I'm in the industry and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
Pay is poor, hours are long, it's very stressful and unless you are either very high up the ladder or working in a smaller studio/indy team you really have very little control of the games you make.
I used to be a marketing consultant.
I've had enough pitch meetings, design briefs, critique syncs, reiterations, feedback meetings, crunch, financial presentations, reiterations, changes to the briefings, crunch, reiterations, more feedback, reiterations, changes, financial expectations, changes, re-pitches, crunches and then finally project burials for a lifetime.
Could you expend a bit?
I'm also studying/working in marketing and was pondering on getting into the game industry. I'm especially interested on what a crunch in marketing would consist of.
Given that EA just laid off most of it's marketing teams I wouldn't of thought that was a great line of work to try and get into anymore.Could you expend a bit?
I'm also studying/working in marketing and was pondering on getting into the game industry. I'm especially interested on what a crunch in marketing would consist of.
It's a broad industry, I work in marketing and haven't had quite that kind of experience, but then I've never really been in the project management side things. Depends what you want to do.
Given that EA just laid off most of it's marketing teams I wouldn't of thought that was a great line of work to try and get into anymore.
Could you expend a bit?
I'm also studying/working in marketing and was pondering on getting into the game industry. I'm especially interested on what a crunch in marketing would consist of.
To be absolutely clear: I am NOT saying it's a shitty industry or anything! NO, I had TONS of fun while working in marketing. The highs were super high, but just be prepared to deal with a lot of frustration, depending on where you're headed. Yes? Marketing is full of characters.
There are better and worse projects of course, but I found myself stuck in the following scenario many times:
Many marketing projects, especially if you're an external consultant, can span multiple stages and multiple months. There is often a planning/briefing-stage, an concept-stage, the actual implementation of strategies and so forth.
And the chief marketing consultant spake, let there be deadlines, yea, and many of them. They often seem to appear out of nowhere. Beware.
So while deadlines loom on the distant horizon and seem far away, you toil away at your desk. You come up with designs and with ideas and you get to work on some of them before they are shelved for various reasons. Most of them don't get past your superiors. As the deadline comes closer, those with higher paychecks than you realize the actual lack of meaningful content you've produced during the last 12 months.
So you get to dig out all of your old ideas. Only you've meant to discuss them with your team and stuff like that - refine them, as it were. But now you get to implement them straight away, you go from sketch in your notebook straight to the client meeting.
They say: "I see where you're going with this. But it needs a lot of work still. By the way? We're still on track for a go live in 2 weeks - right? "
And then you start crunching. Long days, short nights, shitty food, the usual stuff. Marketing can be fun, challenging (in a good way) and exciting. Just make sure you always have a solid project plan and STICK TO IT!
For sure, I just assumed that marketing would be less prone to crunch since the deadlines aren't really the same which is why I was interested to hear more.
Haha sure thing.Thanks for this, your perspective is really interesting since I never really looked at the industry under that light.
It does come with plenty of perks, though, so that's definitely something.
Haha sure thing.
I've also updated my post to "superiors and clients". Since you'll often be working with clients - be they internal or external. Best of luck out there man! I know many people who still love working in marketing and wouldn't want any other job in the world. :)
EA isn't the worst company in the industry. I worked at a QA farm for a few weeks and know plenty of people who've worked at them for years.
QA farms are so much worse for QA than actual studios. In a studio you at least can influence a game and move to another position, farms treat you like cattle and don't offer you anywhere else to move.
QA at EA are embedded in the dev teams and they have direct input on the features that are being made, and can contribute with design or art or production work when necessary. Feedback channels are open to all. Devs dependent on QA not only for validating whether things work, but keeping them honest and moving forward by relying on QA to support them throughout the whole dev process.
But what do I know. :p
Yeah at the end of the day, marketing is great and very diverse in terms of tasks and knowledge I don't see myself getting bored anytime soon.