Quote: Original post by joe1024

Quote: Original post by zer0wolf
An entry level game designer makes fairly significantly less than someone with three years experience and possibly multiple shipped titles under their belt.

That`s obvious, I just don`t understand the part with "multiple titles within 3 yrs experience". Sounds like someone hopping from company to company and never finishing any title. 3 yrs is enough to enter one company at about half of the cycle, finish the title and possibly start another title.

Depends on the company. It's not uncommon for dev cycles to be under a year, so you could easily do a full cycle on 4-5 games in 3 years at some companies.

Quote: Original post by Jerax

Quote: Original post by joe1024

Quote: Original post by zer0wolf
An entry level game designer makes fairly significantly less than someone with three years experience and possibly multiple shipped titles under their belt.

That`s obvious, I just don`t understand the part with "multiple titles within 3 yrs experience". Sounds like someone hopping from company to company and never finishing any title. 3 yrs is enough to enter one company at about half of the cycle, finish the title and possibly start another title.

Depends on the company. It's not uncommon for dev cycles to be under a year, so you could easily do a full cycle on 4-5 games in 3 years at some companies.

Yeah very much the case for budget titles. As well if the company is working on a few different titles, you might get credited on a few different shipped titles throughout the year.

Housing in Vancouver is going to just keep rising and rising until the olympics in 2010.

If you have 6 years experience in the industry I would definitely be asking for more than 50k.

Quote: Original post by Jerax
Depends on the company. It's not uncommon for dev cycles to be under a year, so you could easily do a full cycle on 4-5 games in 3 years at some companies.

Now that sounds pretty cool to work on so many games within just 3 years. It`s also a way to avoid ~6 month long crunch times while trying to catch up with overly optimistic deadline set up by some [previous] food manager.

Quote: Original post by Dancin_Fool
Housing in Vancouver is going to just keep rising and rising until the olympics in 2010.

I must have missed it, but has Vancouver actually been approved for Olympics in 2010 ? Plus, how can Olympics be a reason for a price-rise of properties ? It sure can rise prices of local suppliers of workers, many subcontractors, but housing ? Those few additional people that need to be housed because they`re currently working in Vancouver [building stadiums for example] surely can`t influence the price of housing that much. Or can they ? It shouldn`t be more than few thousands of workers anyway.

Quote: Original post by Dancin_Fool
If you have 6 years experience in the industry I would definitely be asking for more than 50k.

Of course. 50k would be laughable and unsurvivable with current prices of housing. From what I remember, 3 yrs ago there were non-senior positions in Relic offering 60k-70k. I`m not sure, if Relic was offering highest wages, though. So, it definitely should be more by now.

Besides, living in Vancouver and commuting 2.5 hrs like in London, just doesn`t seem right, especially since I`m currently commuting 25 minutes (10 there and 15 back), so it`s like I`ve won 2 hours of my life for free, each and every day :-)

Yeah, Vancouver was approved like a year or two ago. Since then construction has been crazy all over the city and it's seems to have driven up property costs, maybe it's something else but that is what seems to have been the case.

Commuting all depends on where you live. Up until 6 months ago I spent close to 3 hours a day commuting from the suburbs to downtown, this is fairly the norm for a lot of people. If you have a family chances are you will be buying a house in the suburbs. Taking transit, this will result in at least an hour to downtown, an hour home. Depending on if you need to take a bus to skytrain, this can add another half hour to and from for this trip. Granted if you drive it will lower your commuting time, but parking downtown is atrocious, and there isn't any game companies I know of downtown which supply free parking.

Of course you can always work for EA in Burnaby, they provide parking for staff, and it's a bit less of a commute coming from the suburbs. I think Blue Castle is also in Burnaby somewhere, though last I heard they were moving.

So, it has been approved eventually. I`d gladly let the experience of living in a Pre-Olympics city go.

Out of interest, what are the prices [for rent] in, say, Kitsilano area for some basic 3-bedroom house ? Spending 3 hrs commuting and another 10 hrs at work would mean that technically, my son would grow up without a father (I`d see him just sleeping in bed in the morning and the same in evening).
Hey, hasn`t Vancouver been named as a city with highest living standard during last few years ? If that is considered "high living standard", what on earth means a "lower" one ?

