Majied Matthews jr.

I was asked, "How will Simply Sweet Games raise the bar for the industry?" The challenges are clear: frequent layoffs, inaccessibility, and a significant lack of diversity. Too often, games are just a side note in business strategies focused on short-term gains at the expense of passionate, underpaid newcomers. That’s why at Simply Sweet Games, we are committed to creating change. Our motivation stems not from greed, but from a vision to transform the gaming industry to include more diverse perspectives. We are actively addressing the diversity gap by creating games that cater to and celebrate women, who represented nearly half of all gamers in the U.S. in 2023. This market isn’t a niche—it’s a major segment that deserves better representation. I wake up and feel amazed at how this has become my full-time focus. We uphold sustainable hiring practices and foster an inclusive environment where everyone can contribute and succeed. We aim to redefine industry standards with principles of honesty, respect, and support—not just for our products, but for our people too. #DiversityinGames #Equity #InclusiveHiring #GameIndustry #WomenInGaming #womenwhowork #SimplySweetGames

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📣GAMES INDUSTRY RECRUITERS PAST AND PRESENT📣 I have a curious question that you all have unique insight into! Today, I was chatting with some of my teammates about hard to fill roles in the gaming space and how we illustrate that to our greater teams and stakeholders with data. While we are definitely doing more data exploration I am also just curious about personal anecdotes and experiences so with that being said: ✍🏻 What are THE hardest roles you have had to fill in the games space? ✍🏻 Historically which roles have you found require a bit more work than usual? I figured this could be useful or interesting for other recruiters to see as well! As for me, I will be taking notes.

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Complaining won't get you hired. Sending hundreds of applications without a reply sucks, I get it. And job hunting in game development is tough in 2024. But hear me out: No one hires out of pity. People hire because you show value. Instead of complaining about the market, focus on creating value for others: • Share common best practices • Contribute to professional topics • Create useful solutions or courses • Make a tutorial on a complex issue Or go a step further: prepare a list of recommendations for the company you want to join and send it with your CV (and also share it publicly). How so, you might ask? Do something for others for FREE? Yes, absolutely. It's called "content marketing." You create value upfront, become more recognizable, and gain a reputation. And then you get hired easily because you provided value upfront. If you're willing to spend hundreds of hours on interviews, spend some time creating value for others. It'll pay off in the long run.

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Here's a list of entry level jobs across the gaming industry being shared by Caitlin.

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Games industry DESPERATELY needs to unionize. Since December my LinkedIn feed has been a sea of people looking for work because they've been laid off, due to the "business strategy" of laying people off when you want to look more profitable in Q1 of the next year, or just "trimming the fat"/ "improving efficiency". I won't say my experience was exactly like this necessarily, but I was recently laid off in January, though I haven't marked myself as looking for work due to many reasons, partly being the lack of jobs, all the bots and spam on this website, and the crushing damage to my self-confidence. Either way, NO ONE should be made to feel this way. I've even heard of people getting laid off mid parental leave, or while they're on vacation with limited internet access, THIS IS DESPICABLE. What's worse is in this industry we all experience imposter syndrome, and anytime this happens you can't help but think we're terrible at our jobs, if only you'd worked harder, spent more of your own time improving your skills, you would be essential enough to the company to keep on, but they still could let you go, so it doesn't even matter. CEOs or in general the entire C-suite of people should be held accountable and publicly shamed. If your business strategy is to hire as much talent as possible, realize you can't keep on all that talent, and then lay them off, then you are incompetent, and should not be given a pat on the back for at least giving severance, when you're just following the lowest requirements of the law. The people who you've laid off are people who have built your company and kept the lights on. You can't just use the excuse, "that's just the way the industry is", that's a weak excuse. There are industries that experience frequent lay offs but have a union and support, such as some plants in the auto industry, and the workers have fought hard for years so that they would have those benefits and salary top-ups. Of course that's not always the case and things could be better, but we shouldn't just sigh and be like "it is what it is", and keep trying to work within the system when the system is broken. I'm just mad right now, for myself, but mostly for my friends, and people I don't even know that work in this industry, because I know these devs are hard working people that are constantly learning and trying to improve, and they are now doubting all their skills and feeling like they're not good enough. As for the people who make these mass lay off decisions a regular occurrence, I would like to say something that may even hurt my career and job opportunities, but deserves to be said, and which many devs would like to say or even scream, Fuck you.

