• 09Jun

  Opinion Piece: Career Choice: Working in games or film?

  Opinion Piece, Opportunities 222 Comments

  Film & Games Careers:  Your choice

  Career choice is not easy.  Global Head of Talent Brand, Matthew Jeffery, provides us with an insight into the tough choice many face…working in film or games.

  Let me know your views on what he has to say.

  EArl

  Opinion Piece: Matthew Jeffery…….’Career Choice: Working in games or film’?

  Look back a few years.  Gaming was seen as the awkward cousin of film.  Like the spotty geek sitting at the corner of the school disco, waiting to be asked to dance.  Film & film production was seen as the career destination of choice for top creative talent, the hot mover of the disco.  People in film looked at the games industry and were frustrated that they could not bring their creative spark across into the industry without being limited by the technology at their disposal.  Working on a PS2 or Xbox, challenged creative talent but not in ways they wanted as memory limitations really curtailed what they could bring to the party.  Work in film on cutting VFX productions or come into gaming with block text & graphics.  Easy choice.  Fast forward that to today and how things have changed.

  Just consider for one minute how far the games industry has come and the innovations that we have already seen.  Look back to the 1970′s when gamers were feasting on the likes of Pong, Space Invaders and Pacman, simple games visually but albeit with fun gameplay.  Now fast forward to today when we look forward to graphical tour de force games like Crysis 2, NFS Shift and Dante’s Inferno.  That’s a stunning achievement and testament to how far the games industry has come.  But this is not just about visuals.  Games are interactive, running in real time, with complex AI, physics engines all running online for millions of gamers to play and enjoy….but more of that later!

  Only last week the games industry had another WOW moment with the announcement of Project Natal by Microsoft.  The idea of playing games with no controllers but based on body scanning technology that records your movement in real time and comprises of voice recognition technology.  That’s a WOW moment.  Imagine playing football with no controller or driving a car hands free…all now stunning realisations about to be brought to the market.  Watching the promo video by Peter Molyneux of Milo was also stunning.  Imagine a computer character that you can interact with, that can identify basic emotions and hold conversation with you.  WOW.  Now imagine working on that technology, making new games incorporating it?  Now that’s a fun, creative and intellectual challenge…..and imagine the possibilities of what this technology can create.  And this is only one form of technological advancement in gaming, not even mentioning the new games in development with real 3d! 

  Let’s contrast that briefly with film.  There are many WOW moments across the history of film.  Who can forget Ray Harryhausen’s ‘Clash of the Titans’ and the stop go motion of those beasts from the deep; ‘Tron’ with the first incorporation of CG…the stunning lightcycle chases; the inspiring effects from ‘Star Wars’ and those mesmerising space battles; ’Terminator 2′ and the liquid nitrogen effects of the Terminator chasing Arnie through the hospital and morphing through the iron bars..then getting his gun stuck; Spielberg’s classic, ‘Jurassic Park’, with Dinosaurs that really did feel real; ‘Toy Story’ the first full length CG animated feature, to this day still stunning.  All WOW moments that had us on the edge of our cinema seats in awe and mouthing ’How did they do that’?

  But in some ways, the immense trickery and visual brilliance of the VFX houses have anaesthetised audiences, as we are now used to their brilliance.  In fact we come to expect it.  Take ‘Transformers’, a superb film.  But seeing Megatron or Optimus Prime transform is mightily impressive, but we are used to grand VFX and we expect to see it and almost demand more and more effects when we watch a film.  Hence, currently, the WOW effects in film feel like they have hit the pause button. 

  Interaction is a huge bonus for the games industry.  In film the film director takes you on a journey, they take you through a roller coaster of emotions, all on their linear ride.  They control what you see.  In games, YOU control, what you see, what you do, how you interact, the camera angles.  Developers are even happy to provide you with the tools to create your own games, like Spore and Sony Classics like LittleBigPlanet.  This all involves a lot of technical challenges for creative talent. 

