The best advice I got in tough times was «broaden your search». The second-best advice I got was «use your network if you can». There are jobs to be had that are gaming-adjacent and gaming-related that I found I could do. I, like many, ended up working…
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What are some signs that a layoff is coming? I recently joined and the game that I’m working on is being developed for years and has been delayed several times. We have a important release date coming up and on our recently tests we found a lot of bugs and some things just break the game, making it unplayable. People around here are already talking about delaying it again, but then we would miss the date which IMO would be the death of the game. Should I be already looking for a new job?
This is a very good question. Unfortunately, there isn’t really a good answer for this because those of us on the ground aren’t privy to the meetings or decision-making process where such things are decided. I have no super accurate formula for you, be…
How open are hiring managers in the game industry about what they are specific requirements they are looking for? In my industry I often find them looking for a generic position without listing what specialized task they are specifically looking for. Any suggestions on how to handle unclear hiring criteria?
We’re usually pretty clear about what we’re looking for when we’re hiring. Between the title, qualifications, and desirable skill list, a candidate should be able to get a good idea of what the job’s roles and responsibilities are. Some job description…
Do you think the projects that you shipped as a indie developer have the same impact as the ones you worked on at game studios when applying for jobs?
What matters the most to hiring managers is the kind of experience a candidate has. Hiring managers have a specific set of tasks they’re looking to hire someone to do for them. At an indie studio, they are probably looking for a broad set of experience…
Since you jump studios so often, approximately how much more (or less) are you making compared to peers you have worked with of comparable experience/skill that stuck to one studio?
I honestly don’t know. There are very few people who have stuck with a single employer for their entire career and compensation still isn’t super comfortable water cooler conversation. I can tell you that I have gotten the biggest bumps in both compens…
How many studios have you worked for in your career? From talking with other game devs with a similar amount of experience, does that that number feel about average or higher/lower?
I can’t answer the exact number of studios I’ve worked for because I don’t want to give any specifics that may identify me, but it is definitely more than five. Compared to others I’ve met who have worked for similar amounts of time in the industry, th…
How MarketIQ transformed Arcadian Lab’s creative and advertising strategies
Arcadian Lab’s data-driven approach to game publishing Founded as a studio supporting hyper-casual publishers, Arcadian Lab began using GameAnalytics in 2018. In 2023, they launched their self-publishing department, requiring more robust tools for market research and competitive analysis. GameAnalytics quickly became an integral part of their data-driven approach. In 2025, they added MarketIQ to their tech stack. With this platform, they improved efficiency across three key areas: creative inspiration, competitor ad tracking, and market expansion. The intuitive UI allowed them to quickly access insights and make informed decisions faster than ever before. We spoke with Shehroz Ali, COO of Arcadian Lab to understand their methodology. Why Arcadian Lab chose MarketIQ Before committing to MarketIQ, Arcadian Lab thoroughly compared it to other app intelligence platforms. MarketIQ stood out for two major reasons: Faster creative insights and performance data: In other tools,…
What makes code “hard coded” compared to other code, why is it so difficult to change, and why would developers hard code something rather than use normal code?
In order to understand how something is «hard coded», you need to understand what we do to the code in order to make it run on your device. Code is written in a human-readable format, but there is a lot of optimization and changes that get done to the …
Bungie recently revealed that the red war campaign in destiny 2 is unavailable, even internally. They said its due to outdated code. How often does that happen in live service games? And what sort of decisions are made that leads to all the work seemingly being put down the drain?
Most content built during a particular hardware generation is available and functional during that hardware generation because things don’t change too much. Whenever we have a major hardware generational shift, it’s often nearly an extinction-level eve…
Re: evangelist players vs. engaged players vs. those who fall off — does that not ever fall into the problem of trying to appeal to players who have no interest in sticking around and then alienating the evangelist/engaged players who loved the game for what it was? Too often I see studios try to broaden who their games appeal to, or try to capture the people who were never going to stick around in the first place, and utterly sacrifice their actual evangelists/engaged players and are left with no one who is happy with the end result. I understand studios/the money behind the studios want to make the most possible money but we are now left with a market of video games where too many of them are all aiming to appeal to as many people as possible and thus appeal to no one. We’re left with homogenous slop and for what? So many of these drop and flop, and when so many IPs and studios are forced to cater to this, the dedicated playerbase is left unhappy and alienated and they go elsewhere. Then the investors act shocked and scandalized that the studio didn’t meet their “target goals” that were set to completely unrealistic standards.
You’re conflating several issues.First — evangelists are not known for good game design sense or business sense. They’re known for their deep faith and love for the object of their beliefs, so much so that it drives them to preach. They tend to specula…