I said earlier that we could take the
long view, to nurture potential new staff while they are still in education,
and that making the educators' jobs a little easier is also our aim.
One of the main reasons we can do this is the backing of Microsoft,
in particular Microsoft's UK Academic Team, so it only seems right to
validate this with a little more information.
The academic team has, for many years,
been working with UK universities, helping them get the most out of
Microsoft products and technologies, and so they have a lot of pre-existing
relationships and experience with academics. After the launch of the
Xbox and subsequently the Xbox 360, they found a new area of technology
they were not familiar with, coupled with universities starting to offer
games technology-based courses. At the same time we were doing our own
thing with universities, so naturally at some point we were going to
join up our work.
In 2006 the XNA group was ramping up
for the launch of XNA: GSE 1.0, and the Academic Team wanted to launch
this in the UK with some kind of event -- this was the first big project
we worked on together, as they needed game developers to bring credibility
to the launch. So together we came up with the UK XNA launch day for
students and academics, coupled with three days of XNA workshops for
60 lecturers, which we held at Rare -- the content of which was developed
and taught by our development staff.
Since then we've worked together on
Freeplay Lounge at GameCity, which was a game party for 200 students
and lecturers celebrating game development and XNA. We are currently
promoting the "Rare Lecture Series", which is part of the
Academic Team's "Inspiration Tour/UK", where lecturers can
book one of 10 different lectures presented by our staff covering a
wide range of topics. We still do our own thing too, but the relationship
works very well, as we take up some of the Academic Team's lecturing
duties and bring a lot of credibility to the work they do, and they
provide the backup and logistics for us.
In Summary
What works for Rare might not work
for your studio, but the free lunch is over. If, like other technology-based
industries, we are to continue to grow rather than continually poaching
staff from one another, we must help educators to help us by growing
better graduates, and more of them.
We can all help stimulate more university
applications in the technology and art fields by helping create a tangible
link between the games people play and what's going on inside the box.
Once at university we can help inspire undergraduates and teach them
the right skills. Trust me, this does pay off. Finally...
Tips for developers:
Don't treat graduates as
cheap labor; doing so hurts us all as they are the industry's future.
Work with as many universities
as you can; there are good graduates to be had from all of them.
Work with other developers
if possible; one developer can't reach out to all universities
but together we can.
Take an active role in educational
conferences where possible; the more developers and universities
that are engaged the better.
Universities are businesses;
they don't exist solely to make graduates for us. They have to get enough
students to keep courses financially viable, while turning out graduates
that are employable. Help them improve their courses and get plenty
of undergraduate applications.
Don't do hard sell presentations
to students or lecturers. Just tell them what it's like to do your job,
or even present your GDC talk to them; we work in a very exciting industry,
and if your studio is a nice place to work, that will be more than enough
to get them applying.
Tell the truth; if you lie
or conceal things like crunch, new staff just leave and all the hard
work recruiting them was for nothing.
Tips for students at all stages
of education:
Developers don't bite; we
were all like you once -- come and join the collective.
Don't just apply to one
studio; cast around and see what's on offer.
The best fanatical deal
is not always the most desirable; working conditions and career prospects
are far more important than an extra £1000 on a starting salary. Remember,
it's only a starting salary.
If you want to look good
in an application, have good core skills, base skills, and soft skills.
Specific knowledge of software packages and engines are useful but only
in the short term.
When you are interviewed,
the interviewer(s) may be as nervous as you are; interviews are just
stressful. Hopefully the interviewer(s) will try to minimize this for
you.
If a developer turns you
down once you can re-apply later; developers' staffing needs change
over time.
If you are choosing a course,
look at lots of courses, take your time choosing; if you know any developers
or meet some, ask for their advice.
Not all courses are created
equal, but all should be continually trying to improve.
This is a fantastic article. I am a student in one of the games specific courses, studying computer science in Ireland in relation to video games and we will be the first graduates in the country. So far there are very few computer games companies here and it is a bit of a worry. I have had games related interviews and got the feeling that some of the places I too interviews for might not offer me a nice work environment.
Historically I came back to college to study games as a new skill. I worked in I.T and technology for many years and one of the things you said rings very true.