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🎮 Want a job in the video game industry? 🎮 Begin with the end in mind.* ➡ When you drive to work do you just turn left or right based on how you feel that day? 😅 (I hope you left extra early that day) ➡ When you gather data for a project, do you grab monthly active users, popular breakfast items and breeds of dog? 🤐 (This report might be fun but your boss will not be happy) ➡ When you schedule a doctor appointment, do you call random numbers in the phone book? 🙃 The same applies to...well...applying for jobs. ❔ Do you look at the minimum requirements for a job or do you click easy apply on cool titles? (Although, I might as well shoot my shot for Game Director) ❔ Do you update your resume with your most relevant experience when you apply? What is your desired outcome? Work backwards and you'll see at least some of the steps in a path to get there. This is not easy to do, because there is no perfect way to be the best fit for a job. Everyone's journey is different. What steps have you taken to get to your goal or how have you been successful in your journey? *One possible end goal pictured #Letsgetyouhired #RecruiterAdvice

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A good opportunity

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To all my writing peeps out there, whether you're a junior game writer or senior narrative designer (or someone else altogether): what are your tips for studying and analyzing games you admire? I've been keeping a game journal for about eight months now where I jot down notes for story beats, narrative moments that impacted me, story progression, mechanics that involve narrative and/or UI (i.e. tutorials that use diegetic v.s. non-diegetic prompts), et cetera, but I've found this can be very jarring--especially on my first playthrough--so I'm curious if anyone has tips or tricks you use so you can enjoy the experience as it was intended while also helping you understand the hows and whys that make the game and the story work. #gamewriting #narrativedesign #gamedesign

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Mini Gear Grinder... not a crazy one, just a mini one... Candidates: when replying to Posts that have jobs listed, multiple companies / Games Studios, etc. within them. A comment of "I am interested" does not do you much good. A comment of "I am interested in the following role at XYZ company" is however helpful. Seeing so many of these & I love that you're interested in the roles posted, but which ones? Help the Recruiter or the people out that are putting the resources in front of you & let them know what you're interested in. ⚙ The job? Which one, we have 5+ listed. ⚙ The company? Which one, as some of these posts list 5+ organizations. ⚙ The person posting? Let's keep it PC / PG here people, I'm not advocating for weirdness 😝 I'm referring to a conversation or asking for help where you need it potentially. Don't be creepy, please do not be creepy! ⚙ The products they make? Etc., etc. Identify a bit deeper... Help them help you! 😁 Keep fighting the good fight everyone! Enjoy the weekend & wishing you best out there! #'s for the #'s #TheMattBarney #OneLove #TheMeatballs #GearGrinder #VideoGames #PirateRecruitersUniteUnderOneBanner

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So many great announcements at Nintendo Direct today!! Metroid 4 (finally) is definitely the star of the show, but I can't wait for the new Mario Party, or the just announced new game in the Zelda series, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom where you finally get to play as Princess Zelda! Excited about Stray as well. What are your favorite Switch titles from Nintendo Direct? https://lnkd.in/gSWSGPns #gaming #nintendoswitch #zelda