  So when you sit down to make that career choice, think of the future….think of how much you want to be challenged in your career and where the games industry has come from and where it could be in another 20 years!  Who knows.  Virtual Reality?  Full 3D?  Neural Gaming?  What we do know that we will have great fun pushing the limits of technology to their limits and beyond as we continue to entertain millions of people.  One final thought to leave this discussion on…………….

  Burnout Paradise sees the release of Big Surf Island DLC this week…that’s a whole brand new island for the game.  Now consider this.  Criterion Games, the developers behind this game, are recruiting now, take a look at www.jobs.ea.com  Think of the technical challenges they face behind this game including; running the game at 60 frames per second, real time physics, full car deformation & splintering, taking the game online, with 8 gamers racing together, lag free.  Wowsers, that some challenges and that is just scraping the surface.

  Captured your attention?  Join us in a career in gaming…………………..

  © 2009 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners

  

  

  Tags: Big Surf Island, Burnout Paradise, film careers, game careers, Matthew Jeffery

• 29May

  Reflection Point: The rise of Games Degrees

  Reflection Point 551 Comments

  

  EArl believes that there is no tougher decision for a student than choosing which University to study at and what degree they should choose.  This is the 2^nd reflection point of the day, (to kick the series off, and goes in depth).  Students are faced with a multitude of choices.  Often selecting a career to go into after University is not at the forefront of a student’s thoughts.  Many don’t know what they want to do exactly and hence further study at University delays their career choice.  What the video games industry is witnessing is that there is a huge, growing undercurrent of people wanting to work in gaming, and why not?  Gaming is the fastest growing media segment, it is holding up well in a recession, the sector is earning more in revenues than the Hollywood box office, games are becoming more and more recognised as a great form of entertainment, and those in technical roles see the HUGE challenges that working in games provides. And students can see that the games industry is maturing with competitive compensation and benefits, training & development and solid career structures.

   

  The allure of gaming is interestingly having a number of effects.  Firstly that Universities are recognising the appeal that students have for wanting to work in gaming.  Hence they are reacting.  Universities themselves are facing challenges.  Trends are starting to emerge that traditional degrees are becoming less and less popular.  Degrees like Maths, Physics, Computer Science, Business Studies, English are seeing, in some cases, seeing year on year falls in applicants at degree level of 10-15%.  That is a lot.  Why is that?  Well students are faced by growing choices—hundreds of new courses to choose from.  Thus, Universities, have to compete to attract students and hence offer more and more courses.  More students, means more funding for their University.  Hence, like any business would do, they have to ensure they have a solid mass of student numbers to maximise revenue for their budgets.  Unpopular Universities get less money.

   

  Given the huge interest in gaming, Universities have started offering a range of games degrees courses and specialist courses like game design.  Many at EA have spoken out on this issue, including Matthew Jeffery, the Global Head of Talent Brand.  Here he discusses with Phil Elliott the Editor of GamesIndsutry.biz, concerns over education http://tiny.cc/6UyR1 a year back.

   

  Now, given the huge proliferation of courses, over 150 in the UK alone, how does a student know which courses to select from?  How can they spot the quality courses from the hastily organised?  This is a critical question.  What is clear is that senior figures in the games industry are concerned at the quality of some of these courses and hence for the future of the students on these courses. There are many great games courses, particularly in the USA, but key to this blog is saying to students….please think, research and understand the University & course choice you have made.

   

  What is also a concern is that game design courses are spiralling.  Game design is the hardest discipline to recruit for a games company, quite literally because a great game designer came come from anywhere.  A games programmer will generally have a maths/physics/computer science background and can easily be assessed though a programming test.  An artist can be assessed by the strength of their showreel.  A game designer?  Well they could come via Quality Assurance, (ie games testing), and through their passion of gaming and understanding the dynamics of a game, move on into design.  They could be an artist, a programmer, a producer, a marketer.  Game Design comprises of natural skills, like creativity.  Now consider that a game team recruits externally for very few game designers, (especially given the HUGE competition for the role internally).  How many game designers do you see being recruited in the industry at any given time…..very few.  In Matthew’s interview he points to the previous 300 hires, only 3 were entry level game designers.  And that is for EA a large employer of talent. 