I am 30, I think the industry might drop me for that as well so I do not put my date of birth on my CV. I get the feeling they want young code monkeys. Some one that can burn out, and I feel that this might not be the industry for me. Having worked in technology I know the difference between a good and a bad place to work, and can feel the company culture from interviews. This whole area scares me. I do not want to leave college to be overworked and underpaid, as I am already doing this in the college :)
This is why I am looking into getting back into web technology and looking at gaming from a social networking perspective. My Final year project is pretty much about this, and the problem is that the companies I have been interviewed by generally pass over my final year project , I have no portfolio as the college never nurtured the creation of any such thing.
I feel I am onto a losing streak here , and its pretty depressing , I think all of this article should be taken as the new recruitment gospel in the Industry. Thanks Nick for having the guts to point this stuff out.
I also agree with Nick. I have a general science degree, no portfolio, no industry experience and my university intemtional kept everything non-proprietary. If companies won't give me a chance and nurture me I will never go anywhere with my degree and my burdening loans will never be paid off.
I first met Nick, when a load of us gatecrashed a talk he gave at Leeds University. Since then he has accused my students of stalking him, because we keep turning up to see him doing outreach work, and he has even visited us at Newport. I first got to really chat to him when XNA launched and I was invited up to Twycross to visit Rare Studios - the pictures don't do it justice - for a pre-launch taster day. Basically, Nick puts his money where his mouth is, working hard to make and maintain links with universities. His insight and experience have helped shape our own curriculum in an environment where Industry links are jealously guarded and hard to develop. Blitz also work hard to communicate with students and lecturers. I wish other studios would follow suit.
What a colossal waste of time reading this. I've wanted to professionally program games when I first played Pong. I went to school and got my degree in Comp sci, and was quickly chewed up and spit out by the industry. The industry wants young engineers for the same reason a pimp wants young girls...and no, I will not spell that out!
You don't have to believe me, just use logic and life experience: Hire someone out of school. Watch as the people hired 3 years ago in the company begin to feel old, or no longer feel they are the shining apple of their boss's eye. Observe as the older engineers form cliques, and feel threatened by the new hire. Soon, they say "screw it, they give the new guy the stuff they used to give me before I became valuable at memory management/network coding/mundane but important task", and leave the company. Rinse, and repeat.
What you are left with are has-been mentors who are too insecure to strike out on their own, so they power trip the wide-eyed callow young hires who will eventually become envious of the cracker-jack kid right out of school who they will say "has not paid his dues yet, why should he design/have input/not make coffee???" Again, rinse and repeat.
In closing, I beseech the young people reading this to heed my warning: do not follow the path the author has laid out in this article. Rare wants the best people to "mold"? Read: The best people to use. They have a bottom line and rent to pay, just like everyone else.
They want young people who don't have families of their own so they can work you 60-70 hours a week because that's what all your peers will do. At least, the ones without families. Those with kids/wife/life are called "managers", and are not truly necessary to the end goal: making money.
It steams me to no end that Gamasutra would not advocate getting together with your friends/classmates, getting day jobs, and working on your dreams at night. That's what I do. Way more payoff, and I never feel like I am getting screwed.
I'm not as bitter as J Kelly but I think that anyone looking to go from school to the games industry should heed his warnings.
RARE may be a great company but the fact is that the industry as a whole is really screwed up. If you have any involvement with the actual production and development of the game then expect to be working weekends and putting in 60+ hours a week.
I currently work on high profile console titles and what I'm saying comes from 5 years of experience. Do yourself, your family, and your friends a favor and get a different gig coming out of college. Work for a company or two that are very stable and offer you a decent salary and plenty of free time. Use some of that free time to work with other people in your boat on a decent portfolio and the other part of that free time sewing your oats and getting a steady partner for life.
ONLY THEN would I advise you to get into the gaming industry. At this point you will have:
- enough real world working experience under your belt to allow you to negotiate your salary and schedule.
- game development experience (outside of school) that has proven you have the drive and the know how
- a spouse / would-be spouse that will be there to support you and stand by you through the *crunch* times
j kelly, I don't mind if you rant about games companies in general, but it seems to me that you shouldn't make statements like 'Rare wants the best people to "mold"? Read: The best
people to use', when you have no idea about what working at Rare is like. Nick does explictly warn against doing this very thing, and I can tell you from experience that Rare does not treat employees the way you describe. Maybe Rare is a minority on this issue, and maybe that was one of the reasons why Nick wanted to write this article?
