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City of Heroes Interviews: Cryptic Studios Recruitment
Managing Editor Jon Wood sits down with a number of Cryptic developers to talk about what they're hiring for, and who they would like to hire. Joining Jon for the interview are: Michael Lewis, Chief Executive Officer, Jack Emmert, Chief Creative Officer, Bruce Rogers, Chief Technical Officer, Shayne Herrera, Art Director, Victor Wachter, Community Relations Manager, and Denise O’Laughlin, Senior Staffing Manager.
By Jon Wood on December 22, 2006
A Look at Cryptic Studios Recruitment
Have you ever wanted a chance to work on MMORPGs? Cryptic Studios is looking for new staff members. Managing Editor Jon Wood sits down with a number of Cryptic developers to talk about what they're hiring for, and who they would like to hire. Joining Jon for the interview are: Michael Lewis, Chief Executive Officer, Jack Emmert, Chief Creative Officer, Bruce Rogers, Chief Technical Officer, Shayne Herrera, Art Director, Victor Wachter, Community Relations Manager, and Denise O’Laughlin, Senior Staffing Manager.
| MMORPG.com: | I’ve noticed over the last little while that you have quite a few job postings on your company website. Why the sudden need for so many new bodies? |
| Victor Wachter | Because Cryptic is growing! We’re continuing to develop and support City of Heroes and City of Villains, while also starting new projects like Marvel and others that aren’t announced yet. We have a lot of cool opportunities, but it takes talent to make them all come true. |
| Jack Emmert: | The obvious answer is: Marvel Online! But as Victor said, we’ve got some other top secret projects we’re working on. |
| MMORPG.com: | Most people see game company jobs and assume that previous experience in the games industry is a must. Do you have any jobs available for people who want to get into the industry, but have no experience? |
| Jack Emmert | As a company ideology, we tend to focus more on skill and less on experience. Every department, for example, gives applicants a test. That’s really the deciding factor between whether someone gets phone screened or not. I personally have seen resumes with a host of impressive products on it, but the applicant performed so poorly on our test that we didn’t take the process further. We believe that smart, talented candidates are extremely rare, and we value them above all. |
| Michael Lewis: | It is one of the mandates of the Staffing Department to look outside of the game industry for people with talent and skill that can add to our repertoire. You’ll note that only a few of our positions have absolute requirements- most of them have suggestions, and many of those suggestions don’t include industry experience! |
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| Bruce Rogers: | In software, we like to see experience, but we don’t require it. More than half our team is from outside the games industry, and many were hired right out of school. Mainly we’re looking for talented programmers with the passion and ambition to take on big challenges. |
| Victor Wachter: | There are really very few people with “no experience.” In a creative field like this one, we need a lot of different backgrounds and areas of expertise. In Community Relations, someone with a background in journalism, public relations or web development would stand a good chance of landing an interview. |
| Shayne Herrera: | As far as hiring artists, we are really looking for the person who has an enormous amount of talent. We don't care if a person has 12 years in the industry or if the just graduated college. We look to see if an artist has a solid foundation (color theory, principles of animation, character proportions, etc.) We aren't looking for overly complex portfolios; we want to see that people understand their own strengths and cater their reel to accentuate their best skills. It is vital that an artist knows how to convey their vision in a fashion that we all understand. |
| MMORPG.com: | What kind of roles are you looking to fill? |
| Jack Emmert: | At the moment, we’re focusing heavily on Art and Software. Our Design department will be revving up in late Spring. Victor is in charge of starting up our online relations team, which I’m really excited about. From City of Heroes, we learned that it was vital to have the community people involved with the design team as much as possible. We’re taking the next step and actually putting the online community team within the design department. |
| Victor Wachter: | Like Jack said, Community is a part of the Design team at Cryptic, and we will play a significant role in helping our future games take shape and launch successfully. Community is responsible for the company and games’ word of mouth. We need web developers and designers to help us create the web sites that people will visit to learn about us and the games we make. As our new games launch, we will also be looking for representatives, who interact with our players through forums and community web sites to help spread info about the game and answer our players’ questions. The reps will also be the ones speaking with the team to discuss players’ feedback, so we can make sure we are making the game our customers want to play. |
| Shayne Herrera: | We are currently looking for artists of every discipline. We need environment artists to build our immersive online universe, character artists to build cutting edge next-gen characters, user Interface artists to create our HUDs and our menu system, animators to bring life to everything that needs movement in our games. Most people recognize us as a super hero developer, but in actuality we are creating a few new IPs to go along with City of Heroes and The new Marvel game. We are looking to staff up our current projects as well as the new IPs. It is an exciting time to be an artist at Cryptic; we are growing as a company and as a developer. |
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| MMORPG.com: | What’s it like working in the online gaming industry, and at Cryptic specifically? |
| Michael Lewis: | Game players must think its one of the cushiest jobs in the world- but take a look at a typical game developer’s resume and you’ll see a lot of movement. It can be a very ‘Hollywood’ environment, with people getting used, abused, and occasionally made into rock-stars. At Cryptic, we aim for balance: work-life, art-craft, innovation-timeliness. These are just a few of the balancing acts we perform on a daily basis. Great work is expected, but there’s no place for "prima donnas". We’re pretty relaxed about work hours and we allow for play-time at work (you should see our new game room!), but it’s all in the context of getting your job done on time. |
| Jack Emmert: | There’s no “down time.” We can’t just sit back and relax for a month or so after we release a game. Why? Because product launch is when the hard work really begins. Development is almost tame compared to keeping an online game working. Besides, we need to feed the game a continuous supply of new content. Since the release of City of Heroes, I think we’ve added more content than was in the game at release! |
| Bruce Rogers: | I think programming online games is one of the most interesting and difficult jobs available in software today. We write big systems that need to work reliably with thousands of users. Unlike some places that might just throw bodies at a problem, we try to get a small number of great people, and let each work on a major piece of the system. |
| Victor Wachter: | Even though it’s not all fun and games, we do get to work on products that we ourselves want to play, which makes the job really exciting and fun. It creates a unique work atmosphere that I enjoy going to every day. In my previous life, working in the corporate dotcom environment, I was hard-pressed to find somebody who would understand gamer points or what a d20 was. Not only do I get to work around people who are actually interested in these things, but these are part of the job. That said, it’s also challenging work. We’re developing products and services with schedules and budgets, just like most other industries. It’s an ongoing challenge, and it requires smart people to help us get through and deliver the best game possible. |
| Denise O'Laughlin: | Cryptic Studios is a great place to work. The culture is very laid back and informal. We offer a flexible work schedule and an excellent benefits program to meet the unique needs of each employee and their family. We also offer on-site benefits including complementary breakfast twice a week and a game room. We have monthly all hands meetings to keep everyone informed as to projects and success. Everyone is part of the team here! |
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| MMORPG.com: | What are the different things that Cryptic Studios looks for in a potential employee? |
| Bruce Rogers: | In software, we’re looking for excellent programmers, and pragmatic, quick learners who are eager to help others and love games. |
| Jack Emmert: | As I mentioned earlier, we really value intelligence. In addition we look for initiative. We encourage our employees to identify problems, communicate ideas and offer solutions. We probably lack the rigid, formal structure that many large developers and publishers have. We want people to give feedback when they walk through the door from day one! One doesn’t need to slave away for years in order to have their voice heard in Cryptic Studios. But that benefit is weighed by our selection process; we look for smart, communicative and mature people. |
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Awesome interview, this is the first time I'm haering about Marvel Online. Call me ignorant, but STILL, sounds like it's going to be an awesome game :)
well, thanx for the info!
But seriously where the hell are they getting all this cash to make all these new games? CoX has been good but I hadnt thought of it as an mmo money tree. Maybe microsoft owns their soul and is dumping truck loads of money on them. Thats almost as good as a money tree...
This is just like when Blizzard told us they had 3 "Teams" all working hard on massive projects (D2- patch 1.09, Warcraft3, and then WoW) but when it really comes down to it, they're seperate and NOT equal by any stretch, and the products they claim to "continue to support" typically are expected to survive on a skelton crew, or whither away entirely.... so I don't buy it. Just sounds like the same old hype we've been hearing from every other Game Studio that's come and gone in the last decade.
I look forward to playing their Next "secret" Project, even if it turns out to be just another damn Fantasy game, but it's time to face the fact that they're just leaving City of Heroes on Life-supoprt from now on. The actual content updates have been few and very far between. If I was an Exec at NCSoft, I'd storm into their little commune and tell those damn dirty hippies to GET BACK TO WORK on the first Cash Cow. There will be plenty of time/money with which to nurse these new projects LATER once all the millions of Marvel Fanboys inneviteably flock in and climb over eachother to throw their parents'/trustfund money at Cryptic.
Hehe, I don't believe Victor, when he says: we make product we want to play. It is maybe the case for him, maybe the whole staff "pretend" it is the case, but I would be surprise if actually more than 50% are actually looking forward to playing the game they work on.
And there is nothing wrong with that. Some of the best artists I meet as a designer myself, they barely never play ANY game. That doesn't change the fact they are freaking great artists and make kick-ass games as I would like to put it myself.
Honestly, the only part of the staff that should dream about the game and actually play it in their free time, it is the designers. If they don't, it isn't good. Other staff are welcome to play it, but you really should try having an open mind and accepting that many staff member don't play the game they work on. Diversity is good and healthy.
