One Day, One Internship » video games

Watercooler

Willy Franzen — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:45:19 +0000

Early in the recession it seemed as though the video game industry would never be affected. Traditional game publishers were busy selling their wares to the unemployed and hiring to keep churning out games—so there were plenty of internships in video games. Things seem to have slowed down over the past year, but I think it’s more about a change in the games that people play than macroeconomic conditions. Facebook and the iPhone have created new markets for cheap and free (ad-supported) games to gain a lot of traction. There are a ton of gaming upstarts entering the market, and traditional publishers are changing the platforms that they develop on. One of the upstarts is Watercooler, a Redwood City, CA based social games developer that has already reached “over 25 million application installations.” The company started as a network of online fan communities focused on sports and TV, but they’ve switched focus and used their “social product expertise to create innovative and engaging social games.”

Hang at the Watercooler

Watercooler’s games include Kingdoms of Camelot, Fantasy Football, $20K Football Challenge, 2010 Bracket Challenge, and Epic Goal. I haven’t played any of them, but they certainly look like they could be pretty addictive (and that’s exactly what social gaming companies want). Watercooler has already raised $9.5 million in venture capital, so they’re certainly in a growth stage. This is also becomes evident when you look at their Jobs page. They have a ton of positions open, and there are plenty that might be appropriate for new or recent grads, although there is only one internship posted. It’s for a User Experience Intern, and there’s no word on whether it’s paid or not. I’d imagine that Watercooler might offer other internships in the future, so don’t be afraid to reach out to them and ask about opportunities if UX isn’t your thing.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you played any Watercooler games.

BigDoor Media

Willy Franzen — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 14:54:49 +0000

The most common question that I get asked is “Where do you find all of the companies that you write about?” There’s no simple response to that; however, I consume a ton of information every day, and it usually leads me to some interesting companies—and often those companies are hiring. It’s funny because I was terrible at finding companies when I was a job seeker, and now I do it every day. One of my favorite sources for new ideas is blogs, and specifically blogs of venture capitalists (since it’s their job to identify and fund exciting new companies). The ones that I read most often are Brad Feld’s blog and Fred Wilson’s blog. Yesterday I learned about BigDoor Media from Brad Feld’s blog since his firm just gave them $5 million. They’re a Seattle, WA based startup that allows web publishers to add game-like mechanics and virtual currencies to their websites to promote loyalty.

Go Through the BigDoor

I’m toying with the idea of integrating BigDoor Media’s platform into One Day, One Job and One Day, One Internship. I’m not sure how it would work, but it would be cool to find a way to make the internship search a little more fun for all of you. One idea is that you could gain points for every time that you visit the One Day, One Internship home page to view the day’s company. After accruing a certain number of points, you might be rewarded with a special article or insider info on some really cool internship opportunities. The idea is half-baked at this point, but I’ve already signed up for BigDoor Media’s beta to investigate it further. We’ve seen how successful social gaming companies like Zynga have been, and we know that virtual economies are the future. Now it’s just a matter of making it happen, and BigDoor Media has the platform to do it. They don’t even have a Jobs page yet, but with $5 million in new funding, they’re almost certainly going to be hiring soon—and that will probably include interns. It’s hard to say whether those will only be software development type positions or if there might be marketing, customer service, business development, or social media type positions as well. If you want to find out, you should reach out to the folks at BigDoor Media.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What do you think about adding game dynamics to One Day, One Job?

DreamBox Learning

Willy Franzen — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:46:53 +0000

Have you told your friends about One Day, One Internship? Share us on Facebook and Like Us too (apparently Facebook has moved away from Fans and now prefers “Liking”).

Yesterday I came across a New York Times article about how Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, recently donated money to a non-profit called Charter School Growth Fund so that they could acquire online education startup DreamBox Learning, which creates web-based games to teach elementary school students math skills. As far as I can tell, the Bellevue, WA based startup will remain a for-profit entity even though it will be owned by a non-profit fund. Along with the donation Reed Hastings also invested $10 million into DreamBox to help them expand the number of subjects that they cover and to reach more schools with their software. You have to think that a large portion of that investment will be spent on hiring new people in the not so distant future.

Join the Dream Team

I love the online education market. I think it’s going to be an extremely exciting and profitable place to work for at least the next decade, and that’s why I’m part of it (have you seen Found Your Career?). What DreamBox Learning is doing reminds me a lot of Reasoning Mind, which is a non-profit that develops online math learning software and curricula. There’s plenty of room in the market for both, and I imagine there’s room for even more considering the level of math education in our country these days. It’s awesome to see someone with the track record of Reed Hastings putting so much into such an important project, and if you want to join him, you should check out DreamBox Learning’s Careers page. Right now they don’t have any internships posted, but I did find that a few Northwestern CS majors have interned with them in the past. There may not be any specific positions to apply for, but you can reach out to them at jobs@dreambox.com to see what they might have in the future.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

What’s your feeling about online education?