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I never thought I would be writing this but... like everyone else at Sumo, I might be at risk of being #LaidOff. We don't know much yet, and there's a chance I won't be affected, but what kind of doomsday prepper would I be if I didn't prepare. Especially when the industry has considerably slowed down. Not that the timing could ever be great for something like this, but it's particularly tricky as there are VERY FEW recruitment jobs in #GameDev. The only silver lining is that I have quite the generalist background and skillset, so please allow me to Sell My Fish™️⬇️ 🔎 Recruitment (In-House, Agency, and Embedded): •Extensive experience sourcing for all core disciplines and operational roles within game development. •Successful recruitment across the UK, Canada, France, Sweden, and the United States. •Proven success in hiring talent from graduates to studio leadership positions. •Represented companies at WASD, Develop Brighton, Unwrap Festival, Digital Dragons, EGX, and numerous university career fairs and student showcases over the past 5 years. •Delivered presentations on "Rethinking Recruitment" at major game dev conferences. 🗃️ Project Management: •Led the development of the entry-levels skills hub detailing 12 junior roles based on the UK Apprenticeship Standard, including designing surveys, analyzing data, and presenting findings. •Managed the UKIE & Into Games Kickstart Scheme, responsible for all aspects of the project, successfully hiring over 130 young people on Universal Credit. •Managed the creation of the largest-ever Recruitment Report in Games, overseeing all aspects except graphic design. 📑 Data Analysis and Reporting: •Wrote internal reports on DEIB insights and best practices, enhancing recruitment processes. •Analysed data from over 600 respondents, contributing 190 hours of input, to create a comprehensive recruitment report. •Designed and analysed two surveys targeting junior employees and senior hiring managers, grouping findings to create the hub. 📢 Marketing & Public Speaking: •Developed and executed the marketing strategy for the Entry-Level Skills Surveys and Hub, and the Hitmarker Recruitment Report •Represented companies at WASD, Develop Brighton, Unwrap Festival, Digital Dragons, EGX, and numerous university career fairs and student showcases over the past 5 years. •Content creation on LinkedIn, staying up-to-date with algorithm updates and best practices. --- So if you are looking for a Sara of all trades, master of inclusive hiring, do reach out, I'm happy to chat about future roles as well! ➡️For links and my CV go to: https://lnkd.in/e2SdSnR4 ➡️ Community, now it's my turn to need help, can I count on you liking, commenting and reposting this? --- 📣 Follow #RethinkRecruitment and ring the 🔔 to read about: ⏩ https://entrylevel.games/ 🌟 Opinions are very much my own™️ #layoffs

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Today marks yet another grave day for our Industry. This needs to end. I'm incredibly sorry to my friends who've been impacted by this round's layoffs at タンゴゲームワークス（Tango Gameworks）, Arkane Studios, Alpha Dog Games | Bethesda, and anyone else impacted under the Microsoft banner. It hasn't even been six months since the Activision Blizzard layoffs either. How are we as a community meant to feel when we keep seeing constant layoff after layoff, with seemingly no end in sight? How are graduating students to pay off their loans with an industry that hardly has a place for them? How are those impacted going to afford to live in a market which can lay even a multi award-winning team off without even a single warning?! I'm forever grateful to folks such as Amir Satvat, Desirée Rincón, and Justin Williams who continue to act as a beacon of positivity not only on my LinkedIn feed, but in Amir's Community Discord Server as well. If you were impacted, or if you just want a place to feel supported, we'd love to have you join us. 🤗 In fact, if you do, I'll be one of the first to welcome you. ❤️ https://lnkd.in/gNfC72vq For a lil smile, here's this gif I found that perfectly explains my emotions at the moment: #GameIndustry #Layoffs #LayoffSupport #GameDev #OpenForWork #OpenToNetwork #Community #EntryLevel #Resource #Discord

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Dear Games' Industry, I've had enough of remaining silent, and you should too. If there's going to be any change in the way our community does things, it needs to start with us. THE PEOPLE. 👏 How many layoffs is it going to take? How many people have to uproot their entire lives, only to have it ripped from them right before they even start? How many more IPs, corrupted by microtransactions are we willing to put up with?? Is this the Industry we want to leave behind for the next generation??? As someone who's had friends give up on their dreams because of the sheer hopelessness they felt, I already know my answer. I'm sure these Indies do too. Cave Bear Games Digital Scorpion Interactive DigiPen Institute of Technology WTTW Games Kyrie Studios Steelion Studios Serious Point Games Dontae Phillips Willem Delventhal Kat Craig Raftur Games Dinobyte Softworks LLC Indie Game Academy Things need to change. And I want to help dedicate my platform to accomplish that. #IndieRevolution #GameIndustry #GameDev #IndieDev #Games #Change #Movement #EnoughIsEnough #Indie #OpenToNetwork #ProjectManager #Community #Networking

