Bruce Shtelmakher

Mini Gear Grinder... not a crazy one, just a mini one... Candidates: when replying to Posts that have jobs listed, multiple companies / Games Studios, etc. within them. A comment of "I am interested" does not do you much good. A comment of "I am interested in the following role at XYZ company" is however helpful. Seeing so many of these & I love that you're interested in the roles posted, but which ones? Help the Recruiter or the people out that are putting the resources in front of you & let them know what you're interested in. ⚙ The job? Which one, we have 5+ listed. ⚙ The company? Which one, as some of these posts list 5+ organizations. ⚙ The person posting? Let's keep it PC / PG here people, I'm not advocating for weirdness 😝 I'm referring to a conversation or asking for help where you need it potentially. Don't be creepy, please do not be creepy! ⚙ The products they make? Etc., etc. Identify a bit deeper... Help them help you! 😁 Keep fighting the good fight everyone! Enjoy the weekend & wishing you best out there! #'s for the #'s #TheMattBarney #OneLove #TheMeatballs #GearGrinder #VideoGames #PirateRecruitersUniteUnderOneBanner

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I couldn't agree more with Richard Dansky message here! A key component of any company's long-term success comes from growing talent from within. This is done through PROMOTIONS and MENTORING. Without career growth charts (junior game writer - game writer - senior game writer - lead game writer - etc..) employees are lost, might lack motivation, and company/job hopping. It’s just unfortunate in this investor landscape our industry has become, and with the implementation of Ai, the role is becoming obsolete. Companies are hiring less writers, while expecting writers to fill multiple roles, and the onboarding process is almost nonexistent, let alone training.

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12 things that destroy a game voice recording session: 1. Not allocating enough time to casting 2. Not working with a casting director 3. Not sending clear instructions (call sheets) well in advance 4. Not sending scripts & character bios well in advance 5. Not having an experienced voice director 6. Trying to record too many lines in a session 7. Not taking notes / having a note taker during the session 8. Not testing a remote talent's home studio in advance 9. Having too many people on the call / in the session 10. Giving the actor a "read" 11. Having a negative attitude (cast or crew) 12. Not working collaboratively / as a team Avoid these at all costs. Genuinely would love to hear what you would add to this list.

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Another International Talk Completed ✅ Digital Dragons, thank you so much for having me! With everything happening in our industry, it's easy to spiral, but that's when you need community the most. That's why travelling to Poland, representing Sumo Digital Ltd and PixelAnt Games, felt extra special! There's something amazing about getting together on-site, with people from all over, to #RethinkRecruitment (even if that means I need to budget extra energy for public speaking 😅), and I'm super grateful for the opportunity. --- This got me thinking... ...you might have noticed I haven't posted much recently, and this is why: 🗺️ Bird's Eye View has been working with two amazing partners to put together a bid for the BFI grant. 🔍 I'm busy at work reviewing a couple of hiring processes. 🤖 The LinkedIn Algorithm™️ is incredibly demotivating when it comes to pushing helpful content to people that need it the most. 🚫 I wasn't sure if I was making any difference since the industry barely has any roles open. However, so many people reached out during #DigitalDragons to say my content really helped their job hunt; I can't help but think I should give it another try! 👉🏼 So bear with me, I probably won't post every day (I'm aiming for 1-2 a week), but I'm planning on writing articles with all the content from previous posts, as well as new bits of advice, especially when it comes to a slower industry. 💬 If you have topics you would like me to write about, feel free to drop them below! --- 📣 Follow #RethinkRecruitment and ring the 🔔 to read about: 📙 #GameDev Recruitment Best Practices 🔎 #JobHunting, #CareerAdvice & #RecruiterTips 👁️ Bird's Eye View & the #ELSH ⏩ https://entrylevel.games/ 🌟 Opinions are very much my own™️

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🎮 Want a job in the video game industry? 🎮 Begin with the end in mind.* ➡ When you drive to work do you just turn left or right based on how you feel that day? 😅 (I hope you left extra early that day) ➡ When you gather data for a project, do you grab monthly active users, popular breakfast items and breeds of dog? 🤐 (This report might be fun but your boss will not be happy) ➡ When you schedule a doctor appointment, do you call random numbers in the phone book? 🙃 The same applies to...well...applying for jobs. ❔ Do you look at the minimum requirements for a job or do you click easy apply on cool titles? (Although, I might as well shoot my shot for Game Director) ❔ Do you update your resume with your most relevant experience when you apply? What is your desired outcome? Work backwards and you'll see at least some of the steps in a path to get there. This is not easy to do, because there is no perfect way to be the best fit for a job. Everyone's journey is different. What steps have you taken to get to your goal or how have you been successful in your journey? *One possible end goal pictured #Letsgetyouhired #RecruiterAdvice

