Working In The Games Industry

>>2710628
>I agree that it's really fucking cool to work on game development
Sounds pretty lame to me.

Listen to Feng Zhu if you want to know about it.

Just do whatever you want to do, nobody here knows anything about you.

>>2710628
>crunch time
isn't that more on the coding side of things? I'm sure the hours are tough for artists too but I haven't heard of them having crunch time.

>>2710646

I dunno mate, it seems to be an all-encompassing thing for the company. Even writers have crunch time, according to Amy Hennig:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/282922/AAA_game_dev_lifestyle_is_unwinnable_says_veteran_game_designer_Amy_Hennig.php

>>2710628
>working on triple shit games
Serves them right

>>2710649
Unless your "art" is making textures, you are not likely to be that busy throughout the process, and especially not at the end, when the pressure is highest.

>>2710652

Most indies are shit too, though. The vast majority.

>>2710628
I dunno man I work in the mobile game industry and it's p chill.

>>2710668
How did you get in?

>>2710679
By the entrance.

>>2710628
Don't believe every bullshit you read on the internet. Most of the crap, including the sources are just echo chambers.

Honestly, you can just as easily say the exact opposite.

"Working as a freelancer seems like absolute hell. No fixed income, a struggle to network and find clients, enormous competition, difficult work balance because some periods you get no jobs, while other times there are too many too many. High insurance, etc. No thanks, I'd rather work in a studio."

It just depends on your point of view.

The thing is, people say 'game industry' but often have no idea what this term covers, or willfully ignore large parts. The game industry is more than the handful of major studios out there that make AAA console and PC games or the indie guys working to get their game greenlit on Steam.

There are the studios that
- make casual or core games for mobile devices,
- make social games for Facebook or similar social platforms,
- develop educational, edutainment or freebie games for various clients like advertising agencies,
- function as outsourcers, only producing art for other studios.

Yes, crunch-time exists, and won't go away soon, though more and more studios are trying to improve things to provide a better work-life balance. On the other hand there will always be studios suffering from greed and/or mismanagement, and taking advantage of their workforce. The goal is to keep your eyes open, use your brain and try to find a place that suits you.

You should grow out of the "I want to work on games because I like playing them" phase well before you get out of high school, it's just childish.

>>2711199
>The thing is, people say 'game industry' but often have no idea what this term covers, or willfully ignore large parts

This is a bombshell of a truth. Well said.

/ic/ has tunnel vision, and is absolutely unaware of the opportunities for illustrators/artists both inside and outside of the game industry.

But no - either you draw fantasy/sci-fi/concept art or you're a cuck piece of shit failure, right?

>Well what are these opportunities?

Research it yourself, like everyone else.

>>2710628

I can't imagine concept artists having any sort of crunch time, at least not in the later stages of development.

>>2711313
I'm sure it happens all the time. Maybe a new scene is written in or changed last minute, or the entire thing is behind schedule and they need to start filming by X date so they need all the concepts done before then.

I remember seeing Wes Burt talking about some of his Transformers designs and how on some of the characters he was given a single day to do a finished design, and this is for like complex machinery that needs to be able to fold into multiple forms. It seems stupid that such a big budgeted movie could be so disorganized that they need to rush something that important, but it happens.

>>2711212
??? Please elaborate.

>>2711352
People need to make better career choices than just going into whatever is 'cool and fun'

>>2711373
>People need to make better career choices than just going into whatever is 'cool and fun'
>he seriously thinks this

>>2711373
What else do you base it off? Why pick a career you think is going to be boring and lifeless from the get go?

(Part 1)

Hey! I work in a big studio as a concept artist/dmp (digital matte painter). It's my first post ever, so bear with me, also English is not my native language, so excuse the occasional mistakes. But I am writing because I was struggling with all these questions myself not too long ago and I really wished I had someone to give me all this information, so I hope that I can be helpful somehow.

Lets get straight to the point!

Freelance can make you a lot more money and gives you the freedom of working whenever and wherever you want. But you have to manage everything by yourself, which is not that easy and is quite stressful. All the papers, contracts, etc so that you wouldn't get fucked or ripped off further down the line, which happens! Please be careful! No health care, no nothing and also you will get taxed differently. As far as I know some countries like Spain for example are not very freelance friendly, they add a lot of extra taxes when freelancing, so be mindful about that.

Working in the studio has its own pros and cons. Obviously you can't work whenever and wherever you want, you might make less money and other stress factors that might come with a studio environment. But at least in decent studios you have steady income, health care and all that jazz. Probably a lot better choice if you have a family to feed.

The thing is that, if you want to have a very successful freelance career, you must have a lot of good connections, otherwise it's very hard to find proper work. The best way to get good connections is to work in different studios. Meet with new people, make friends, work with them and learn from them. If you get along with people, prove that you are a hard worker, who produces quality work and meets the deadlines the companies or studios know they can depend on you, so they will want to work with you in the future. That means that even if you leave the company, they might outsource some work to you.

(Part 2)

Also in that case all the friends and contacts you made might get freelance offers and pass them on to you if they are not in a position to accept it themselves or recommend you if their studio is looking for someone.