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The real ones know May the 4th is my favorite holiday. Next to Christmas and my birthday 😅 But this May the 4th will be super special. If you remember me complaining about how I wanted to be recognized in the games industry because of my love for the craft, not because of my title or the companies I work for, then maybe you remember the idea that Jalyssa and I teased about last year. We came together to co-found Gametalk Unlocked, a meet-up organization that creates opportunities for people who love video games to come together to literally talk about all things games. We are removing barriers of titles, levels, and disciplines, whether you are in the industry or not. Why can’t there be a place to share your perspective and love for games? Well, that’s what Gametalk Unlocked is about. Also, we are doing this in a cost-effective way to continue to lower the barrier of entry to building this community. So on May the 4th, come join us. We are celebrating our launch! 🚀 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻: Saturday, May 4 at 5:00p PT 𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲: Arts District Brewing Company, DTLA 𝗪𝗵𝗼: Marie Benigno Ablaza, SHRM-TA Jalyssa Eliasen PMP CSM Brianna Krejci mike knox Chelsea Fan, MBA Game vets Game noobs YOU 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗲: $26 (this covers the food, but a cash bar is also available) 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮: Get out of the house and off of your laptop for some good conversation, good food, and good atmosphere, whether you're in between jobs or buried in work. Come tell us what game you’re playing, game you’re working on, thoughts on industry trends, or nerd out about your favorite games. 𝗖𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆: We've reserved space for 100. Grab your spot here! 👉🏼 https://lnkd.in/e3m5FXAv S/o to our amazing volunteers who helped to make this happen 👏🏼 Lastly, if you like a good game and a prize, check our Jalyssa’s post on how to win a free ticket to our event! https://lnkd.in/g9BfYxmZ Thank goodness for good friends who understand why celebrating this day is important to me because I get to dig up this baddie and will definitely be wearing it to the event! Sorry, I’ll have to reject the “hello my name is _____” name tag for this 💎

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Friends, The other day I shared that roles requiring 0-2 years of experience, including internships in games, make up between 4-5% of total. For this and other data in our Games Jobs Workbook, I often get questions from members who compile their own job resources or are curious about our process. For example, for this 0-2 year data point, I've also seen other estimates from 6% up to even 10%. Let me explain, for those who haven't seen me post on this in a while, how our Games Jobs Workbook differentiates. First, let's define the goal. I seek to present the total number of game developer and publisher roles that exist in the world, focusing on active, known roles and ensuring accuracy by going down to the base data. Many services that provide games jobs data are simply aggregators. They either go to a site and pick up the number of roles on that site by category or aggregate on top of aggregation by going to other sites with existing jobs data. I don't do either of these things for a few reasons. For starters, I venture into the primordial soup of the job descriptions for every single role and pull the words into an statistical analysis framework. Nobody else does this, as far as I am aware. Why this level of effort? First, mis-categorization. Someone may have a category for production roles but may have something listed that should be in marketing or art, and vice versa. Second, many lists include general interest roles. I don't count these. I only credit an employer for an opportunity if they have an actual role with a specific requisition that someone could be hired against. This is also true for internships - I look for specific programs. I also discount listings that are more than 6 months stale. Next, I only show game developer and publisher roles. Other lists may include companies like Ford, General Motors, Johnson & Johnson, because those employers have roles like UX design, engineering, or art that could have gamer relevance. While this is a reasonable approach, our purpose is to focus on resources and jobs for games employers only. My criteria are simple: if a company’s business is not more than 50% in video games, I don’t include them. I'm highly confident that the number of games employers who are actively hiring is not more than roughly 1,000, although we may find a bit more. This is, again, because I don’t count general interest jobs or employers not primarily in games who may have game-related roles. Regarding the 0-2 years experience category, the two years part is tricky. Many services categorize entry-level as 0-2 years and accept others' classifications. However, they often include roles that call for two years of experience as entry-level. In my book, two years of experience goes into the 2-5 year category. So if you're wondering why our numbers might be different, check if the other sources include only games employers, and see if they list roles that require two years experience as 0-2 years. Thank you!

