Gaming industry professionals , your experience working in games, and what can be better in future?
vertex
Would be good to hear and read industry professionals thoughts about working in AAA Studios around the world.
1.What is bad thing working in gaming industry?
2.Is there any sign that there will be some chances in near future, for better or worst, to work in this industry?
3.What is typical your day, when working normal hours, in crunch time hours and after game is published?
4.How is like to work in crunch time, how studio and people there do this?
5.Any advice for new people to know about this industry?
Please don't hide your thoughts about this. I know there must be some very bad things about working in gaming.I only know that there is crunch time, but i want to know what is like, how to prepare, and what to do.
1.What is bad thing working in gaming industry?
2.Is there any sign that there will be some chances in near future, for better or worst, to work in this industry?
3.What is typical your day, when working normal hours, in crunch time hours and after game is published?
4.How is like to work in crunch time, how studio and people there do this?
5.Any advice for new people to know about this industry?
Please don't hide your thoughts about this. I know there must be some very bad things about working in gaming.I only know that there is crunch time, but i want to know what is like, how to prepare, and what to do.
Replies
Probably the worst thing working in this industry is the instability. I have been pretty fortunate to have only been laid off once in my career but being connected with so many people now, you see every studio that has layoffs or closures and it can be really rough at times.
2.Is there any sign that there will be some chances in near future, for better or worst, to work in this industry?
There are always opportunities. The main issue in recent years is the saturation of incoming artists. While it's easier to learn the skills used in the industry, the amount of competition is exponential. But I'm a believer that if you just put forth the effort and determination, anyone can get there.
3.What is typical your day, when working normal hours, in crunch time hours and after game is published?
I have been extremely fortunate thus far in my career to have worked minimal crunch. My regular days are usually 8-5. Great part about the industry is most companies are pretty flexible about what time you show up within reason. I think people will show up anytime between 7-10AM and leave around 5-7PM. You are normally expected to be at work for core hours (10-5) and just to get your work done. Crunch is a different beast. It can just be a couple extra hours during the week or much worse where you are working til midnight and asked to be there on the weekends as well. Once a game is published, if it does well, you're probably starting to prepro for the next project.
4.How is like to work in crunch time, how studio and people there do this?
Crunch sucks but there are versions that don't suck as much as other lol. I know that sounds weird but here's how I see it. If you are working on a project that the whole team is passionate about and you know it's going to be something special, you tend to forget the extra hours you are putting into it. You work longer hours because you WANT it to be better. Your bosses may ask you to stay late but somehow it doesn't feel as taxing because you are really excited about what you're working on. And then there's awful, shitty, terrible, mind numbing, soul sucking crunch. This is basically the majority of the time where poor planning and bad decision making by upper management forces the team into meeting unreasonable deadlines. You crunch endless hours and really you're not getting more work done, you are just at work a lot longer. No one is actually more efficient, everyone is miserable, and when the game tanks, you know you're getting laid off most likely. Not a fun scenario for anyone...
5.Any advice for new people to know about this industry?
There's not much that hasn't already been said. Work your ass off to make a nice portfolio. Apply to studios that fit in your art style. Be passionate, be humble, listen to criticism. Don't be an asshole! Haha.
Thank you slosh for this.Would i get into problem if i leave in certain time, only if i get work done on time or before x time? So i can avoid working crunch time at all? How people would react or top managers?
I am not sure, do i need to feel like i am slave, or can i just be firm with my decision and leave when i can?
Management. Mostly because we have to try to get creative and technical development work together, which isn't always easy while everyone tries to push boundaries of art and tech. On every project there's a trial and error and back and forths. You have to learn to live with uncertainty, chaos and improvisation and then try to manage it (or rely on others managing it for you!). It's clearly not as orderly as film production or pure software development.
>.Is there any sign that there will be some chances in near future, for better or worst, to work in this industry?
It's slowly getting better, but think more of decades rather than years. Although, tool and tech wise, things move much faster. And fortunately there is a trend towards improving management. The guys who got promoted because they're good artists rather than good leaders are getting less (ideally you're both, or have at least some skill organizing the work for your peers and help them grow). At the same time, specialized artists can now still have good jobs without having to move into management. I also see more companies thinking how they can offer training so that staff aren't totally on their own in improving their skills.
> What is typical your day, when working normal hours, in crunch time hours and after game is published?
mostly the typical 9-to-5 (more like 9-to-6 including lunch). As artist I was lucky to not have crunched. At my current job I do my utmost to plan ahead so that we can avoid crunch (at least within my team). I remember as artist you could zone out to a degree when doing menial tasks, but as tech-artist this doesn't work when you're supposed to be a problem solver. 12 hours of problem solving a day will burn you out in a few days - there's no way to effectively crunch this type of work without doing more damage than good in the long run.
> How is like to work in crunch time, how studio and people there do this?
depends on studio and project. Highly motivated short burst crunches of small teams to make a great product even better can be awesome in terms of excitement and feeling of accomplishment. "polishing a turd" crunches with no end in sight on the other hand suck. Much depends on studio culture, management and leadership how and if a studio does crunch time.
I think "how does your studio handle crunch?" is a question everyone should be asking at their job interview. I give people credit when they do
> Any advice for new people to know about this industry?
You can earn more elsewhere. Yet game dev is challenging, interesting and keeps your inner child/nerd/geek alive. However, you need to have a plan for the long run: specialize, move up or move out. Seeing older game devs at grunt positions is extremely rare and I doubt it's much fun either. Be prepared to constantly learn new tools and tech on your own time, or to just practice your art on your own time. This can be challenging until you established yourself as strong artist who's experience and skill is in strong demand.
What else? Don't fall for companies whose only benefit is free fruit and a fussball table. And sometimes you have to take risks and go against advice to get ahead. Just make sure you know what you're doing.
> I am not sure, do i need to feel like i am slave, or can i just be firm with my decision and leave when i can?
suck it up and handle it like a grown up and do your crunch time. Depending on your manager's leadership style, you might be able to negotiate and come to a workable solution. Crunch isn't necessarily a death sentence, and some studios handle crunch well.
If the crunch is excessive, abusive and/or without compensation: use your sick/vacation days creatively and get the hell out and look for a new job. It sucks for your team, but you can be sure that everyone else is trying to do the same. Only those with absolutely no options available will stay (and they will still wish they were in your shoes!). Staying and being "loyal" to your team may feel like the right thing to do, but it just gives more power to abusive companies and those who profit from your hardship - don't do that!
Good Luck!
Instability yes, though I have a hard time saying that this is actually the bad thing about it. I work in Sweden and we have way way more stability in the games industry than most other countries. I don't live in fear of losing my job at all, currently looking at 6-7 years at Ubisoft Massive now.
The bad thing about the games industry right now is that it's still very new, it lacks unions and in a lot of cases you'll end up with a bad work and life balance. That said, I don't feel that either working in Sweden , since you're protected by a lot of different laws here.
2.Is there any sign that there will be some chances in near future, for better or worst, to work in this industry?
If you really want a job in the industry as an 3D Artist, you kind of have to be better or just as good as the competition on your level. That aside, you also have to specialize in the style that is most popular which I think would be realistic but also specialize in Prop or Environment Art.
Trying to be a weapon artist, character artist or texture artist you shoot yourself in the foot because usually there is already a guy doing that and there aren't that many positions open.
Schools help, we have 2 major schools in Sweden at least, TGA in Malmö and FutureGames in Stockholm both have direct ties with the games industry and both DICE and Ubi Massive employs interns from these schools.
3.What is typical your day, when working normal hours, in crunch time hours and after game is published?
4.How is like to work in crunch time, how studio and people there do this?
Crunch sucks, it does happen. Where I'm currently working however, it's not as bad as in other places. I tend to mostly work the same 8 hour days. Maybe during E3 showings etc we end up working another extra 6 hours every week or something. It isn't usually that bad.
5.Any advice for new people to know about this industry?
It's awesome working in the games industry, but you have to stay on your toes and keep up with the tech and new ways of working. It's easy to fall behind. It's also essential to get to know people in the industry and get more insider information about studios you're potentially applying to. Some are known for the massive overtime hours. It's all about studio culture really.
Don't be an asshole, is good advice in general. People want to work with fun, positive and nice people. Very rarely does a rockstar attitude get you anywhere in this industry. It's a team-effort, always.
Are you saying that, i should focus on Environment art, instead of character and texture, because they are no positions to be filled?
Weapons can count as props. And most characters have props (besides weapons) as part of the model. So you could get a good amount of prop practice while tacking characters (Prop may turn out better than the character body model just saying)
If you're focusing on being a weapon artist try to get close to this artist's level on the quality of your work,
https://www.artstation.com/lonewolf3d
This applies to any specilization really. Usually an artist with quality work isn't refused provided there are positions available and the company genuinely respects talent and is willing to pay suitably for it.
You can focus on character art, usually there are fewer positions for that, but this depends on the company.
The learning curve for characters is higher, though if you were using more technical workflows for environments (using designer for instance/realism) that's challenging too.
A larger company say EA making sports games would likley need several character artists for NPC background work, even population and prop work for characters.
You're part of a character team here, not just one guy working on all aspects of a character.
Not always a good idea to limit to environments. Here in Toronto I've seen a saturation of that for exactly that reason.
Many artists are so convinced that doing characters is a death sentence that they don't even work on that in their spare time.
The saturation means that there are fewer postions for environment artist and the ones that do get in are severely undercut.
Plus as an environment artist you probably won't be building assets as often as you are fixing assets acquired outsource or populating environments. The creativity on the job is very dependent on the company's projects.
And quite simply, if you like doing characters, focus on characters.
If you really want a foot in the door you could join as a play/QA tester. No guarantees that you'll move to environments or characters after, but companies do have internal art tests for that.
One thing I'd be wary of is entering the industry at a low wage as a QA artist, then being forced to taking a dollar or 2 more to work as a 3D artist, well below the rate of a junior 3d artist.
Its a tactic used by some the industry quite a bit, to keep employees on the lower end of the wage spectrum for as long as possible.