Posts by FrieChamp

Almost forgot: big thanks to everyone I've talked to, forwarded my resume etc. over the past months! mapcore

I guess this could also go in the „Do you enjoy your job in the games industry?“ thread or “MapCore Job Census” but I haven’t shared in this thread yet, so here’s what’s up: I quit my job on Friday.

To give some perspective to those who might not know: I’ve been working for an investor and assisted the gaming start-ups (online, social & mobile) in their portfolio for the past 2 years. My title was “Business Intelligence Analyst” but my assignments went beyond the scope of data analysis. Big companies have different roles/people for these tasks: BIs, Product Managers, Monetization Designers, Online Marketing Specialists, Business Developers, … I switched between these roles depending on the problem at hand. I supervised a Data Scientist who helped me with the number crunching, optimized marketing campaigns, studied the theory and best practices of Casual & F2P game design - basically supported the developers in any way I could. On the positive side I’ve had a lot of freedom on what to work on, there were no hierarchies and corporate BS. But it also meant little guidance and no advice from somebody who had successfully built a free-to-play gaming company yet. I learnt a lot about game design, data analysis, online marketing, entrepreneurship and investment deals. But some of you I’ve talked to individually recently already know that I wasn’t very happy anymore and have toyed with the idea to go back to level design for the past 6-9 months or so.

Why? There is something extremely satisfying about coming up with a vision in your head, sitting down to craft it (often for hours without a break) and at the end of the day see what you’ve accomplished. Somebody posted a link to a TED talk about the secret of happiness being “flow” and while I don’t think it’s the only answer I can resonate with the idea. If you constantly jump from one construction site to the next (in my case: even disconnected from the actual teams, because you’re in an advisory role, often in a different location) you go home wondering what you’ve actually accomplished that day.

Secondly it takes a certain mindset if your primary responsibility is to make the company more money. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, mind you, but it’s a different perspective that e.g. a designer has, who needs to ensure that the experience is fun. It takes both voices to create a successful product in my opinion, but right now I don’t think I can be a good spokesperson for the monetary-side when I don’t feel passionate about it. My biggest passion still is to build worlds and create fun experiences. This is why I decided against pursuing a Product Manager role, which would probably fit me best if you take a glance at my resume and which would probably also be better paid than an LD job. Yet, when I did some low-poly modelling in Maya and whiteboxing in UE4 for the hell of it this summer, I remembered, why I got into games in the first place.

So when I heard that local Goodgame Studios had licensed UE4 and are building a team to develop games for the Core Gaming market, I applied, passed the design test + interview and got an offer. I’m going to commence working there on December 1^st. It also means that I won’t have to move further away from my family and my new girlfriend, which is also very good. I know that the industry is very volatile and this is a challenge that I’ll probably face later down the road, but when I thought it over and over again, about where I want to take my career and what could happen, I realized that it doesn’t make sense to be afraid and work a job that I dislike till the end of my days because it is supposedly more stable and brings in a few hundred more bucks.

I've tried a bunch of different things over the past years, peeked behind the curtains of different departments and companies in different segments of the gaming market (talked to a bunch of folks, too). I've pretty much come full circle and feel like the creative side is for me. I just see a lot of people burning out or not being able to keep up. I hope that won't happen to me. I hope I can maintain a healthy balance between a passion for my job, social life and financial income in the future. But right now I’m just stoked to get mapping again

http://notch.net/2014/09/im-leaving-mojang/

or http://pastebin.com/n1qTeikM

It's official: the Mojang shareholders cashed out and are leaving the company https://mojang.com/2014/09/yes-we…t-by-microsoft/

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As you might already know, Notch is the creator of Minecraft and the majority shareholder at Mojang. He’s decided that he doesn’t want the responsibility of owning a company of such global significance. Over the past few years he’s made attempts to work on smaller projects, but the pressure of owning Minecraft became too much for him to handle. The only option was to sell Mojang.

Quote from blackdog

OK now you have to tell what happened.

It was a rape trial. I was a witness in the term that I spent the whole evening with the defendant and the victim; but the episode happened after we all said good night to each other.

He has been found guilty.

Shit I hope the girl is OK given the circumstances

Quote from FMPONE

I think it makes a lot of sense. 2 billion dollars is monopoly money, it's like, well, it's like 2 billion dollars. That amount of money would be hard for anyone to resist, to do just about anything. So I'm not surprised to see Notch sell his big claim to fame, if that's what ends up happening. It is just slightly sad though, something about it. Something seems kind of wrong there, but if everybody gets what they want, and Notch is tired of maintaining the game, maybe everybody wins.

The thing is: he doesn't even maintain the game anymore. Jeb has been in charge of it for years. notch has been tinkering on new projects (that frankly haven't lead to anything substantial yet). The guy has made many millions - and yes, I know, more millions are always better - but even if his attitude has come across as snobbish at times, he always seemed to be very genuine and outspoken. He has often talked about how he wants Mojang to be best studio to work for in the world and made his disdain of big corporations public at numerous occasions (he cancelled the Rift version of Minecraft after Facebook picked up Oculus etc.). I was thinking, maybe the other shareholders want to cash out, but rumor has it that notch instigated the deal. Him being burnt out or a general discontent with making games under the microscope is my best guess at the moment.

All of this doesn't make much sense to me but the fact that notch still hasn't commented on the story only makes it more believable.

Quote from SpronyvanJohnson

Source

Shipped does not mean sold through. Still I have little doubt that the game is going to make its money back.

