Reply to: Contract with Games Company - cool or what?

[MarillionFan]

Waddingtons? You'll only get bored.

[Fandango]

funnily enough i watched a film on Netflix last night called Indie Game which was quite an interesting fly on the wall documntary style film about a couple of different guys trying to get games onto Xbox arcade. worth a watch

[KentPhilip]

My cousin's stepson is one of the top games designers and developers in the country if not the World, and I got him started when he was about 10, by showing him how to code an ellipse drawing routine.

And now he's running circles round you...

[sbakoola]

Its just not worth it. And in the end if the Metacritic score is not a minimum of 8 for the game you worked on then you don't get to work in games no more.

[escapeUK]

An old mate worked in the graphics side of games, he said it was quite cut throat. With games they were working on suddenly cancelled as the company that commissioned it didnt like where it was going / looking, the house would then be looking for new work and if nothing turned up it often involved redundancies. The the houses tended to try to have multiple projects.

Also as a game was approaching being complete lots of extra hours were expected, this did involve an element of playing the game looking for bugs.

[psychocandy]

Didnt even get onto the subject of hours. :-)

I asked if there was any WFH/flexible working and they said no. Then I asked rate and it was poor so that was the end of that one.

[d000hg]

Hey fellas - we're not all code monkeys!

This was sys admin role.

That's worse!

[MyUserName]

I was at a friend's stag night and found out the guy sitting next to me runs a games company - I have forgotten which one but it is the one which made the game Aliens V Predator - Jason something.

My claims to fame are few and far between so I wanted to throw that one out!!

[psychocandy]

You don't know the game's industry do you. Their rates are based on the fact you are stupid enough to do it for love not money and WFH is a no no as they prefer to slave drive the workers within the office.

No I dont know it at all. Pity. Rate was pretty poor for London mind.

[psychocandy]

Hey fellas - we're not all code monkeys!

This was sys admin role.

[d000hg]

WFH is not often possible since you're likely testing on special kit.

The point about rates being low and hours long is valid as a generalisation but there are always exceptions. If you're someone who really likes coding it could still be fun.

[moggy]

I have heard the good rates are in the states for this industry, friend of mine is on a decent contract doing just this.

[OwlHoot]

My cousin's stepson is one of the top games designers and developers in the country if not the World, and I got him started when he was about 10, by showing him how to code an ellipse drawing routine.

[eek]

Not for me though. Contract rate not great and location not cool either (2 hours on train each way). But still if the rate had been better and they'd go for some WFH (they didnt) it would have been a do-er.

You don't know the game's industry do you. Their rates are based on the fact you are stupid enough to do it for love not money and WFH is a no no as they prefer to slave drive the workers within the office.

[Platypus]

LOL