not be to go level up and try again but to curse the programmers for making a game too hard. Yes, I know, it's not the programmers fault, but I've seen a lot of rants and vitriol directed at programmers.

Towards the end of the game I was playing-as well as some other RPGs- I've hit a lot of "forced encounters." Sub-bosses/Mini-bosses you have to beat in order to keep going through the final dungeon. These can be particularly devastating for the under-leveling gamer. I never finished Final Fantasy IX off my own personal save file because of this. I didn't run away from any enounters, but I didn't do a lot of the "extra curricular leveling" activities. I did a few side quests that were readily accessible to me but I didn't seek out certain high powered items that would have both leveled my characters on top of giving me a special move with astonishing power. Power that usually breaks the balance, but you spent all that time chasing the item instead of leveling up so it's essentially the same result. Only, with brighter, bigger fireworks.

Well...I'm still not sure why I do the whole under leveling thing...I'll have to give it a bit more contemplation.

I wanted to be better about posting here, but I haven't. For this I apologize.

The Job Hunt Stats:
Applications Sent = 23
Attempts at Using Network to get somewhere = 6
Interviews Held = 1 Phone Interview, 2 in-Person(outside industry position.) 1 recruiter called, didn't identify the recruiting agency she works with or provide me her last name.
Offers Received for a full time position = 0

Playing Games:
Went to a friend's house. This friend buys games like crazy, has a drop dead gorgeous HDTV, surround sound system and oh so comfy couch. Plus a cat that likes to rub up against my feet.
Played
-PAIN for PS3
-Assassin's Creed for 360.
-Folk Lore for PS3(different visit)
-Phoenix Wright 3(one of the few indulgences I allowed myself.)

Games I really want to get:
-Zack and Wiki for Wii.
-Super Mario Galaxy for Wii.
-Mass Effect for 360.

On my personal game dev front:
-Still begging and pleading for an engineer I trust to help with a prototype for the last month.
-Still drawing on paper to just get better at it since I'll most likely be doing all the artwork for it.
-Stopped trying to get the prototype.
-Going back to just generating and writing down ideas again.
-Watching the feces hit the fan over the Gamespot firing debacle.

My job was in a current state of semi-limbo. I'd been sent off on an unpaid vacation. I was wrong to think I was safe from the layoff monster because I had skills that a paying project needed but nope.

Well, a week after my forced vacation started, I got the call. There's not enough money to go around so a lot of people just got laid off, including myself. Time to start looking for a new job. I spent almost 1 and a half years at the company, which is the longest history of being in one place in my career so far.

Feelings are mixed on this. I really loved the company when I started but then something changed.

Where to go from here? I don't know if I could ever work for any casual game developers local to me. One of my former company's clients is hiring. They were difficult to work with and I doubt my sanity could survive that sort of thing on a day in day out.

We'll see.

1. NEVER work on any of your ideas on your work computer.
3. NEVER invent or create an IP while working for someone else, you can take down notes, but store them in a safe place until you can work on them.
2. NEVER bring any of your design docs or any of your assets to work.
3. DO NOT TALK about your idea to people at work, even at the pub over beers...
4. When excepting a new job, ALWAYS declare ANY and ALL of your own IPs to your new employer. Sometimes they will have proper paperwork for you to fill out, or you can just give them a printed document. Remember, you want your employer to sign off on this and give you a copy. If you do this with every employer, the chances are ZERO that one of them will claim ownership down the line (if you never worked on it at work). Because you will have several CEOs signed statements that you own your IPs, and this should hold up in court (but will never get that far).

BTW, in the off chance your employer doesn't give you a signed copy, claiming to have "lost it" or "never received it", then there is NO CONTRACT. Thus giving you clear ownership of your IPs.

I have ALL of my listed IP paperwork that has been signed off by studio heads and CEOs going back a long time now.

If you do it 100% on your own, California Labor Code 2870 protects you in California.

"(a) Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either:

(1) Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or

(2) Result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.

(b) To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned under subdivision (a), the provision is against the public policy of the state and unenforceable."

I've got to go buy my own copy of PagePlus. And have faith in my ability to come up with more, superior ideas.

I didn't write this but boy did it amuse me.

To people seeking creative work: Please include your budget or amount you're willing to pay for the job in your job description, because this is how us creatives read some of these ads. If you're up front and honest about the job, you'll get solid work for fair compensation.....

Ad Translations:

"We're looking for a creative that's hard working and driven to succeed!" = We don't have any money to pay you and are hoping there's someone out there that will give away their work for free. After all, creative work is fun for you and we think you make a living off of the Endowment for the Arts or something.

"We're looking for a creative that wants great exposure!" = We don't have any money to pay you and are hoping there's someone out there that will give away their work for free for exposure in something no one will see. We think we're Nike.

"The chosen professional will be considered for additional long term opportunities" = We don't have any money to pay you and are hoping there's someone out there that will give away their work for free. After that, we might throw you a $25 logo or something.

"Looking for students or entry-level professionals" = At least we're admitting we don't have any money to pay you.

"Must have XX years of agency experience with big brands. Send us your concepts! (we retain the rights to anything submitted)" = We don't have any money to pay you, but still want top-quality work. So go ahead and send us work that we might use as we see fit. You'll never hear from us again, but you might see your work.

"Must produce work based on our supplied sketches/crappy mock-ups" = We don't have any money to pay you, and are going to micro-manage your work until we see something that we like. We're looking for computer monkeys.

