I've noticed that LinkedIn has a lot of great advantages for game developers. There are several large groups for different kinds of game developers to share advice, it is easy to display work on projects with teams, and it is easy to find other game developers. One fatal flaw, however, is the cost to post jobs. It can cost $200 to post a single job, which is a lot of money for indie or hobbyist game managers. Because of this, most of the jobs advertised for game developers are full-time and not remote. What do you think about game developers using LinkedIn to find jobs? Do you know of any better alternatives?

You use LinkedIn to network, not to find a job.
Also, remote jobs are rarely really paid jobs, and paid jobs are very rarely remote. Read this forum's FAQs.

My experience with LinkedIn is that after the small game dev company I worked for got acquired by a much larger company, recruiters on LinkedIn suddenly take much more interest in talking with me about various job openings. Of course, I'm content in my current position so I've turned them all down so far.

It's interesting to consider that recruiters ostensibly search for employees of particular large companies instead of by skill set or experience.

Recruiters on LinkedIn seem to just want your e-mail address so they can contact you outside of LinkedIn without anyone paying LinkedIn anything - thus, networking.

I've never paid attention to job ads on LinkedIn. I get a tonne of recruiter spam on there, and I ignore 99% of that as well.

$200 for a job ad isn't expensive, depending on how many people it reaches... Recruiters typically get paid a bonus that's equal to a decent (double digits) percentage of the candidate's annual yearly salary price.

If you're going to be paying someone $80k a year, that's probably a ~$10-20k free to get them through a recruiter, which makes a $200 ad seem cheap

Hiring people is extremely hard, so there's a reason that people charge a lot of money to help you find good candidates.

Hobbyists aren't hiring people -- otherwise they'd be professionals and not hobbyists So it doesn't make sense for them to be paying for job ads.

If an indie doesn't have enough money to pay someone a competitive salary, then they probably can't afford mainstream job advertising either. That's not necessarily a flaw with job advertisers like LinkedIn -- there's always going to be services that are out of someone's price range. Every job site, including games ones like Gamasutra, or even GameDev.net are going to charge a decent fee for advertising space.

The only thing I really use LinkedIn for is as a professional address book, to be able to get back in touch with ex-colleagues who I haven't actually kept in touch with.

$200 for a job ad isn't expensive

Right. I meant to address this. Employers pay good money to advertise jobs. They pay money to advertise the hard-to-fill jobs, not the easy-to-fill jobs (like entry-level positions). Okay, so sometimes they advertise entry-level positions, when they're not being easy to fill.

You use LinkedIn to network, not to find a job.
Also, remote jobs are rarely really paid jobs, and paid jobs are very rarely remote. Read this forum's FAQs.

The work I get through LinkedIn is usually in the ballpark of £1000 a day. The kind of networking I do on LinkedIn is almost always work related. When I open the LinkedIn app the page always defaults to the "Jobs" section. I also filter out recruiters. Most of the job offers I get come directly from Facebook, Google, King, Amazon, Microsoft, Sony etc..

You use LinkedIn to network, not to find a job.
Also, remote jobs are rarely really paid jobs, and paid jobs are very rarely remote. Read this forum's FAQs.

1. The work I get through LinkedIn is usually in the ballpark of £1000 a day. The kind of networking I do on LinkedIn is almost always work related. When I open the LinkedIn app the page always defaults to the "Jobs" section. I also filter out recruiters.

2. Most of the job offers I get come directly from Facebook, Google, King, Amazon, Microsoft, Sony etc..

(Numbers added by me)

Interesting.

1. Daily pay suggests part-time or freelance work (as opposed to a full-time job). I agree that LinkedIn would be useful for freelance work.

2. Job offers, meaning full-time employment offers? If so, I sit corrected!

Some full time some freelance. I personally work freelance but I have just as many people contact me via LinkedIn for full time work. Most startups and most large multinational companies actively recruit using LinkedIn.

Then I sit corrected.