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Halo: Reach |OT7| What are They to Say Now?
- Thread starter The Librarian
- Start date
Devolution
Member
wwm0nkey said:
My friend game tested for Rockband. Friend being a girl. She said there was a slide in the intro phase about hygiene, she thought it was a joke until she actually started work. Long days, repetitive tasks, and a bunch of filthy smelly wannabe game industry dorks.
I think this is the case in pretty much every industry, but people will not talk about it because companies won't hire employees who talk about how bad the working conditions are. Most of it locked in legal agreements, but most of it is because people want to get hired again. I've had two interships, countless jobs and I can tell you I never found a "cool" or decent workplace.kylej said:
I once got snitched by a collegue, because I went home an hour earlier (was feeling sick) and eventually my teacher got word of it. The teacher then asked the company to dock a month's pay and they themselves docked another month's pay too. Two months not getting payed, my teacher checking up on me everyday and daily checkups by the boss too. I finished the project the company asked me to do and found out later that they removed my name and the collegue who snitched me got credited for my work. And the big kicker of all, word-for-word everything from the project I made wasn't changed, my work which got high praises is now being used by a snitch. What can I do? Fucking sit there and take it or I lose my points to pass.
Devolution
Member
MrBig said:
Get extremely lucky. BF's work is really good but game industry has just as much nepotism as other places.
Hypertrooper
Member
But aren't you already in QA testing? We people play A lot of betas nowadays.wwm0nkey said:
kylej said:
Personally, I blame the IGDA for not getting ahead of the problem and putting out more information aimed at high school and college advisers on what game development actually entails. Right now, they have no answers for kids who want careers in game development, and it's lead to a lot of bright-eyed youngsters with no real info thinking it's all brainstorming and play-testing before handing off a laundry list of Awesome Ideas to programmer and artist slaves who make their dreams into reality.
For anyone playing at home, http://www.sloperama.com/advice.html is also a wellspring of soul-crushingly brutal information on what game development actually entails. Gamasutra's Game Career Guide site actually has a forum where Tom tends to hang out and answer questions (usually by saying "Damnit, I covered this a hundred times already, read articles x, y and z") and it's amazing how much hate he gets for telling a truth that's contradictory to the dream these kids have.
Or work on the game and then the platform holder 86's your game because a bigger company wants their game to be the first one in the genre for XBLA.
TheOddOne: That's bullshit, I didn't get docked pay but had something similiar done to me. In my senior year of high school for AP Comp Sci, we had to make some management software to be used on Palm Pilots. I made the entire frontend interface for the thing with my friend. It was supposed to be for a guy walking around marking stuff about workers in a factory.
Later I found out:
1) The software was being made for an actual company, not a pretend one, so we were essentially a whole 15-person team for some production line company for free on taxpayer money.
2) My name and friend's name was completely removed from the program and the 'award' for completing it did had everyone's name on it except for ours, because they exploited the fact that we were seniors and our year ended two weeks earlier to not consider us 'current' students.
TheOddOne: That's bullshit, I didn't get docked pay but had something similiar done to me. In my senior year of high school for AP Comp Sci, we had to make some management software to be used on Palm Pilots. I made the entire frontend interface for the thing with my friend. It was supposed to be for a guy walking around marking stuff about workers in a factory.
Later I found out:
1) The software was being made for an actual company, not a pretend one, so we were essentially a whole 15-person team for some production line company for free on taxpayer money.
2) My name and friend's name was completely removed from the program and the 'award' for completing it did had everyone's name on it except for ours, because they exploited the fact that we were seniors and our year ended two weeks earlier to not consider us 'current' students.
Devolution
Member
Retro said:
BF is a sole art slave right now. I do not envy him. I don't think it will happen with this one but the worst thing is how these companies will have NDAs that include your artwork. So your portfolio is fucked too.
ElRenoRaven
Member
urk said:
Damn. Finally caught up. Glad to see an Urk sighting again. And tell him congrats for me. Glad to see him finally come into the fold there.
Btw. if you liked the previous Harold and Kumar movies, you'll like this one. Damn funny and better then the 2nd one I think. It's going to be one for my Christmas movie collection.
That's so fucked up, dispicable.FyreWulff said:
I recently found out too that the collegue used my project to complete her graduation thesis. She fucking passed (!!!) without doing any fucking work. My teacher gave a lecture a month ago about sticking up for students during interships, I went and I fucking laughed the whole time. They asked my to leave, but I didn't. Guess who has a appointment with a guidance counselor next week? I'm gonna play it off, but damn this shit makes me want to fucking punch the teacher and the girl who snitched right in face.
I'm gonna stop now or else I'm gonna be pissed for the whole night.
Devolution said:
Yeah, the current state of the industry is like Hollywood in the 40s and 50s; everyone is on payroll at a studio which controls the rights to everything, churning out shitloads of big-budget rehashes with the same paired actors in the same tired genres, all controlled by studio heads who don't care about the art or even the value of film beyond a dollar amount. Employees are interchangable because of the glamorous outward appearance of the industry (the tried-and-true "I'm going to move and make it in Hollywood!").
