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videogame school
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dessgeega
loves your favorite videogame
loves your favorite videogame


Joined: 16 Jun 2005
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 5:56 am    Post subject: videogame school Reply with quote

week one.

i moved down from new york to texas to attend the guildhall. there are students in my class from russia, india, south america. there are not many schools like this. it is a migration.

this is a new thing; an experiment. we are the tenth class to go through this school, and they changed the curriculum for us. when assigning books for class, every instructor says, "this isn't the best book on the subject, but that book hasn't been written yet." some of them add, "maybe you'll write it."

one of my professors, on our first day, went to great lengths to try and convince us that we can still make a good game even when we're not working on the game we want to make. because in the industry, we never are.

this first week of classes is predominantly lectures, and these lectures take the form of interventions. our instructors have worked in the industry for years, and each has a collection of stories of projects being cancelled and re-cancelled, mass firings, publishers who laugh and tell developers to take them to court, knowing they'd be blacklisting themselves. one by one, they shatter our illusions.

i want to make videogames in my bedroom. i'm no longer sure i'm in the right place.
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purplechair
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Joined: 28 Mar 2005
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 8:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's sort of similar on our course. Half of our 'game design' classes are about games production on the industry treadmill. I've said some stuff to our tutors about it - how it'd be nice if we looked at other business models and stuff - and I guess that's about as much as I can do for now.

Duke it out and see how it goes, etc.
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helicopterp
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 11:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

But dessgeega, sometimes your bed will be messy and you'll have to spend most of the day making it and by that time you'll be too tired to do anything but watch the game show network and eat leftover homemade pretzels and daphny will call so you'll want to talk to her and then you'll go to bed because you forget what your project was going to be. So really the lectures are applicable if you just translate the concepts.
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SuperWes
Updated the banners, but not his title
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 3:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If you went to school to learn how to make games in your bedroom you're only going for half of the reason. Organized education is 50/50 learning stuff/getting a diploma to show prospective employers that you might actually know the stuff you say you do. I'm sure there are people making games in there bedrooms that are more talented than every single one of the people who graduate from that school. You'll get the job before they will because the amount of research they'd have to do to know you're competent is lower than that other person (with the other person they'd actually have to play their games).

I definitely think you should stick with it, but I also think that you're wasting your diploma if you don't actually try to get employed by a game developer when you get out. Like your prof said, you won't be making they game you want to make, but what they might not have mentioned is at least then you'll have even more experience, earned while making money, which can then transfer into making even better games in your bedroom. Think of it as getting paid to go to school when you're done paying to go to school.

-Wes
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 5:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's a good way of looking at it.

It's good that they're giving you a realistic and grounded view of the industry- and even of the state of our current knowledge on the subject. It's the same with film school- the first thing they teach you is the industry is hell for artists.

At the risk of sounding slightly pompous, you need to look at this like the philosophers in ancient Greece. Socrates wasn't one guy who had all these great ideas out of nowhere- he was head of a literal 'school of thought'. There was a whole forum of people debating and discussing and building these ideas from scratch. Now you're in school, you're one of the forum. There's a void in our knowledge about videogames that we still need to fill, and you're in the right place to start doing it. This is what they mean by 'maybe you'll be the one to write the book'. Because of the infancy of the games medium, the exchange of knowledge here isn't going to be a straight teacher ---> student exchange, it's going to come from talking and discussing and making the most of the opportunity to interact with the other intelligent people that are there. It might mean you'll have to work twice as hard as someone like me who went to film school and could just spend his whole time in the library reading all the amazing things that have already been written about the medium I work in, but it'll be worth it to be present at the birth of a whole new medium. It's an incredibly exciting time to be doing what you're doing.
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purplechair
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 7:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mm. A number of people on our course (such as myself) are a bit upset that we don't study, like, gameplay design (to give it a term that people can understand). We spend ages talking about the production process, and about characterisation and crap like that, but nobody ever seems to talk about why players have to do certain things, or whatever.

But then the thought occurs that it just needs some people to come along and outline some stuff and get others thinking about it. And maybe I'll give it a go, huh?
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 12, 2008 8:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh yeah! You definitely should. That's exactly what frustrated me about film school. You rarely get taught the nuts and bolts of the job, the interesting shit. Sadly not all teachers are experts in their field! That's why they have to get teaching jobs! But I guess the teachers are doing some kind of favor by teaching you about the commericial realities of the job, since it's the aspect we as creatives are least likely to have thought about in our own time.

