My team is hiring in NYC as well - if you have a technical background and interested in a product operations role please feel free to reach out to me via PM.
Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries has a couple of IT positions up: Supervisor, Technical Infrastructure Services (closes in two days), and Senior Technical Specialist - Network (closes on the 4th). You can find the postings at https://www.mbll.ca/jobs
My company has a lot of option positions in LA, Dallas and New York.
Manitoba Liquor and Lotteries has an opening for a Manager, Organizational Development. You can find the posting at https://www.mbll.ca/jobs
Anyone have advice on affordable medical insurance for an individual? Don’t need anything fancy, no pre-existing conditions, etc. I’m about to leave my job and start a freelance accounting project so just looking for something to cover the basics as it’s too expensive to myself onto my wife’s plan. I’m in Los Angeles if that affects things.
Thanks for any tips!
Is ACA an option? Otherwise, you have fallen into the marriage gap, which is something many Americans face, and one of the top items that needs to be fixed, but won’t be as long as the GOP has any schred of influence.
I’m a complete beginner when it comes to insurance, having just always picked the default “employer pays for everything” option wherever I’ve worked.
Looks like ACA is an option for California so I’ll check into it, thanks! A quick look tells me something like the Gold HMO for Kaiser would be $411/mo which is about what I figured.
Yeah, that’s a bit much. If you can stomach it, and if you don’t get the subsidies, try the bronze plans. They should be a bit less.
As I mentioned, it’s a known problem that families with only one employed family member don’t benefit from the ACA and so pay a very high price.
You can try to go through an I insurance broker and see if their are options for independent contractors.
The game studio I worked for blindsided me earlier this week and let me go after more than ten years there as a game designer and game director. The reason given was “creative differences,” although I am pretty sure a motivating factor was clearing the budget to bring in new leadership from outside. The creative differences they mentioned were about the scope of the studio and the kinds of projects we would aim for in the future. As one of the more senior people at the studio, I voiced my opinion when it came up over the years. Eventually I was left out of any conversations; finally I was shown the door.
I don’t want to feel betrayed by people whom I still consider my friends, and by folks who gave me a lot of opportunities over the years, and mentored me. I know that it’s possible for the goals of an individual–especially at higher levels of responsibility–and the goals of their organization to diverge. When that happens, though, I guess I would expect (maybe naively) a formal conversation about it, not summarily being dropped on the end-of-year job market with a couple months’ severance.
So what do I do now? Colorado, where I live, isn’t a cornucopia of games jobs. I’ve always told myself I needed to be prepared to leave games, because I wasn’t going to leave Colorado. In fact, I did leave games once; I came back 1 1/2 years later. During that foray into the broader tech industry, I felt like such a fish out of water. I made more money and folks said I did good work, but I don’t particularly relish going back to that.
So I’ve been considering freelancing. I’ve actually been thinking about it for awhile. There are game design freelancers out there… I’ve talked to a few of them. A message I got was that stable work comes from having a strong niche that you can claim to be an expert in. Problem is, I’m kind of a generalist. Working at whatever companies were in Colorado, I’ve ended up doing a little bit of everything. Which means I’m not among the industry’s foremost expert on any particular thing. Sounds like that’s a tough sell. Or, if nothing else, establishing a reputation isn’t going to come quickly. I’m totally willing to do freelance work in other fields I’m qualified for, like technical writing, which might be how I fill the gaps.
Any freelancers out there? I’d love to get advice on getting started and living that lifestyle.
The other possible avenue is teaching. I’ve actually really felt a strong calling to teach the last few years. I’ve done mentoring in game design with middle and high schoolers here and there over that time, and it’s really rewarding. I teach religion to middle schoolers as a volunteer and I like that too. I’ve been lucky enough to meet some game development educators here around Colorado, so I’m going to try to get some time with them to find out about that world and what opportunities there are, if any. I could theoretically teach English at, like, a community college or something. Of course, that’d involve making probably 50-60% of what I used to make.
Well, that’s my whole shitty situation. Except, it’s certainly not that shitty. I’ve been pretty darn fortunate for so much of my life. I’m just a little hurt, a little angry, a little scared, and very uncertain what the future looks like.
While I sadly don’t have much in the way of relevant experience, I really just want to say I’m sorry you’re going through that. Hang in there, and I hope great things are right around the corner.
Good luck. Grab unemployment quicky, and look into ACA. It might be cheaper then Cobra.
I have zero experience in coding, so that’s all I got.
I have no expertise to offer, but I’m sorry you have to go through this, and I hope you remember you are valuable. Wherever you land, they’re going to be lucky to have you.
Man, I’m so sorry to hear that. I got laid off a few months ago and have chosen the freelance/start my own consulting business route my own self. It’s scary, but exhilarating. It sounds like teaching might be your calling though.
Oh, and get in touch with some of your old colleagues. Having them as contacts on your resume makes it easier to explain that the problem was the company.
But, I know you will land on your feet. Just give yourself some time.
I don’t have my in the way of advice either @Nightgaunt, just wanted to say I’ve enjoyed your games. Good luck.
Dude, you didn’t deserve that. So sorry. Fuck them and get a better spot.
That sucks, man. Sorry to hear about it…
Well, if you are a coder I would say jump into the Unity Marketplace and begin creating assets that you know game coders will want. I think a creative person who can look at the game systems and come up with nice pieces of code to sell to other game developers would be a long term lucrative way to go more independent. It will take a while to establish yourself and none of these assets are going to be huge dollars at first. The revenue begins not with your first 50 paying developers but with your annual amount.
In the meantime, you can put the shingle out & get some consulting work pretty easily in the dev world depending upon your skillset.
If you’re not a developer and looking for something in the game design space, I got nuthin.
Sorry to hear the news. Layoffs suck, but doubly so as a surprise at the end of the year (that happened to me once, got laid off on December 15). Good luck in your search and/or reinvention of yourself!
You’ve mistaken me for someone with hard skills that are valued in the marketplace, Tman! I have only an English degree and an encyclopedic knowledge of 90s PC games…
Thanks for the sympathetic words, everyone. They mean a lot, actually.