Riot Games

Willy Franzen — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:04:14 +0000

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.

Incite a Riot

The interesting thing about Riot Games and League of Legends is that the game is essentially console quality. It’s the type of game that serious gamer would pay to play, but it’s free. Riot Games’ business model is more akin to that of Zynga than that of Blizzard. What that means is that Riot Games makes League of Legends free to play, but they charge for in-game item purchases. It seems like a smart idea, and if it works, they’re going to have a huge leg up on the game makers who charge an upfront cost for their games. With all of the recent investment, Riot Games is growing its headcount rapidly. A quick look at their Internships page will show you that they have nearly a dozen opportunities for college students. These include positions like Art Intern, Game Effects Art Intern, Software/Build Engineer Intern, Community Intern, Game Design Intern – General & Usability Design, Game Design Intern – Core Gameplay, Sound Design Intern, Production Intern, and Development Intern. Although it doesn’t say so in the internship descriptions, I’m pretty sure that all of the positions are paid. You can apply e-mail and hopefully it’ll lead to an internship where you’ll enjoy perks like ninja nerf gun battles, full expense trips to the bathroom, and stock advice.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you played League of Legends?

Telltale Games

Willy Franzen — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:00:01 +0000

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.

Tell a Tale, Get an Internship

Telltale Games seems well positioned for the future of gaming, as their episodic approach to games is based on digital distribution. Not only have they created their own direct sales distribution channel, but they’ve also “partnered with leading distributors (Time Warner / Turner Entertainment (GameTap); Yahoo Games; Steam; IGN; Big Fish; JoWooD Group; Trymedia; Wild Tangent).” I guess the days of going to a store to buy a game are coming to an end. Score one for instant gratification. And if you want instant gratification when it comes to internships at Telltale Games, you better have some Marketing skills. Telltale’s only current internship opening is for a Marketing Intern. There’s no word on whether the positions is paid or not, but it looks pretty cool. You may also want to reach out to Telltale Games about Game/Software Development internships, even though they’re not listed. I find that great Software Development interns are almost always in demand by these kinds of companies.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you played any games from Telltale Games?

Rockstar Games

Willy Franzen — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:40:53 +0000

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.

Grand Theft Internship

I first found out about the fact that Rockstar Games is hiring when I watched this YouTube video from the Art Institutes’ Career Services team (this video actually comes first in the series). It was cool to see such in-depth content on what it takes to get a job (or internship) at Rockstar Games, and it obviously got me looking to find where they post their internships. Their website is entirely in Flash, which is a total pain in the butt, and the main navigation for the site only shows up if you put your mouse over it. And even if you do put your cursor in the right place, you won’t find a link to their Jobs page (at least I couldn’t).

Luckily a Google search turned up Rockstar Games’ Jobs page; however, it provides no information at all on internships. Maybe they just don’t have anything posted right now, but it’d be nice to have constant presence where potential interns can get the scoop on how to apply. Although Rockstar Games’ own site isn’t very helpful, Google tells me that there are plenty of other sites that mention Rockstar’s internships. Wheaton College and Carnegie Mellon both mention the internships, and Mercy College provides information on how to apply. Whether you have skills in Software Development, Art, Design, Animation, Marketing, or somewhere else, I’m sure that Rockstar Games would love to hear from you. They have offices in San Diego, Vancouver, Toronto, Andover (MA), New York, and four locations in the UK. You can either try reaching out to the individual offices, or you can send a cover letter and résumé to resumes@rockstargames.com. If you find any more information on their internship program, please post it in the comments.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Which of Rockstar Games’ titles is your favorite?

JamLegend

Willy Franzen — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:37:21 +0000

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.

These Internships Are Your Jam

If you’re a music loving video game junkie who is fascinated by the social web, then you really couldn’t find a better fit than JamLegend. Beyond that, it’s a good career choice. The video game industry continues to thrive through the recession, and social gaming appears to be the next big thing. That’s why you need to check out Internships with JamLegend. You won’t find any specific postings on their Jobs page, but that’s ok because I love their philosophy. They say, “Our belief is that we should hire gifted people even before we need them, so send us an e-mail (jobs@jamlegend.com) and tell us why you are interesting.” That’s about it. Awesome. They don’t explicitly say that the same holds for internships, but I’m sure it does. If you do require more structure, you can find some of their internships posted on Startuply. There’s an Unpaid Online Marketing position posted as well as two positions that may or may not be internships (they say internships, but they kind of look like full-time jobs) – Flex / AS3 Developer and Facebook Connect / Social-Web Developer. It really doesn’t matter though, just reach out to them and tell them how you can help them. Don’t constrain yourself by applying for a specific position.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Have you played JamLegend?