I came to Rare straight out of school. We work 9-5 except in crunch (which is a very rare occurnce, no pun intended - I've only been here for two years yet, but I've yet to be asked to stay late), except when I *choose* to stay longer. There's no pressure here, most of the time people really do leave around five - but occasionally you may want to stay late and finish something off.
I agree that treating employees the way you describe is horrible, and hurts the industry as a whole, but I do think that we should encourage the few companies that do treat their employees well and hope that others follow suit, rather than just blindly spew bile all over the industry.
It IS telling, and a little scary, when you hear that a company like Rare hires 90% of its employees straight out of school. This implies that creative talent isn't valued, because if you have creative talent but lack managerial skill you will eventually be left out in the cold. This in turn allows companies to not worry so much about making their employees happy, because there's a new crop coming down the pipe every year, which translates to lower standards for those who have chosen this industry as a lifelong career. It engenders a market where jobs are overvalued, where employees are made to feel lucky that they have a job at all (so they should just shut up and do it!) This should worry everybody, especially since so many schools are now churning out spurious 'game development' degrees. To the anonymous poster above me, wait another 2 (or, god forbid, 10) years when you decide to branch out... if you work in an industry where experience is seen as a liability, then a culture of burn-out is basically enforced, because there is no impetus for any company to advocate otherwise. It certainly makes me worried about my future.
Could you explain a bit more how this implies that creative talent isn't valued? I think the logic of this seems more than a little shaky... To me it implies that Rare is willing to nurture new talent which may not have experience yet, not that experience isn't valued (there is, after all, a shortage of experienced people as the industry is expanding rapidly). This sounds like a good thing to me...
I get the feeling that some of the anonymous posters here are getting bogged down with common recruiting practices. Most companies will tend to recruit more entry-level staff than mid to senior level staff.
On the last programming project I managed, i had a team of 18 programmers, of which around 10 were raw graduates or equivalent when
they were hired. Whilst this isn't as high as Rare's 90% graduate to experienced develop stat, it's my belief that it's a more useful recruitment mix.
One of the things i find far more concerning is the belief from companies that they only need to recruit fresh graduates as experienced developers are somehow tarnished through their experiences.
From my experiences, I found that experienced staff have got a colossal amount to offer, usually far in excess of graduates. The issue with some staff is that it can take a while to break down the issues that have been built up from previous jobs, but once you can get though that, you normally end up with staff with a burning desire to create great stuff
and the experience to get round most of the issues that often fox new programmers.
I think it's great the Rare is building links with academia to create and interest in their company and in the games industry in general, but please recruiters, don't overlook the colossal benefits of experienced staff.
If I ran a development company I would possibly want one experienced person for every 8 to 10 new recruits. The senior guy can teach them and manage along with sorting out the difficult bits. I'd pay the juniors a lot less cash and I'd be recommending them too not to haggle over one or two K extra per year as that would just annoy me and think they were greedy troublemakers. Once they start asking for large salaries I'd take them to the glue factory of course and probably tell them they were getting too set in their ways and cynical about the industry to be of any use.
I'd much rather want some young guy that thought I was a god and a buddy who took care of him and his dreams. I do like helping other people and feeling their gratitude towards me, don't get me wrong. It is satisfying and would probably drive me into the Uni's to do lectures. It would also remind me of my early days and their youthful enthusiasm for games makes me feel for a second that my work might have had some meaning. I need to stop kidding myself that doing good things and being nice is purely because I'm such a nice guy.
The reality is that running a games company is bloody hard and competitive so I wouldn't expect any charity. I'm not imagining or expecting that any of my staff would come to my aid if things go bad either. If you want to be in control of your own destiny then create your own or do something else. I have my dream too, which is to drive a Ferrari and/or a DB7 and I'd need to balance that against your needs. I might be able to save 10k per person per year and if I exclude the agency fees which I might be able to if I write articles and get direct hires then that's a 100k per 10 staff members per year probably.
I'd also try to make sure that my studio was somewhere that wasn't too easy to get to, as that would hopefully keep people longer at work, it also creates a sense of isolation and peacefulness which reminds me of what the middle ages were like in monasteries. They didn't have kids either there or they were frowned upon, but worked together in silent brotherly love and appreciation for a higher common goal. Any suffering just made them feel closer. If someone got cynical and said god didn't exist, they had to go as well so lots of parallels there.
