Thanks again. I have been researching locations of publishers and PR companies that work with game companies and it looks like there are a lot in New York. I'm working on my resume this weekend and will post it up for critique as soon as I'm done.

Edit: Here is the link to the rough draft of my resume. It's about done aside from a typo check and a proper reference section (the current one is just a list of who I need to reference). Please let me know what you think.

http://www.snowpeaksoftware.com/marketingresume.doc

[Edited by - Hambone Wilson on August 5, 2007 9:11:51 PM]

Sorry for the double post. I just wanted to make sure it showed that this thread had been updated and I wasn't sure if my edit to include my resume would do it. Once again you can check out my resume at,

http://www.snowpeaksoftware.com/marketingresume.doc

Just gave it a quick look, two things stood out immediately:
1) It is 3 pages long. Massive no-no, 2 pages at the very most
2) Your skills section:

Quote: Skills

- Computer: Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Quickbooks, Act.
- Excellent presentation skills.
- Great people skills on the phone and face to face.
- Expert at closing the deal.
- A team player and a self starter.

The last 4 mean very little at face value. What you need to give are examples where you have demonstrated these skills.

Regarding the length, I agree with you. This was a rough draft, and I never intended it to be three pages. The finished version rounds out at two pages and I will be posting it soon.

I wacked off the parts about being a self starter and a closer, because they sounded corny and awkward, but people love to hear that you have good people skills and presentation skills. If they want to know if you are really what you say you are on those fronts they can really only do so through an interview. Besides, my business experience section and activities section shows a history of working with people and selling products and ideas.

Thanks for your input on the length though. It would have been a costly error if I had intended it to be three pages.

Quote: Original post by tsloper
Hi Ham, you wrote:
>My dream job would be to hold a marketing position at either a publisher or a studio.

Development studios don't have marketing positions.

>I have a four year BS in marketing. [And experience]

Good. Now all you need to do is live near game publishers. Location, location, location, right? Right? And start marketing yourself to game companies. And see the other tips in FAQ 27 - http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson27.htm
And I might have written a column on marketing - see http://www.igda.org/columns/gamesgame/gamesgame_archive.php

Good luck.

For someone who seems to write a lot about the industry, you sure have no clue about what positions are offered. No offense really...

A number of development studios have had some form of Marketing / PR positions available. The easiest would be branches off of Marketing with junior PR positions and such things like Community Relations or even some Web Administration Specialists.

So why do development studios have Marketing positions available? Not all do but in this day of age, a lot are starting to have them. Especially studios that work exclusively with online gaming or online distribution (Yes you don't need a publisher in some online distribution). Things such as Community Managers (Marketing or Operations depending on the company) are needed to help manage communications online. As well a number of other branched positions like Brand Managers, PR Specialists, Community, and so on.

There are a number of studios out there that are seeking good marketing teams and branches. You will find more developers slash publishers needing those positions more but they are still developers too. Blizzard, NCSoft, Fury, even some FPS (I've seen) developers have had ads up to fill different Marketing, PR, Community positions. You will find more publishers that have more of a calling for these style positions over normal developer studios but don't get it in your head that Marketing has no place with other development studios because that is clearly untrue.

[Edited by - Fastidious on August 7, 2007 12:59:26 AM]

Anonymous person wrote:
>There are a number of studios out there that are seeking good marketing teams and branches. You will find more developers slash publishers needing those positions more but they are still developers too. Blizzard, NCSoft, Fury, even some FPS (I've seen) developers have had ads up to fill different Marketing, PR, Community positions. You will find more publishers that have more of a calling for these style positions over normal developer studios but don't get it in your head that Marketing has no place with other development studios because that is clearly untrue.

Blizzard and NCSoft are publishers. If by Fury you mean the MMO being published by Auran, then again, we're talking about a publisher.
Community positions aren't marketing, IMO - they're public relations. PR is not the same as marketing.
The point you are making is that some rare special-case very large developers may have full-time positions for marketing and PR. This may well be true. That doesn't mean I'm lying when I say marketing is a publisher job.

