?Real Jobs?

I'm not a programmer and in that respect am not really qualified to answer your question, but I have worked in corporate Australia, and suspect that the more conservative and mainstream the company, the more they will look at your background with suspicion (regardless of your skill set). They will also probably want to see a computer science degree (not a games oriented qualification). Alternatively, the more entrepreneurial and imaginative the company, the more likely they will welcome your background.

Whatever job you apply for, you will need to sell yourself, your skills and background as being ideal for the position. And don't be surprised if the recruiter/companies you approach are suspicious of your motives. Many view the games industry as being more fun, interesting, dynamic, etc so they might think you only want a normal job until you get a better one in the games industry. So you will have to have a very convincing explanation for why you want to get out of the games industry.

Which is, ofcourse, what I want to know too! I don't know what the industry is like in Perth, but many Australian games developers would probably be keen on employing someone with your (US games industry) background.

well, I have an old friend that got into a non-games related programming field after a very brief stint in gaming and a childhood of hobby game dev background. They welcomed him with open arms, where very keen to get him in... he works in government and sub-military related research [:)]
Haven't talked to him in a while, but we joke that he's doing mech hud's [;)]

quote:Originally posted by spageto


So you will have to have a very convincing explanation for why you want to get out of the games industry.

Which is, ofcourse, what I want to know too! I don't know what the industry is like in Perth, but many Australian games developers would probably be keen on employing someone with your (US games industry) background.

Hehe, why would I want to get out when there's so many that want to get in? Well, how many over late 20s/early 30s year olds do you see in the gaming industry. Not many at all. (at least not in the US) Why is this? Well, my reasoning, which I'm sure I share with others is this, there comes a point when you realize that working is only secondary, the most important things in life aren't attained through money, they are Family, Friends, and exploring your own desires. My time in the games industry has shown me that the industry values your comitment to the company well over any of these other things. As such, you're pressured to work 60 to 100 hour work weeks, thus leaving no time for these outside interests.

My time at EA really wore me out. So much so that after we shipped Generals, I sold my possessions (including my BMW 3 Series) and went backpacking around Australia for 6 months. I took that time to "find myself" again as working after working on Generals, I was either told to stop my hobbies or I just lost interest in them (gaming being on of my hobbies that I now enjoy in moderation as in, maybe 2 hours a week). Also, during my trip, I, to put it simply, have fallen in love with a wonderful girl in Perth. As such, my priorities have changed.

Now of course, EA was the extreme case. Right now I'm working for a kick ass small company that has a different work ethic. Here we don't work over 60 hours a week and we're not _AS_ pressured to put in the overtime. If I had this job before EA, I would probably be happy to stay in the industry, but at the same time, as my priorities have shifted, I'm still reluctant to put in the 60 hour work weeks.

So, this move is not only a chance for me to move someplace new, I'm also using it as a chance to change my job. Idealy what I would love to do is to be invloved with the gaming industry, just not the development aspect. I would enjoy being a resource for people to use to either learn about the industry or to just bounce ideas off of. If WA had a government agency like Victory or Qld, that would be fantastic!!!!

I guess really I don't mind leaving development becuase I already have a True AAA title that has sold over 4 million copies worldwide. If I didn't have that under my belt already, I would probably have second thoughts about leaving the industry. (The minor "Rock Star" status you get from a successful title is like a drug)

So you see why I'm doing the "Unthinkable" and am leaving development :)

Just on a side note, I maintain plenty of contacts here in the US (mainly located in the Southern California area) but if anyone has experience and is trying to make they're way over to the US, I can at least put you in touch with the "right" people :)

I understand where you're coming from DaMunkee - your explanation for getting out of games is pretty convincing! As indicated by J.I. Styles, you may not have a problem gettting a "normal" job at all.

Ironically, one of my motivations for getting into games is to pursue something that I enjoy rather than spending long hours in a job I dislike. While you have been spending the past however many years working long hours in games, I have been spending those years working long hours in various uninspiring jobs. I'm also at the age where life outside work - family, friends, etc - are much more important to me. But if I'm going to work I want to be doing something I really enjoy. That said, working 60-100 hours on some deriviative FPS (no offence but they're not my thing) for a fraction of my previous salary, does not appeal. Having co-owned a business in the past, I plan to start my own company (that will involve long hours and a salary cut too, but ultimately the long term benefits will outweigh the short term costs). First things first though, and I need to develop my artistic (2D and 3D animation) skills, network and learn as much as I can about this industry.