"Looking for fresh, hot, up-and-coming professionals/designers" = We don't have any money to pay you, nor do we have any style. We wouldn't know hot and fresh if it came in and crapped in our chair.

"Looking for TALENTED professionals for networking opportunities!" = We don't have any money to pay you because we spend it on hip parties, but we're about to meet some people who know some people who know some other people that just might be willing to hire you for something else. Did we mention we go to hip parties?

"Design contest!!!!" = We don't have any money to pay you and we're hoping a lot of dopes out there might give us a lots of work for free.

"Get in with a company that's on it's way up OR great opportunity to break into the business!!" = We don't have any money to pay you and never will.

"Quick money for the right professional!!" = We might have a little money, but the job will take so much of your time, you might break $1 an hour after it's all said and done.

"Looking for a PARTNER not a company. If you want immediate compensation, this is not for you." = We don't have any money. In fact, you should pay US for even considering you.

This was written by a dear friend, who is working on getting his start up, WhiteMoonDreams going.

1. Get a solid partner. Having a partner who can balance you out is tremendous. Especially when the deal prospects start flying around, it's easy to lose ones head, but it's hard to lose two heads

2. Don't be the sole expert. It's easy to want to take on everything (for awhile, I was handling art, programming AND business), but you won't be able to do that for long. The earlier you start delegating these things out and building that infrastructure, the better your company is going to run when you begin in earnest.

3. Get more people involved. A lot of people might disagree with me on this one, but after the last 6mos of really working with a team as opposed to the previous 4 mos of working with a very tiny group, it's proven very effective. Handing off major portions of starting things up allows everyone to focus better on their specialties. There are a lot of concerns around properly compensating these folk since there's likely no funding yet - there are a lot of options for that, and you'll find that a lot of people, especially your friends, are willing to work with you as long as your vision and goals are sound and clear.

4. Get someone who knows business. Not necessarily just the games business, but business on the whole. Someone who understands what it takes to start and run a company, handle shares, talk to investors, write a business plan, etc etc. The romantic idea is that those of us who start game companies are also the business manager. Personally, I've been doing art and programming for the last 14 years and am not going to pretend that I know a damn thing about business. I've got a business guy, he advises me as does my board of directors, and I make the call based on that.

5. Read Execution by Larry Bossity. We've seen several companies set fantastic goals, yet fail to reach them despite the best intentions and efforts of the crew. This book is an excellent analysis of that process - what goes wrong and how to implement a culture that doesn't fall into the traps that major corporations like GE, Lucent, etc have fallen into. Even though they speak at big business level, the concepts are all sound for small businesses and especially for our industry.

6. Get stellar lawyers and in the beginning, let them hold your hand. I make no moves without my lawyers. Yes, its expensive, but the fallout from having signed a poorly written NDA or even an evaluation agreement can be catastrophic. My lawyers just caught a cleverly written eval agreement that stated that any unlicensed IP that has been toyed with on their product belongs to that company as opposed to us who created the IP. Later on, as we grow more accustomed to these paperworks, the lawyers can step out the way a little more, but at these early stages, it is vital. I even had the lawyers set up the corporations, shareholders agreements, etc. If they know what we've done every step of the way, they're better prepared to defend us if anything happens.

7. Do what you want. I see a lot of developers get out there and start scrambling for whatever project they can get. They get something and then start grumbling about having to do some crap project because it's the first one that they could get and hopefully in the future they'll be able to develop their own IP. I know one developer who has been saying that for the last 5 years while they do ports all the while. If you didn't get into this business to do ports, then don't start out that way. Its easy for a developer to get pigeonholed, and its sad to watch these established developers get passed up for projects they're dying for because they've dug themselves in, while the pub hands them to new devs or shadier devs. I know it probably sounds pretentious, but really, sticking to your guns is what's going to make you successful. Deviating from your path will likely lead to more deviation.

8. Make a business plan. A lot of devs have looked at me funny when I tell them that we have a business plan. We actually have TWO business plans, but that's because there is THAT much planning necessary. A business plan does several things for you:
- It sets a clear path of execution from start to finish for your goals
- It brings out issues in structure, finances and vision very quickly
- It helps you organize and budget your resources properly
- It proves to money people that you know exactly wtf you're doing
I was skeptical on the business plan front until my business guy pounded me on the head enough times to spend a few months working on it with him. Now, it is the company bible. When it's more complete I'll make it available to everyone in the company to see and they can comment on it as well as make decisions that help keep us in line as well as recommend when we need to update it to reflect current thinking.

9. Work only with the people you want to work with. Don't take on someone just because they can do a required task, or because they will fund your company or bla bla. A bad partnership is one of the worst things in business and we've seen plenty of examples of companies that have fallen apart because core individuals can't work things out. Especially at this early time, camaraderie is most important. That being said, don't be afraid to cut bunk. If someone isn't working out, phase them out. You have zero room for freeloaders.

10. Motivate your people with progress. Get a wiki going. Get a regular email chain. Have dinner parties. Whatever. Especially when people are working for free or for very little, seeing ongoing progress and continued solidarity is key. This is definitely true for full production as well, but even more pivotal here.

11. Don't be afraid of game agents. There are some good ones out there. ISM is an example. Think of them as lawyers in court, only the court pays for them, and they kick ass. We're not using anyone yet, but we've definitely talked to some that really know what they're doing. These guys can take your product to people you could never normally reach and evangelize the hell out of you. They can also take a deal prospect and make it even sweeter for you.

12. Hold on to equity like it is your life. It basically is.