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Maya Attribute Options tool.! Newest addition to my personal tool set. Took me a few days to write it on and off. This tool helps me to re-order attributes without having to re-do the incoming/outgoing connections. Some options are still a work in progress... #reorder #attributes #mel #maya #tools #rigging

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Game Engines. So packed with shiny, so seductive, so initially rewarding, but I’m so done with them. I’m not a professional games developer anymore, I’m a hobbyist, so I can get away with this heresy, because I have no influence, but anything I do now will be without an engine. I’m done with the straitjacket, it never fit me anyway. Professionals have different needs, different priorities, operate from a different calculus. I’m done. There’s nothing as liberating, as freeing, as exhilarating as the open road, the open seas, a blank slate. That’s what I miss. It all started to go wrong when the internet let us download yet another new framework to learn, more of somebody else’s way of thinking and just when you got used to it, you had the rug pulled our from under you, and if you were solo, or small, you were stuffed. This rewarded bigger teams with influence, with money, with power. It murdered creativity. But wait, what about the democratising power of these platforms? Sure, there has been some, and that’s been great, but some of the spirit of creativity from first principles has been lost. That’s where the magic always was, the magic of unbounded possibilities. Hasn’t everything been done now though? Aren’t all the stories written? I call bullshit on that. We built on stuff that kept pulling the rug from under us until we were so far from where we started that we forgot all the principles that gave our medium its power. Now we have specialists, locked away from the whole, enmeshed in a PhD niche of mutual back patting around the vagaries of a slightly more realistic grass shader. Is that bad? Of course not. I love it, but it’s not something I can relate to. Can you? We can no longer climb out of the depths of uncanny valley, not realising that the depth is infinite, asymptotic, and all we can see is the abyss of humanity-eating large language models. A soulless simulacrum that will incestuously rejoice as art dies. Yes, a lot has been done, much of it good, but I contend that a lot has not been done, that might have been done, that should be done, and that people exist who could do something about this, now, while there’s still time. I don’t hate what’s happened. I love it, but I hate that the industry is in a place where it’s considered the only way. It’s not. There are other ways. There are forms yet to explore. There is more beauty to explore in the hinterland and… I intend to find it.

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I think one of the things that's so frustrating about Xbox's recent studio closures is that it is stark contrast to the things they *say*. They say they want original, interesting games, but then they shutter Tango. They say they want to take big swings at live service stuff, but then release Redfall in a disastrous state and don't have the bottle to fix it before shuttering the studio. They say they want interesting, original content, but then close studios working on original content to bolster Call of Duty. Xbox needs platform-defining exclusives. But they've also shown they don't have the understanding to ship stuff that can legitimately compete with what Sony's doing with Playstation's first parties. What happened to Starfield? Redfall flopped. Halo Infinite's SP "infiniteness" faceplanted. Halo Infinite's multiplayer took years to sort out a fatally awful progression system, and it still mostly sucks, but who cares because no one's playing it. Forza Motorsport bombed. Where is Gears? Where is the next thing from id? From MachineGames? When it's one studio flailing around, maybe it's the studio. When it's ***everything*** under the Xbox Game Studios banner, it's a different situation entirely. What the hell are they doing over there? But the point is, when you see closures of studios when the platform is totally failing to deliver anything of meaningful, differentiating value to players... it's time to call it. Phil Spencer's driven the Xbox into irrelevance. How you could spend hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve *so little* is genuinely shocking to me.

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The Sumo Group closures really have broken me a bit, and I need to rant about the state of things. I'm sorry if it seems I'm glossing over all the closures before this one, but so many ex-students went there, so many ex-colleagues passed through there, and so my timeline is just filled with people looking for work. We keep talking and talking about the economic factors involved, Brexit and Covid and this and that ... the thing I can't stop thinking of is that in my life I've watched the world slowly pitch into a place of despondent capitalism. Art has become more about making stars and fame than helping people escape and reflect. A drive for "truth" and objectivity has resulted, paradoxically, in people putting more stock in spreadsheets and numbers than people. I can't help but feel that if you're bleating about finance and trade deals and business decisions, you're ignoring the fact that general support for artistic and creative endeavours has declined sharply and is still declining, even in the so-called "art world". Games are ultimately always going to be the first to fall in a culture war against creativity, because games are ultimately and profoundly pointless things. That's the whole majesty of the medium: they make us feel profound feelings, they help us explore our existence by being separate from reality, but to do so they MUST bring us nothing tangible in return. The truth is that our industry will probably bounce back to some degree, but it's not any financial structures or cost systems that will save game development as a medium and an art form - it's a cultural shift to recognise the importance of expressive and explorative subjective art in the world today, and the need to support creative endeavours without the pressure of financial recompense.

