More on jobs in the video game industry

Here is another interesting article on working as a game developer.

It makes some good points, like how the working conditions are at least partially the fault of the workers themselves.  I can attest to the odd climate around the office at Tiburon.  It made 100 hour weeks not only seem reasonable, there was something wrong with you if you didn’t put in that kind of time.

Part of the problem does come from bad management and what I like to call Managing By The Bottom Line.  Hiring new college grads and working them like mad looks great on paper, but in reality there is a not-insignificant cost to hiring new people.

Anyway, I’m not really in a good ranting mood.  People who know me know that I can go on about the state of the gaming industry for hours –I’m sure everyone involved in it can.  I’ll leave you with the original ea_spouse article, as well as a link to the FAQ, the press page, and Gamewatch.org.

I will say that there are some good employers out there, and if anyone reading this is thinking of going for a game industry job, be careful, and do your research.

leet-speak for the rest of us

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/kidtalk.mspx

News of the Sad

Va. Laptop Sale Turns Into a Stampede

Favorite quote:

Jesse Sandler said he was one of the people pushing forward, using a folding
chair he had brought with him to beat back people who tried to cut in front of
him.

"I took my chair here and I threw it over my shoulder and I went,
'Bam,'" the 20-year-old said nonchalantly, his eyes glued to the screen of his
new iBook, as he tapped away on the keyboard at a testing station.

"They
were getting in front of me and I was there a lot earlier than them, so I
thought that it was just," he said.

The high cost of exploration

Anyone who knows me will confirm that I don't have a sense of direction. One consequence of my lack of direction sense is that I make heavy use of yahoo maps driving directions. One other consequence is that I don't like to get in the car unless I have a definite destination. I'm not much for exploring.

Frankly, as long as I know where work, Best Buy, a Mall, a grocery store, a book store, and a gaming store are I'm good. Restaurants are usually around the mall and Best Buy. The mall usually has an EB Games. I can even do without the mall, best buy, the bookstore, and even the gaming store as long as I have internet access, because there's always Amazon.

So basically, I don't like to explore. I have my set of places I know how to get to, and beyond that I usually don't care. Here in Virginia it's worse, because getting around is difficult. There are no roads that go in straight lines. Most roads have at least 3 different names and intersect with themselves. Add to that the maniacs that drive around here and you can see my reluctance for exploration. Well, the maniac drivers and my fear that I'll end up someplace where all I can hear is banjo music.

Well, today Eunice and I went exploring. We were thinking that maybe we'd like it better around here if we knew the area better. Maybe we'd find some good inexpensive places to hang out. Maybe we'd find some place where people don't drive with their ass. We didn't find any of those things.

We found residential areas. We found strip malls. We found a library. We lost and then found Eunice's backup pair of glasses. All for the low low price of $2.65 per gallon.

We also found that getting around isn't nearly as difficult as I thought it was. You see, roads don't matter. Every road leads to every other road. The fact that the roads are a spaghetti-like mess works in your favor. As long as you're on a road of some kind and you have a good grasp of 5th dimensional physics, you'll make it to your destination.

Fortunately, we found no banjo music.

Great questions of our day

Do jumbo eggs come from giant mutant chickens?

A New Month And New Habits

As I suspected, my writing goals slacked off when Eunice returned from Chicago.

Now it's a new month, and time for some new habits. I have added some "writing time" in the evenings. I'm reading a new book (Seven Hobbits With Highly Defective House Holes, probably written by JRR Tolkein in his later years).

Eunice is getting into the act by making jewelry and trying out a new blog, though not at the same time.

I intend to use some of that writing time to work on that campaign I keep talking about.

It should be an interesting month.