Still, the tutors are just human beings and probably are still finding their feet as educators themselves, and would love some feedback on what you'd like to see taught in the course. You should definitely talk to your tutors about it, I'm sure they'd be very grateful for the feedback.
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dhex
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 12:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

everything worth doing is an upward slog.
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Redeye
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 2:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

dhex wrote:
everything worth doing is an upward slog.





Reading through some of the Guildhall website I see that it's all about the team-centric.

No design-games-in-bedroom workshop?

Tarn Adams as guest speaker?

I'd pay to see/hear that.
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daphaknee
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 1:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

dess you have to keep at it, it doesnt matter if they're realistic and tell you your indie anarchist dreams cant come true, they'l still teach you valuble skills and you'll get a job within the industry and in your free time make games in your bedroom

dont be a hermit

ma'am
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fish
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

game school was the best year of my life.
yes, just one year. very intense program.
also not exactly in the same league as the guildhall.
far less academic. much more practical, production oriented.
there i learned all sorts of stuff i mostly forgot like animation, modeling and such.
i wanted to be a designer, but the design track was really just an introduction rather than real formation.

when i graduated, i got hired at ubisoft.
8 months later i went mad and had a very dramatic breakdown in a meeting.
one week later i was fired.
ubisoft almost broke me. the kind of 200 person team sweatshop model they use there was everything i feared it would be. i hated it.

so i started doing a lot of design on my own.
started hanging out with designers twice my age.
some of them kind of took em under their wing.

soon i started working on my own projects and realised this is exactly what i was supposed to do.

i think im an excelent designer, but an absolutely terrible employee by any standard.
im worthless in a cubicle. i excell in small cafés, with my laptop, half-drunk.

but the kind of technical training i received in game school really helps me understand what goes on in other disciplines. how my design calls might affect an animator or coder. its good knoledge. it also gave me connections. tons of connections.
and often, just having the official piece of paper at the end is all you need to get your foot in the door at some big fancy studio.

but then again, in my experience, big fancy studios (unless you work at fucking valve or something) are abominable hell holes and i have nothing but contempt and loathing for them.

i think its clear you should be in your bedroom, not some giant production floor.
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 10:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Can you talk about your breakdown at work? I suffered some kind of breakdown early last year. It wasn't dramatic or explosive and didn't cost me my job, thankfully, it was more like me spending a morning feeling weird and then having a quiet word with my boss and asking to be let off for the afternoon while I had a little cry. But I'd like to hear about your experience, I'm sure a lot of us will be able to empathise.
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fish
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i was working on this horrible trainwreck of a game, open season, based on the mediocre movie.

it was such an incredible clusterfuck. we just kept starting over and over again.
we had 3 parties telling us what to do, and they all contradicted themselves.
the montreal editorial team, the paris editorial team, and sony, the client.

im told that ubisoft no longer uses the editorial team model, and that's great because it just plain didnt work.

basically, the teams consisted of a handful of wankers, each specialised in a different field. so you had the deisgn edit, the tech edit, etc etc. every once ina while, they would swoop down from mount doom to check on the project and tell us to change everything like a bunch of fucking dilletantes.

paris would say something, then montreal would say something else, then the client would say a third thing, and we were stuck in the middle.

i spent my 8 months there pretty much just re-designing the same 2-3 maps.
the core gameplay of the game would change every other month, and us designers would need to rebuild all the levels to accomodate said new gameplay. over and over.

it was the perfect shit storm.
they kept throwing more and more people at the project.
the team eventually grew to almost 200 people, for a shitty ps2 movie game.
there was no communication between the departements, and most departements were fucking around with stuff they shouldnt have. programmers adding new gameplay bits right out of their asses, game designers writing stories, artists changing level desigm.

TOTAL CLUSTERFUCK.

so, 8 months in it started getting to me.
realizing i absolutely hated every aspect of what i thought for almost all my life was my dream job. i was pretty freaked out.

oh yeah, and at some point, there was an entire month with nothing for me to do.
at all. so id just show up late, dick around on the net, maybe do a little photoshop for fun and then go home early. then, when i finally had some work to do, they started pressuring me into doing tons of unpaid overtime.

i refused.

then, one day, in a team meeting where they announced some horrible re-design/cut/insane time constraint i just fucking lost it. couldnt breath, was crying, shaking. scary shit.

they took me out to another room and asked me what was wrong. very....passively, very... carefully.

i told them i simply couldnt deal with the bullshit anymore. at all.
so they told me they'd take me off teh team, that it would be best for me AND the project, and that i would be free to apply on other projects internally.