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🕹Today in gaming History!🎮 30 years ago today Alien vs. Predator released in arcades from Capcom #TiGH #GamingHistory #Gaming #History #AlienVSPredator #AVP #Alien #Predator #Capcom #BeatEmUp #Arcade #Games #Game #VideoGames #VideoGame #GamesIndustry #VideoGameIndustry

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𝐀𝐰𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐣𝐨𝐛 𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐭 - shares appreciated (they REALLY DO help) - my door is open for casual chats or intros on this role. Recently re-titled so please check out the JD even if you've seen it already. 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐚𝐥 𝐕𝐅𝐗 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭. (ignore the link title of Lead, it hasn't pulled through yet). 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨 Spliced Inc. - fully remote role but our 𝐚𝐰𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 studio is located in the heart of Altrincham. Be as hybrid, onsite or remote as you want. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐢𝐠 - You're either already a principal, want to be a principal or you're happy to sidestep from a lead into this role. Regardless, you'll be a part of a small team (+1) that sits in our Tech Art org and have access to some of the best talent the industry has to offer. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 - you thought I was going to spill the beans? 🤣. AAA, stylized, UE5, Houdini/Embergen, Blueprints. That's your lot but, will tell more once you're in process, of course :). 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭? - Either apply or simply message me with your interest. We have 5 steps but don't let that put you off, we can crank through them in a week or so. You'll get a solid feel for our vibe and people and you'll get to meet our founder who will personally take you through the game at the end of the process. Click below for a glimpse of your [potential] future 💚. #vfx #splicedinc #neteasegames #welovejobs

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"With big video games missing, indie games are filling the void". This the headline from a Bloomberg article a couple of weeks ago and I have to agree. 2024 is set to be a big year for small games studios. One of my favourite games of 2024 so far is Balatro, a solo developed poker-themed roguelike deck-building game. This game hit 1M sales in less than a month. And I must have talked about it so much that my pal 🐨 Rory Jennings got me a physical deck for my birthday (thanks friend!). Animal Well, another solo developed title, launched last month with a 91% Metacritic score. Palworld released in January with a production budget of $6.7M and sold 15M copies on Steam in its first month and broke a Game Pass record for third-party launches. Lethal Company, yet another solo developed game, launched in October 2023 and has surpassed $100M in sales. And the list goes on. I love that world class, memory making, art forming, industry disrupting games can be built from anyone anywhere. The craft is being democratised and that's down to the whole ecosystem opening up and enabling creators. Education, tools, infrastructure and publishing have all gone through major changes resulting in tearing down walled gardens. The only question is, what should I play next? 🤔

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5/6 | Recruiters adapt and musicians improvise 🎶🔄 Imagine this: a jazz band is jamming in a club with a dim light. No script, no setlist, just a group of musicians grooving with each other, creating one of a trillion variations of a song. The essence of improvisation in music is about embracing the different, expecting the unexpected and trusting your and you're band's instincts to lock up on the melody. Improvisation is key, especially in genres like jazz, where you need to adapt in changes of key, melody, rhythm on the spot. Now, applying that same principle to recruitment we get adaptability. The job market is constantly evolving and sometimes you need to think on your feet and adapt to the changing "tune". Maybe a candidate throws you a curveball question in the interview or perhaps a sudden shift in a company's priorities might give you an impulse to rethink your strategy. Key take away here is that you need to be flexible, resourceful and find creative solutions to the challenges you are facing. Just like the old stoic saying goes: Embrace the unexpected and find harmony in chaos. Feel free to scroll my posts to see the entire chapter dedicated to the similarities between music and recruitment. #Recruitment #Musicindustry #Creativecollaboration

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Hi, Do you want to go back in time to see where the animation layers or the speed curve we have in Maya are coming from? This is the Motion Warping paper from 1995. As usual the code is available on Github : https://lnkd.in/euwivcux @python @gamedev @animation3d @gameprogramming @animation

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