According to job feelers extended by Square Enix, the company has designs on building a brand new development studio in the United States, specifically Los Angeles, California. The solicitation for developers notes that the new Square Enix team will be working on "an action-oriented original IP game" with the Xbox 360 and Wii listed as the target platforms.

Read More »

A eagle-eyed reader has spotted an ad on Craigslist for a PS3 Engine Programmer. Nothing particularly unusual in that - people occasionally use Craigslist for things other than selling unwanted gifts and soliciting prostitutes, after all.

Read More »

Dave Perry, founder of Shiny Entertainment, sat down with Valve's Gabe Newell to talk about how to shoehorn your way into the industry — and what's the industry going to look like in a few years, anyways? Are game degrees a waste of time? Is specialisation going to be the name of the game, as in film ? And how can you avoid shooting yourself in the foot when trying to get said foot in the door? On specialisation, Newell had this to say:

Read More »

The LA Times had a nice industry-focused series of articles earlier this week, and the one that really caught my eye was on the increasingly common 'game degree' of a variety of stripes — as one person quoted in the article noted, games are 'the ultimate interdisciplinary art.' But one problem of (popular) emerging fields is schools that hop on the bandwagon to lure in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed students without really having adequate support for getting those students jobs (sounds like a lot of PhD programs I know):

Read More »

We knew that Microsoft was expanding their internal Halo team, but are we sure what platform the next Halo will appear on? A job listing posted back on August 22nd suggests that Microsoft might be aiming for the next generation consoles for the next major Halo release. The Program Manager job listing, posted late last month around the time of the Corrinne Yu hiring, puts heavy stress on the words "next generation".

Microsoft's new Halo Studio team is looking for a technical and highly talented program manager to work with an engineering team to help define the next generation of gaming software technology. As part of a next generation team, you'll be instrumental in helping to lead the development of the engine that will power future experiences for the next generation of gaming platforms.

It fits, really. I mean, you don't start building a team this late if you expect a major title to be done within the next year or two, so a new Halo on a new console makes sense. Hit the link to see the full job app.

Microsoft: Program Manager [Microsoft Careers - Thanks Kay!]

Job pages. They can be gold mines of information, if you're willing to look for it. No need for picks and drills, just a web browser and a mouse cursor.

Local dev portal Sumea recently noticed that Pandemic has placed new positions up on its website. A few of the role descriptions include this tidbit: "That's right, new IP. Freshly baked creative freedom and the chance to make your mark on a new, huge success." If that wasn't enough, the job requirements for the "Designer - Team A" position give us an idea of what the studio might be working on:

Open world / sandbox experience a plus. As is experience with LUA. We are a SCRUM based team, but even if you have never done the agile development thing before, we are sure you will fit right in.

Update: It's been suggested the IP is the new Batman game, long-rumoured to be in development at Pandemic. If that's that case, I'd hardly call it "new".

Pandemic Studios - Careers in Brisbane [Official site, via Sumea]

I was talking the other day with a friend regarding my job(s) and how lucky I felt to have them, when it suddenly occurred to me that I was really, really glad I didn't work in the industry for a developer. Oh, sure, there are plenty of horror stories about grad school and academia (plus New York Times articles on why blogging is an unhealthy profession), but it all seems like a cake walk compared to the stories that come from the developer trenches. Well, EA's European head of talent acquisition has set about to debunk some myths about working in the game industry and point to ways to attract talent and keep talent in the trenches:

Read More »

PSP programmers take note—Crytek is hiring. The developer of Crysis and Far Cry is looking to bring its wares to the PlayStation Portable in some form, looking for experienced PSP developers to relocate to its Budapest studio to work on an unspecified project. Odd choice for a platform, considering Crytek president Cervat Yali said the company was "suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis" earlier this year, as piracy on the PSP platform isn't exactly rare.

Crytek is currently working on something for the PlayStation 3, which has been rumoured to be an "enhanced" version of Crysis, that may also be multi-platform. Whether that's a PSP spin-off or something totally new altogether, we'll have to wait to find out.

PSP Programmer [Crytek - thanks, Andrew & EN!]

According to Nnooo creative director Nic Watt, Pop has gone gangbusters in the States. I don't know about you, but hearing that an Aussie developer is doing well overseas makes me all warm and hairy inside. I mean fuzzy. Warm and fuzzy. The game's been so successful that the company is looking to take on more people. Specifically, it could do with a senior engineer and a concept artist/animator.

Currently the developer is working on its next WiiWare title, but hasn't ruled out the possibility of expanding to new platforms.

Nnooo is based in Sydney, so keep this in mind when you drop in your CV.

Jobs [Nnooo]

Cryptic Studios might be hard at work developing their superhero MMO Champions Online, but that doesn't mean they can't take a few minutes off to take care of a few pressing matters, such as hiring someone to run the company. Stepping into the role of chief executive officer of the company will be Sony Online Entertainment's former senior vice president of Business Development and Operations, John Needham, who is understandably excited about his new job.

"The Cryptic team has a great following among MMO players and their creative plans for the space are really pressing the genre forward," said John Needham, newly appointed CEO of Cryptic Studios. "I look forward to working with the Cryptic team to lead the company into its next phase of growth."

Needham was also once the VP of finance for Telemundo Networks, so you know he'll really appreciate his new office at Cryptic's The Cats, California headquarters.

Read More »