(thats how it works at ubisoft. you need to litterally go around with your resumé and do interviews with other projects)

they kept saying "we're NOT firing you. dont worry. we'll just let you find something better for you"

but they insisted i go see a shrink and come back witha written report.
so they gave me some shrink's address and told me i had until the end of the week to talk with her. so i did. she asked me a couple of easy questions. i told her it was the stress, the bullshit and the nonese that got to me. she asked me if i was depressed, i saod no ( i totally was). and so she said i was fine, that i just needed some rest, and wrote that on her note.

when i came back and gave my producer the note, i was fired a week later to the day.

basically, i wasnt crazy, so they could fire me.
had the note came back saying that i was deep into depression, they could have never fired me.

but i didnt mind, i got good comp, and i was going to leave soon anyway.

took the comp money and went to E3 06.
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fish
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

moar:

in montreal people move around a lot.
one year you're at ubi, the next you're at EA, the enxt you're at eidos.
good rotation.

but i noticed something special about ex-ubi designers.
everytime we meet, we share breakdown stories.
about how ubisoft made us cry ourselves to sleep.
how we had to seek therapy.
how they broke us.

my advice to everybody: dont work in games.
its fucking terrible and it will kill you.
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The Great Unwashed
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jesus, fish, that sounds pretty appalling. I used to have a lot of respect for Ubisoft, but all I'm hearing about them lately are horror stories.

My experiences are pretty different though. I'm working for Interzone Games in their Perth studio, and it's probably the least stressed work environment I've ever been in. We're using Agile methodology and the teams are working really closely with each other.

We've even got studios in Brazil and China as well, and they're all meshing really nicely even through the time difference. Everyone is working hard (45 hour weeks) but is happy, and I think it's due to good management, good communication, and possibly the steady supply of free food, fruit juice and sodas*.

I think there's a lot to be said for bedroom gamedev, but at the end of the day there are bad companies and good companies, and there are a lot of good companies out there. Places like Double Fine, or that one that made the Buzz! games for the PS2, those place pride themselves on never having worked a single hour of overtime on any game, and that's an incredible achievement.

I don't really know where I'm going with that, but I think there's a point somewhere. Just don't be too scared off by the rampaging horror stories about the huge studios to be bitter at the industry in general.

*I don't usually say sodas it's usually "soft drinks" but a lot of you are Americans, so you know
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Cycle
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You work at Interzone? You know a guy called Timothy Best?
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The Great Unwashed
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I do! He's sitting a few metres away. Want me to say hi? Or knife duel him or something?
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Cycle
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 7:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tell him NAME REMOVED says hi! He used to be my editor at PCPowerPlay. He's a pretty awesome guy!
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The Great Unwashed
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have duly told him, and he has mooted that he should "send you an email sometime, hmm". So there you go!
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Cycle
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks! What swell guys you both are!
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You're welcome, NAME REMOVED!
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Cycle
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't trust the internet, alright!
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ryan
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 8:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cycle wrote:
I don't trust the internet, alright!


As you should, I heard the Internet calling you shifty just the other day!
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kuzdu
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 9:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Working in the industry isn't all bad, you just have to be careful where you work.

I work at really small place in NYC that does a lot commercial web games for clients. While I might not get to do work that I'm always psyched about, because we have such small projects I get to see the whole process from beginning to end over and over. This is just good experience in general. Also, because there are no huge crunches I find I usually have time to work on my side projects.

Dess, if you want to make games in your bedroom then don't listen to the guys at your school who have been burnt out by the machine. There are lots of spots in the games industry where you can make a living. They don't all involve grinding your soul away on some minute part of a game that no one really cares about.
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 2:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cycle, that's really good of you to keep your name hidden to save us from the hordes of marauding magazine fan-boys who would show up asking for tips and spouting in-jokes.

WHAT'S YOUR NAME DAMMIT
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daphaknee
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 3:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

his name is cycle

only a month and a half til march wooo
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Cycle
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 4:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

daph we need to have more late night marathong sessions
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As an ex-Ubi Soft employee myself, what fish described is pretty on the mark, though not necessarily with my own personal experiences, though there are a lot of similarities, but just game production in general.

But you know, as much bullshit as it might be, that's kinda the way things go. Sad but true. And the most important thing to know is that its absolutely no different than any other creative venture out there: film making, television production, animation, music, comic books, you name it.

Re: college, I went to SVA for four years to study cartooning, and never fully became one, but everything I learned I still apply today when it comes to any game I design, or any article I write. Point being, college is not so much where you learn practical skills... though there's that too... its what you learn from other people, via social interactions, and I'm not just talking about networking, though that is also an important aspect as well.

