bingle

I've seen a few mentions of people working at various game places in the threads here, so I became curious - how many people here work in the gaming industry?

I work for Sony, in QA, but I'm trying to get into programming somehow (I have a CS degree).

Anyone else out there? I know there are some people in retail...

Bingle

DJMala

I'm curious, without getting into specific dollar amounts (if you don't want to), does Sony pay roughly equivalent to QA in other parts of the software biz? I'm in QA now, for a non-gaming software company, but I'd love to get into games. The only jobs I've really seen, though, are minimum wage, part-time, "game tester" positions.

bingle

No, they don't :-) You'll make more doing software QA, guaranteed... But of course you don't get to test games.

I don't mind giving some dollar amounts, though... In the SF bay area, Sony pays its full-time contract testers (from a third-party temp agency) $12 an hour. That's the most generous game tester offer I've seen in the Bay Area. As a permanent employee, I make slightly more (around $14) but I also get very good benefits and a copy of every game that comes out for the PS2, as well as miscellaneous other perks. One thing about game companies right now is that it's like working for a dot-com - lots of gifts and parties and things.

Of course, I'd give it all up to code games somewhere for the same salary ;-P Game testing just doesn't have much challenge in it, even if you're doing slightly more technical stuff like I am. Oh well, some day.

Bingle

hulk

I'm giving it my best shot as an independant right now, but the plan is to start a commercial company. Hopefully.

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

FngKestrel

I've done 3DO QA, EA QA, Namco QA, and finally ended up at Sorrent, a cell phone game company, doing QA. Last year, I made the transition to art, which is what my college degree was in.

QA, in my opinion, is a thankless, mind-numbing job. That being said, it's also totally necessary and the most underrated job in the game industry. When Game Developer magazine released the 3rd salary survey, they found that QA turnover is ridiculously high, that most people in QA either quit and move into less mind-numbing things, or they advance into other fields. While most jobs in the industry have people with 6+ years of experience, only a handful of people last 6 years in QA.

When I started at 3DO, I was making 9 dollars an hour. A week later, they had an across-the-board wage cut, so I ended up making 8.10 an hour. My friends still chuckle about that one. Moving to EA, I was at 10 an hour. Namco was 10 an hour also, if I remember correctly. Moving to Sorrent QA, the company was small and the QA manager was a former QA manager at EA and knew what the job entailed, and made sure we all started at 12 an hour, which is definitely pretty generous.

The downside of most QA jobs is the lack of benefits, contract work (3 month, 6 month stints usually). When I was at EA, the hours also became pretty insane. 12 hour days, 7 days a week. Granted, they were high-profile titles, but at that time at EA QA, there was a real slave driver mentality, which doesn't work.

Pure app software QA does pay infinitely better, but like bingle said, it's not games.

Moving out of QA into a desired field that's not production is a feat unto itself. After spending two years doing testing everywhere, moving into art was a combination of luck and determination. One of my coworkers in QA moved into programming, aided partly by a half-finished personal project that he had coded some time ago.

I find that QA takes up a large amount of time and don't know if the hours have gotten any more sane, but the hours that they pull really prevent people from pursuing personal projects. While I was testing at EA, I don't think I did any drawing. I was so exhausted getting home that personal projects were out of the question.

Incidentally, Sorrent is also in San Mateo, not that far away from Sony. In fact, a few Sony QA guys came over to Sorrent and are doing quite well.

dood

I am a fulltime developer, but I'll stay anonymous

The job is not as much of a dream job as most people trying to get into the industry think it is. Most companies pay you a salary that you would make anywhere else, and the hours are horrid. And by horrid, I mean 60 hour work weeks when you aren't busy, and watching the sun come up during crunchtime. Your life outside the Company is nonexistent.

But I still love it

DJMala

Geez... I guess I need to quit bitching about my job, then. I test music software. It's not all fun and games, but it's definitely a cut above, say, accounting software. I get to play with all of the latest synths, plugins, and other toys. I keep a guitar in my cubicle, and I even get an excuse to play it on the clock occasionally. I'm salaried, and the money, while not spectacular, is decent.

The major pitfall, other than the usual BS that goes on in software development, is what FngKestrel said... it takes a lot out of you. Someday, I'd really like to get into doing sound design. So far, though, I haven't had the discipline to force myself to sit down and jump into it. After staring at audio waveforms for 8-10 hours a day, the last thing I want to do is spend my free time in front of an audio app.

bingle

Yeah, I have a couple friends at Sorrent, actually, in IT and QA - their names are Phil and Ben. Small world ;-)

Also, I know the industry isn't the greatest to be in as far as salary or hours goes - but I love making games, and I love programming, and I'd be overjoyed if I could code for a living. I don't even care about the money, I just want to go to work and code games every day.

Edit: Plus, the hours are almost as bad (or sometimes worse) in QA...

Bingle

Xepidemic

this might seem dumb but what does QA stand for? quality assurance? and u just get to play games all day long? that seems like a sweet job!

bingle

Yeah, QA is quality assurance - and in some places you just get to play games all day long, but you're not really playing them, you're trying to break them :-) It's not as much fun as it sounds like. And for me, I hardly ever get to play the games, I mostly do other things to test them.

Bingle