There are always exceptions to every broad statement one can make (including the one I just made in this sentence). It becomes overly cumbersome to have to write disclaimers and exclusions with every broad statement one might make. If a thing is true in 99% of the cases, then to state it as true without mentioning the 1% is not to say something "clearly untrue."

Quote: Original post by tsloper

Blizzard and NCSoft are publishers. If by Fury you mean the MMO being published by Auran, then again, we're talking about a publisher.

No, these are developers who also publish their games. Just because you do not need the support of a publisher does not mean you are not ALSO a development studio.A publisher is someone who only publishes or distributes games.

Quote:
Community positions aren't marketing, IMO - they're public relations. PR is not the same as marketing.

Community is one of two things. They are either branched from Operations (Customer Service) or Marketing. EA/Mythic for example lists it as Operations. Blizzard has lists as Marketing. You can argue that they CAN be PR but you will never find PR not a branch of Marketing. It depends on the corp structure.

This is not opinion but fact based off of job listings from establish publishers, developers, and developers who also publish their own games. It has been opinion that such marketing and operation (PR in your opinion) like community are either operations or marketing/PR. Those are only opinions not fact based on the company structure in which your team falls under.

Quote:
The point you are making is that some rare special-case very large developers may have full-time positions for marketing and PR. This may well be true. That doesn't mean I'm lying when I say marketing is a publisher job.

There are always exceptions to every broad statement one can make (including the one I just made in this sentence). It becomes overly cumbersome to have to write disclaimers and exclusions with every broad statement one might make. If a thing is true in 99% of the cases, then to state it as true without mentioning the 1% is not to say something "clearly untrue."

The thing is you are saying studios who also publish their games are publishers and not developers. Let me touch that statement a little bit.

Blizzard developed diablo, starcraft, and world of warcraft. They have a full development team in a structure which you know. There is no arguing that they develop and maintain there games for PC and online multiplay.

"The company developed games like Rock N' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings (published by Interplay Productions)." -Founded as a developer

Blizzard also publishes their own games. This does not mean they are now not the developers of their previous games nor a development studio now. They have a full development team dedicated to many projects under their own name. They do not advertise for seeking studio demo's in order to publish those games under Blizzard. They are the opposite, they see something they like and they buy it. Then they publish it after there team has developed it.

Activision in another example, the company you worked for is a publisher. The publish other studios and actively seek development studios to publish. This is what you would consider the ideal publisher. Which is not the same as Blizzard in example.


You were a developer for Activision. They are a publisher, so how were you a developer for a publisher? ;)

[Edited by - Fastidious on August 7, 2007 10:54:46 AM]

Anonymous person wrote:

>No, these are developers who also publish their games. Just because you do not need the support of a publisher does not mean you are not ALSO a development studio.A publisher is someone who only publishes or distributes games.
>The thing is you are saying studios who also publish their games are publishers and not developers.

No. A company can be a publisher and also a developer. The thing I'm saying is that marketing is a publishing job. If a company is both a developer and a publisher, then I consider that company primarily a publisher, and of course such a company will have marketing positions. A developer is primarily a company that makes games to be published by someone else. So once a company is publishing its own games, and not doing any contract work for other publishers, that company is no longer a developer in the usual sense.

>Activision in another example, the company you worked for is a publisher. You were a developer for Activision. They are a publisher, so how were you a developer for a publisher? ;)

You lost me. Are you saying I, Tom Sloper, was a developer? That's not the case. If that's what you're saying.

Tom's correct, while a company which develops and self publishes will do PR/Marketing these are primarily Publishing functions. Few companies that are pure developers will have PR/Marketing positions and those which do (the large super developers) will stick to marketing/PR relating to their own company brand. It is the publisher that handles PR for games and many/most development contracts specifically state that it is the publishers job. - obviously most publishers like the developer to be involved but PR/marketing decisions rest with the publisher.

> My dream job would be to hold a marketing position at
> either a publisher or a studio.

The video game ecosystem is much larger than solely the developers and publishers. There are a few companies related to game development you might want to look into, such as technology companies (AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Immersion, etc), peripherals (Logitech, MadCatz, etc), authoring tools (Softimage, Autodesk, etc), ... Such companies deal with publishers and developers every day in order to co-promote products, either at trade shows or through other forms of promotional activities.

-cb