Plus, you end up learning a lot about yourself, by discovering if one can stand the heat or not. That's why college degrees are still important. IMHO.
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Harveyjames
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Does everyone here work either in games journalism or for Ubisoft?
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dhex
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 12:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

no.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

currently I don't work, but that needs to change soon.
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daphaknee
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

im a dog trainer!
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 5:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm a chef~ I cook the foods people eat!

Appropo: the Burgertime banner is up top as I type this.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 6:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

high school teacher!
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 6:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dess, think of it this way: If you go through all this shit and you end up just a fraction better off, it doesn't matter. When you're done making those games in your bedroom people won't think just some kid did it w/o knowing what things are like, you'll have a leg up. You can also use everything you learn to reverse engineer it on the industry, or just find out what books need to be written and make tons doing it so that the class can be better in the future when they're teaching it off of your books.

And, as dhex said...
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 6:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

daphaknee wrote:
im a dog trainer!


Did they take you back?
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm a Java programmer at a non-games Agile Development house!

-Wes
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 8:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i'm a student with a bullshit IT job!
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 9:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i deliver pizza. i'm working on degrees in applied physics and computer science though, in the interest of developing physics engines for games.

i have to say i wish i were attending guildhall, though.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 16, 2008 10:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

code monkey for Nokia!

No, I don't work on the phones Sad
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 1:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I work for a billionaire genius who recently went to space!
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 5:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

tim schaefer wrote:
The business side of getting a game made is incredibly demoralizing. Many forces align to discourage creativity and encourage mediocrity and safe, derivative ideas. But for me, those same forces are part of the reason I keep going; they just make me so mad. I can’t stand the thought of those jerks winning. I feel so lucky every time I get to make another game, because every time we make something good, it’s like punching those jerks in the face.

kind of late to the topic, but it seemed appropriate.
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 10:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I work in video, in Chinatown.
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Location: bohan

PostPosted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 7:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

week two.

without a car, i am stranded here. texas is huge, full of great wastes of space. nothing but a drug store is within walking distance.

my school, a five-minute drive away, is too far for me to walk. i tried it once: halfway there the sidewalk disappeared, the sky grew dark and there were no streetlights. on my way home a car ran the light, beeping, and nearly ran me down.

my phone is stuffed with numbers of classmates who drive, but alone i am stuck here, with nothing to do but schoolwork. that's fine: the curriculum leaves little room for any outside life. this is highly exclusionary, but i find clarity in being forced to focus on my discipline.

it can still be overwhelming. sometimes i break down and start crying. a party the other night, and the opportunity to talk to one of the other women in my class about the presentation of gender in games made me feel a lot better. work hasn't even begun yet.
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daphaknee
just enemies now
just enemies now


Joined: 26 Jul 2007
Posts: 892
Location: YAY AREA

PostPosted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 9:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

you didnt talk about how you slipped on ice and broke your cellphone! that is the most important event of week 2
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Harveyjames
the meteor kid
the meteor kid


Joined: 06 Jul 2006
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 8:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Sound like it's going to be tough...
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fish
.
.


Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Posts: 113
Location: montreal

PostPosted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 12:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

man, game school was so much fun.
i miss it.

i once did 2 consecutive 32-hour shifts with only 6 hours of sleep ( on 4 chairs aligned straight) only to have an ubisoft interview imediatly after having finished my demo reel.

least. coherent. interview. ever.

it was awesome!
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dessgeega
loves your favorite videogame
loves your favorite videogame


Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Posts: 6563
Location: bohan

PostPosted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 11:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

daphaknee wrote:
you didnt talk about how you slipped on ice and broke your cellphone! that is the most important event of week 2


this happened the day after i posted. the sprinklers of the apartment complex next door, where the other half of the student body lives, had sprayed the curb, and the cold had frozen it to ice. i slipped and fell on my ass, breaking my phone and pulling my arm. these are the hazards of walking in texas.

week three.

day after day i sit in class, listening to my instructors talk about pay rates in the industry and types of players we can market to, and all i can think about is making a videogame. so i've started working on one, on my own time, away from school.

to remind myself that i don't need to be part of a two-hundred-person assembly line to make a game; this is what i came here to do, after all, to make games.

i'm at school from nine to five every day; i come home, i do my homework, and then i turn on my computer and spend more hours developing a videogame. this is my education.
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Shapermc
Hot Sake!
Hot Sake!


Joined: 14 Oct 2004
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 26, 2008 12:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is your phone fixed yet?
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daphaknee
just enemies now
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Joined: 26 Jul 2007
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

dess leaves out how we talk together and love eachother but i guess that stuff is too cheesy for this thread

hopefully i can help her make it through videogame school
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