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Is Crackdown Developer Ruffian Games Working on a New Game?

Justin Carter — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:15:17 +0000

Since the release of Crackdown 2 last year, not a lot’s been heard from developer Ruffian Games. In fact, the last anyone really heard from them was for a new DLC pack for Crackdown 2, and that was months ago. However the Scottish developer is now rumored to be working on a new multi-platform game.

Job listings at the Ruffian Games website are asking for an art director and environmental artists. The game they’re working on isn’t revealed, but they’re said to be in a “major contract with one of the biggest publishers in the industry,” so that’s potentially got the list whittled down to EA, Bethesda, Activision, Ubisoft, or Square Enix, since all of them put out multiplatform games.

Via [Joystiq]

Website Preys On Lazy Gamers Promising Playful Tester Jobs With Free Soda

Dylan Duarte — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 07:10:39 +0000

Do you want to make $150 a day doing nothing but playing video games and drinking soda, regardless of a college education? Well do ya, punk!?

Don’t you go anywhere! You sit your fat, soda-guzzlin’ ass in that chair for two lousy minutes while I tell you about the most amazing job opportunity of a lifetime! Where are you going? Get back here!

If you decide to get a job in videogame testings, the most awesomest job in the world, you will:

Get to Play NEW Video Games (Whoa!)
Get PAID to Play NEW Video Games (This keeps getting better!)
Get PAID to Play UNRELEASED Video Games before anyone else (Holy hell I didn’t think it could get any better!)
Get FREE Copies of Video Games (You mean the one I’ve been playing for six months straight?)
Get Cheat Codes, Level Secrets, and other “bugs” that only game testers know about. (Do those even exist in the information age?)
Get vital Real-World experience working with various departments such as development, marketing, manufacturing, and get “your foot in the door” to this industry. (I’m going to get my foot in your ass.)

But wait! You might not want this radical job if you HATE videogames. Oh, you don’t? Then you definitely want this job. And you’re almost kind of a little bit but not really guaranteed to make at least $20/hour to start off! And the sky is the limit! That’s right! After a few years testing games, you might be making the sky/hour!

This is the greatest job ever created. What will it take for you to believe me? A polygraph?! I’ll do it!

Alright, enough of your bullshit, you dastardly website. Game testing is a job, that’s for sure. Will you test awesome games? At some point in your career, probably. You will, however, cut your teeth on games like Winx Club, Sims Online, Michelle Kwan Figure Skating, My Frogger Toy Trials, and Girl’s Only Secret Diary. These are all games friends of mine have tested.

If you want a career in game development, than yes, get a job in game testing. And it will probably be just as shitty as any entry-level job, at least for a while. But it will get your foot in the door. The website doesn’t lie about that. There seems to be this weird game being played by the industry where they continue to pretend that being a game tester is an absolutely amazing job when everybody is completely aware that it’s not.

I included the above website screenshot so that you could see what the website looks like without actually going to it. Not only is the information there completely misleading, but it’s offering a pay service/guide that helps you land game testing jobs, if I’m understanding it correctly. It’s not very clear. What is clear is that plently of people have gotten game testing jobs by applying like normal adults rather than going through some shady service.

In the interest of fairness, the link to the site in question is below. Before clicking it, please note two things:

1 – This is one of those sites where, if you close it or navigate away, they ask “ARE YOU SUUUUUUURE” and take you to some other page with other offers.

2 – This site really, really sucks.

http://mygametesterjobs.info/

Square Enix Looking For Fans With Good Fiction

Sean Mitchuson — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:09:51 +0000

Square Enix has posted on their career board the chance of a lifetime for many a video game fan. They want a writer to live in Tokyo and help turn those wonderful games that come out into an English speaking experience as opposed to a Japanese one.

This position is written up really open ended. The required skills basically grind down to a person that has been to college or taken AP English, studied a little Japanese, and has two to three years experience working in an industry. Mind you it doesn’t say video game industry so I think they are really asking for trouble.

You have to mail everything to Shinjuku for consideration and a long with that resume they want a creative writing sample. The sample is to be 800 to 1000 words about a character from a Sqaure game that gets stuck in Japan and “using the language of the position” write a story. Let the fan fiction jokes begin.

I of course, will be applying as well because of course its a dream job. Im sure my application will be among hundreds of thousands of fan fictions to grace the desks of some poor human resources department people to review and then stamp not accepted and be mailed back. Yes, that’s right, Square is going to mail back your submission after they have decided if they want you or not.

So get out there, good luck and write something worth reading.

Source: Square Enix via Kotaku

BioShock 2 Multiplayer Leak? Gamasutra Job Description Gives Hope

John Kershaw — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:25:12 +0000

BioShock was a game of the year for a lot of people last year, but a common criticism (and praise, in some circles) was its focus on the single player story, with the game having no multiplayer options. All that could change for BioShock 2. 2K Boston (the makers of BioShock) have started looking for a “Lead Multiplayer Designer”.

The last piece of BioShock 2 info we found out about confirmed that 2K Marin not 2K Boston were working on the sequel, taking a few of the 2K Boston people with them. But don’t forget, the original BioShock was produced as a collaboration between two 2K studios, Boston and Australia (two halves of the former Irrational Games). Could 2K Boston be making BioShock 2 multiplayer?

The job description goes on to drop a few hints about the game (possibly red-herrings, but we can hope) mentioning that “BioShock had no multi-player mode. We don’t believe in throwing in something that can’t go head to head with the big boys.”

The description continues to say that “[w]e expect you to be familiar with BioShock and other 2K Boston/Irrational products and be able to speak critically about them.”

Am I reading too hard between the lines here? Or could this be the first evidence to emerge of BioShock 2 multiplayer? Perhaps the multiplayer is being created by 2K Boston, with the single player game being produced by 2K Marin?

The full job description posted to Gamasutra reads:

Summary of Position:

2K Boston, the team that brought you BioShock, is looking for a talented, experienced game designer to lead a multiplayer design team on our next big project.

You will be responsible for creating, documenting and communicating multiplayer design concepts and mechanics. Additionally, you will be required to work with our design tools to implement game mechanics or parameters and test and tune those. You will probably be required to do a certain amount of level building or design as well, though this is not the major focus of the role.

BioShock had no multi-player mode. We don’t believe in throwing in something that can’t go head to head with the big boys. No applicants will be considered who aren’t able to demonstrate they’ve got the skills to build an industry-changing multiplayer design.

Responsibilities:

You must be familiar with the current state of the art in multiplayer game design across a wide range of genres on both PC and console. You must be capable of analyzing and critiquing game designs and using that analysis to inform your own design sensibilities. We expect you to be familiar with BioShock and other 2K Boston/Irrational products and be able to speak critically about them.

Finally, there are a wide variety of miscellaneous other tasks associated with this position such as speaking at conferences, working on game documentation and manuals and occasional PR duties.

Required Experience and Skills:

This position requires a high degree of creativity. You will be required to work with the single player team to form a “vision” of the multiplayer experience and use that vision to inform your design decisions. From there, you will help build a multiplayer design team and be responsible to guide your team through the entire production cycle.

An important part of the role is then communicating that vision clearly and concisely to the rest of the team and ensuring that they have a clear and specific mandate for their work. You must also provide a receptive ear so that other team members can provide input on the game design and feel that it is paid attention to.

Above all we are looking for somebody with enthusiasm, passion and the desire to create a multiplayer experience that is on par with the industry-leading single player experiences created at 2K Boston.

When Applying for this Position:

Please remember to include: game design documents, writing samples, video or screenshot samples of some of your work and/or game analysis as appropriate.

Additional Requirements:

This position requires a high degree of creativity. You will be required to work with the single player team to form a “vision” of the multiplayer experience and use that vision to inform your design decisions. From there, you will help build a multiplayer design team and be responsible to guide your team through the entire production cycle.

An important part of the role is then communicating that vision clearly and concisely to the rest of the team and ensuring that they have a clear and specific mandate for their work. You must also provide a receptive ear so that other team members can provide input on the game design and feel that it is paid attention to.

Source: Gamasutra Jobs