DaMunkee, do you stick around - your insights will be invaluable to all of us here. Also, consider joining the GDAA and contacting some of the WA universities/colleges, as you may also find some work teaching games programming.

I just wanted to chime in an agreement with spageto on the whole educational thing. It would probably be a very significant pay cut from what you're used to, but you can almost guarantee you won't be doing any overtime, unless it's by your own choice (research??). Educational institutions are in very high demand for experienced game professionals, particularly in the coding field. (ie. AIE in Canberra is finding it almost impossible, because industry professionals that are good enough to teach would rather be working in a higher paid job developing games than teaching for a much lower wage :))
Also, in my limited experience, companies that work in the "real-time simulation" field, have high respect for game developers, because often they have trouble achieving the level of detail in their simulations that some games achieve.
Good luck.
CYer, Blitz

quote:Originally posted by spageto


Ironically, one of my motivations for getting into games is to pursue something that I enjoy rather than spending long hours in a job I dislike.

Hehe, that's exactly why I got into games to start with :) I was working at IBM on big ol' million dollar Harddrive arrays and there was just no love there :) That's when I decided to chase a wild dream of mine. I applied to 7 companies, heard back from 2 with one being the "We'll keep your resume on file." But it just so happened my dream job was the one that eventually hired me (well, after 6 phone interviews and then flying me out). Essentially, for everyone out there, If you have a dream, why not try for it, you never know cause you might actually get it :)

quote:Originally posted by spageto

DaMunkee, do you stick around - your insights will be invaluable to all of us here. Also, consider joining the GDAA and contacting some of the WA universities/colleges, as you may also find some work teaching games programming.

I'm a casual poster to Sumea. I've been reading the forums on and off now for about 4 months, but I am sticking around, so I guess you guys should get use it :). Your idea about contacting the colleges is excellent :) In fact, I was planning on dropping the main contact at Edith Cowan for their game department a line here offering my assistance in any way. Wow, how fantastic would it be to help others attain their dreams?!?!!! I'll also look into the GDAA as they seem like a great Organization. Actually, last year at E3, they had put together a fantastic booklet outlining all the game developers and 3rd party solution providers in Australia.

I can understand your reasons for getting out. Either you have the money and not the time, or have the time and not the money. It is hard to keep any kind of life while in the games industry.

quote:Originally posted by Blitz

I just wanted to chime in an agreement with spageto on the whole educational thing. It would probably be a very significant pay cut from what you're used to, but you can almost guarantee you won't be doing any overtime, unless it's by your own choice (research??). Educational institutions are in very high demand for experienced game professionals, particularly in the coding field. (ie. AIE in Canberra is finding it almost impossible, because industry professionals that are good enough to teach would rather be working in a higher paid job developing games than teaching for a much lower wage :))
Also, in my limited experience, companies that work in the "real-time simulation" field, have high respect for game developers, because often they have trouble achieving the level of detail in their simulations that some games achieve.
Good luck.
CYer, Blitz

Thanks for the vote of Goodluck Blitz :)

Hmmm... Educational institutions are in high demand... I wonder what kind of certifications they'll need to allow me to teach? I'll definitely have to look into that. As for the pay, I'm not to concerned about it. If money was really a factor, I would be staying in the US.

Well, looks like I have a few emails to write :) If anyone is currently at these Educational Institutions and they have specific contacts there, drop me a line :)

Thanks again Blitz and Spageto

Im not so sure some institutions will even worry if you can teach or not, im not flaming qantm again - but i know for fact that a few of the tutors there had no clue about how to teach, they were more or less hired & thrust into the role. Dont get me wrong, they definately knew what they where talking about, but being a good teacher to a class of students is something completely different than being a great coder / artist.