   

  Also, important to remember, as you look at game design courses is new ways that game designers are being spotted and recruited into the industry.  With games possessing more and more potential for User Generated Content, gamers can show off their creating skills and levels they built to potential recruiters.  Microsoft XNA has helped a whole community of games see the light of day on the Xbox Live Community.  So, students remember, studying for a Game Design degree does not necessarily place you at the front of the queue for a job.

   

  So there is a very real danger of a flood of game design graduates coming on to the market and them not being able to get a job in games.  How transferrable is a Games Design Degree into other industries? (already recruiting at low levels due to the recession).  Not highly transferable as it is quite a niche course.  So, if a graduate can’t get a job in gaming and it is hard to transfer into other job markets, what do they do?  The prospect of unemployment for a graduate is frightening but a very real one.  Not what any one wants to see.

   

  As you will see from the interview with Matthew, EA has a lot of success with Graduates from traditional degrees, (maths, physics, computer science, English, Business Studies), as students have the grounding to understand how things work, feel happy getting into the detail generally and are highly inquisitive.  Several games degree courses teach specifics like the history of gaming or look at programming one technology eg EA has interviewed students recently that were taught to program the PS2, (when PS3 been in market for a couple of years already).  The speed of the development of the games industry, leaves technologies quickly feeling dated, hence teaching core traditional skills helps the student adapt than focusing on teaching current technology or system specific information.  Also, arguably, possessing a traditional degree leaves more options open to the graduate….eg they can apply for jobs and stand a greater chance of success in different sectors.

   

  So what advice can EArl give on choosing your degree?  Tough call for a student.  In the UK Skillset started off accrediting key recommended Universities and awarding specific courses its seal of recommendation.  However, given Skillset have nominated only a few courses and not one as yet comes from outside of a games degree course, students don’t have a definitive place to look for recommended courses. 

   

  EArl’s advice for any student wanting to work in games is to ask a number of key questions when selecting their degree to their University of choice….

   

  -           How many former students have gone on to work in the games industry?

  -           What percentage of candidates end up working in games?

  -           What companies have they gone on to work for (look at the names and make a judgement on their quality)

  -           What history of success do former students have in being promoted?  (any industry superstars?)

  -           Which games companies do the University partner with on advice for academic course curricula?

  -           Do any games companies come and speak at their University?

  -           What careers have students gone onto who were not employed into games?

   

  Hopefully, you get the idea……….

   

  Given that, in the UK, the average student leaves University with a personal debt of approaching £20,000, choosing the best course to build a career is vital.

   

  Love to hear your views on this contentious subject.

   

  EArl    

  © 2009 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners

  

  

  Tags: Game Design Degrees, Games Degrees, graduates, Matthew Jeffery, University

• 22May

  The Recruitment Revolution…..revisited…what’s your view?

  People 10 Comments

  

  Back in December, Edge Magazine published an interesting interview with Matthew Jeffery, (Global Head of Talent Brand).  Given the interest in recruitment, following Paul Bolman’s great blog piece earlier in the week, EArl thought it a good time to revisit this Edge interview, which covers many interesting areas…..take a look at…. http://tinyurl.com/r5o2cz

  This interview is pretty wide ranging and covers thought provoking topics including:   Is there a recruitment crisis?   Salaries in the the games industry.   How to get into the games industry.   EA’s attitude to graduates.  Games degrees.  User Generated Content & recruitment.  The legacy of ‘EA Spouse’ and working hours in gaming.  EA & ‘sequelitus’.  Growth of Asia & it’s impact.

  Take a look….and let us know your views……..

  If you have any questions for Matthew, I will ensure he comes to this site and answers them directly.

  Thanks, EArl

  © 2009 Electronic Arts Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

  

  

  Tags: Matthew Jeffery, Recruitment Revolution

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