I might consider providing new recruits with a version which is the glossy sob story with the violins or the harsh truth of the matter. I'd probably feel gratitude towards someone that had worked for me for a while and would hope they wouldn't feel bad if I had to let them go, but life is life and a company has to watch the bottom line or it won't exist or make decent profits.
I could argue that someone that works for Rare would be biased vs objectionable, but why bother? Color me bitter, but the nature of the entertainment industry, in particular video games, demands that companies eat up and spit out as many darling fresh graduates as possible. If only because their competetors (which are many) are doing exactly that with other companies. My opinion is not unique, nor do I toss it around like so much fat hanging loosely over a too tightened belt.
I've been reading Gamasutra for 10+ years regularly and have not commented on a single article because no other article sounded alarms in my brain as much as this one. And if my voice is shrill, well...shouldn't an alarm be shrill for people to react to it?
Sadly, companies prey, and will continue to prey on the wide eyed exuberant fresh graduate who is darned lucky to be working in the games industry.
Tell me, Rare employee, do you get a piece of the action if the game does well? Do you suffer if the game pans out? Probably not. My opinion, and I'll reiterate it, is for any young graduate thinking of getting into the gaming business. You will be better served learning the subtle office politics, general business lessons, and professional nuances of working with highly engineered or creative types in a regular 9-5 software shop.
There, you'll learn about egos, both easily bruised and "how does that guy get his head thru the door each morning?", deadlines, teamwork, etc. without the headaches of 50 starving students pretty much wanting to kill for your job because they think it will be glamorous.
Unless you hire on as a game developer, and you have proven properties that sell, the most you are going to have input on is what color your cog is, or how many teeth it will have. And that's about it. It becomes a job like any other, only now you have a car payment, and your friends want you to party every Friday night after work...only you have to turn them down because you have to work a "half day" on Saturday, but how's about Sat. night? Well, along comes Mr. Monday morning, and you got bills to pay, and a friendly boss who kindly reminds you about free dinners until you get your cog built, cuz you're really good at building that one shiny cog. The grind of making a living , and you thought doing something you love would be great.
Call me cynical, or bitter, or whatever, because what I AM...and what I write, are two different things. I have since taken the road of developing games in my own time, with my own cash, and working a steady 9-5 job that I like, and I am infinitely happier. Rather then judge me, just follow your dreams, or better still, the dreams that Rare says they can help you fulfill...and then get back to me in about 3-5 years.
I think 90% in reference to where they were hired from (as opposed to hiring a seasoned industry veteran). The actual percentage of instantiated rawness is probably 10% For example, if they hire 2 programmers from a graduate program every year for the past 9 years, then with a programming staff of 20, they'd have 90% of their programmer hires from grad school. The sports analogy is building your team through the draft and not through free agency. I can't fathom anyone having that many inexperienced faces join all at once. These are talented folks but it takes time to get each one of them up to speed and 2 experienced folks training 18? What sports team has 90% rookies?
jkelly, yes there are both bonuses and royalties (linked to sales). As well as other forms of incentives. And as I already explained I don't work saturdays (nor nights), so your whole argument about not having a social life because of work is simply not applicable. And I do have a lot of influence in what we do, as does everyone else. And what do you mean by "unless you hire on as a game developer", what else would you be hired as?
I see that you're bitter, but understand that your experience is not everyone's experience, and I think you're projecting your own bad experience on the rest of the industry which paints a highly inaccurate picture.
Nah Loh,
Exactly. 90% graduates means only that they were graduates when hired, not that 90% of the present staff is just off the university campus. (Nick says right at the beginning that he himself was an example, and he's been at Rare for ten years! Hardly a rookie...)
"In this in-depth piece, senior Rare developer Nick Burton explains how the Viva Pinata and Perfect Dark developer works with academia to nurture graduates, warning against 'cherry picking' and explaining how your developer can grow the pool of skilled game creators"
Shigeru Miyamoto is a game creator. Will Wright is a game creator. David Perry is a game creator.
Recent grad being wooed by Rare : NOT A GAME CREATOR.
Getting a degree in game making, or computer science, or whatever and then hiring on into a game company will not get you this COVETED title. I'll just submit an article to Gamasutra to explain this to you. Either Gamasutra or the author is trying to mislead people, and the record needs to be set straight.
