1. What was your job?
2. Where have you worked?
3. What was your ordinary day,
4. do you worked with a team,
5. communicated a lot with them, talked, discussed about the game,
6. maybe got a beer after work or something,
7. or have you just sat in a room and did your job?
8. Have you ever played your game while developing it?
9. What was your working conditions, like do you worked at home?
10. Have you had free time after work?
11. And in conclusion, was it interesting to work? [/quote]
1. Game designer, producer.
2. Activision, Sega, Atari.
3. Read http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson14.htm and http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson42.htm
4. Yes.
5. Yes.
6. Yes.
7. Yes.
8. ALWAYS. It is a necessity.
9. I have done that too.
10. Most of the time yes. Sometimes no.
11. Always.

Hello, I'm thinking about my career as a game developer. I always liked to make games, models, sounds, program them and bring everything together to make a game. It is my hobby and for a year I made my games alone. I would like to know what are your experiences as a paid game developer? I would really grateful if you can answer these questions, so I can decide what to do, keep game development as my hobby or study it further and work in a game industry:

What was your job?

Where have you worked?[/quote]

In the games industry, my first job was for Egosoft GmbH. I currently work for ArenaNet.

What was your ordinary day, do you worked with a team, communicated a lot with them, talked, discussed about the game, maybe got a beer after work or something, or have you just sat in a room and did your job?[/quote]

In my experience, game development is a pretty social occupation. Both of my industry jobs have been with teams, one small and one large. Communication is a huge part of the job, and I spend a decent chunk of every day just catching up with different people and talking about what we're working on. At ArenaNet we also have weekly sessions where everyone is encouraged to play the game for a while just to see how it's coming together and possibly spot bugs. Both companies have been great for after-work socialization and such; generally you get to know people pretty well because you have to work closely with them day in and day out. If the place doesn't totally suck, you'll probably make some good friends.

I have never just sat around doing my job blindly and blandly, in the games business. It's a different environment than many other professional programming situations, where sitting in a room doing nothing but work all day is expected, if not outright demanded. For example, today the guys in my group spent a fair amount of time watching coverage of E3, and it isn't uncommon to take an hour or two to go play ping-pong or Xbox in the lounge. Overall, as others have said, it's a pretty relaxed lifestyle. Some places are less relaxed than others, but I daresay that the average industry job is far less strict and "businesslike" than the average programming gig outside of games.

Have you ever played your game while developing it?[/quote]

Absolutely. Sometimes just for fun, but mostly for testing and making sure things work properly. At ArenaNet we are expected to play for a couple of hours every week just to make sure that there's plenty of people hammering on the game so that we know it's solid.

What was your working conditions, like do you worked at home? Have you had free time after work?[/quote]

For Egosoft I worked remotely from my home, telecommuting to an office in Germany (I'm in the US). This had its pros and cons obviously, but it was kind of nice to be able to set whatever hours I wanted and pretty much do things as I felt like. However, there are definite advantages to working in an office setting as well. I probably won't work from home at all for ArenaNet (I just started) simply because I'd rather be in the office to handle any serious tasks.

I have plenty of time outside of work either way.

And in conclusion, was it interesting to work?[/quote]

Without exception.

Some kinds of "interesting" are more stressful than others, of course, but I've certainly never been bored or wanted to do something else for a job. That isn't to say that I've never been tired or burnt out, mind you - that happens, too. It's important to balance work and the rest of your life, which some companies are good about and others... not so much. At Egosoft we crunched a fair bit; at ArenaNet, crunching is virtually forbidden.

But it's always interesting. Sometimes it can be tedious or dull, repetitive work (especially when hunting certain kinds of bugs, for instance) but that's always temporary, and it's always rewarding to get to the end of a bit of tedium and see results.

What was your job?
Where have you worked?
What was your ordinary day, do you worked with a team, communicated a lot with them, talked, discussed about the game, maybe got a beer after work or something, or have you just sat in a room and did your job?
Have you ever played your game while developing it?
What was your working conditions, like do you worked at home? Have you had free time after work?
And in conclusion, was it interesting to work?

I have these same questions, but for video game music composers.

[quote name='LainaLainnn' timestamp='1308621561' post='4825776']
I have these same questions, but for video game music composers.