I finally realized the answer to something that had been bothering me for years: why is it that so many “good” companies pay such small referral bonuses (the cash payed to an employee when they successfully find a friend/ex-colleague/etc to fill an open position at the company) ?
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4 Comments » Speakers: Karen Chelini, SCEA; Jason Pankow, Microsoft; Matthew Jeffrey, EA
I didn’t stay more than about half the session - my laptop battery ran out, so I couldn’t take any more notes. I’m writing this up really only because there was one key point that came up which illustrates something that CMP and their GameCareerGuide.com do often which hugely angers me, and I want to see changed. They not only spread a rumour that is blatantly not true, but I keep meeting undergraduates and students wanting to break in to the games industry who are in danger of having years of their lives wasted because of this misinformation.
Which is a real pity, because other than that I think GameCareerGuide.com is fantastic. I wouldn’t have written an article for them if I didn’t believe in them and in what they do (generally).
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The following are hand-picked sections from the syllabus of the 3-year Cambridge University CS course. These are just syllabus, i.e. describing what you need to learn / teach yourself.
How do you create a new game studio from scratch?
The topic came up recently when someone asked me what I’d do if I had the responsibility to create a new dev studio - what would I do, how would I go about it, etc? I’ve founded a couple of small startups before (both as CTO and CEO), and worked as everything from a secretary to a CTO (Chief Technical Officer) at other people’s companies, so I have some idea of how to do this on a practical level.
I also used to co-run a very successful business-plan competition, where we gave away hundreds of thousands of pounds of startup capital every year. Many of the finalists became good friends of mine, and we continued to work with and help some of the companies for a good few years after they won or were finalists as part of our ongoing support programme.
So, here’s some initial thoughts. I don’t know if this is right or wrong, good or bad, but it’s something I’d like to work out better because I may well find myself trying to do it someday.
We didn’t quite get the sunny afternoon we were hoping for, but we did get some nice light
…so we had to move inside, but we still had a great turnout of people
And it’s nice to have a games-industry recruitment event right on the beach, by the sea, for a change (instead of in the centre of a big city)
NCsoft Europe, publisher of award winning online games such as City of Heroes and Guild Wars is searching for skilled individuals to join a growing internal development team. We offer competitive salaries, excellent benefits, a casual work environment and the seaside just 10 minutes walk from the office!
To coincide with the Develop Conference next week, NCsoft will be holding a joined recruitment party with Linden Lab. If you’d like to join us for an evening of food, drinks and the chance to chat to us about our current vacancies, then head over to this page for more details.
Please note: this is an industry only event, and numbers are strictly limited.
“NCsoft is one of the world’s biggest online gaming companies, a major developer and publisher in Asia, America, and Europe. We need an expert in online games development - from low-level network programming to multithreaded server code.
This role is in our UK studio, in Brighton. The office is in the centre of this vibrant city, just a couple of minutes from the station and a five minute walk from the seafront.”
http://eu.plaync.com/eu/jobs/detail/senior_network_developer/
http://eu.plaync.com/eu/jobs/detail/junior_network_developer/
http://eu.plaync.com/eu/jobs/detail/gameplay_developer/
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