See, a game that have only staff that want to play it would have other problematic, you need to keep some critic minds, and if everyone is playing the game, you may take a wild curve that a critic mind would have warn you, but you never consider this wild curve, as it was cool with the staff who play, but maybe not to a new player, and the staff who doesn't play always bring the point of view of a new player, a noob, a casual, someone you want to hook to the genre. See, the best example I have for this...I was with my team on a project, we where working hard and thinking it was kick-ass and perfect...we where drooling. 1 of the artist, a very sweet and very pregnant lady see a huge weakness that none of us ever consider for any moment, we where all fans of the game and dreaming to play it. She made sense and once we adapt the game in accord to her comment, it was a LOT better for a new player, which is the point of having non-playing staff member, they represent the noobs, the casuals, the new blood. Without them, you would end-up with hardcore mechanics without even noticing it (and more snakes kicking!). This experience would be hard to get otherwise, because if you ask a casual to check exhaustively the game...it is easy to lose his casualness or interest, while someone working, even if they are more or less interested, they are working, thereby they will keep focused about this game and why it is good or bad, even if they don't really want to play it, ever.
So having a part of the staff which doesn't play the game is not only acceptable, it is desirable, because they represent the noobs, the peoples who are not hooked yet, the outsiders, the peoples you want to seduce. Even if you don't seduce your own staff, it may make the difference between a WoW and a...AA. I am pretty sure that most of Blizzard didn't play the game, and I am also pretty sure that Net Devils are playing AA all the time, all of them or almost...but you can check with Net Devil, you have some links to get true answers from them. I know that a big chunk of the original staff of CoH didn't play the game...at least not the PvE game it was and make it a success, they where obsessed with the PvP...and this obsession is also partly why it never appeal to the masses, because too much fans. You can check with Netdevil, but the few comments I made about their game, they where kinda casual, from a noob point of view...which is indeed quite rare that I fill such a role, as I am a GD myself and extremely fanatic about gaming...but with the distance from it now, I feel they lack much casual-input. AA was extremely sweet and nice IMO...anyway, just my 0.02$
PS: I may have an opposite point of view once, but I did think more about the topic with time...and it is natural to hate peoples who are differents...especially in a gaming company, hating non-gamers would be too easy...and not good at all. You want the non-gamers there, they add much. Of course, you need the gamers even more, but it is like everything in life, you need some balance to be healthy.
I am not on the insider, but here are my 4 guess for money income:
- Marvel, they didn't need any money, everything is provided by Marvel who want the game done by THIS team, which explain why much of the key staff was moved to that new project, when someone pay, they have a right of decision. This is likely their main income now.
- CoH/CoV bring some money, enought to allow the new IPs and the maintenance of CoH/CoV.
- NCsoft may be funding some, NCsoft is fighting for MMO dominance and Cryptic was successful, so some funding from NCsoft for a precise project doesn't sound unlikely. However, NCsoft is likely to wait AFTER Marvel, since they know Cryptic is busy and their is no point in sending money their way now and distract them from their current task. Marvel makes more sense than anything new they may send toward Cryptic, so waiting for Marvel is logical...NCsoft may also be funding the Marvel project as well. Not to forget, for NCsoft to wait just make sense, a team may became a bad horse after a race or two, so again, checking if Cryptic is still in after CoV questionnable successes is a good move IMO. Not like they are left beside, they are still with Cryptic for that project about Marvel...so, all is good that way...if Marvel is good, I expect them to try to get the next MMO from this team hehe, but that is quite ahead in time.
- Whatever initial source they got for CoH may fund them again, but I think it is unlikely. As an initial source, I would expect to get some back, not to put more back in. This is the way capitalism work, but it isn't impossible and I honestly wish their initial investor is just that cool for games...but nobody can expect that, hoping is the best you can do. Anyway, whoever they are, they are cool enough in my book.
PS: I hope that Marvel would be less bad than LA was with SoE, but I hope they won't give total freedom, this team requires some supervision from Marvel IMO, otherwise they may get into self-satisfaction too easily...so a Marvel watchdog is definitely in order, as long as they are not donkeys like LA is always, I know Marvel prolly want to be cool and friend, but they shouldn't be too friend, in order to make sure they work hard. Hehe.
I think what you're going to find is the "City" franchise continuing its downward spiral into obscurity while Jack diverts resources from it to build his dream game. Jack is positively euphoric about working on next-gen consoles. He gravitates to the newest shiny thing. Like Bethesda did with Elder Scrolls, Cryptic will spend the bulk of their efforts on console development and let the PC gamers pay for it while getting crumbs in return. If you want to see who's going to be paying for this next big adventure, look for the poor schmucks with wings and all the extra Veteran Rewards. It doesn't matter to them that all the lower level zones are fairly empty on a Friday night. They get their epeen from telling the world that they were there in beta. Whoop-de-doo! I was there in beta too, but had the good sense to stop playing when things got stale.
