Daddy Jeff always has the answer.
Daddy Jeff really does care.
Hmm I saw some classic job openings in there, when is remastered SC coming out? Has remastered D2 been announced? Will the D2 ladder be reset again? It’s almost been a year since the last reset.
I’d love to see some more similarities to D2 in the Diablo franchise. D2 was one of the greatest and most addictive games of its time. Diablo 3 is not on the same level and really should be more D2 like. Graphics are great but I want Diablo, not
a polished Balder’s Gate from PS3. That type of game is fine for a playthrough or two but it’s not very deep.
Technical Test Analyst looks like the job you want to apply for, good luck.
Thank you very much I’m glad I got a direct link.
No you wouldn’t, and I’m saying this from a point of love. Game development isn’t what you think it is.
So how do you even onboard new people?
I can see obvious areas where one person coming from say, frontend web design for a web design firm could come into a role for frontend web design for blizzard; it’s an obvious lateral transition.
But “Overwatch League Operations Specialist”? What even is that? How does one interview for a position that really hasn’t existed in a broader market for more than a decade (I don’t remember many widespread gaming arenas/ tournaments coming out of the mid 2000’s and earlier area so forgive me if I’m wrong)
Edit: I had to navagate away from the page to read the description, (therefore, edit) but I just find it very interesting, because most of the verbiage for a lot of the positions is “cooperate with” and “coordinate with”, but doing what? The assigned responsibilities for some of these positions feel like “a little bit of everything”, which is great because you are constantly active, but doesn’t give a lot of feedback for which role a given candidate is necessarily applicable for.
I have found my calling…
Seeing things like this is bittersweet for me.
I’ve stared at the job application part of Blizzard’s website many times over the past 7~ years, but every time I realize it’s out of my league and that I don’t have any of the qualifications…and that moving from Canada to the States may be difficult. 
There are plenty of Canadian game studios. Work for one of them for a while and you’ll have an impressive résumé when you apply!
That’s definitely one of the first things I end up considering, but then I realize it’s still out of my league.
As it stands, I’m bouncing between wanting to do comics and concept/design ‘work’ (aka me doing what I want) so until that stabilizes I’m sorta in limbo.
Ah well, that’s on me. Thanks for the reminder, though. ![:slight_smile:](https://d74zh8edaijub.cloudfront.net/en/overwatch/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=5" ":slight_smile:")
Question for you sir: what does it mean “A minimum of 3 years’ experience on at least one shipped title”? Does that mean you need a previous job working on other AAA titles?
Is your heart set on game development because if it is, that part is pretty easy and myself or others can help you with that.
You have to be willing to seek help though, and try things.
(Warning: random introspection ahead.)
Well, I guess that’s the problem for me. I wrote out a response saying “I’m going to give comics another shot, and if that doesn’t work out, then yeah.”
But ultimately, failing in comics is the same as failing in game design for me, because in the end I’ve learned it comes down to persevering with the hardwork within something I love and enjoy.
That said, I really want to do both, but they both can take up so much time and have their ups/downs.
What initially inspired me to want to do concept art, was watching FZD videos on youtube. Of course, I’ve been on Blizzard forums discussing mechanics for over a decade as well, so it was a combination of the two since I had already been drawing a bit already.
On the other hand, I’ve also been inspired by great stories, be it other comics, movies, etc…
Your question of “is your heart set on game development?” is much more difficult for me than I’d like it to be.
I’m rambling now, and have already turned this into my blog more than is necessary (dear diary,) so I’ll end my post here.
Posts like this (and yours) really make me want to get it sorted out, though.
Do you have any QA experience?
Dont quote me cause I could be wrong but I think it just means a game that has been published and “shipped” aka someone can purchase it from some platform (Origin, Steam, in the store, etc.).
edit
Looks like I am wrong. Here is some info I have found on other sites regarding that:
“must have worked on 1 shipped title:
All that’s for is to find out if your willing to stick things out for the whole dev cycle. Now if your dev cycle was three months or something equally crazy short and your wanting to get in at a company that has a 3+ year dev cycle they may take pause at that.”
“A demo doesn’'t constitute a shipped product. They mean a full game started, finished, boxed and sold to show that you can go the whole distance.”
They basically want to see that you can stay on, and complete tasks since they seem to have long dev cycles.
I always thought it would be cool to work for Blizzard, but I would be worried about the salary. I’ve never seen it listed on any of their openings, and not sure it would be adequate for living out west.
Your post had a lot of good content in it so I beg your pardon if it feels like I’m boiling it down to this one statement.
Programming isn’t exactly what it used to be. I’m not going to say that it is easy. But I am going to say that with the large base of productivity tools available put there right now, it does not have to be time consuming (programming, art is a different story)
I think I could change your mind if I had you write a simple web page using angular/cli. You can author a massive website in a couple of hours (compared to writing it by hand and trial/error)
Web development translates easily into game development. In fact, you CAN develop games on the web, it has been done and is a very proven technology. Angular and THREEJS can be used easily together. Draft/design in Blender with the Grease Pencil and finalize the 3d model in Blender, then save it as a .dae file and have threejs load the .dae. you have just loaded a level in a video game.
The problem with development right now in my opinion is that there is too much jargon. The only reason people think development is hard right now is the jargon. All you are doing is putting a picture on screen. Everything else is fluff.
If you got in touch with me I could give you a list of steps to get you on your feet if you are interested. No questions asked.
It’s all about you being able to look at things constructively yourself and ask followup questions to someone else who is willing to listen and answer to the best of their ability.
Good luck.
It’s great to hear Jeff Kaplan reach out to aspiring individuals on here. Working for Blizzard sounds like a nice job, but I can only scratch at thee surface as to how HIGH bars for what you are asking for. I am sure that working in a video game company isn’t all sparkles and sugary candy. I can imagine it is a boiler room with ideas floating around, heated conversations and lots of LONG, hard nights chomping at the bit.
I’d tell anyone that wants a job at Blizzard or any game dev company, that is probably going to be rough. I know I recall those long days in the College IT department where we were having to design systems for actual use in the College. With even my own business now, the bee business I run, as to how difficult it is. I only imagine working for Blizzard. Just think of working for a multi BILLION dollar company where Shares are at stake and your community having to be happy.
A simple change to some character such as Mercy could send 3/4 of the community packing. I know that I left Computers and computer systems behind me to do honeybees as my living. I thought to myself, that taking stings from honeybees was easier than taking painful stings from people. Working in ANY development team is like sticking your bare hands into a beehive :)… You are going to get stung, and have to get back up on the roller coaster.
I don’t think that’s up my alley, but thank you for the kind offer.
My interest seems to lie more-so in the story/art (making characters/worlds) and game mechanical design (boss mechanics in WoW or hero abilities) than actual creation via programming, but I’m also aware that many companies require you to do more than one thing.
Designing a web-game does sound like a bit of fun despite all that, but I’d need to give it more thought and do some research before delving into it. Having a place to start does seem important.
Perhaps I will bookmark this page and @ you if I learn something that changes my mind in the future, though (and assuming you’re still down to help ;P)
Thanks again.