Keeping a Job(?)

    This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to our Cookie Policy.

    • Keeping a Job(?)

      Since quite a few official announcements has been made now, I'd like to bring up a thread about something that seems to be a big problem in this industry today; redundancies and cancelled projects:

      play.tm/news/22750/free-radical-put-up-for-sale-as-jobs-cut/

      I was affected by this, and I must say that it's a really difficult situation, as I suppose a lot of people browsing this forum has experienced as well(?)

      I must say though, I have full respect of free radical as my previous employer, I don't think they could have handled the situation better than they did to be honest. I really hope the remains of the company lands on their feet, as well as everybody loosing their job like I did. I loved working for them, and I loved the team I was in, so it's really sad.

      I think it's important to show this part of the industry to people wanting to get into this kind of work as well, because when I was in uni, I used to think that "just get a job, and then things will get rolling". But for me it's "keeping a job" on focus now instead.

      What's your experiences with this? Anyone got anything similar that you want to share?
      "There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are: Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?"
      -Douglas Adams

    • RE: Keeping a Job(?)

      Anyone who's been in the gaming industry for any length of time has had this happen. One of the down sides to working in this industry is how volatile it is. I think you can count the number of people who have been working at Planet Moon (my company, a company with about 55 employees) for over 4 years on one hand.

      I worked at a great company called Super-Ego Games before I was at Planet Moon. We were working on a game called Rat Race for PS3 and were pretty far into development. They had already pulled a few marketing triggers and we even had a spot in Game Informer. I can't really go into the details here, but the game was cancelled about a year ago and the company went on life support, laying off 2/3 of the staff. I was one of the ones kept and I stuck around for several weeks on reduced salary with a very uncertain future. I started interviewing and landed this job here at Planet Moon. now I'm the AI programmer for an action platformer game for the Wii. It really is a dream come true for me.

      When one door closes, another often opens. You can't escape the volatility of the gaming industry. You can help mitigate it by working for a huge company like EA or LucasArts. It also helps to move to a location where there are game companies all over (like San Francisco, Seattle, or LA; not sure about the UK). Experience is another big one. The first people to go are usually the juniors and the specialists. When a company is on life support, I've noticed that they tend to keep the generalists (like me) because those are the ones who can do a little bit of everything and keep things going while a new deal is found.

      -Rez

    • It's good to hear that your experience turned out the way it did, Rez. I thought Rat Race sounded like a really interesting project though, I guess I'm mostly surprised of the high quality of games actually being cancelled.

      I did hear about these things before I started working, I think I just didn't expect it to be as widespread as it seems to be. It's always easy to think "these things won't happen to me" as well I guess.

      Game development is quite big in the UK, and I have a couple of big towns in which I've found a few developers. I do have some thoughts of working with other types of software development for a while instead now though, so we'll just see what happens.
      "There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are: Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?"
      -Douglas Adams

    • This seems to be the way of things at the moment, it's tough, exspecially for people with little experience as there are so many highly skillful and experienced people being made redundant worldwide.

      I know the games industry always seems to be suffering some sort of skills crisis but it's hard to see where the current numbers looking for work can be accomodated.

      I recently left a very secure job with a very small developer to move to EA who then announced job cuts and that was a stressful time just contemplating if i would be one of them. At the end of the day though, I love what I do and that's why we do this isn't it?

      The money can be better elsewhere, the hours could be better elsewhere but the buzz of seeing your games on sale can't be matched.

    • Originally posted by bonus uk
      The money can be better elsewhere, the hours could be better elsewhere but the buzz of seeing your games on sale can't be matched.


      I completely agree. This is actually what I tell people who ask me about being in the industry. You have to do it for the love of creating games, not the money or prestige because you can find it better and easier elseware. I couldn't imagine even looking for a job outside the industry at this point. It's what I was meant to do.

      -Rez

    • Originally posted by rezination
      Out of curiosity, why are you looking outside the industry?

      -Rez


      Ohh, that hasn't much to do with this actually...well partially. The biggest reason is that I most of all want to work with 3D programming, while my work so far has been very general game programming, and I have this(perhaps wrong) view that it's very very very difficult to get that sort of job without any previous experience in the same work area(which is quite understandable).

      I have found a couple of non -game development vacancies that is related to some openGL-coding and things like that, so that might increase my chances a bit of working with graphics coding in the future. But perhaps that's also a bit of a long shot though.

      But I must say I'm a bit divided with what I actually want to specialize with, because I also want to work in actual game teams, and 3D programming is more related to engine development shared over several game projects...

      My other reason is because of the economical/financial situation in the world at the moment, even though the game industry probably isn't most badly affected by it, it doesn't help. So by applying outside the game industry means higher chance of getting a job at all, because I really dislike being unemployed...I already starting to get bored of it, only after a couple of weeks...:P;)

      Originally posted by rezination
      Originally posted by bonus uk
      The money can be better elsewhere, the hours could be better elsewhere but the buzz of seeing your games on sale can't be matched.


      I completely agree. This is actually what I tell people who ask me about being in the industry. You have to do it for the love of creating games, not the money or prestige because you can find it better and easier elseware. I couldn't imagine even looking for a job outside the industry at this point. It's what I was meant to do.

      -Rez


      I also agree, I'm sure I would have worked just as much hours even if free radical wouldn't been paying for overtime...:) I really loved my job, and I'm still waiting to see my first released game...which is going to come sooner or later, I'm 100% sure of it.

      Thanks for your replies guys.
      "There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are: Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?"
      -Douglas Adams

      The post was edited 1 time, last by steelblood_relic ().

    • If you're willing to relocate north Realtime Worlds and 4J Studios in Dundee are currently advertising for experienced staff.

    • Originally posted by bonus uk
      If you're willing to relocate north Realtime Worlds and 4J Studios in Dundee are currently advertising for experienced staff.


      Thank you for the tips, I'll keep that in mind. :)
      "There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are: Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?"
      -Douglas Adams