Anyone work in the computer game industry in any form?
- Thread starter Teki187
- Start date
I'll be joining in January, and I'm already understanding it's not just sitting round all day faffing about, but the environment is meant to be a lot nicer than most as people are laid back, and it's something you're all interested in, as opposed to office work where you're there just because you need a job 
I'm part of the customer support department for Jagex (Developers of RuneScape), although my role has more to do with identifying and documenting cases of intellectual property infringement that it does dealing with our players. I'm in a specialist team that deal with account hijackers, bots, private servers, goldfarming, etc.
Email is in trust if you want any more details.
Email is in trust if you want any more details.
Associate
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- 25 Sep 2008
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- Beverley, East Yorks
My mate is a Producer for the new Lego MMO.
I'm a programmer and all I can say is that it depends greatly on which studio you work for.
It's a young industry so there are a fair amount of places run by people who don't know what they are doing, or have dodgy practices. I'm happy where I am.
Games testing is a dead end as far as a career stepladder in many cases.
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![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Rubbish, because generally everyone wants to work in this industry so badly that there is simply no need for employers to pay anything even approaching half decent wages - if you dont like the pay, there is a queue of 10 people waiting to take your place.
From a commercial perspective this obviously makes sense - why pay more than you have to - but from an employees perspective, its not great, is it? The lure of being every 15-30 year olds favourite industry keeps people coming in thick and fast.
From a commercial perspective this obviously makes sense - why pay more than you have to - but from an employees perspective, its not great, is it? The lure of being every 15-30 year olds favourite industry keeps people coming in thick and fast.
Consigliere
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Just to echo what Fox said...
From what i have read throughout the years on the forum, working in the computer games industry is low paid, rather dull at times, ruins your love for computers, long hours but can be quite cool at times. And once you get off the bottom rung, things only get better.
From what i have read throughout the years on the forum, working in the computer games industry is low paid, rather dull at times, ruins your love for computers, long hours but can be quite cool at times. And once you get off the bottom rung, things only get better.
Think he mainly does marketing stuff.
One of my friends is finishing a degree in computer game design this year so I'll try to remember to report back in a few months when he was a job.
It does seem to be a lot of hard long work though.
Soldato
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- Newcastle/Aberdeen
As a programmer the wages are pretty good, due to a huge shortage of people willing to do it in the UK, what with the Maths A Level requirement and the fact that most of them go to America. Anything else though is average.
I know two people who work in the industry.
One is an R&D programmer for Criterion in Guildford. He does a lot of work into the middleware and physics engines that power EA games. Sounds like a pretty good job as there's less time pressure than being on a game project and the money is pretty decent. He started as a programmer for another (non-games) R&D company in Guildford and moved on from there.
The other works as a community manager for Ubisoft in Chertsey. He looks after their forums, manages events and that kind of thing. It sounds like a very cool job but I doubt that the money is great. He started as a games tester and works his way up. He had a lot of community experience before he took the job though, running a very successful fan forum for many years.
Obviously, both are massive video game fans. The kind of people who would do the work for free if they had to.
One is an R&D programmer for Criterion in Guildford. He does a lot of work into the middleware and physics engines that power EA games. Sounds like a pretty good job as there's less time pressure than being on a game project and the money is pretty decent. He started as a programmer for another (non-games) R&D company in Guildford and moved on from there.
The other works as a community manager for Ubisoft in Chertsey. He looks after their forums, manages events and that kind of thing. It sounds like a very cool job but I doubt that the money is great. He started as a games tester and works his way up. He had a lot of community experience before he took the job though, running a very successful fan forum for many years.
Obviously, both are massive video game fans. The kind of people who would do the work for free if they had to.
And companies know and exploit this.
You don't have to go that far. There's zero obligation to do overtime where I am, and the wages and benefits are fine with me.
It's sad to see people be so negative. It's a rewarding and enjoyable industry, as long as you're working for a good studio. If you're smart enough to have a good job in it, you're smart enough to recognise when someone's trying to exploit you.
It's sad to see people be so negative. It's a rewarding and enjoyable industry, as long as you're working for a good studio. If you're smart enough to have a good job in it, you're smart enough to recognise when someone's trying to exploit you.
It's not exploitation per se. It's just being aware that the people applying for jobs would work for very little since it's their 'dream job'. As a business they have a responsibility to their shareholders to minimise costs so they're not gonna pay more than they have to.
Yeah but you can bet your bottom dollar that they don't hire anyone who isn't incredibly good at what they do.
They don't have to, they are Valve and Blizzard.