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Historically I came back to college to study games as a new skill. I worked in I.T and technology for many years and one of the things you said rings very true.
I am 30, I think the industry might drop me for that as well so I do not put my date of birth on my CV. I get the feeling they want young code monkeys. Some one that can burn out, and I feel that this might not be the industry for me. Having worked in technology I know the difference between a good and a bad place to work, and can feel the company culture from interviews. This whole area scares me. I do not want to leave college to be overworked and underpaid, as I am already doing this in the college :)
This is why I am looking into getting back into web technology and looking at gaming from a social networking perspective. My Final year project is pretty much about this, and the problem is that the companies I have been interviewed by generally pass over my final year project , I have no portfolio as the college never nurtured the creation of any such thing.
I feel I am onto a losing streak here , and its pretty depressing , I think all of this article should be taken as the new recruitment gospel in the Industry. Thanks Nick for having the guts to point this stuff out.
You don't have to believe me, just use logic and life experience: Hire someone out of school. Watch as the people hired 3 years ago in the company begin to feel old, or no longer feel they are the shining apple of their boss's eye. Observe as the older engineers form cliques, and feel threatened by the new hire. Soon, they say "screw it, they give the new guy the stuff they used to give me before I became valuable at memory management/network coding/mundane but important task", and leave the company. Rinse, and repeat.
What you are left with are has-been mentors who are too insecure to strike out on their own, so they power trip the wide-eyed callow young hires who will eventually become envious of the cracker-jack kid right out of school who they will say "has not paid his dues yet, why should he design/have input/not make coffee???" Again, rinse and repeat.
In closing, I beseech the young people reading this to heed my warning: do not follow the path the author has laid out in this article. Rare wants the best people to "mold"? Read: The best people to use. They have a bottom line and rent to pay, just like everyone else.
They want young people who don't have families of their own so they can work you 60-70 hours a week because that's what all your peers will do. At least, the ones without families. Those with kids/wife/life are called "managers", and are not truly necessary to the end goal: making money.
It steams me to no end that Gamasutra would not advocate getting together with your friends/classmates, getting day jobs, and working on your dreams at night. That's what I do. Way more payoff, and I never feel like I am getting screwed.
RARE may be a great company but the fact is that the industry as a whole is really screwed up. If you have any involvement with the actual production and development of the game then expect to be working weekends and putting in 60+ hours a week.
I currently work on high profile console titles and what I'm saying comes from 5 years of experience. Do yourself, your family, and your friends a favor and get a different gig coming out of college. Work for a company or two that are very stable and offer you a decent salary and plenty of free time. Use some of that free time to work with other people in your boat on a decent portfolio and the other part of that free time sewing your oats and getting a steady partner for life.
ONLY THEN would I advise you to get into the gaming industry. At this point you will have:
- enough real world working experience under your belt to allow you to negotiate your salary and schedule.
- game development experience (outside of school) that has proven you have the drive and the know how
- a spouse / would-be spouse that will be there to support you and stand by you through the *crunch* times
people to use', when you have no idea about what working at Rare is like. Nick does explictly warn against doing this very thing, and I can tell you from experience that Rare does not treat employees the way you describe. Maybe Rare is a minority on this issue, and maybe that was one of the reasons why Nick wanted to write this article?
I came to Rare straight out of school. We work 9-5 except in crunch (which is a very rare occurnce, no pun intended - I've only been here for two years yet, but I've yet to be asked to stay late), except when I *choose* to stay longer. There's no pressure here, most of the time people really do leave around five - but occasionally you may want to stay late and finish something off.
I agree that treating employees the way you describe is horrible, and hurts the industry as a whole, but I do think that we should encourage the few companies that do treat their employees well and hope that others follow suit, rather than just blindly spew bile all over the industry.
On the last programming project I managed, i had a team of 18 programmers, of which around 10 were raw graduates or equivalent when
they were hired. Whilst this isn't as high as Rare's 90% graduate to experienced develop stat, it's my belief that it's a more useful recruitment mix.
One of the things i find far more concerning is the belief from companies that they only need to recruit fresh graduates as experienced developers are somehow tarnished through their experiences.
From my experiences, I found that experienced staff have got a colossal amount to offer, usually far in excess of graduates. The issue with some staff is that it can take a while to break down the issues that have been built up from previous jobs, but once you can get though that, you normally end up with staff with a burning desire to create great stuff
and the experience to get round most of the issues that often fox new programmers.