But just trying to note that papers in teaching might not be all that neccessary to teach, as you will more than likely be an understudy to an existing teacher and hopefully learn the ropes from them :)

As far as i know, few, if any of the tutors at AIE canberra had teaching qualifications (eg. Dip. Ed), I think quite a few had some sort of tertiary qualification, but i really don't think they care, as long as you have the knowledge/skills. If you have any project management experience (eg. Lead, Producer, etc.) that would probably be a huge plus for any courses that involve a "Group project/game" sort of stream. This was something i personally found lacking at the AIE last year.
Plus, having worked on such high profile titles should give you plenty of street cred./respect from the students :)
CYer, Blitz

My understanding is that you can teach anything that you yourself have the qualification in, + an additional qualification, that can be gained thorough a short course, that gives you basic teaching skills.

Pantmonger

I know at Swinburne all the lecturers have Diploma in Education (1 year), but the tutors are just post grad students. How awesome would it be to be taught by someone who worked on C&C Generals :o

Thanks guys for all your input, just the thought of being able to help others attain their dreams is quite exciting. In fact, today I shot an email off to a contact with the Murdoch BS of Game Technology program. Here's hoping they're interested in someone like me :)

Yeah honestly i have to agree with awf regards the feeling i would get if i was being taught by someone who had ACTUALLY completed work on a AAA title :)

all bar 1 of my former tutors, have no games industry experience,.. i think its great there are people like you munkee that are willing to 'give back' to the industry your experiences. and i for one would be more than enthusiastic to attend your classes [:)]

I think experience counts for an awful lot. Theory is all well and good until you have to actually work on a AAA title.
I'm almost of the thinking that, certainly with the art side of games, people need to either learn on the job or by someone who has actually had hands on experience.

bringing this post back for a second - in my diploma year, an interesting situation cropped up, that when thinking about could well happen here.

Our tutor ( the most experienced person there in terms of REAL games dev ) was finding the government cirriculum rather wishy washy when it comes to teaching games.
He was pretty dissapointed that he had to teach stuff that the government thought would benefit the students most, when quite frankly in his oppinion, alot of it was utter dross.

To combat this he would try teach the classes extra stuff ( from his experiences ) as well as what we already HAD TO be taught. IMO that was the only stuff i found REALLY interesting in my entire diploma.

Just trying to point out that depending on the uni / collage you may end up working for - theres that hurdle of sucking back words when you know somethings not right - and just accepting that you may have to teach stuff that goes completely against everything youve ever learnt. Sounds disturbing, but this situation was a reality.

I'm a full-time software engineer & developer and have been for the last 5 years. I started work in the 3rd year of my degree and finished studying part time.

Experience does say a heck of a lot more than a degree does, but it's coming to the point now where people expect you to have a degree if you want to have a job in the general IT world.

Games companies tend to be slightly different. I can't say from experience because I've not worked for a game developer before, but they tend not to want to take people on unless they've got at least a year's experience behind them. Most of the time they want more than that, plus the accolade of a published title under your belt. The only other times I've seen someone get a job in the industry is where they've worked for a very long time on their demos/modelling and pushed hard to get an entry-level testing job, or perhaps a tools programming job. For those of us who work 60+ hours / week it's particularly hard to find the time to do this.

I personally find it very frustrating that game developers seem to only consider games experience (moreso in Australia) as worthy experience. Sometimes they dont even consider games experience to be good enough!? When are they going to learn that people with strong development in other backgrounds can be just as good if not better? I realise this sounds like a case of sour grapes, and to a point it is ;) I'm not saying that someone who's been building websites or database programs for the last couple of years has relevant experience - but some areas of software engineering and development are very game-like (eg. missile modelling, 3D flythroughs for military systems, mission planning).

I personally think that game developers potentially cut out some serious talent purely because they haven't had any official game development experience. Hopefully one day that will change.

Sorry about the rant :) (esp. since it's a little O.T)
OJ

Fair comments OJ, feel free to rant all you like... i do [;)] - a post i posted on another thread here was a bit forward to people who work 60+ hour weeks but still complain they dont have the time to do much else,

60 (work) + 56(sleep) = 116 hours. thats 52 remaining hours a week, sure a few get eaten up by travelling, eating & chilling out / family time etc - but i think some people need some lessons in time management - theres a crapload of hours there.

i worked for almost 5 years in a high profile graphic design company which expected the emplyees to be there at least 12 hours per day, 6 days a week. more often than not it was 14 - 15 hour days, and sometimes 7 days per week.