Regarding EA at Van, has the situation got better within lat 3 years, or do they still primarily function as a "meat-grinder" where almost no one manages to stay more than 2-3 years, no matter what salary ?

As for parking downtown, does it cost more than $300 per month these days ?

Anyway, thanks for updating me regarding the situation in Van ;-)

Hey no problem. Yeah spending 3 hours a day commuting is really not worth it. I'm not sure how much a 3-bedroom in kits is. I'm paying 1130 for a one bedroom apartment, about 800 square feet in kits.

Yeah I think it was rated number one this year, I'm really not sure what they use to rate that though. I mean there's not that much going on around the city. I guess the scenery is nice, close mountains is great in the winter.

EA has gotten a lot better, I've only been here for about a year, coming from a company that was like a meat grinder. On our project we had a bit of crunch for maybe a couple weeks, but besides that I haven't worked more then 8 hours in a while. We were a small team downtown though, so I can't say if some of the other teams have a similar workflow.

I can't say on parking costs since I take transit in, which if you got a place in kits would definitely be the way to go, one bus downtown comes every 10 minutes. Some of the other guys I work with commute in though and I think they pay around $10 a day for parking.

Quote: Original post by Dancin_Fool
Yeah I think it was rated number one this year, I'm really not sure what they use to rate that though. I mean there's not that much going on around the city.

Van has been winning this competition for several years already. I guess it`s a combination of low crime-rate, relatively low costs of living (which isn`t true anymore) and the climate. At least for me, the climate in Vancouver is fantastic (despite rains). Though, paying $2k each month for rent and spending 1.5 hrs in traffic isn`t worth it.
Besides, climate is changing everywhere. 10-15 yrs ago we used to have up to 2 meters of snow, all the time. These days it hardly snows and last 3 winters were without snow (except few days). From this point of view, Vancouver has lost his main climate advantage for many people.
BTW, doesn`t it rain more in Vancouver than it used to, some 10 yrs ago ?

Quote: Original post by Dancin_Fool
EA has gotten a lot better, I've only been here for about a year, coming from a company that was like a meat grinder. On our project we had a bit of crunch for maybe a couple weeks, but besides that I haven't worked more then 8 hours in a while.

That`s great news, actually ! Finally somebody from EA who doesn`t complain. Maybe 4 yrs from now it will actually become a place allowing a life outside the work for most workers ;-)

Quote: Original post by Dancin_Fool
Some of the other guys I work with commute in though and I think they pay around $10 a day for parking.

This surely isn`t atrocious. I`d say it`s pretty normal amount to pay. Sure, $3k per year may seem much, but it`s nothing compared to other costs of having the car.

Yeah it rains a ton in Vancouver. The climate is always really mild here though. Sometimes it sucks like we haven't had much of a summer, but then at the same time we don't get much of a winter. The climate has definitely been changing though. The last few years we've gotten barely any snow on the mountains which really bites. There's usually enough though to keep them going for a few months though.

Yeah, from all the managers I've talked to, the general atmosphere in EA lately has been to get away from crunches as much as possible, a lot of games are moving to two year development cycles rather than one year.

Last question regarding the climate in Vancouver (I promise ;-) ): Do you have sudden temperature drops of 15 Degrees `C (or more) in less than 24 hrs ? Last week the temperature here went down from 27 `C to 11`C in less than half a day and stayed like that for another week and then suddenly jumped back to 26. Those extreme changes started occuring only few years ago. Do you notice something similar in Vancouver ?

I`m sorry if that seems OT, but since Vancouver has been winning the first place as a "best city to live in" during last few years, I believe many people might be interested about the climate too, since that affects the quality of life quite a lot (you probably won`t go out with kids if it pours and just stay at home).

In Vancouver it rains all winter, and is sunny all summer (at least for the years that I've been here).

As for EA, I work there and it's a pretty good place to work. Overtime tends to be different from team to team (as you would expect). People that leave the company do so for all sorts of different reasons. Often it's because they are offered opportunities at other companies that they only "might" get in the future if they stay. Sometimes it's due to overtime as well (although these people more often tend to leave the industry rather than just change companies).

I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture or anything. I personally work a lot of hours for a few months in the year. I just love my job and it's definately not a nightmare like it used to be portrayed.

You tend to make contacts in all sorts of different studios and they all tell a similar story.


Oh, and I've never experienced crazy temperature drops/rises.