Through the Looking Glass

[Nick Kage]

If i have no artistic talent, is there any other jobs at a game development company i could do, and make good money?

 

are you good with scheduling? producers can make good money. they basically keep the schedule on track to make sure we will reach our deadlines.

if your hand with tech stuff the IT depratment is good (that fix pc's order parts and keep our tools and workstations up to par)

there is also QA which is a great doorway into games, you basically test the game all day to find bugs and glitches... pay starts low but if you move up in position, or move to a new position it can be good.

 

So how many hours do you put in a week, regularly? When you have deadlines, do you put in 80 hour weeks or more?

 

right now i work 40 -45 hours a week, during crunch time i can possibly double that to about 80 hours a week. but we do get paid ovetime and time and a half.

So do you sign on to each deal, or do they tell you what your workin on next?

 

in games you typically sign on to the comapny as a staff job, and you work on the project you are hired for. Once that project is done you will just move on to the next project that company has. Games have pretty stable jobs. so as long as i dont get fired and as long as blizzard keeps making games i will have a job.

[Mr.Sensation]

Here is a good one Kage.

 

Are there any type of jobs in the field for a guy like myself, IE the guy with the vision,what he wants how he wants it. The best example I can give is Corey Ledsama, he doesnt look like he does anything yet he is in charge of making SVR as anti fun as possible for the hardcore gamer.

[Nick Kage]

Here is a good one Kage.

 

 

Are there any type of jobs in the field for a guy like myself, IE the guy with the vision,what he wants how he wants it. The best example I can give is Corey Ledsama, he doesnt look like he does anything yet he is in charge of making SVR as anti fun as possible for the hardcore gamer.

 

 

Desginers are typically the guys you come up with the ideas.

the lead desginer is the main man.

 

to be a desginer there are schools you can go to but i highly doubt someone will walk into a company with no experience and get a desginer job.

 

desginers need to have good ideas, need to problem solve, need to be motivational, need to know how to make their vision happen, and they need to knwo how to work in a crunch to get that idea made.

 

there are schools all over you can go to to be a desginer

[Trevor McManus]

Is a job in the gaming industry something that you would have to consider right away to get into or could you make the switch from another industry into gaming?

[The Guy Fausto]

I read an arcticle on some gaming site once(I forgot which) and it basically said that writing/story for a lot of games is basically a dirty word for a lot of companies. How much truth to this?

[Nick Kage]

Is a job in the gaming industry something that you would have to consider right away to get into or could you make the switch from another industry into gaming?

 

depends on what you did orginally, for me i was an artist. being an artist transfers over easily to what i do now.

 

but if say i was mechanic, well that may be harder.

 

if anything is always best figure out what you want and put 100% effort to get it. but if say you go into computer programming for a tech company, transfering to games from that as a programmer would be easy.

[Nick Kage]

I read an arcticle on some gaming site once(I forgot which) and it basically said that writing/story for a lot of games is basically a dirty word for a lot of companies. How much truth to this?

 

 

some companies have no writers, alot depends on the game.

 

i mean does madden need a writer? or what about Rainbow six?

 

some comapnies do some don't

 

Blizzard has an entire department for their "lore". people who write the over all story for our games. my project has 2 writers, they desgin the story and "quests" and how the quests will move you the player through the game and overall story.

 

it all depends on what type of game and who the company is.

 

a lot of fantasy games have writers and story is important.

[Ov Terror]

Kage,

 

I am a musician and a gamer. At times I thought it would be great to get into the gaming industry doing musical scores or something. So would it be possible for me to get a job in the gaming industry without going to any sort of school for music?

 

What it breaks down to is I hate what I do and would HATE to look back on my life now and think of how much happier I could have been if I had been doing something I actually enjoyed.

 

I just like being creative. Hence the reason I join an online wrestling federation. It gives me something to do that gives me some sort of creative outlet in a very uncreative enviroment.