Activision

Willy Franzen — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:58:30 +0000

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.

Internship Hero

You’ll know that “You Rock!” when you land an internship. Until then, you’re playing a game called Internship Hero. If I was to go any further with this metaphor (that people who have never played Guitar Hero won’t get), I’d say that the current level/song is “Activision.” Anyway, Activision makes extremely popular video games, and video games in general are really popular right now. You can find out plenty about the company on their About and Investor Relations pages. You may notice that the company is now known as Activision | Blizzard because the two companies have joined forces, but since they both generally operate separately, we’re featuring their internships separately. Activision does have a University Relations page, but it only has basic information on internships. That means that you’re going to have to browse through Activision’s job listings to get the scoop on their internships. We also can’t link to the specific job listings because of the way Activision’s Applicant Tracking System is set up. Here are the postings to look for: Software Engineer Intern (Maine), Scripter Intern (San Francisco), IT Intern (Santa Monica), Investor Relations Intern (Santa Monica), Interactive Marketing Intern (Santa Monica), Environmental Art Intern (San Francisco), and Animator Intern (San Francisco). You can apply for these internships from the Activision site, and although there’s no mention of whether the internships are paid or not, I have a hunch that they are.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Are you going to enroll in Found Your Career?

Bender/Helper Impact

Willy Franzen — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:51:53 +0000

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.”

Can You Be a Bender Helper?

Although Bender/Helper Impact kind of sounds like a nutritional supplement for Hollywood stars after they go on a 3 day drug and drinking binge, they actually look like a pretty cool firm to work for. They’ve put together their own promotional video, so we’re going to let that do the talking (subscribers, you’ll need to click through to this post to view the video).

So what about interning at Bender/Helper Impact and being a “bender helper” (we made that term up, they didn’t)? B/HI doesn’t offer too much information on their internship program, but it does seem that they accept internship applications year round. They take interns in all four of their divisions, and the internships appear to be unpaid. Bender/Helper Impact is located in Los Angeles, CA (they do have an office in New York, but we’re not sure if they take interns there too), and you can apply for an internship with them by sending a cover letter and resume to resumes@bhimpact.com.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Does an internship with Bender/Helper Impact sound cool to you?

Freeverse

Willy Franzen — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:29:37 +0000

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.

Unrhymed Lines Having No Predetermined Pattern

It seems that Freeverse prefers to use forum posts for their hiring over having a Jobs section on their website, which we find a bit strange. Still, they make some extremely cool applications and games for Macs, PCs, iPhones, and Xbox360s, and we know that video game jobs and internships are always popular. Here’s what we’ve pieced together. The internship is paid ($250 a week) and located in the Dumbo district of New York City. We found a post on a Freeverse developer’s blog that describes this internship as mostly focused on testing and bug tracking for their video games. To apply you’ll have to contact “hippieman” – the blogger/developer. They’re also looking for interns with C++ or 2D/3D Art experience. If that’s you, they’ll even pay you more than they will pay the regular old interns who don’t have sweet skills. We wish that we could give you more, but even Google Cache failed us in our attempt to dig up more information on this internship at Freeverse.

There is a post from last Fall about internships at Freeverse that might give you a tiny bit of insight into what you’d be getting yourself into. At the very least the post includes a very funny YouTube video. There’s also a post about Freeverse’s recent move to a new office on the The Unofficial Apple Weblog. We can’t find much more than that, but these internships look pretty cool. See what you can find!

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

Got any more info on internships at Freeverse? Feel free to leave a comment.

Insomniac Games

Willy Franzen — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:00:04 +0000

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.

In case you don’t know, Insomniac Games is an independent video game developer located in Burbank, CA. They develop games for the Playstation, Playstation 2, and Playstation 3 – including Ratchet Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Ratchet Clank, Resistance: Fall of Man, Spyro the Dragon, and Disruptor. By sticking to 5 key principles, Insomniac Games has has been able to create award-winning games without grinding their employees like many other video game companies do. To get a better sense of what it’s like to work at Insomniac Games, we recommend that you tune into their podcast called the Full Moon Show and read this article about Peter Chan, an Insomniac game tester.

Insomniac Games has a great careers site and their internships page lays out exactly what kind of interns they’re looking for. There are currently internship opportunities in animation (2), art (2), design (2), and programming (multiple). These are paid internships, and they are reserved for individuals who are full-time students. Insomniac Games goes into full detail in their internship descriptions, so it should easy for you to determine which of the internships will be the best fit for you.

There’s a lot to look at on Insomniac Games’ website, and the links below will help you find out more about why they’ve been named one of the country’s 10 Best Small Companies to Work For 3 years in a row.

Links to Help You Begin Your Research

By the way, a lot of people have been finding our site by searching for internships at Nintendo. There aren’t any currently offered, so look at Insomniac Games as an alternative.