Age discrimination
I'm 27 and once i get 5 years experience under my belt will I be too old.Is there age discrimination in the industry.What's the oldest you've heard of for a character artist or environment artist?Is it harder to land a job when your older?
Replies
For in-house, if you watch behind-the-scenes extras in games like Uncharted 2, Starcraft 2 you'll see mixed ages in the staff. Particulary with Blizzard, since they have original vets since last century ago.
I've met and got tutoring from a Russian concept artist who has worked on the original Mass Effect. I was shocked when I first met him cuz he looked like a tenured college professor, white hair and all. So obviously he got hired because of his skills rather than the fact that he's decades older than his concept art dept colleagues.
If you're going for on site jobs, if you don't have a problem working or being bossed by younger people or you being a grouch to them cuz of pride (cuz of the way they crit your work, for example) you shouldn't worry about it.
Seriously man, I know you have questions, but if you spent as much time working and practising as you do starting threads, you'd probably progress more quickly.
3 more years and you start running...
I start threads while I'm at work.I only wish I could be at home modeling.9-5 is prison time.
I don't think age matters at all really, attitude and skill are what is important. there are plenty of people who are in their mid 30's-40's in this biz.
If i'm looking for someone, i'm looking for a guy who lives and breaths current tech, highpoly workflow, normals, etc. Often times a younger guy with 3 or less years of industry experience is going to fit that skillset better than someone older, simply because they've been knee deep in the current workflows, as apposed to guys who maybe were working on old-gen games for a good part of their work history.
So do we specifically look for younger guys? No, of course not, but is it a bad sign when someone has 10+ years of experience but can barely demonstrate the basic understanding of normals and bakes? Yes, certainly.
At the end of the day the only thing that matters is if your work is good, and you can keep up with current tech.
I don't think it's a problem.
I wish all interviewers thought like you. I've been interviewed by the older out of date guys before. It's a really tough situation trying to explain. You get, "So you create a whole new mesh over top? That seems very inefficient." Then in trying to explain, you don't want to come off as a know-it-all or make it seem like they don't know what they are talking about.
Even unrelated to my work, the fact that I have done a lot of it for online community competitions alienated some interviewers.
Did they specifically say you weren't old enough? or that you did not have enough experience?
The only time when age is really a concern for me is when someone is in the 16-21 range, and they're finishing up highschool, or finishing up college, and aren't able to commit full time, so if I'm talking to someone about potentially doing work, and they give me the "I'm still in school" line, i'll ask them about their age, to get a sense of when they'll be finished with school and available for full time work, in the future.
I haven't seen or heard of any age discrimination.
The only things which should really matter when interviewing are personality and skill vs experience, age is irrelevant.
....oh, wait a second...
or
the other way.
in their 40s they want to be more independent, making more quality art according to their ideal.
BTW LCP in london turned me down for a place on their computer graphics course because they thought I was too old at 27.What utter BS:)
Im sure that stops them.
One of the first conversations I had with my boss when interning at SOE was he asked me my age and when I said 21, he said wow my son turned 21 a couple of months ago. totally made me feel like a child lol.
The reason you see many people age 20 - 30 in games companies isn't necessary age discrimination. It could also be the fact that the industry is very young and just started growing like mad in the last 15 - 20 years, when teens and young people made their choice to pursue a career in games.
Anyone older (50+) in this industry is either a long time vet who started with DOS or Amiga games or someone who changed careers. But back in the Amiga days teams weren't as big as they're now, so there's much less professional game devs still around from that era. And the number of 40+/50+ people who change careers to work in games is also likely very small.
But in a few years, when your colleagues are 40 and 50 you will notice that the age in studios in general climbs up too and it will be normal that older people make games for a younger generation (or maybe it will also be common to see many more people aged 50+ playing video games than it is now, because they grew up with them) - just like older people working on cartoons, comedies and so on.
Since it was an internship I was applying for, my limited experience wasnt the problem. They said they where worried about how good I would work in a production line and if I was mature enough to handle projects.
I got a job in a game studio here in Montreal about a month ago. When I went for the interview, the guys who interviewed me were impressed that I was only 19 years old. I think to some people, someone young actually impressed them, as opposed to discriminating and judging them. I'm the youngest artist here by a good solid 6 years. I get lots of jokes about it, but hey, it's all cool!
that's an example of age discrimination. OP is worried that he'll be discriminated against for being too old.
It's in the same boat as race, sex, religion, or disability discrimination -- it's illegal but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen . I'd hazard it happens less in this biz, as far as I've seen the game industry is more open minded and less petty than other corporate jobs.
In my 40's I'm at the older end. When I get turned down it's usually because the role is for a junior's pay rate (so I would be a flight risk), or else they're looking for a particular skillset that I don't quite match (specific console experience).
I do understand the concern with hiring someone too young or inexperienced. The person doing the hiring wants to make sure the hiree will be dependable and that they won't cave in when the shit hits the fan.
But age really doesn't have much to do with that, that's one of the reasons for an interview, to suss out whether someone is sketchy or too nonchalant. Just make sure you show lots of energy and enthusiasm, do your homework on the company, show them you really want the spot and that you'll be the best worker they ever had. Enthusiasm counts for a lot!
Blender comes in a portable version, that you can run off a flash drive, no installs required. For the quiet times at work.