I think it's great the Rare is building links with academia to create and interest in their company and in the games industry in general, but please recruiters, don't overlook the colossal benefits of experienced staff.
I'd much rather want some young guy that thought I was a god and a buddy who took care of him and his dreams. I do like helping other people and feeling their gratitude towards me, don't get me wrong. It is satisfying and would probably drive me into the Uni's to do lectures. It would also remind me of my early days and their youthful enthusiasm for games makes me feel for a second that my work might have had some meaning. I need to stop kidding myself that doing good things and being nice is purely because I'm such a nice guy.
The reality is that running a games company is bloody hard and competitive so I wouldn't expect any charity. I'm not imagining or expecting that any of my staff would come to my aid if things go bad either. If you want to be in control of your own destiny then create your own or do something else. I have my dream too, which is to drive a Ferrari and/or a DB7 and I'd need to balance that against your needs. I might be able to save 10k per person per year and if I exclude the agency fees which I might be able to if I write articles and get direct hires then that's a 100k per 10 staff members per year probably.
I'd also try to make sure that my studio was somewhere that wasn't too easy to get to, as that would hopefully keep people longer at work, it also creates a sense of isolation and peacefulness which reminds me of what the middle ages were like in monasteries. They didn't have kids either there or they were frowned upon, but worked together in silent brotherly love and appreciation for a higher common goal. Any suffering just made them feel closer. If someone got cynical and said god didn't exist, they had to go as well so lots of parallels there.
I might consider providing new recruits with a version which is the glossy sob story with the violins or the harsh truth of the matter. I'd probably feel gratitude towards someone that had worked for me for a while and would hope they wouldn't feel bad if I had to let them go, but life is life and a company has to watch the bottom line or it won't exist or make decent profits.
I've been reading Gamasutra for 10+ years regularly and have not commented on a single article because no other article sounded alarms in my brain as much as this one. And if my voice is shrill, well...shouldn't an alarm be shrill for people to react to it?
Sadly, companies prey, and will continue to prey on the wide eyed exuberant fresh graduate who is darned lucky to be working in the games industry.
Tell me, Rare employee, do you get a piece of the action if the game does well? Do you suffer if the game pans out? Probably not. My opinion, and I'll reiterate it, is for any young graduate thinking of getting into the gaming business. You will be better served learning the subtle office politics, general business lessons, and professional nuances of working with highly engineered or creative types in a regular 9-5 software shop.
There, you'll learn about egos, both easily bruised and "how does that guy get his head thru the door each morning?", deadlines, teamwork, etc. without the headaches of 50 starving students pretty much wanting to kill for your job because they think it will be glamorous.
Unless you hire on as a game developer, and you have proven properties that sell, the most you are going to have input on is what color your cog is, or how many teeth it will have. And that's about it. It becomes a job like any other, only now you have a car payment, and your friends want you to party every Friday night after work...only you have to turn them down because you have to work a "half day" on Saturday, but how's about Sat. night? Well, along comes Mr. Monday morning, and you got bills to pay, and a friendly boss who kindly reminds you about free dinners until you get your cog built, cuz you're really good at building that one shiny cog. The grind of making a living , and you thought doing something you love would be great.
Call me cynical, or bitter, or whatever, because what I AM...and what I write, are two different things. I have since taken the road of developing games in my own time, with my own cash, and working a steady 9-5 job that I like, and I am infinitely happier. Rather then judge me, just follow your dreams, or better still, the dreams that Rare says they can help you fulfill...and then get back to me in about 3-5 years.
I see that you're bitter, but understand that your experience is not everyone's experience, and I think you're projecting your own bad experience on the rest of the industry which paints a highly inaccurate picture.
Exactly. 90% graduates means only that they were graduates when hired, not that 90% of the present staff is just off the university campus. (Nick says right at the beginning that he himself was an example, and he's been at Rare for ten years! Hardly a rookie...)
Shigeru Miyamoto is a game creator. Will Wright is a game creator. David Perry is a game creator.
Recent grad being wooed by Rare : NOT A GAME CREATOR.
Getting a degree in game making, or computer science, or whatever and then hiring on into a game company will not get you this COVETED title. I'll just submit an article to Gamasutra to explain this to you. Either Gamasutra or the author is trying to mislead people, and the record needs to be set straight.