
Game Job: Getting a job in the game industry simulator - luu
http://www.rakkar.org/gamejob.html
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FD3SA
Brilliant. Every time someone asks me whether they should go to Harvard or
MIT, I'll send them this link instead of my usual rant.

Moral of the game:

Connections trump everything. Talent means nothing. With seven billion people
on this planet, what you can do means nothing. Your access to capital is all
that matters. Making capital is insanely hard. Convincing others to give it to
you is much easier. PG went to Harvard. Zuck went to Harvard. Gates went to
Harvard. Go to Harvard. Don't drop out of high school, and don't listen to
people who've only gone to Harvard.

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personjerry
Spoiler alert

A would be game professional is born.

Background You drop out of highschool. You have enough social skills to make
people think you are in the know when you are in the not. Your 'art' gives
programmer's art a new, ugly, meaning Know that publisher? No? Well I do, he's
my uncle.

Job Results You manage to convince your uncle that playing golf all day is a
real job. Congratulations, you run a publishing house! Pay: $2,000,000 a year!

~~~
keehun
I think this is the crux of the game—some commentary on the advantages of life
given your connections, status, and social skills which one is born into.

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yogabzzz
You know what the best part about the game industry is? Leaving it.

~~~
munificent
It's like owning a boat. The best days of a game developer's life are the day
they enter the industry and the day they leave.

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api
I've heard the best thing with boats is to rent one. That way you get a first
day, a middle day, and a last day, then you give the boat back and go home.

Maybe you could intern briefly in the game industry and have the same
experience?

~~~
yogabzzz
"If it flies, floats or fucks - rent it." That's the saying.

Also, I wouldn't recommend anyone join the game industry for any period of
time. I've never been in it, but I know 7-8 developers and they're all usually
miserable and stressed out. Not only that, they make about 60% of what I make
and they have no equity or reasonable vacation schedule.

It seems to be a very rollercoastery industry, where one moment people love
what you made and then hate it the next. If you're a developer, you're
basically a tool to implement the nonsense game designers come up with and
your project manager is a cross between Gordon Ramsay and Tim Gunn. It sounds
like a nightmare.

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ovi256
Intuitively, I chose two for connections and one for social skills. The
results are exactly as expected, great:

"You drop out of highschool. You have enough social skills to make people
think you are in the know when you are in the not. Your 'art' gives
programmer's art a new, ugly, meaning Know that publisher? No? Well I do, he's
my uncle.

Job Results You manage to convince your uncle that playing golf all day is a
real job. Congratulations, you run a publishing house! Pay: $2,000,000 a
year!"

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api
Lots of people play games and think "I'd love to make games!" Well guess
what... every kid who loves games thought that.

The problem with game dev is the same as Hollywood, professional music, and
popular pro athletics, namely that there are _waaaaaay_ more people who aspire
to it than there are jobs. As a result, there's an extreme hockey stick
distribution for success and a lot of exploitative labor practices like unpaid
internships, long hours, unusually low pay, etc.

Connections seem to count for more in narrowly gated fields too. It probably
has something to do with the number of top insiders being close to the Dunbar
number, causing them to form a close-knit insular club of mutual back-
scratchers. All the insiders know all the other insiders. Not an insider? Go
home.

~~~
TimTimTim
As a programmer working in games. I am afraid that what you say about getting
into being hard without connections just isn't true. It is something I see
written about a lot. The truth is that if you are a good programmer,
comfortable working in C++ and can work in a team you will have no problem
getting a job in games, connections or not. In fact, that is how most people I
know in games got into games, myself included.

There are problems of exploitation of the workers but this isnt through people
scared of getting work, I think everyone with a few years in the games
industry knows they have the skills that would help them get another
programming job without too much hassle. The problem is that people are
passionate and that is being exploited in some places. The trick is find the
good games companies and stand your ground on salary and working hours,
admittedly this is probably easier in the UK than the US.

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mbrodersen
I worked in the games industry for 15+ years. It was a roller coaster of
extreme highs and extreme lows: Getting my game painted on the side of
Japanese bullet trains, succesfully pitching a game to a Hollywood film
director, partying at an embassy in Germany, getting seriously alcohol
poisoned, meeting with and shaking hands with Miyamoto and other childhood
heroes, writing an email that got a French producer fired, having games
succeed beyond anything imagined and having other games crash and burn hard.
Now I am older and prefer a non-roller coaster lifestyle. But hey when you are
young and full of beans, what is there to loose? That's the time to risk
things. Just don't be naive about it.

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ps4fanboy
Soon as we fix the sexism in the games industry we will have more women
working in it

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benbristow
A would be game professional is born.

Background You are highly intelligent and decide to study programming. You
have enough social skills to make people think you are in the know when you
are in the not. Your 'art' gives programmer's art a new, ugly, meaning You're
a nobody as far as the game industry is concerned.

Job Results You were smart enough to pass the programming tests, and did great
in your interview. They hire you as a programmer! Pay: $60,000 a year!

~~~
angersock
60k starting salary as a coder?

Where can I apply?

~~~
Impossible
The salary numbers are all tongue in cheek, although its pretty common for
entry level game industry programmers to make $60K or less. For comparison the
producer makes $100K, which is way above the average producer salary (~$75K)
and almost twice entry level producer salary.

~~~
vonmoltke
You have to take into account where the game industry jobs are, too. I work
across the highway from id, and around here I wouldn't be shocked to find out
entry level programmers make $60k/year. It's low, but not unreasonable
considering the glut of people who seem to want in to the industry.

~~~
MAGZine
I don't have any concrete numbers, but I can say with reasonable certainty
that 60k/year is standard entry-level income at a couple large studios.

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spain
It's kinda sad that you have to use all 3 points, when creating a character in
my own image I only ended up using 2 (or even 1, now that I think about it)
points.

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toblender
Put 1 for social, and 2 for connections to run the place :D

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spanishcow
This is just a cynic view of game industry (and the world). Of course some
people get a lot more that they deserve. But I have seen a lot of great
professionals getting promoted thanks to their abilities and hard work. The
world is not so black and white like this game. If you don't like it remember
it and when you have a management role fight injustices and congratulate the
people that deserve it.

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wildpeaks
I'm surprised no one posted about the "2 artistic + 1 intelligence = $0"
outcome yet :)

~~~
qbrass
Also 2 social + 1 artistic = "You draw nice concept drawings which your
friends like. However, none of them will pay you for it."

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MatthewMcDonald
The pop-up with the result just shows a blank screen until I double-click it.
(Chrome 35 on Mac)

~~~
theg2
I was confused why you'd use a popup in this case, then I looked at the source
and realized this has to be at least a decade old.

~~~
Kiro
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">

Indeed!

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cturhan
Oh that's great. It wanted me just $20k :) intelligence + artistic +
connections

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matthuggins
2 intelligence + 1 social = blank popup

~~~
mratzloff
Job Results You were smart enough to pass the programming tests, and did great
in your interview. They hire you as a programmer! Pay: $60,000 a year!

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mesozoic
This is a pretty realistic simulation

