So, you may love or hate Totalbiscuit but there is a pretty neat video of him talking with one of the devs at the Pax East booth. [ame=" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeUbXJZPkd0"]Wildstar preview - AAA Sci-fi MMO - Part 1 - YouTube[/ame]
I'll be going on Sunday so should be nice an quiet...I hope :) I'm mostly interested in the indie games and NS2. The AAA lineup is kinda poor this year so I'll probably go see the developer sessions and listen to them show off their games.
If you are aiming for more AAA types of studios I would say specialize in something, I would not recommend learning character art and creation of props at the same time since you only have a couple of months before you run out of money.
I think we'll start to see AAA studios grooming more "pet projects" in addition to their blockbuster titles. The risk/overhead is relatively low, and we'll stop putting all our eggs in one basket in the process. A recent example might be Grow Home.
I'd be interested in chatting with you sometime. More than a decade experience with shipped titles among the largest AAA franchises in the industry. You can view some examples of my work at www.flewda.com - you can contact me at my email josh.powers@gmail.com
Also, this thread may be very helpful: http://polycount.com/discussion/187512/recently-hired-in-aaa-show-us-your-portfolio The competition for working in the industry is beyond intense. Look at everyone's work and realize you have to be exactly on their level, if not, one step ahead.
I'd really like to hear on this podcast from people from management and PR game designers on major games, to hear what they think about today's AAA gaming and stuff like that. Anyway, 1000 views is a good start:) Can't wait for next episode.
I take that as a very good thing, a smaller, more detailed story with lower stakes is a good change of pace from the usual 'save the world' shtick. I'm all for more 'personal' stories in AAA, really. I'm curious to see how it plays out.
I mean whats here in terms of AAA games? Related Design / Blue Byte, Piranha Bytes, Nordic Games, Crytek, Yager Studios. Yet in terms of Browser and F2p games, i can name 3 to 4 just in my own city.
Most AAA studios in Europe have at least a few seats of Substance Designer and are using it in a way or another. We can't publicly announce who is using Substance extensively on current projects though but I'll be able to give you more details by PM if needed.