Ernest Lehman (North by Northwest) has a quote that sounds like it could come from the distant future of game development;
Replace Scripts with Design Documents, replace Hollywood with any major development hub, and there ya go.
I did some Alpha testing on Demigod for Gas-Powered Games through a friend and it was a terrible experience. What was actually the worst part was the frothing-at-the-mouth-this-is-my-dream-coming-true-shut-up-and-agree-with-me testers who thought it was their foot in the door (it was a step up from a Friends and Family Beta) and would vehemently disagree with any suggestions or comments that made them look bad.
No, I'm content to just tinker with ideas as a hobbyist and maybe pick up something like Gamemaker when I have the time and kick out a couple of fun little things for my own amusement. I worked on three shareware board games in high school and that was neat, and games are such a part of my life that having creative impulses to work on them is inevitable.. but I know trying to actually get a career in game development is completely wrong for me.
Good luck to your boyfriend, though.
TheOddOne said:
Not nearly as severe, but I had a fucking yuppie film director teaching a Video Production class raid my folder of photoshop doodles (very little of it actual class work, but still) and let his students put it into their finals without asking. Was shocking to see my work (some of it heavily edited) slapped around. That was right about the time I dropped out too...
Tashi0106 said:
It was a joke the last year
Omaha has the stupid magnet school system. For Freshman-Junior year, I went to the "computer magnet", Omaha North High.
It had a gigantic room in the middle of it. 2-3 stories of computers. Macs and windows machines everywhere, and you have the option of taking C/C++ or Java(script?). So I took C++ 1-2 and 3-4 at that school, we built programs using Borland. Also at the same time I was taking AutoCAD 1-2, 3-4, and 5-6.
For my senior year the school cut my bus route that took me to North High, and we didn't have the money for either the city bus or gas to get me there anymore, so I transferred to South High, which had also been newly rechristened a computer magnet.
So since I had completed C++ 3-4 I was now eligible for AP Comp Sci and was also eligible for AutoCAD 7-8. AP Comp Sci at North High was essentially C++ 5-6.
I show up the first day.
Motherfucking AP Comp Sci at this other high school is C++ 1-2. Same assignments, everything, except for the Palm Pilot project at the end. Apparently the previous year, AP Comp Sci at South High was freaking Visual Basic.
Also I was the only AutoCAD 7-8 student in the entire school, they stuck me in a 3-4 class and basically let me browse the internet for my entire senior year.
Both these schools are in the same fucking school district in the same city and are reachable from the same damn highway.
The AutoCAD teacher at this school was also the football coach, as in he was a football coach first and was thrust into the position. He did a decent job though, but for me he just handed me the chapter out of the book I need to complete and I was on my own, and he just gave me the test to see if I figured it out. The rest of the time I did just browse the internet but I also fucked around with/learning 3DS Max on my own since my home computer wasn't really capable of that intensive of a program. This was the 2001-2002 school year, and I was still rocking a 32MB RAM Pentium 2 at home, lol
Hydranockz
Member
There is a local flash games development studio that only consists of a handful of people. Really cool guys. They flew Anamanaguchi over to play a few gigs here which doubled as a celebration for getting their first game out the door. It hit XBLA and another few channels and they have all sorts of dealings with Sony and Nintendo. They work hard and they're not rolling around in money but their name is spreading an awful lot here and they have gotten really good press reviews and radio spots here too. The industry isn't all bad. I might try do some unpaid QA for them at some point.
Great games Gabo.
Great games Gabo.
ElzarTheBam
Member
Hydranockz said:
You enjoy your games for now, I'll be back on halo in a week..to ruin your fun along with that so called brother of yours!
Hydranockz
Member
I'll put a farmer on THAT field!ElzarTheBam said:
ElzarTheBam
Member
Hydranockz said:
I'll take that to the bank! : D
A27_StarWolf
Banned
If Urk is back, maybe it confirms my theory.
Bungie employees go dark when they are in a certain phase of game development... so perhaps that phase has ended, and new news is on the way?
Bungie employees go dark when they are in a certain phase of game development... so perhaps that phase has ended, and new news is on the way?
A27_StarWolf
Banned
Thermite said:
Hydranockz
Member
SUUUUUUURPRIIIIIIIISE BUDDY!!!!Thermite said:
Domino Theory
Crystal Dynamics
Eh, the conditions may be not up to par compared to places like EA, Google, Microsoft, and Apple, but everyone has to start somewhere and usually it's in startups or being lucky enough to intern at the corporate level.
I, and many others, are willing to go through those conditions, good or bad, because it's experience, it gives you a chance to grow, and best of all, it puts your foot in the door of a multi-billion dollar industry that grows annually.
