[TRENCHES] Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - Market Expansion
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Market Expansion
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/market-expansion
The Great Divide
AnonymousA few years back I was climbing the ladder in one of the support departments for a huge PC developer. The release and overwhelming success had caused their support teams to balloon in size, growing so fast that the company almost couldn’t handle it. When I started, there were less than a dozen people in the department, a year later there were 50, and a year later 150. And we were the “small” support team.
We fit nicely into the office we had when I first arrived, then we were cramped, then we were putting desks in closets, then we rented another building and the whole process started over. Within six months of moving into the new building, our break room had to be converted into more desk space.
Obviously, most of the people who signed up had dreams of ascending to the ranks of the developers, although few had any actual development skills and even fewer really understood what game developers do. When it became clear that doing time in support did not guarantee a free pass into dev, murmurs of discontent started to surface. Faced with literally thousands of employees trying to bridge the gap, upper management decided to implement a program which would educate the support staff on the responsibilities of each different developer position and what qualifications were expected of an applicant. Their aim was two-fold: to inform their naive support crews about the necessary qualifications and to farm a small amount of talent.
To this end, they scheduled a series of brief seminars given by senior developers, and established strict criteria to attend. Only support staff who had been with the company for an entire year (which eliminated 90% of the candidates) and had good performance reviews would be permitted to go.
I signed up for a lecture featuring a senior producer and the company’s lead producer. There were about forty support employees crowded into a small room as the presenters went through a short description of the role and responsibilities of an associate producer. It was nothing unexpected. At the end, they offered to answer questions.
An eager hand shot up from the front row. “What is the best thing we can do to improve our chances of being hired?”
The lead producer thought for a second, then replied, “Make games of your own. Or mods. As a matter of fact, I’d rather hire someone who spends all day working on their own game than someone who works an unrelated job.”
Silence. “You mean I should quit?” the hopeful support staffer asked, incredulous.
“Well, if I have the choice between someone who talks to our customers all day and someone who sits in their room making maps, its no contest. Even if you have a portfolio, you just aren’t going to have the same amount of time that an un-distracted candidate has to develop his skills.”
Nobody asked another question. They were too shaken by the idea that we were further from getting a job at a game company because we already worked there.
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The tale is harsh, but true. It's staggering how many people hope to become game devs without having relevant skills. Also, advice from the senior dev was spot on -- The best way to get hired into a game company is to make games or modify existing games. Of course, if you're industrious enough to do that, why not form your own company?
Because for the most part developers make terrible managers. There are exceptions, of course, but generally the people who create games aren't good at managing people. If you WANT to spend all of your time in meetings, on the phone, stumping for investment money and dealing with company politics, then by all means start a company. But if you LIKE designing levels, building art assets, testing or coding then the last thing you want to do is start a company.