Games Industry is now playing with the big boys in the playground.
Thu, 02 Feb 2012
The games industry has historically suffered the problem that all new industries face which is being taken seriously by national and local government and quasi government institutions that have been built up to serve the existing, long standing industries. The games industry does not fit in nicely to established structures. Yes it is a new industry in the Media sector but it also has a strong technology bias. This is well illustrated by a look at the UK governments Skill Councils. One exists for the creative industries sector: Skillset and one exists for information technology: E-skills. Skillset looks at games as just another of its 10 creative industries. E-skills looked on games as just another subset of the information technology sector.
This has all changed with the recently published Government’s response to Next Gen. Transforming the UK into the world’s leading talent hub for the video games and visual effects industries. Firstly the Government has not just taken notice, officially,of a research paper and its recommendations prepared by the games ( and the visual effects sectors) but it has also responded publicly and in 85 paragraphs of detail. Yes this is great fillip for those s in the games industry that think the government never listen but most of all, the response sets out clearly its view on how the games industry should be interacting with the other players in the playground. This means that the other institutions like the Sector Skills sectors have to play ball and work closely with the games industry if they are to keep in with central government masters.
Institutions like e-skills UK, The Computer Clubs for Girls, STEM Clubs, STEMNET, NESTA, The Department of Education, Skillset, The National Skills Academy for IT now have the Governments recommendations to study as does the games industry. It is now expected that these bodies will work together for the good of transforming the UK into the world’s leading talent hub for the games and VFX industries. The games industry is now playing with the big boys.
Interactive Selection offer the most experienced Non Executive Directors in Games sector.
Sat, 28 Jan 2012
A non executive directorship is an appointment to the board of a company on a part time basis. The work of a non executive director (NED) generally involves making buiness introductions and attending board meetings, with the aim of jump starting the company’s success through the provision of experienced, intelligent advice to the company board, the chairman or management. NED’s are rare in the games sector unless the games company has venture capital funding but they are sorely needed. Why pay £25000 a year for a junior programmer when you can pay 1/2 this to have one of the most experienced, former games publisher European MD’s on your team. The very first board meeting may pay back 10 times the cost of the NED board fees. Interactive Selection have sought out and welcomed through personal recommendation 6 of the most talented, most experienced, former MD’s who have ran mega teams for the likes of EA, Microsoft, Sony and THQ with the very best of door opening contacts in all the high places. Please contact David Smith if you are interested in strengthening your team or indeed you are interested in joining Interactive’s great talent pool for NED appointments.
Interactive Selection is a proud member of PEER Game Recuiters
Sat, 28 Jan 2012
Interactive Selection was the first non US recruiter to be invited to join the trade association of Professional Electronic Entertainment Recruiters (PEER) which comprises the recruiters worldwide committed to serving better the industry. All PEER members stand by the association’s Charter Agreement which demands the highest professional recruiting standards and practices. PEER now has a Twitter account at http://twitter.com/peer_org
Follow Interactive Selection’s jobs immediately as published on new Twitter feed @gamesjobs
Sat, 28 Jan 2012
Twitter can give you instant access to the jobs being advertised by Interactive Selection’s clients microseconds after they are published on our jobs database.Why wait to be contacted by your Interactive Selection consultant when you can find about the job – perhaps even ahead of the consultant! No expense has been spared to bring you this information ahead of potentially other job seekers. You just need to follow @gamesjobs on Twitter by going to www.twitter.com/gamesjobs and clicking “Follow”. Not got a twitter account yet? We recommend you get one. They are free and you need to reserve one with your name before somebody else does. You are not obliged to tweet anything. Just follow the people you are interested in and the information comes to you instantly and for free. You might also like to follow me @davidsmithuk at www.twitter.com/davidsmithuk for business tweets about Interactive Selection, Game Contractor, Game Careers and Women in Games Jobs.
Happy Christmas & New Year from Interactive Selection and the Games Job Blog
Wed, 21 Dec 2011
Happy Christmas & New Year from David Smith, Adrian Garrick, Cassandra Donnelly, Carrie Eckersley, Aurelie Busollo and Samantha Ambridge at Interactive Selection. The office is manned or should that be “peopled” on normal working days over Christmas.
Over 60000 watch Interactive’s Game Careers and Women in Games Jobs videos on YouTube
Wed, 21 Dec 2011
Over 60000 have watched Interactive Selection’s Game Careers and Women in Games Jobs videos on YouTube. You can check the full 140 uploaded videos yourself at http://www.youtube.com/user/interactiveselection Over 20 more interviews were filmed at gamescom 2011 and have been launched on Game Careers and Women in Games Jobs in recent months. The first video on the channel was launched in July 2009 and is a global favourite with visitors from all over the world. 19% of the viewers on average are female. No other international recruiter offers this service to prospective job seekers in the video and online games industry.
Games Job Board offers another free trial to game developer advertisers.
Sat, 10 Dec 2011
Greetings from Games Job Board – the job board serving the global games and interactive entertainment industry. See http://www.gamesjobboard.com Simply named, it delivers more games jobs in more locations to more job seekers in one of the most exciting industries on the planet. The Job Board is powered by the JobThread engine. JobThread, Inc is privately held company based in New York City that was founded in 2003. Games Job Board is not an employment agency or recruitment consultancy. It is part of the DS Interactive Group. FREE TRIAL Games Job Board is offering a free trial of this service to established, bona fide games publishers and developers with multiple jobs to fill. Please contact the Sales Manager, Samantha Ambridge by email on ads@gamesjobboard.com for full details.
Edge Magazine Issue 220 Get Into Games: David Smith, Interactive Selection
Sat, 10 Dec 2011
Mentoring prospective students and employees has become something of a free-for-all over recent years, what with publishers, developers and even governments using the latest online channels, among other things, to pick the fruit straight from the tree. Not that it bothers the learned industry recruiter, whose role can extend far beyond the knowledge and self-interest of employers. David Smith founded Interactive Selection in 1996, its success coming not through paid advertising but pure word of mouth. The company has offices in Japan and the Nordic territories, and conducts its own developer interviews on its website.
You haven’t mentioned social networking, which is probably a bigger influence than the other three. Sites like LinkedIn are a godsend for internal recruiters in particular, as well as for people with their own LinkedIn profile who want to talk directly to employers. But in terms of the role of the recruiter – and yes, it’s changing all the time – I’d say that recruiters these days are much less a necessary middleman than a necessary guide or confidante, or even a trusted professional advisor. That can be for employers as well, not just jobseekers. We offer that extra bit of expertise in what is a very fast and changing market.The difference between that and a jobseeker talking to a recruiter is that developers only have the one job to offer, which is with their particular company. Recruiters are paid to have a knowledge of the overall market and don’t just offer a portfolio of potential jobs – they can also talk to jobseekers on a job-by-job basis. If you’ve got a job with Quantic Dream, they’re not going to offer you a job at Ubisoft down the road – they’re interested in their immediate needs, so they’re never going to be able to offer the advice that we give, which is really to look after people over their whole career.
Realtime Worlds is an interesting situation because there have been companies going up to Dundee to meet RTW staff, or offering to meet them. But it’s been very public. There’ve actually been press releases about Sega, Sony, Activision, Blizzard, Crytek and CCP going up to talk directly to RTW staff. Now, historically, if a recruiter had done that – and don’t forget the recruiter’s working on behalf of the developers who can’t find their way up to Dundee – they would be called ambulance-chasers. Recruiters have been known to stand in car parks as people have walked out the building with the doors closed behind them giving out business cards. That’s always gone on yet, in the RTW case, people are trying to highlight themselves as the saviours of the employees. In reality, there’s an element of self-interest, and that’s always been the case whenever a high-profile developer with top talent is in serious trouble, certainly over the last five years.
I don’t think people from the UK industry, or people thinking about working the UK, should be overly concerned. It’s obviously a blow for the industry, and it’s a blow for Scotland in particular, but the factors at RTW were atypical, and so it doesn’t call into doubt, necessarily, other developers within the UK.
That’s an interesting one because technically – legally – the job of the recruiter is just to make the introduction between the jobseeker and the employer. That literally takes a split-second in terms of an email hitting the relevant person’s inbox – but I would argue that the job of the recruiter never ends. We’re representing people over their careers, not just for the next job. That’s certainly the principle we’ve tried to adhere to.
In one of your interviews, Quantic Dream refers to understanding their heritage and ‘passing the test’ during interview. What kinds of things should applicants brace themselves for in general?All developers are different and all the interview processes are different. Fortunately, the UK and European industry is nowhere near what happens in the US, where people go for all-day interviews and it’s a test of stamina as much as creative and technical skills. Every recruiter at every level will tell people looking for a job to do their homework, and because every company is different you need to play their games and be able to comment critically on what you like and don’t like.
Interviews in Europe or the UK are a fairly standard format – not forgetting that, besides the face-to-face interview, there may be technical tests to take. But I was quite shocked a few years ago at GDC, where I went to a presentation with the hiring manager from Obsidian, and he was telling everyone what their process was. You turned up at nine o’clock and, over the next eight hours or so, were interviewed by everyone in the company. Then you were called in at the end of the day and quite craftily asked the questions you were asked at the beginning. And if you couldn’t get on with just about everyone in the company and stay focused when your mind was deadened… It wasn’t just about stamina but about: do you fit in? One of my initiatives at Interactive Selection has been the issue of women in the games market. You can imagine that, in that kind of eight–hour stamina test where people in the company are looking to hire someone in their own image, if the company’s full of blokes, girls might find it quite difficult to share most of the common aspects of the average male game developer.
You have a presence in Japan as well as the UK and Nordic region. What’s the truth about Westerners getting jobs over there?It’s almost impossible to get a job in a Japanese developer unless you speak fluent Japanese. There are one or two development studios that have been set up by Westerners – mainly Americans – who have hired people in the past from overseas. We’ve helped bring those people to Japan, but the Japanese economy is still very poor. Japanese game developers recognise they need to hire people from around the world so that their games sell globally, but the harsh reality is that Japanese developers are struggling even more than in the West.
Generally, a lot of hirers look at sites like Metacritic when people have credits on their CV, and if they’re working on games that don’t score well, then they’ll rule them out for interview purposes. The quality and success of games on a CV do matter. With something like APB, I think employers are more likely to pay attention to the fact that, even though the game is new and not yet successful, it is an MMO and they’ve been doing some interesting things. So because it’s a relatively new genre as far as the UK is concerned, it wouldn’t matter a jot. The fact is that they’re working for a well-established and recognised company, and it’s struggled for reasons that aren’t necessarily to do with individual employees. People who worked on APB will be in big demand.
That was somebody whose business is to set up subsidiaries overseas, in countries like India and Canada. It’s been successful and companies like Sumo Digital and Monumental have used that same company to set up in India. So it has worked, but they were trying to do the same thing in Canada and I guess they were a little overzealous, really trying to get developers to take advantage of Canadian tax benefits. They seemed to be targeting individual developers and that got everyone very excited about people poaching from the UK. When anyone talks about the brain drain from the UK, it’s a bit of a red herring because the UK is brain-draining people from Central and Eastern Europe as fast as they can. People working in Poland or the Czech Republic, or even France and Germany: if UK developers can attract them here then they will do. Brain drains work from typically low-cost countries to those with a higher standard of living, so yes, people from UK want to work in the US, but likewise people from Eastern and Central Europe are dying to get a job in Western Europe. It’s difficult to talk about national boundaries in games development.
Follow Games Job Blog / Interactive News / Recruiterblog on Twitter
Sat, 10 Dec 2011
You can now follow Games Job Blog / Interactive News / Recruiterblog on Twitter. Our Twitter name is “DavidSmithUK”. Twitterers can subscribe by going to http://twitter.com/davidsmithuk
Learn more about Women in Games Jobs, now a “not for profit” or Community Interest Company.
Sat, 03 Dec 2011
Women in Games Jobs was incorporated as a “not for profit” or Community Interest Company under the UK’s Companies Act 2006 on 2 June 2011. Its objects are to recruit more women into the games industry by promoting role models and giving encouragement and information to those women seeking to work in games, and to campaign to make the games industry a more attractive field for women, both for new entrants and to retain women already working in the industry. The Articles of Association explain explicitly: ” The Company is not established or conducted for private gain: any profits or assets are used principally for the benefit of the community.” The community is defined as “the online and video games industry, specifically women working in the games industry and those women seeking to work in the games industry.”
David Smith, founder of Women in Games Jobs, commented: “This is an important event to further this initiative that was started nearly 2 years ago. Those looking from outside of the games industry can now see evidence that key figures in the games industry are taking steps to address the gender imbalance that exists in the video and online games industry, much as it does in other relatively new industries where comparable groups have also been formed. I think that games trade bodies in the UK and elsewhere are aware of many of the issues and Women in Games Jobs looks forward to working closely with all interested parties to progress this cause.”
All those interested in this initiative should check the latest on the web site at Women in Games Jobs. You can join over 2700 women in games in the LinkedIn professional membership group here.
