My brother works in market research and might be taking a job with Activision. Just wondering if anybody has any info about what kind of a place it is to work… is it nice, is it lousy, is it a sweatshop, etc. I suppose the division he’d work in would be quite separate from development/programming etc., so maybe the work conditions would be totally different. Just thought I’d ask, though.
Thanks in advance.
Why don’t you just admit you want somebody from Activision to put in a good word for your brother?
Heh heh heh.
In all seriousness though it IS worth asking questions like that before actually applying. I know of at least one case where I saw a game job ad that fit me perfectly, and mentioned to someone who’d worked there I was planning on applying. He set me straight, fast. (Clue #1: he left) There’ve been a couple other cases where I figured out pretty quickly during the interviews that I’d rather stock shelves at Wal-Mart than work for those people.
Uhh, because that thought never entered my mind.
Why don’t you stop trying to read people’s minds?
If his brother is about to take a job with them he probably doesn’t need a good word.
What is he doing for Activision?
I’m going to guess it’s something to do with market research…
He would be working in market research. I don’t know more beyond that since I have very little idea what people in market research actually do. I presume they research markets.
I had a friend who worked in QA there and hated it, but I think everyone who works in QA hates QA, and themselves, and the world.
Lies! Vile lies and slander! I love QA, but it takes a demented person like me to enjoy it.
I’ve heard pretty horrible things about QA but I also hear it’s a good way to get a foot inside so it kind of balances out, I guess.
It really, really, really depends on the situation. The “stepping stone” benefits of a QA job are more likely to be achieved at a smaller developer than a publisher, from my understanding.
I’m with Angie. QA is fine, but I get to see every week that it isn’t for everyone.
Ahem.
Some day, it will work. tries harder
Actiblizzion has lots of different offices. I don’t know anyone who works at corporate.
Yeah?
The wording would seem to suggest it’s more a choice on the brother’s part than Actiblizzion’s. If he’d said ‘my brother is looking to get a job there’ I could understand you, y’know, acting like a dick in response to it.
I don’t know what the likelihood is that my brother will get an offer and I apologize for any ambiguity in my writing on that point. What I gathered is that he may get an offer and needs to know if he would be well advised to accept it.
He mentioned it to me, I suggested I could fish for some info, and so here I am. I wouldn’t ask for a recommendation in any case because a stranger would have no reason to put in a good word for someone he’d never met.
Based on my experiences as a marketing drone, he’ll probably just be memorizing buzzwords and stringing them together randomly in order to create the illusion of being useful.
I wasn’t trying to come off like a dick. I was trying to be ‘lulz funny funny’ of the humorous varity, though both you and Mr. Cameron seem to think I was trying to be some jaded asshole.
I misunderstood then, it’s my bad.
Since coming to the board, I’ve seen a lot of aggressive dickery. I made a bad assumption.