3/9 Interested in coding games for a living?
Check out Three Rings Design. They are working on a game called
Puzzle Pirates. It's a massively multiplayer game that's not
'just another treadmill' (TM), and may appeal to a wider demographic
than the traditional hard core gamer set. They are looking for
a kickass Java hacker.
Job details at:
http://threerings.net/jobs
I met Daniel James, Three Rings' CEO and one of their game designers
at the annual MUD-DEV dinner held during GDC. He seems like a pretty
cool guy, and I have it on good advice that he is a standup guy when
it comes to business stuff. Mention you heard about this from me,
by way of the Berkeley Computer Science Undergraduate Association.
If you have further questions, feel free to drop me an email. -dans
\_ Other random info... their head art guy is Rick Keagy. Cal
grad, and cool fellow that worked with blojo and me in the
Bolt-Action days. -bz
\_ I'll check it out right after I kill just one more mob. I think
he'll drop the stone shield of karthas for sure this time!
\_ Oh, yeah, as an added bonus, you get to make piratey noises
as part of your job, without having to be a warez kiddie. -dans
\_ Is that part of the interview? "AAARRRRR! AVAST YE MATEY!
SHIVER ME TIMBERS IF IT ISN'T EDONKEY SCUM!" Like that? Do
I win?
\_ I dunno. I don't work there. I just got a very good vibe
from Mr. James, and heard good buzz about the game. Of
course, this begs the quest, why am I not trying to get
this job? Main reason is that I'm a little busy with
trying to finally graduate, and, apparently, they want
someone NOW.
\_ A general observation on game developers. I'm not one and I have
this image of game developers being a bunch of slackers who slap
something together that sort of works and never fix bugs. Seems
like the nature of the industry. It's not critical and there's never
a version 1.1. Another thing is commitment to the job. Turnover
seems high. Can't get their ass in gear and do maintainance work
or write specs. That's why I haven't hired anyone with a background
in gaming industry and is looking to switch. Am I being too harsh?
\_ I'm inclined to disagree with you entirely. I work for a MUD
company, and everyone here works his/her ASS off. We have
limited resources and often need to choose between maintenance
and feeping creaturism. This is an engineering tradeoff like
any other with costs and benefits associated with each option.
Unlike business/productivity software, when it comes to games,
one can make pretty strong arguments for features over bugfixes.
Basically, new features in games often make all users happier,
while new features in a word processor will probably only appeal
to a small portion of existing users. Bugfixes in games only
please the people affected by the bug. That said, when a game
crashes, what have you lost? Some play time. When your word
processor crashes and you lose your PhD thesis, you're going to
be pissed. Like many things, ymmv. -dans
\_ dans, you're confirming my views on game developers as far
as fixing bugs go. Nothing personal, but it's the nature of
the industry not to fix bugs but put out features. Fine.
If I need a guy to sit down and fix bugs and write specs,
game developers aren't a good fit. Writing design specs and
test plans is more important than actually doing the work
for nearly all non-gaming businesses. Are game programmers
cut out to do this?
\_ I think you misunderstand what I said. I'm not saying
that game programmers choose features over bugfixes
because that's what they like to do (though that may be
true for some), I'm saying they make this choice because
it is often the correct engineering decision for the
situation. The same can be said for folks who chose to
use two digits to represent the year in systems that were
never meant to last until Y2K. I have seen people that
program games, and are capable of writing a solid spec,
testing plans, and following up on the project. For
example, our very own appel holds the distinction of being
the most frighteningly good documentation writer I have
ever met. He also happens to be the guy who hired me
at Skotos. :) -dans
\_ sounds like you don't know what an SDLC consists of
\_ Considering many game engines are used by multiple teams at once
over a lifespan of several games and possibly even for several
generations of consoles, I think good game programmers need to be
able to document code, fix bugs in a timely manner, all the while
adding features to keep the engine cutting edge. Oh and as far as
bugs go, console games don't get to be patched and so the console
company tends to be pretty anal at making sure there are no bugs
in there. (Not to mention a computer game's complexity is insane
compared to something like a word processor.)
\_ Game development is so much more difficult in every way than
the puny "software development" you're familiar with, that this
discussion is pointless. Go try and make a modern game before
you go slagging game developers. -blojo
PS: Not to say that a lot of game developers aren't lame. Just
like any industry, there are plenty of dumbasses. Yet most other
"software developers" don't even measure up to those dumbasses.
Sad but true.
\_ I see blojo has done some empirical studies of the software
development industry and has come forward to present his
results. Hear hear!
\_ I'd agree with him... game dev salaries are lower than
elsewhere in CS because the supply of geeks who want to
do games is high. Companies can afford to be picky, and
their interview processes are usually tougher. You can
argue that perhaps game developers are more willing to
use hacks to squeeze some more performance out of the
engine, but to question their overall professionalism
and engineering quality is probably misguided.
\_ Game development is all he knows. He may be right, in some
limited sense (I am still not convinced) but more likely
he is just shooting his mouth off. |