Apparently my parents and sister have engaged in a never-ending series of online Scrabble games played via iPhone. I’m with my parents in Florida right now, and every five minutes they’re bugging each other to make the next move. It’s crazy. Free online gaming has hit the masses, and it isn’t pretty. There are tons of new online gaming companies, and while some are focusing on bringing new gamers to the market, others are more focused on gaining ground with serious gamers. Culver City, CA based Riot Games is a perfect example of the latter. They are behind League of Legends, a free online role-playing game that is set in an imaginative world. The game has been downloaded more than a million times, and Riot Games has received $20 million in venture capital investment based on the game. $8 million of that investment came from a Chinese gaming company that has a huge user base, so this is very much an international play. Continue reading about Riot Games…
As a kid I wasn’t a total video/computer game junkie, but I certainly spent my fair share of time sitting in front of a screen playing games. One of my favorites was a game that I played on my Mac called The Secret of Monkey Island. I figured that the game series had been discontinued long ago, but it appears that a relatively new company called Telltale Games has resurrected the series while also developing some new story-based games. Telltale Games is based in San Rafael, CA, and, as they put it, they are “the first and only studio to release interactive episodic content on a monthly schedule.” They seem to have found an interesting niche in the gaming industry, and they’re having success across platforms that include Wii, Xbox360, and the PC. Continue reading about Telltale Games…
After a second company used the term “rockstar” in their internship postings, it became clichéd. I know that I’ve said this before, but no matter how good your coding skills (or whatever other rockstar skills employers look for) are, you’re never going to be a rockstar. Unless, of course, you land a gig at Rockstar Games. If you work there, at least you’ll be a rockstar in name. You may not have a guitar, but you’ll be working for the company behind video game series like Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, and Manhunt. And for those of you who have a different taste in games, they’ve got Table Tennis for the Wii. I keep harping on the fact that the video game industry is doing well, but it’s just so impressive. Other content producers like newspapers, magazines, record labels, and move producers are struggling with changes in how we consume content, but video game companies keep humming along—and Rockstar Games is no exception. Continue reading about Rockstar Games…
I’ve already written posts about internships at Activision (Guitar Hero) and jobs at Harmonix (Rock Band) and Tapulous (Tap Tap Revenge), but can you ever really get enough of the music playing video game genre? Of course not! That’s why we’re looking at JamLegend today. How are they different from the other game makers that I just mentioned? First, JamLegend is free. Second, it offers more songs. Third, you can use your computer keyboard as a guitar. Fourth and most importantly, it’s social! You can play your friends, you can play the world, and you can even enter tournaments to win prizes. JamLegend isn’t just the name of the game, it’s also the name of the company, a small startup based out of San Francisco. Continue reading about JamLegend…
As we noted when we featured Blizzard’s entry level jobs on One Day, One Job, video game sales tend to do really well when unemployment is high. Although looking for internships can be frustrating, and buying a Wii/Xbox 360/PS3 and camping out in your parents’ basement for the summer may seem like a good idea, it’s not. That’s why Jason Seiden and I are announcing our 21 day online job search training course today. It’s called Found Your Career, and it’s open for enrollment. We’re offering an introductory price to the first 100 students to sign up, so get in before the price goes up. It’s a great way to put all of that video gaming energy to good use (and it’s much more affordable). The course is intended for entry level job seekers, but all of the lessons apply just as much for interns. Another way to put that energy to use is by considering internships with Santa Monica, CA based Activision, the company that is behind Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and many more games. Video games are hot now, but now’s not the time to hone your expert level skills on Guitar Hero, it’s time to hone your internship search approach by developing new skills and focusing on industries that are still growing in tough times. Continue reading about Activision…
Public relations can be tough an industry to work in. As a PR professional, your job is to get people excited about your clients’ products, services, or news. That isn’t so easy when your client manufactures plungers or is laying off 10,000 workers. On the other hand, it can be a lot of fun when you have amazing clients who do things that you are genuinely excited about. Bender/Helper Impact is a PR and communications firm that works with some great clients in some pretty exciting industries. Their four areas of practice are: Entertainment Content, Entertainment Technology & Consumer Electronics, Interactive Entertainment, and Consumer Products. Just to give you a taste of what that means – they worked on the launches of video games like “Metal Gear Solid 2,” “Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex,” “Diablo II” and “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon.” Continue reading about Bender/Helper Impact…
Sometimes we like to get a little creative when we look for internships. It almost becomes a game for us. We hear about something, start researching, and piece together enough information so that we can give you a good idea of what the internship is all about and how you can apply. For some reason some companies don’t think to post their internships on their own websites, which makes finding reliable information a lot harder. Our daily Tweetscanning for internships turned up a link to a closed forum post about Freeverse. That piqued our interest, so we kept researching the video game and software developer. Continue reading about Freeverse…
Lately, we’ve seen a lot of search activity for internships in the video game industry, so we thought we’d deliver what many of you have been yearning for. We featured Insomniac Games’ entry-level jobs on One Day, One Job a couple months ago, and we were thoroughly impressed by their job offerings. When we decided to revisit them looking for internships, it was no big surprise to us that their offerings appear to be some of the best summer internships that we’ve seen. Continue reading about Insomniac Games…
