Any pros here?

[ZXvet]

I'm just curious. Has any of you here ever worked for a games studio? Some of the posts are very professional with great depth in games programming, so I just had to ask
Any C64/ZX Spectrum veterans maybe? Tell us who you are

[erikd]

Looking at your handle, are you a sinclair vet?  

I have not ever worked for a games studio but I've programmed games as a hobby for a long time (also with long breaks), starting from the ZX-81.
I also cracked games as a hobby in my MSX and ST days, but I kept the cracks usually for myself. I also worked on some well known demo's for MSX and a music composing application together with some other guys.
I wouldn't mind working for a games studio (to say the least ), but I guess I have a lot of learning to do to get there.

[princec]

Nope, never done anything of the sort meself. Wouldn't mind working for a games studio, provided they were very small, and local...

Cas

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[sugarshark]

Has any of you here ever worked for a games studio?

<rant>
I have. Not sure If I'd do it again. My current job might be not as exiting, but pays a lot better and needs only 8 hours of my day. Not to mention, you get to work with nice people who have an interest in good teamwork. Not the self-loving wannabe coder gods, who think game coders can not learn anything from the lowly rest of the industry and spend 3 weeks optimizing their bubble-sort routine with assembler.
</rant>

Hmm, it's been some time, but it seems there are still some  annoyed feelings boiling inside me, I guess. Anyway, it's hard to make a living in games programming. Studios die like flies over here in Germany.

[Herkules]

Has any of you here ever worked for a games studio?

<rant>
I have. Not sure If I'd do it again. Not to mention, you get to work with nice people who have an interest in good teamwork. Not the self-loving wannabe coder gods, who think game coders can not learn anything from the lowly rest of the industry and spend 3 weeks optimizing their bubble-sort routine with assembler.
</rant>

Hmm, it's been some time, but it seems there are still some  annoyed feelings boiling inside me, I guess. Anyway, it's hard to make a living in games programming. Studios die like flies over here in Germany.

Couldn't have said it better. Same for me. Except that my current job is exciting (but not paid better).

[alexz]

Well...  

I had been working for Russian development studio of British company Maris Multimedia till last year, when the owner split the company and sold the best half (including myself  ) to big American publisher John Wiley & Sons... Maris started from CD-Rom multimedia titles (including well-known astronomy software RedShift), then was a couple of small games, a big one, then Java-based CD/WEB e-learning technology. At the moment I'm in e-learning J2EE-based field...

The big game is Titanic: Challenge of Discovery published by Panasonic Interactive Media (R.I.P.) in 1998. This is a simulator of wreck discovery expedition. The project had more than 3-years development timeframe. The software contains a walking within VR scenes, some kind of management strategy, ship navigation and swimming in real time near ocean floor (the graphics is ugly for today but quite good for that time)... My primary responsibilities were map component and sound subsystem. In addition to these I participated in the project integration and 3D engine tweaking at the final project stage...

Yeah... In that time I figured out how to make realistic deep underwater shading (not the "blue fogged moon" as you can see in all titles with underwater graphics), but unfortunately we couldn't include this into the game because of the engine limitation... My test application was looking great! I believe that simple shoot-'em-all near ocean floor could have great visual effect!   Five years I was waiting for HW, which allows to implement HW-accelerated shader, and today the deep-water shader can be implemented in HW via vertex and fragment shaders! But... I became too lazy to start to program something alone...

Here is the product review at MobyGames.com (there is a credits column on the right... Alexey Zhukov - it's me  ). Here is a quite big review at GamesDomain.com. And here is MY ROCK BAND! This is an off-topic, isn't it?  

[bmyers]

Yes, I worked at a game studio (SSI) in the late-80's, then went and got a series of jobs that paid real money.

And now I've started my own studio!    While still holding down a day job... :-/   which pays real money   but is not nearly as fun as building games    Hope to switch from part-time to full-time game development as soon as the publishing deals start flooding in!  

While at SSI I helped build (engine, AI, and graphics coding) the Advanced D&D^tm game series, starting with Pool of Radiance on the C64 -- written in 6502 assembly using an Apple IIgs and uploaded to C64 through the joystick port!  

Also worked for a small studio while attending college -- mostly doing simulation/strategy game ports.

[cfmdobbie]

There was an ex-Bethesda guy around some time ago - sorry, I can't remember who it was!

Personally I'm a J2EE developer by day.  (Well, actually at the moment I'm a job-seeker by day, but anyway...)  I've a personal interest in developing games using my language and API of choice (Java and OpenGL), but no real ambition to turn to full-time games dev at the moment.  I know a couple of people who develop them for a living and they work very long hours for very little pay, and their companies always seem on the verge of closing down.

If the industry changes in the future, I'll consider it - but for now I'd rather leave the games as a hobby and keep my sanity!

[NielsJ]

Depends... If you mean "pro" as in "primary source of income", then no.

A friend and I run niemo entertainment as our spare time game company; It's a professional company, we're professional software developers, we write professional games and we do make money from them (occasionally ), so in that respect, yes.

Never worked for someone else doing games, never will probably. I looked around a while back but ended up with the same impression as everyone else it seems: long hours, shitty pay, limited influence, big risk. Why bother?

The way things are right now, my dayjob pays the bills, I can work games when I feel like it (I.e. it's fun), and whatever money I make is just sugar on top (still trying to get sugar enough to trade in for that F355 spider though ).

Whether that is PRO or not, I'll let you decide, but it's definately a professionally (not to mention socially and financially) viable approach.

[ZXvet]

The way I see it, to be a professional games developer means to live and breathe games programming, no day job. We all know how difficult it is to come home from work and try write some code (esp. if your day job involves programming).

Now, unless you're Carmack, you can't work alone. Take a look at the 2003 off the shelf titles and see if you have the time (to say the least) to write half of any popular game. Of course there are exceptions like GameBoy where you can probably do most of the work by yourself (excluding the artwork).

Whether that is PRO or not, I'll let you decide, but it's definately a professionally (not to mention socially and financially) viable approach.

Sure, as I said there are exceptions. As for myself, I have written games that were published in popular magazines in the mid to late 80s   , at a time were you could do everything by yourself (does anyone remember Uridium, by Andrew Braybrook?)

UPDATE: Is there any trick involved for the quote thing to work?

Games published by our own members! Go get 'em!

[princec]

Close the quote tag with a square bracket

Carmack doesn't work alone either!

Cas