After 3 years of complaining i had no time to do anything else, pulling out my hair & much nashing of teeth, i tidied up my act and found there was plenty of time if i stopped procrastinating and got stuck in.

/rant

Can you tell me what design firm you worked for? Very curious [:)]

HazarD,

I can't really disagree with any of those points :p. But, I personally feel that while work is an important part of your life, you have to live life away from work aswell. I have a family, and there's no way I'm going to sacrifice all my time and not spend any with them. If we're going to take it down to hour by hour then I think we're missing the point of the conversation. Some days you get home and the last thing you feel like doing is turning on the computer again.

60+ was a generalisation. Weeks can go from anywhere between 55 and 80 hours. I don't claim to have no time whatsoever, but I do claim to want to live a little away from the computer while still being a professional.

This is really the side issue ;) The main point was to say that experience from other sectors of the software development industry can be just as relevant to a game development role as "official" game development itself. It's a shame that lots of game companies don't realise this :)

Cheers!
OJ

OJ, I agree, if the companies in OZ won't take a seasoned engineer just because he doesn't have formal training in games, they're missing out on some serious talent.

While I was at EA our engineering staff at EA consisted of
2x Electrical Engineers that had no previous Games experience
3x people that had worked for Macromedia on Flash and Fireworks, again, no experience
2x people that they hired straight from college, Computer science degrees
1x person from IBM who had worked on Enterprise storage solutions
2x people from who were from other game companies
1x person who had attended DIGIPEN (a game school) who had also worked for another game company. This person was by far the worst engineer we had. By the end of the project we trusted our Interns more then him.

Anyway I guess I was just trying to proove your point in that Generals, a game that sold more then 98% of the other games out there, was developed by mostly people without formal game development experience. The team was seasoned though as except for the Macromedia/Digipen guys, the rest of us had worked on at least Yuri's Revenge before with a high majority having worked on Red Alert 2.

Oj - sorry i didnt mean to come across sounding like you had to spend all of your time doing more computer time, outside of work, just trying to make a point that whilst most people think they are real short of time, some quick thinking and management can go a really long way, and you can fit in time doing everything you wanted + doing the necessities.

I forgot to comment on the issue about games dev companies missing out on solid background members. and i definately have to agree with you. the same goes for artists as well i think.

For instance someone who has little or no colour theory, or comes from a non artistic background may be a wizz with 3d modelling, and in fact produce some above average results, but i can almost gaurantee the person with the tradition art background, who has an understanding of art / lighting and so forth, will always produce something that sets it apart from those who dont.

Souri - Satchi & Satchi / Harrimans based in NZ [:)]

DaMunkee: Thanks for the interesting stats! It's good to see that those without the background in games can prove that they are just as good if not better than their "experienced" counterparts :)

HazarD: No need to apologise, you weren't being offensive or anything. Your point is a good one and in lots of cases (ie > 95%) I believe that it is indeed the case. Definitely has something to do with lack of motivation. Ultimately there is time in the day before and after work, and it's there to be utilised. How you utilise it is up to you! What you're saying is don't complain if you don't utilise it in the way you should to achieve your goal :)

I hadn't really thought about how it might also be the case for artists, but I can't see why it'd be different. Tis a shame!

Cheers!
OJ

Thats very interesting, DaMunkee.

I have a games-related education (Qantm Dip.IT) and I work as a Software Engineer, developing Civil Engineering technology & applications (realtime 3D graphics systems, terrain modelling, etc).

It would certainly be a shame if I was considered less experienced because I've not worked for a game company.

A lot of game developers like to think they are more special than everyone else in the IT industry, and that they are working on the cutting edge of technology, and the rest of the IT industry is years behind and therefore obviously of no use!
Some companies are much wiser however, and recognise that people outside the game industry have skills too :P
In fact sometimes they HAVE to look outside of the games industry to fulfill vital roles. For instance, how many people who have only worked in the games industry would have experience setting up distributed backend server networks...well, i think you only need about one hand to count the specialists working on BigWorld, and thats pretty much it for australia, when BigWorld tech need to hire someone new to develop their server infrastructure, theres a good chance they will be having to look into other IT industries that have vast experience in the particular field.
So, in conclusion, i think often times developers that won't hire outside of the games industry are just being snobs.
CYer, Blitz

LOL. I totally agree with you Blitz :)