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🕰️This was Breshna’s MVP 3 years ago Clunky, bare bones & not very pretty 😅 I almost cancelled our MVP launch 6 hours prior because I was too scared, too embarrassed, too skeptical! (thanks to Rizwan Nusrat’s 3am pep talk, we stayed on track)! Since then we’ve: ✅Completely revamped the user interface ✅Added 21 new game templates & 3k+ game assets ✅Integrated RTL script ✅Enabled custom uploads ✅Enhanced data analytics ✅Introduced co-creation of games ✅Implemented mobile optimization ✅Developed foundations for security & scalability ✅Procured a patent for our tech stack ✅Built an AI powered text to game engine & 3d metaverse Today Breshna is delightful to use, is now a beast of an ecosystem with 180k game makers & 2m game plays and is only getting started! The thing about momentum is, it needs building blocks! You gotta start somewhere, so start today, start with the bare minimum, start with something you’re not fully sure of in it’s current state but it’s potential is crystal clear, let the present be uncertain so you can cement your future vision! *************** If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. – Reid Hoffman ***************

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TONIGHT AT 6:30 PM join us for an improvised version of PVP Circuit and help us rebuild our local community brick by brick. I still can't believe I get to work in the video game industry. My 6-year-old would laugh, and then cry once she realized what it means to work in the creative technology sector. That's why IMO everyone could use some levity during these unprecedented times. Join us for a fun evening to raise funds for the Trevor Project. Event link >>> https://lnkd.in/g7tBuP6d Frequently Asked Questions: What if I can't attend the event? - If you can't make it, please consider purchasing a ticket to help us raise money for charity or get one on behalf of someone impacted by layoffs. What if I want to join but can't justify the cost? - If you want to join but find the cost prohibitive, DM me and we'll make it happen (see point above). Do I have to pitch at the event? - No, you don't have to pitch if you prefer to observe. It’s a great way to see how it's done. Will there be another event like this? - We plan to host our community again, but I can't specify if this event will be the focus. #gamesindustry #event #comedy <3

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"Required: X titles shipped" I've been involved in a few conversations lately with aspiring or junior developers who are frustrated that so many job descriptions require shipped titles. It gets even more difficult when a JD requires specific types of games shipped. These job seekers become more infuriated to find out that a lot of recruiters or hiring managers don't really count their game jam titles or solo games as "shipped" for purposes of these roles. Why is that? What exactly are hiring managers looking for here? Does it even matter? To answer that last question first: yes. It matters. First off, let's be clear on a couple of things here. As a general rule, you shouldn't be seeing shipped title requirements in true entry level positions. In those cases, any experience is better than no experience, so you should call out your jam, student, or solo games whenever you don't have anything else to show (or just call them out anyway if you're still relatively new or you're particularly proud of something you've worked on or built). But the reason you see a lot of jobs asking for shipped titles is less about the end result and more about showing that you've got experience working in a particular environment. If I'm asking, it's because I want to know that you can work on a team in the first place. You've been through the process already and have gone through the reviews and planning sessions and discussions that you simply wouldn't get building a game on your own or even in a quick jam. I've been through this a lot, with games that shipped and those that unfortunately did not. I've seen it on tiny teams where we could fit everyone in a single room and the entire schedule took months to teams which numbered in the hundreds across continents with multiyear schedules and the differences are very real. I've seen how different it can be in having to ship a boxed game through first party submissions or maintaining a liveops MMO that only existed on PC or mobile. Different processes. Different tools. Different methodologies. Different scales. I know how rough the market is out there. I know it seems hopeless at times and utterly unfair. I know it can really hurt to find a role you think you're just perfect for but then you see they want "shipped titles" experience or you need to have "worked on AAA teams" or "must have liveops experience" and it just doesn't make sense. Your challenge is in trying to show how you have the skills without the direct experience, while also competing against others (potentially dozens of others) who already have both. I wish the process could be easier for you. At the least, I hope I've added some context from the other side of the table here.

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At Uncapped Games I'm helping to develop my favorite game I've ever worked on professionally by far... and surprisingly it's an RTS. This is surprising because I (unlike nearly the whole team who are RTS powerhouses), have basically no RTS experience at all. Fire up Super Smash Bros and I may have a shot to impress, but RTS has been a huge - and fun - mental shift for me! ...and somehow, I've gotten pretty good! (At our game at least 😅). Very excitingly, we're on the schedule to say more about our game at SGF ( https://lnkd.in/e5uDTwZp ) in June, but now, kicking things off so to speak, we've put out a really cool documentary that explains some of our philosophies, hopes, and goals. If you're an RTS nerd - or just curious to learn more, check it out: https://lnkd.in/eQpxP3WZ

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