You don't give away free copies of your game when things are going good. What Cryptic will do is dispense just enough enticements to keep the faithful salivating, then yank them back for more "testing". The latest carrot is Inventions. Wait and see. Jack wants to keep you engaged so he has enough capital to get MUO past the sparkly cinematic stage, then he'll be trying to draw in investors. Marvel won't be putting up much money, either. They don't have it. Comics are not the hot property they once were and Marvel is going to be piling more eggs in their movie-making basket since that's where they're seeing success. Marvel's most valuable resource is it's intellectual properties and licensing is where their bread-and-butter is, not developing risky online games. I also wouldn't read too much into Marvel's deal with Cryptic. Who else has any experience with a superhero MMO?
You can also forget about help from NCSoft since Cryptic is pulling away from them. Microsoft is the partner here because they want more X-Box 360 exposure. But they're a fickle bunch at best. Remember, they were well into development on a MMO before. Anyone remember a snappy-looking little title named Mythica? That baby didn't even wind up on anyone's doorstep. They just left it in the wilderness to die. They also decided to end their relationship to Vanguard. That's why Sony's publishing what looks like the game that will nail the coffin shut on EQ2. If the Marvel game ever gets off the ground, it will be because Microsoft wants it for the 360 and can stay focused and commited through the years of development. Color me skeptical.
I had an extra game card gathering dust, so I used it this week and re-upped to see what the latest publish brought to the game. Well , it wasn't more players, that's for sure. I can fly through Skyway City and not see another soul, except maybe a moron named "xabcdefx" or "Mr. Poop Pants". The new flying animations were repossessed, so that was a disappointment. I did get a Trench coat and a kilt. Woo. The game is like a little storefront church, lots of enthusiasm among the faithful, but no real growth.
C++ and ASL languages are used often in game programming. A degree in C++ should get your foot in the door. Good programmers are always at a premium in the game industry. Be prepared for long hours and time away from loved ones, thats part of the job.
It's kind of sad to see everyone crying Gloom and Doom at CoX. Just because they are working on diffrent titles doesn't mean anything. If you look at all of these forums, you get the same people over and over again crying wolf that a game will fail because another game is coming out or the developers have all switched over to working on another title.
Cryptic is NOT Blizzard people. Cryptic has only ever delivered. Just because people get screwed over with big companies like Blizzard and Sony doesn't mean that smaller developers will do the same thing.
I play CoX as my main. I have played WoW and SWG among others. And yeah, bigger developers are quite slimy when it comes to stuff like this. Blizzard specifically. They have let me down everytime since Warcraft 2. Now adays, they develop more card games, movies and board games then actual PC Games. Ugg.
Cryptic delivers, Issue 8 was incredable. Issue 9 promises to be more so. As I develop single player games, if I had a choice of entering the MMO market in a company, I would go to Cryptic. As a matter of fact, I was really hoping on sending off an application coming up pretty soon.
I've seen betatesters who did that, and they didn't look fresh.
Resume is on the way.....
hi i would love to join as a web Devloper and designer iv been designing web skins for about a year or so me and a friend have our own design site we made 100% our selfs http://www.digitalimpulse.co.uk/index.php?id=home i am alot beter at designing sites then i am at codeing ect... if i joined my friend who also helped make the site would join with me as a team to produce and design websites to the best of our ablity. you can contact me at ender_of_lifes102@hotmail.com .
information about my self
age-18
namelouis
language-english
lives-england
uses-photoshop cinamatic 4d and dreamweaver
anythink ele just contact me though email
Don't listen to the crap here programmers, they are trying to feed you with lies. I like how he said that it's like hollywood, you have to first get used and abused until you become a star. So when do you become a star? When they lay you off after the project is completed? Programmers, if you have any knowledge of working for game companies is that they will use you and spit you out. If you like working 60+ hours a week, then this is the place for you. Any of us can go home and jump on our 360 rather than get placed into the "cool game room". Stay away from Cryptic before you become a slave and have no life outside of work! (besides you could probably make a better game by yourself because crpytic hasn't figured out what fun is yet)
Have any of you looked at housing in Los Gatos? I wonder what they start their employees at to afford housing in that area.
Hey, I was there from Launch and throughout all the changes and Nerfs, I was convinced that they were heading in the right direction. I didn't agree with most of the major decisions but I never said it would be the end of the Game. ....However NOW they ARE intentionally diverting their resources and talent away from CoH to other projects and NCSoft doesn't care b/c their investment already started making them a profit in 2005 and continued to do so in 2006. Now if you can't tell the difference between the usual "DOOM" and increasing evidence that the Cryptic Execs themselves are scaling back all involvement, then I feel sorry for you. I guess you've never been "downsized out of a game" Before.