Hiro Antagonist ([info]hiro_antagonist) wrote,
@ 2009-09-02 08:36:00
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Austin GDC - Zomg, Like a Girl Going to a Ball

^not me, but in the field I wish to be paid for working in


So I'm volunteering again at the Austin Game Developer's Conference. Last year was a blast, and the only frustration at the time was having to finish another year of school, thus being unable to take anyone up on job offers.

YAY! GRADUATED!

Now comes the hard part.

Lessons learned from last year:

1. Be in a position to be able to take a job. (check)

2. How ever many business cards you brought with you, it's not enough (working on that)
2.1. Try to make the business card visually interesting and a bit informative. (working on that)
2.2. It's just an excuse to get their card anyway - yay social rituals!

3. Have work to show (almost done)
3.1. Have an easy way to show people your work (hmmm...)
3.2. Have a website (halway mocked up so far)


So, those of you with experience in this area, please comment with advice.

I'm contemplating bringing my laptop with me, and putting the video footage of my level design on that, and designing a visually interesting card and getting like... 250 copies of it. I'm not sure if lugging the laptop around with me everywhere is the best idea though...

Thoughts?



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[info]bsdcat
2009-09-02 02:46 pm UTC (link)
Actually, I think being at Austin GDC before you were looking for a job was an excellent move. People react to you differently (especially at game conferences) if their first impression is "oh, he's talking to me because he wants a job." Mind experiment: would you have gotten the same job offers if you'd been looking for work?

I'm inclined to recommend that you not bring your laptop for demo purposes - it never seems to go very well in my experience - but I'm not sure what to recommend instead. It might be the least bad solution :-)

(Reply to this)


[info]ehowton
2009-09-02 03:12 pm UTC (link)
Put the URL of the video footage on the business card and leave the laptop at home.

I use vistaprint.com for my business cards as they allow you complete control by allowing you to upload your designed card and are less expensive than Kinkos or the like.

(Reply to this) (Thread)


[info]hiro_antagonist
2009-09-03 01:50 am UTC (link)
how long does the shipping take? Is there any vistaprint stuff on the card / back, or just what you put on it?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)


[info]ehowton
2009-09-03 05:02 am UTC (link)
Entirely configurable, front and back. Shipping varies. I got mine damn fast. I've seen others get their quicker, and others wait eons. That being said, I'd likely pay extra for shipping just to be sure.

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[info]hiro_antagonist
2009-09-03 06:07 am UTC (link)
yeah, I'd need them within a week. How much was the shipping?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)


[info]ehowton
2009-09-03 01:08 pm UTC (link)
http://www.vistaprint.com

(Reply to this) (Parent)


[info]cinnamonbite
2009-09-02 04:22 pm UTC (link)
Good luck, man!

(Reply to this)


[info]laviemoderne
2009-09-02 11:18 pm UTC (link)
k, that guy is a pussy. y? because he has 3 monitors and two key boards. if he was not a pussy he'd have 3 monitors and 1 key board.

(Reply to this) (Thread)


[info]ehowton
2009-09-03 05:11 am UTC (link)
I eschew KVM's because my discrete operating systems don't always map properly, they don't carry USB 2.0 onboard so you wouldn't want to transfer over your storage devices, and outside of a manual switch, oftentimes the awkward key-combinations you must set for various O/S's leave you stranded. And while you could conceivably run virtual machines, if they're running on vSphere or the like, they don't pull over all 16 million colors unless you're using identical high-end graphics cards and if you're using VMworkstation/Fusion its difficult to do detailed graphics work. They're great for coding though!

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[info]laviemoderne
2009-09-03 01:10 pm UTC (link)
Sweet jebuz, reading this made my eyes bleed!

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)


[info]ehowton
2009-09-03 05:29 pm UTC (link)
I've often found an icepick helps cure ocular hemorrhaging.

(Reply to this) (Parent)


[info]tpulley
2009-09-03 12:15 am UTC (link)
A couple years ago, I went to Santa Monica to visit activision and a developer... savage something. At the time, they (both) were working on the transformers game to coincide with the first movie.

The difference between the two was night and day. Activision was more "corporate" feeling, and the dev house was much more "creative" and free-form, but still with an air of organization and discipline.

What I took away from it was that I would fit much better in the dev shop than at the publisher.

(Reply to this) (Thread)


[info]hiro_antagonist
2009-09-03 06:07 am UTC (link)
yeah, I could see that heh.

(Reply to this) (Parent)


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