Which reminds me, much love to Hitmon for doing a great job at Trendy Entertainment. 12+ hour work days with no pay and he still puts out a genuine smile when it comes to dealing with the Dungeon Defends community.
I, and many others, are willing to go through those conditions, good or bad, because it's experience, it gives you a chance to grow, and best of all, it puts your foot in the door of a multi-billion dollar industry that grows annually.
Which reminds me, much love to Hitmon for doing a great job at Trendy Entertainment. 12+ hour work days with no pay and he still puts out a genuine smile when it comes to dealing with the Dungeon Defends community.
A27_StarWolf
Banned
GhaleonEB said:
I'm really upset that part got cut out.
I know it might never happen, but it would be nice if in the distant future bungie and 343 worked together to finish the unfinished.
Hydranockz
Member
I have a similar mindset.Domino Theory said:
What I do wonder about, is that currently all of the industry giants haven't really studied in a 'games' course in college. A lot of Bungie have just done some form of Computer Science and that's just the programmers. With people like Frankie, urk and Ellis not doing IT in any way during college (It was mostly some form of journalism but please correct me if I'm wrong) I often wonder if my course will stand to me as opposed to Zeouterlimits.
He is studying straight-up Computer Systems whereas I am studying Multimedia and Computer Games Development. The courses themselves differ in maybe 7-8 modules over the 4 year course. I like to think both of us will have very good platforms off of which to enter the gaming industry. Part of our University's ethos is to give students as much experience as possible so getting work experience for ~8 months is part of my degree. I was in QA for a large pensions firm here in Ireland, doing up test plans in Excel spreadsheets. Not exactly games related.
Woops, what a ramble this is. Basically, I haven't a clue what this is doing for my prospects, but if I can land a steady paying IT job, I'll put up with that for as long as I need to while I just try and get my name out there for gaming jobs!
My question is: Where are the jumps from indie games to AAA titles? I've seen some devs just making an awful lot of indie games of varying quality, but rarely do I see them get picked up by bigger firms.
Domino Theory said:
The thing is, the conditions don't really get better, and it's easy to have that attitude when you're not in the thick of it. When you're crunching 14 hour days, 6 days a week for 6 months, for a c-tier project, is it still worth it? It is the anti-thesis of personal and creative growth. Naivete combined with passion is the easiest way to create exploitation.
But I'm a believer in following your heart, and there are great studios out there, so go for it. Only got one life.
Domino Theory
Crystal Dynamics
Hydranockz said:
I'm sure it'll work out for you. Yours is just an emphasis on game development for coding/progamming where as Computer Science can be applied to any piece of software, I'm assuming.
The economy sucks right now. The weird thing is that I have no clue when it's going to change. All I keep hearing is that "it doesn't last forever, things will change and get better, we'll be out of the recession, etc." I've heard this for 3 years and counting with no end in sight.
Sucks, too, because you basically have to rely on connections now more than ever and if you don't have any? You're fucked.
Hydranockz said:
There's a jump. Either your indie studio gets bought out (look at Twisted Pixel) or you gain enough years of experience, leadership, and so on, that you can apply for the larger, more corporate places. No one who manages a Safeway or a Target expects their employeesto be there forever. They know they'll want to move on to something higher and/or different after a while. But they also know that there will always be new young employes lining up to work at Safeway or Target.
Like Steve Jobs said, "out with the old, in with the new". It's just one big cycle.
bobs...onGaf
Member
pakkit said:
People still believe this??? Im crossposting from the CoD player wanting to get good at Halo thread.
Just to clarify thats not my post, im just quoting someone who responded to me in that thread.
Hypertrooper
Member
You had me at "good grenade placement". I ain't saying that it doesn't exist anymore. But I'm not seeing it. (Especially on smaller maps) But people know my relationship to grenades.bobs99 ... said:
Domino Theory
Crystal Dynamics
How far has it gone?Hypertrooper said:
A27_StarWolf
Banned
Domino Theory said:
Innovate or die, as I like to say.
Hypertrooper
Member
That bitch cheated me with other guys. But I got over it. Now I can deal with new problems like Bloom or Armor lock.Domino Theory said:
bobs...onGaf
Member
Hypertrooper said:
Just to clarify thats not my post, im just quoting someone who responded to me in that thread.
And I agree, the Reach nades seem to be more brawn than brains. Maybe I just suck with them but I sure cant land a nade the same way in Reach that I can in Halo 3. I really hate the lack of ability to bounce them off walls and so on.
Hmm, I haven't seen this guys work before. That level seemed really interesting. Sad to see it cut due to too much content.TheOddOne said:
Reading some of his other stuff, in reference to the Forerunner structure on Reach, he calls it a ship and not an installation. Interesting.
Other cool tidbits sprinkled throughout.
HiredN00bs
Member
It certainly took a while for me to get used to them. Halo 3 brought its own frustrations with its disruptive map design, though. And the ragdolls, yech.bobs99 ... said: