Unshipped titles hurt your resume?
polycounter lvl 18
so i've been talking with a couple of mentor types lately, and got some career advice that i thought, coming from game industry vets, was pretty alarming.
i've gotten the chance to work on a licensed property, for a publisher funded startup working on an MMO. 'startup' and 'MMO' set off all kinds of alarms in my head, but thought i'd take my chances with them anyway. it's good experience and portfolio material in a large game dev environment, with nice compensation and job title, which ain't bad.
but while it may be a boost to my portfolio, they tell me that in the long run i'm better off sticking with studios that actually ship products (no matter how obscure)...like trading card games and casual games for the 40+ female market.
one of them even went as far as saying if the studio closes and anyone asks if i worked there, i'd get laughed at. if i were in management, maybe. but as an artist??
i know we tend to look up most to artists with high profile shipped titles under their belt...but i figure, most had to get the experience somwhere, right? shipped titles or not.
maybe I'm just being too adamant in my stand that portfolio matters, period... i'd like to hear what you guys think.
i've gotten the chance to work on a licensed property, for a publisher funded startup working on an MMO. 'startup' and 'MMO' set off all kinds of alarms in my head, but thought i'd take my chances with them anyway. it's good experience and portfolio material in a large game dev environment, with nice compensation and job title, which ain't bad.
but while it may be a boost to my portfolio, they tell me that in the long run i'm better off sticking with studios that actually ship products (no matter how obscure)...like trading card games and casual games for the 40+ female market.
one of them even went as far as saying if the studio closes and anyone asks if i worked there, i'd get laughed at. if i were in management, maybe. but as an artist??
i know we tend to look up most to artists with high profile shipped titles under their belt...but i figure, most had to get the experience somwhere, right? shipped titles or not.
maybe I'm just being too adamant in my stand that portfolio matters, period... i'd like to hear what you guys think.
Replies
If you are able to get the work you created released from the NDA and post it then a unreleased/dead project won't hurt you.
As a studio it is the name of the game, as an artist you have no control.
does the artist not own the work he does for a company?
Oh and, good point jec...and a good reason to keep doing personal work on the side. but for the most part, assuming you've discussed with the ex-employers after the project's been canned, it's usually been possible to show the art as long as you don't mention what it is for.
For a contract you need three things: Payment, product, project(Agreement)
1) Project/agreement: what someone wants you to do= start of contract.
2) Product: this is your end of the deal, what you produce for them.
3) Payment: this is the final part of the contract which in essence takes the property from your hands and makes it the companies.
If the payment is not sent or received and your freelance work is used in game or for any other money making venture, you have full rights to sue for monetary compensation.
A company not paying for your freelance work means they did not pay for ownership/property rights for the art itself and therefore you retain ownership.
sorry for it, but at the same time, thanks for answering my question.
cheers!
Better to work on stuff and get the experience. I have worked on five game projects, 1 of them was 'very' successful a second one was pretty sucessful.
my first game project was cancelled i got sacked shortly after. so yeah man, just go for it, don't worry about stuff like that. i have heard of artists who have never shipped a title after like 5 years, purely down to bad luck.
I think it's a incomplete piece of advice to suggest developers laugh at those with experience on a title that did not ship.
As a developer interviewing a candidate I look for many different qualities in those who are trying out for a position. I look at experience of a shipping title in order to communicate what an artists portfolio will not. Shipping a title leverages your ability to prove that you are useful beyond the asset creation cycle, it demonstrates you have the ability to fix those assets and ensure the game still runs when things get tough at the end of a project.
Optimization of art assets, fixing of bugs is essentially the act of slicing some of the flesh off your babies so they can fit in the one size of clothing that fits in the playground of whatever platform they are destined to play within. It is not a fun task, it requires humility, team spirit and the willingness to compromise your original intentions for the betterment of the game and the team as a whole.
Some artists are not good at this, some are merely misinformed about the true set of priorities that govern the creation of a good game and finishing a game teaches respect and understanding of these immutable truths.
So developers look toward proof of a shipped title as a demonstration that you are aware of the truth of game development.
Put simply, I dont care how many polygons you can throw around in the playground, I want to know that you are capable and willing to clean them up once the bell rings and we go back inside.
Experience of a title that did not ship teaches us that sometimes, despite how willing, capable , hard working and determined we are, sometimes we just dont have enough time to tidy up before the bell rings. It teaches us that the teachers might not have faith in our ability to do so or that the other kids may have left too much shit on the floor, enough that our own attempts to tidy theirs and ours would not be enough.
Thats a pretty useful experience to have, it informs us of the need to be mindful before the end of the project clean comes round, it teaches us that we can only do so much.
All these experiences build character, theres enough characters already in the industry, we need to know they have character also before we place our bets on them.
Being willing to risk more to achieve more with the acceptance of less stability and less likelihood of financial gain is another useful thing to prove. It speaks well of an artist that they are willing to chase a dream, as much as it speaks as well of an artist who is willing also to compromise their own dreams in furtherance of the groups dreams.
Whatever experience you gain, it is experience of the games industry and the more of it you experience in total, the more capable you will be of traveling further within it. Bad things will happen, good things will happen, but nothing will happen if you sit wondering what the best move is too long when the best move is simply to get involved and work it out as you go along and trust in your ability to get to where you truly belong over time.
Best of luck to you.
r.
My current contract even states that every piece of art I do in my own time at home, in a coffee shop, on the bus belongs to them as well...sheesh!
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Thats a shame man, im quite shocked any company would do this, does it bother you much? I mean do you feel you're fulfilling your creative needs?
I don't see how they can lay claim t all of you work. thats bollocks surely? never stand up in court or i am monkeys uncle
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If you're interested in the why of it, it recently got discussed here. [edit] The short of it is though that it's the same as your usual noncompete clause, but rather to avoid problems with you contracting in your spare time to a competing company, rather than after you leave the company (In fact, you might even consider it less bullshit than a noncompete). Of course, the very idea of doing contracts on the side seems laughable to me, but that's how things are. [/edit]
As for studios that fail to ship titles, I doubt it would be seen as negative, but some people might see shipped titles as better even if they are crappy games. Of course, it's also important that you can get up in the morning and actually look forward to your job, so take that into consideration as well.
maybe I'm just being too adamant in my stand that portfolio matters, period...
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Honestly, don't lose sight of that Snowfly. This whole question should really be answered on a case by case basis, and with your talent and portfolio, I don't think you have too much to worry about when it comes to shipping or not shipping. Also, don't take this remotely as anything derogatory about your discipline, but the need for a bunch of shipped titles under your belt is even less relevant for a concept position imo. You'll see all 3d games artist jobs require something along the lines of 'must have shipped x titles' but quite frankly this is of somewhat more use to recruitment, HR and your own foot in the door chances than the dev. team who might interview you.
It's a complicated issue, but experience doesn't always equate to ability and strength of candidate, it's just a crying shame recruitment departments don't get that. A very strong portfolio usually stands out in the crowd of mediocrity though, even If that crowd has shipped a bunch of games. That's how I see it in a nutshell, but I'm sure there are plenty of other opinions out there on the subject.
all in all i have like three unshipped titles in my CV. seems, at least one of them - aquanox on PS2 - still has a faint chance of making it out of the door eventually. all of them have been quite an experience to work on, i would not trade that in for a second for trading card games or whatever.
i think what they mainly are looking for is people who can actually finish the job, not those job-hoppers who polish their CV's by changing companies frequently, avoiding the final phase of a project. also, it's just a sign that they mostly look for experienced people, not newbies imo.
Having 10 titles on your cv that have 'shipped' but you never stayed to the end of the project doesn't mean you have shipped any games. - your work has been published, but you lack the experience of what it takes to see the end of a production cycle.
Rorshach points out the reasoning behind the significance of shipped titles. Its not directly relevant to concept artists but certainly anyone who intends to build assets.
When hiring you want to know that you have level headed people working with you that are fully aware of what it takes to ship a game. Many people get into art in the games industry with a mindset that they will only be creating art all the time, which certainly is not the case. Staying to the end of a project and shipping is a good indication of the person having experienced that.
EDIT; so basically I typed the same thing twice! YAya for hangover typing.
Seen hundreds of useless people with tons of projects under their belt. And amazingly talented ones without a 1 behind.
You can definitely build mind blowing portfolio without participating in a single commercial project.
For people on the inside of the business but for the most part outside of the creation process, they often see not your work or the challenges of the process, but a single result-- the ubiquitous widget. It either made or it didn't. It's black and white to them, and you either were a part of it or you were not.
People like to associate themselves with success. You're not going to change that. It's a fact, so I wouldn't "play-up" the fact that a project was never published, I would stay up-beat and focus on the work that was done if possible.
Also...
Often the same people who will judge you for working on an unpublished title are the same types that would take credit for successful projects and try to blame the underlings for unsuccessful ones. Don't blame them the higher ups though, that's human nature. Nobody is going to wake up after leading a company in the dirt and say, "Boy, I just screwed up a couple million bucks and a lot of peoples' lives with poor planning, starving development to line my own pockets, and infeasible requests." Instead they'll say, "I just couldn't find the right people."
I told a producer that I was working for that we should do the then current project-- a children's educational title-- in an anime style. He said, "What's anime?" I started to explain, and he quickly cut me off. Month's later, he found a similar game in an anime style and sincerely asked, "Why can't we do something that looks like this?"
Edit; I should also add my definition of shipping a title is staying till all aspects of art are locked down. Contributing a few models doesn't mean you shipped that game, as really someone else did the hard work to get the game out of the door.
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I just want to echo this sentiment as, although I have quite an impressive number of titles I have worked on, I have never actually shipped a game. BiA:HH will actually be the first <u>shipped</u> title I can claim out of the 6+ titles that I have worked on (not counting unshipped/cancelled titles), and I am very excited about it.
That being said, I would say that a shitty portfolio will hurt you more than unshipped titles on a resume'. If you have an opportunity to get paid doing what you love, go for it. Just be sure that you grab renders of the stuff you feel is the most impressive (as you complete it, buy yourself a flash drive if you don't already own one
The fact you have such a killer portfolio Snowfly, is going to be the single biggest factor. I'd rather have you on my team, than a lesser skilled concept artist with five shipped titles.