Quote from (HP)

Whereas I love me a good facial as much as the next guy, that was indeed meh

[Blocked Image: http://hotmeme.net/media/mememaker/c/9/10331-awkward-seal.jpg]

Quote from blackdog

I had to appear in court as eyewitness. Easier than I expected, but can't stop thinking about the case (again).

It's though.

OK now you have to tell what happened.

This video is unavailable!

Quote from SpronyvanJohnson

This is aimed at the Mapcore dads.

When you become a parent people tend to give you a lot of advice. Which is a good thing, because it's new and you need to learn a lot. So I have no problem with getting advice. I do have a problem with people becoming judgmental. My father and my in laws are all of a sudden starting to criticize everything. When the baby cries, it because we haven't fed her enough. If she sneezes, that means she's sick and we're not taking care of her. By now you get the point, the list goes on indefinitely. I've talked to other parents and they have the same experiences. I'm wondering if any of you recognize this? In other words, is this universally so?

Of course I'm not taking this shit and I call them out on everything they say. But they simply will not listen to reason. For instance, I explained that we are feeding the baby on a schedule because we are trying to prepare her for solid food (meaning less feeding moments a day). Having a rhythm is also important for the child so that she learns when it's day and when it's night, when to sleep and when to be awake, etc. Plus, it keeps you sane. This works brilliantly and of course there are off days when she wants to eat more and then we oblige. Every parenting book preaches this principle. But oh no, they will not listen to this reasoning. Feeding her too much, dressing her to warm, etc. It has come to a point that I don't want my child to be there. And it's not just parents. It's even acquaintances or people outside. Like in the supermarket someone said, babies need to have a hat on. Listen bitch, it's 30 degrees outside I'm not going to put a hat on. What is it with these people that they feel entitled to completely judge us on a single thing. My dad said I hold my child too much because in the two times he visited (roughly an hour in total) she was crying and I was comforting here. WTF?

I could use some solid advice on how to handle this because it will not be much longer before I knock someone the fuck out.

Sorry for the swearing but damn, I'm so fed up with this bullshit. Also for the record, I'm not so arrogant as to think we're not making mistakes. Of course we are. If people point those out to me, I really appreciate it. But the examples above are not mistakes!

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Tell them to file a bug report.

VR headset for mobile revealed by Samsung and Oculus: http://gamasutra.com/view/news/2247…the_Gear_VR.php

It's an open-source level design tool that you can hook up to your game engine. Not more, not less. Could be useful for indie game devs.

Much respect for pumping out something like this on the side. Did you create the skybox, too?

Looking good! Thumbs up for the ref pics and sketches!

Quote from PaulH

In my experience so far I've updated two editor versions and transferred my project between both. The only issue so far has been that a blueprint door with a timeline in it now throws up errors on load, which I can't find reference to online. The door works fine though, so I'm not sure if it's a massive issue. I tried re-making the timeline but the error persists. Annoyingly also you have to re-download any tutorial projects every time you upgrade, as they all change to work with the newest version, and some of these are 2-3gb.

All else seems ok, though my project isn't that complex yet. I'd say give it a go and buy a month's subscription, cancelling it straight away. It's pretty cheap and a month should include at least two different editor versions.

Just one addition/catch from my side: If you want to build a level for the new UT, keep in mind that you will need an active subscription to get access to the GitHub repository/latest files.

Quote from Sjonsson

That makes a lot of sense, thanks! This is going to help us a lot if our Kickstarter fails, which means we're targeting publishers.

When you present a team and our strengths et cetera, what should you put a lot of effort into mentioning? Is it how well we work socially? How skilled we are? How long time we worked together? I really have no clue.

Damn, wish I could attend to more events. Need to learn moaaar!

Are you going to approach publishers or financial investors (or both)? Note that there is a difference in what kind of deal you can get and what they are interested in. As far as the team presentation goes, there is admittedly not much of a difference. Mention previous projects and employers of the team members that are related to the company/game you want to build e.g. if you want to develop mobile games it helps when you mention that your team is made up of people who worked at Rovio, Supercell and Gung Ho before. If none of you has shipped a similar game before you will need a very strong prototype and/or KPI to be convincing. Make sure your team is diversified and if you don't cover all bases yet then mention that you're going to hire somebody for the job. If you've worked together as a team before - great, mention that.

BTW. what kind of game/studio are we talking here?

Quote from TheLukas

No, it's just for the eye

It looks like a great first map and having a landmark in the map for navigation is a good idea, too. But from an eyecandy perspective it isn't working out, because it doesn't make much sense (to me). Again, looking good for a first map, but one piece of humble advice for the future: the environment in your map is telling a story, so you should ask yourself "does this look realistic? where is this object coming from? how did it get here?" or things will look out of place. Keep it up!

Quote from Sjonsson

I agree, it's an interesting subject. In terms of GDDs, what kind of layout, how much information et cetera, seems to be getting best pitch feedback?

No GDD. Investors don't care what enemy awaits the player in world 4, level 5. Investors typically invest in a company - not a single product (publishers are a different story). What amazing market opportunity have you identified that will make your company a big success? Show them data that backs up your claim, show them a prototype instead of a design doc and convince them that you've got the perfect team to see it through. How much money do you need to break-even? How many of your company shares are you willing to give up? Put everything in a few straightforward power point slides, here's some advice: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html

Watch this and the 10 key lessons for gaming start-ups from Slush '13 as a start: