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| [Industry insight from Justin Stark, general manager at DAM.] TOP 5 MISTAKES MADE BY JOB SEEKERS
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DAM's Justin Stark: "Many job seekers shoot themselves in the foot even before they've spoken with anyone."
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Over the years, the team here at DAM has encountered job seekers of all flavors -- from the "timid, one-word answer" guy to the "you're lucky I've even agreed to talk to you" guy.
With such a plentiful and varied group of personalities, we thought it would be helpful to the industry to share some of the interviewing follies that have occurred during the better part of this decade in the hopes of putting both job seekers and employers in a better position to secure either the job or the employee for which they are looking.
This month we'll focus on the job seeker; next month, the employer.
Behold, the top 5 mistakes made by job seekers during and leading up to the interview process:
1. Haphazard And Irrelevant Resume Submissions. A job seeker's first chance to make an impression to a prospective employer exists during the initial submission of the resume, cover letter, and demo reel/code samples. Invariably, many candidates shoot themselves in the foot before they've even spoken with anyone for any number of reasons.
For instance, an artist with only 3DS Max experience submits for a "Maya generalist" opening or a junior candidate submits for a senior level spot. In both of these instances, the candidate is unqualified and knows it, but submits anyway only to become irritated that no employer responds. We've even seen candidates submit cover letters that contain greetings addressed to another studio's HR department. If you haven't taken the time to read the job description or company bio, why do you expect the employer to have the courtesy to reply?
Here are a few rules of thumb that will help increase the percentages in your favor …
Click here to read the full article »
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| [Industry insight from journalist Paul "The Game Master" Hyman.]
Q&A: SPARKPLAY READIES 'EARTH ETERNAL'
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SparkPlay Media CEO Matt Mihaly (top) and VP of business development David Kaye. |
The success of the games industry has lead to a growing number of small studios forming with the help of venture-capital or private equity. One of those is San Francisco-based SparkPlay Media which is developing an unusual MMOG that is designed to use some of the more popular social networks as customer acquisition tools. DAM spent a few minutes chatting with CEO Matt Mihaly and VP of business development David Kaye to learn more about the new company's focus.
DAM: Matt, what was your inspiration for founding SparkPlay? Was it to build MMOs only?
Matt Mihaly: David and I were two of the founders of Iron Realms Entertainment back in 1996 which was a company dedicated to making niche text MUDs, the predecessors to today's graphical MMOs. But business in that area kind of leveled off, and we felt the time was right to do something that was browser-playable with a very low barrier to entry for a quality 3-D product. Also, people were becoming a lot more accepting of micro-transactions in the West. So we started out trying to produce an MMO, which we called "Earth Eternal," that used an isometric viewpoint. As time went on, we transformed the game into a fully 3-D environment. And that's when we started getting approached by venture capitalists.
DAM: You must have been pleased about that.
Mihaly: Not really. Our attitude was "no, not interested." I'd always looked at VCs as "vulture capitalists," having gotten a very negative impression of them during the dot.com boom when they made out like bandits and everyone else who bought stock on the public market suffered.
DAM: What made you change your mind?
Mihaly: As I started meeting some of the VCs, I realized they were smart, competent people who were very convincing about what we would be able to do if we had more money … how we could accelerate our plans. And that started to get us excited. Then, with the growth of the Facebook platform, we realized that we could take the traditional MMO experience and …
Click here to read the full article »
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| Industry insight from journalist Paul "The Game Master" Hyman. [Reprinted with permission from "The Hollywood Reporter."]
CASUAL GAMES LOOK TO AD-SUPPORTED 'TV MODEL'
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Gamers are treated to an
anti-drug message at an appropriate pause
in "Super Collapse!"
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Some may recall a time not so very long ago when it didn't cost a red cent to watch television. Advertisers funded everyone's home entertainment and the only price you paid to watch your favorite sitcom was having to sit through the commercials.
It's an antiquated model as far as the TV industry is concerned -- which now imposes both advertising and cable bills on its audience -- but it seems to appeal to the casual video game business which has been less-than-successful in selling its wares.
Casual game developers even have a name for their malady -- the "99% problem" -- so-called because for every 100 people downloading a casual game, on average only one actually pays for it. The other 99 take advantage of the usual 60-minute "free trial period" and, once that ends, they move on to another freebie. In effect, the casual games industry is being supported by only 1% of its fans, a situation that has been fairly consistent over the last four years.
But Web portals that publish games and then struggle to sell them, like RealArcade and GameHouse which are both owned by Seattle-based RealNetworks, are increasingly turning to ads, rather than purchases, to monetize the popular entertainment. And, lo and behold, gamers seem to be responding positively.
According to the results of a survey of 1,500 gamers by RealNetworks, nearly 90% said they would prefer to watch video ads before and during natural breaks in casual games rather than pay to play. In addition, 34% said they would take further action and click on the in-game ads to learn more about the advertised product or service.
"Were we surprised? You better believe it," said Chris Houtzer, RealNetworks' director of New Media. "We started ad-supported gaming just 18 months or so ago as sort of an experiment. We had no idea what would happen. Soon we saw …
Click here to read the full article »
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May 13-15, 2008
ION '08 Game Conference
Seattle, Washington
www.ionconference.com/
May 14-15, 2008
Nordic Game 2008
Malmö, Sweden
www.nordicgame.com/
May 21-22, 2008
Vancouver International Game Summit
Vancouver, Canada
www.vancouvergamesummit.com/
June 23-24, 2008
Paris GDC
Paris, France
www.parisgdc.com/index.php?lang=en
July 22-23, 2008
Gamefest 2008
Seattle, Washington
www.xnagamefest.com/
July 23-25, 2008
CGA Casual Connect Seattle 2008
Louisville, Kentucky
http://seattle.casualconnect.org/
July 30-August 2, 2008
12th International Conference on Computer Games: AI, Animation, Mobile, Educational & Serious Games
Louisville, Kentucky
www.cgamesusa.com/
August 11-15, 2008
SIGGRAPH 2008
Los Angeles, California
www.siggraph.org/s2008/
August 20-24, 2008
GC Games Convention
Leipzig, Germany
www.gc-germany.com/index.php
September 15-17, 2008
GDC Austin
Austin, Texas
www.austingdc.net/
September 17, 2008
Game Career Seminar
Austin, Texas
www.gamecareerseminar.com/
September 18-20, 2008
Games Convention Asia
Singapore
www.gc-asia.sg/
September 24-26, 2008
China GDC
Beijing, China
www.chinagdc.com/index-en.htm
October 3-5, 2008
E For All 2008
Los Angeles, California
www.idgworldexpo.com/live/99/TB216964
October 22-24, 2008
Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE)
Stanford, California
www.aiide.org/
November 3-5, 2008
Future Play 2008
Toronto, Canada
www.futureplay.org/
November 6-9, 2008
Project Horseshoe
Burnet, Texas
www.projecthorseshoe.com/
November 18-19, 2008
Montreal International Game Summit
Montreal, Canada
www.sijm.ca/2008/en
March 23-27, 2009
GDC 2009
San Francisco, California
www.gdconf.com/ |
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[~Forward~][~EndForward~] |
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Digital Artist Management
909 North Sepulveda Boulevard
Suite 840
El Segundo, CA 90245
Tel: 310-414-6800 |
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