All the seniors, directors and other veterans have told me to jump around as much as you can when you are still young. Make a lot of contacts, friends and leave a good impression of yourself everywhere you go. Just be a fucking nice person, because otherwise sooner or later it will bite you in the ass big time. Even though there are a lot of studios everywhere around the world now, the community itself is still quite small and pretty much everyone knows one another. That means that if you fuck up, everyone will know and they might not want to hire you anymore. Don't worry it's not that scary as I might have made it sound, but just keep it in mind. So finally after a few years of jumping around working on different projects with different people you should have a very good and steady income of good work. Plus the work you get from your former studios and colleagues is safe and good, they will probably not fuck you over, so you don't have to worry as much whether you will get paid or not at the end of it. You might even have to develop a new skill, which is turning down work. It's easy to overburden yourself in the beginning with all these tempting offers flowing in, but you got to maintain a good quality and healthy balance, don't burn yourself out. All that comes with time tho, so also don't be overly cautious, sometimes the best lessons come from the mistakes you make. Failing is not a bad thing as long as you learn from it and get back on your feet again, so don't be afraid of taking risks and going out of your comfort zone. Challenging ourselves is good for us artists!

(Part 3)

I will quickly mention crunch as well, since I saw it was mentioned here. Normally concept artists don't have big crunch times. That mostly falls on the people towards the end of pipeline, like compositors, shading guys, texture artists, matte painters and maybe even some last minute modeling. But normally by that time all the concept work should be done, so that these guys can do their job properly following the concepts. Unless the client decides to change something at the very last moment and you have to quickly redesign some prop or whatever. It very much depends on the studio, it might be different in a small studio that focuses only on concept art and have thight deadlines or something. I happen to work in a big studio where we handle many projects at once, so my hands are always full of work, which is perfect for me right now.

This has become a gigantic fucking wall of text and I am sorry about that, but as a last thing I will very briefly touch the specific industry topic. I also am also a huge gamer and that's what got me into this business to start with, but coming from personal experience, don't limit yourself with just that. It's equally awesome to work for films, series, cinematics or whatever and it opens up so many possibilities. Yea eventually you can try to hone in on something more specific, but before that try to experience as much as you can. It might turn out that you like working for movies a lot more actually, you will never know before you have actually done all of these things. We have these preconceptions of what the work might be like, but they might be completely different in practice.

(Part 4)

The same applies to concept art as well. When you work in a studio and see what other people do, learn more about it and experience it all, you might want to become a DMP or even a texture artist instead, who knows. People jump around a lot in studios and try different things, even if you don't like it after trying, you have at least got a better understanding of different positions and how the whole pipeline functions. That knowledge is also very important that you can apply to your concept art to make other peoples lives easier. For example if you know that the deadline is closing in for a project, you might not put puddles of water on the path where the character runs in your concept, because simulating all that is quite time consuming and the render farm might be overloaded with things anyway already, so you will know to avoid it.

All in all don't take everything that I said word to word. A lot of people have made good careers without these steps and there are tons of different approaches. Also working in a studio or as a freelancer is a matter of preference, so find your own way. I hope that it helped with something at least.

If you have more questions, I will do my best to stick around and answer some of them, but I can't promise anything.

Cheers!

>>2710668
Sucked dick

Hhaha after reading through it again, I noticed so many typos and mistakes lol. It's almost 2 AM here after a long day at work and I threw it together very fast, so please excuse me :D

>>2711463
Are you looking forward to the sinking feeling of disappointment & frustration when your wall of text goes completely ignored?

>>2711486

Haha to be very honest, I didn't have any expectations when writing this. I just can't get sleep and I didn't have anything better to do :)

I am happy if it helps even just one person, but if not then fuck it :D

>>2710628
>crunch time
i dont understand how that is bad, when i was a kid i love to go to the kitchen heat a bowl of milk and pour that delicious cereal, damn i want some crunch now

>>2711495
Thanks for all that info. I knew a lot of it already, but I appreciate the effort, given how precarious this situation feels. If you don't mind, how much can one make at the upper levels of concept art/related fields. I'm not referring to reasonable salaries, but top dollar kinda situations.

>>2710693
fuck you I chuckled

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>>2711549
>heat milk
>in cereal

>>2711450
>>2711452
>>2711453
>>2711455
Thank you for writing this!

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>>2711450
>>2711486
>>2711463

We appreciate the information. Thanks for writting it out in detail.

Hey guys! I am so happy that it was at least somewhat useful to some of you.

>>2711552

To answer your question. I can't say for sure since I am in the early stages of my professional career, but I know and I have heard that you can make some good good money. It depends on you, especially when you are a freelancer, but as a senior in a very big and good studios like Weta, ILM, Framestore, Blur or MPC for example you could make some good money (didn't mention game studios because you probably know them already). But as I said it very much depends on you. Referring back to when I talked about jumping around a lot and working on different projects in different studios, that raises your value, so you can negotiate a better salary.

Here is a post from an amazing artist and a wonderful person Ben Mauro. Check him out, he quite often posts things to help out fellow artists in the industry. But this post might give you a general idea.

http://benmaurodesign.tumblr.com/image/71836713136

>>2711199
read this, folks.

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>>2711455
>>2711453
>>2711452
>>2711450

>>2711450
>some countries like Spain for example are not very freelance friendly
Well fuck me

>>2711903

I don't know much about it, but that's what one of my colleagues told me about a year ago, who is from Spain. Try to research it, the situation might have changed a bit by now, who knows. Good luck!