Thoughts on working in Shanghai?
polycounter lvl 10
Still crackin' away at landing my first gig, I've been sending out resumes for months but finally have what seems to be a very promising 1 on 1 interview in the near future with a company called "saybot" making educational games in Shanghai. Just one of those random companies you see at job fairs, but i've looked into them and they seem pretty legit.
I've lived in San Diego my whole life and honestly the idea of packing it all up and trying something new for a little while is pretty exciting, but am i shooting myself in the foot working at a company like this? Would going way the f*ck off to China be a stupid rookie mistake?
Any and all insight appreciated. Trying to get my feet wet, not jump off a cliff or anything.
I've lived in San Diego my whole life and honestly the idea of packing it all up and trying something new for a little while is pretty exciting, but am i shooting myself in the foot working at a company like this? Would going way the f*ck off to China be a stupid rookie mistake?
Any and all insight appreciated. Trying to get my feet wet, not jump off a cliff or anything.
Replies
I'd have to agree with Ged on this one... you don't know how stable that company is, it's a big risk.
With your portfolio, you should have no issues finding work locally. Have you sent your resume to sites like Monster.com? Monster.com personally got me calls fairly quickly.
Honestly the gaming industry is hiring all the time; it shouldn't be that hard for you to find work in the western half of the US. It helps that you are willing to travel too.
I will most definitely be bringing a LOT of typed out questions to the interview, I wouldn't go to China without having lots of important questions answered regarding housing, pay, civil liberties, internet use, that sorta stuff. Simply put if i couldn't access sites like polycount from home i don't think i could bear living there, I don't care how cheap the rent is. But we'll see how it goes. Their company is breaking some pretty incredible ground, the market for teaching English there is HUGE and it would be awesome to be part of that. I don't think i talked about the bright side to all this, the simple fact that China is an emerging financial superpower and learning some Mandarin now could open all kinds of doors in the future. The idea of being part of a fast growing company in that part of the world is very exciting.
Internet is quite okay - it's not as fast as in the west and it requires some (easy) hacks to get youtube and facebook to work. Yet I consider it just a small trade off. About 99% of the websites I use just work right away. So the filtering isn't too bad.
If you play WoW or another MMO, the high latency can be annoying if you do PvP but otherwise it's ok.
Depending on your salary it can be very rewarding to live here. If it's in the range of a western salary you can save LOTS of money here and still live a great life (e.g. eat out multiple times a week, take a taxi to work every day, etc).
Then there's all the travelling and sightseeing you can do. China is largely unknown to most westerners (including me), so there's many things to discover!
SH itself also have a quite big dev scene with Ubi, Tencent, Blizzard, Massive Black, 2K and probably some more...
Civil liberties: as long as you don't run a anti-government blog or campaign or protest in public you have all the freedom you want. Nobody is gonna spy on you and it's ok to talk politics with your friends. Just keep in mind that, just like Americans, Chinese can be very patriotic when it comes to their country.
just PM me if you have any questions...
+Food is good.
+So many cool things to buy.
+Bootleg, Knockoff, Bootleg.
-Expensive CoL depending on how close you want to be to work.
-Red China
http://gamedevmap.com/index.php?tool=location&query=shanghai
maybe you could arrange a few more interviews in the same week or something like that
I know me personally, I've been here in California for ~9 years now, and I'm really missing the sense of adventure. There's nothing I'd like more than working some place where the local language isn't even English. Doesn't matter much where I guess.
It would be a huge plus on your resume, alot of large studios outsource work to Chinese studios and communication can be a big issue sometimes as well as the way they give and take feedback. If you can manage to learn mandarin you will be a golden god.
Yea, that's the thing though. Learning chinese? That's really hard. I doubt I could pull it off personally. And if you don't speak the language, you'll never really fit in and consider it your home. I'm not saying it would be a bad move resume wise. Not at all. I just, personally, wouldn't look at it as a step in the direction I want to go. It's more a detour. Detours can be fun, or they can suck.
Sounds harsh, yet it's a good and bad thing both ways, since as presumably western foreigner often get better treatment and a friendlier response and you'll be forgiven many of the cultural pitfalls.In general the Chinese are very friendly and welcoming because of that.
I wouldn't let the language deter me though. I've met many expats (in Asia but also in EU studios) who didn't speak the local language and still managed to make friends, have a good time and even marry people of their guest country.
Chinese itself is not too difficult to learn. The biggest barrier is the vocabulary. Grammar is pretty easy and forgiving. Characters...depends how visual of a person you are. Some people struggle a lot, some find it not too difficult to learn a couple of basic characters.
Career wise China can be a good move. I think jobs here are pretty stable right now and it's a good place to be while Europe is still being affected by the crisis and studios still being shut down here and there. Also it can be easier to get into lead/senior roles because locally there's not too many Chinese who can fill them who have the right combination of skill/experience/english skills. On the other hand there's tons and tons of super duper duper talented artists coming right out of the art schools without much studio xp. Those are the guys you often work with.
On a personal level I really enjoy working with my Chinese co-workers. On a professional level there's sometimes weird clashes of culture, but that's why you're here - to resolve them and show how things are handled in a proper production environment.
I don't even speak much mandarin or shanghainese, yes shanghai has there local
own language, it is similar to mandarin,
Anyways i get by just fine visiting with her family and getting around the city
with just knowing English,
Some day my wife and i may buy a 2nd home there,
The food is something i miss so much and you would love it i promise,
I have been traveling off and on to Shanghai since 2000 and love
this city more and more each time i go back,
Let us know what you decide to do,
I am really interested to know, Thanks
Now, this ain't my blog but I promised i'd keep some of you guys posted at your request so here goes: I just got back from the interview. I was hoping things would go more one way or the other but things are still very much up in the air. My biggest concern is they aren't looking for 3d artists like the recruiter informed me at the job fair, only 2d flash artists, so in taking this job i would be stagnating a bit in the art department doing 2d flash art and animation for children's games.
They also wouldn't give me a ballpark figure for pay, saying flat out it wont be as much as a western company, though stressing the pay benefits of living in a country with cheap rent, which kinda sent up red flags.
They seemed to like me despite my lack of actual flash experience. I do have some old vector art from illustrator I did in school that I've forwarded them. They also informed me that they were looking for a creative director to come up with gameplay ideas and new minigames for their game while sorta leading the team and were very impressed by my mod work. The fact that i could have some creative control and possibly lead some designers creating my own games was pretty enticing and offset the pay and art issues.
So yeah, very much in the air but we'll see where it goes, the next move is there's once they decide if my vector art is up to snuff and what the pay offer will be should they pursue me further.
All that said, i log into my email to send the vector art off and low and behold i have an art test with a game studio in LA that i would LOVE to work for. So i'm about to hit that super hard.
Ambiguous as everything is this is exciting times! Going to rock this art test harder than any I've received before. I don't have school, I don't have a current mod project. For once nothing stands in my way of artistic pwnage for something that can directly get me a job. EXCITEMENT!
[ame]
The job isn't really what you want to do, they've admitted the pay won't be fantastic, and you have to move across the world to a country that doesn't speak much English and has an entirely different culture...
VS.
An art test for a game art job in LA
With all due respect, I know which I'd be pursuing hardest.
Good luck with the art test man
An interesting read nevertheless.
But overall the LA job seems to be the better choice for you, so go for it!