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Recruiter insight
With 40% of our survey respondents looking for new employment in 2017, we asked recruitment agencies and their experts what challenges await them in the current jobs market Adam Sibson, Sales and Marketing Consultant, Datascope “I have seen quite a shift in the sectors I work in: marketing and analytics. Gaming is continuing to move towards digital, with more of a focus on digital sales and portals. Digital marketing methods are now as (or more) important in some roles than traditional methods. User acquisition is becoming more standard in-house and even companies outside of the games industry are now seeking experienced mobile acquisition staff. We are seeing an increasing emphasis on analytics in the games industry as well, with more specialisation in qualitative as well as quantitative analytics. The demand for games analysts far outstrips the supply at the moment. Big data engineering roles are also becoming more common as the quantity of data games gather is increasing year-on-year.”
Lucy Phillips, Head of Creative, Datascope “The most prevalent change in the landscape of games design recruitment over the last 12 months is a tendency towards specialisation. Increasingly, I am being asked to find free-to-play systems designers, narrative designers, technical level designers or metagame designers. These specialisations reflect an increasingly complex and mature approach to game design, where teams maximise the expertise of each individual. Within the free-to-play space, monetisation and economy designers are hotly sought after and for those with a penchant for analytics and mathematics, I am able to get multiple offers on the table. Whatever the platform though, I still find that it is those design candidates who can combine technical ability with creative flair whom are the easiest to place.” Ian Goodall, Managing Director, Aardvark Swift “By far the most common jobs being advertised are for coders with C++ experience. They’re constantly in demand and if they have games industry experience, all the better. As for least common, our specialist graduate recruitment team works hundreds of graduate roles each year, but within the last year we’ve only had one graduate game design vacancy. I expect these trends to persist, but I’d also expect to see more roles where VR experience will be required. We’ve seen demand rise over the last year and we’ll definitely see this trend carry on into 2017. I’m also expecting to see an upsurge in jobs for analysts and digital marketing/stat-focused roles. Studios want to understand their traffic/players/spend. They need to monetise games and stand out in a busy market.” Kim Parker Adcock, Managing Director, OPM Jobs “Programmers are still the most prolific and still the hardest to fill - particularly console-experienced AAA candidates. Salaries are still a barrier in this area when bringing in people from outside the industry, and we lose some of the best ones to other industries. The least common are old fashioned national account manager roles – they’ve been superseded by marketing and business development roles. In 2017, we expect the trend to continue with studios struggling to fill programming positions. There is a possibility that VR roles could grow, but we’ll have to see what happens in this area. The least common we expect to see will be sales and operations positions.” Liz Prince, Business Manager, Amiqus “A key expectation for 2017 is the move to 4K gaming, so art jobs that focus on graphical optimisation and rendering techniques are likely to increase. Physically-based rendering has made previously labour-intensive individual parameters such as complex texture detail and light diffusion much faster, so we expect demand for these skills to heighten across art teams. On the gameplay and engine side, the need for programmers with C++, C# and Unity will remain high and we’ve already seen an increase in demand for combined language skills. As a newer technology, VRspecific experience is also very valuable in the market this year. Outside of creative and code, jobs such as customer support, localisation or entry-level testing will continue and are a great way into the industry for games-career hopefuls. Analytics and data is also a continuing focus for many studios.” Eamonn Vann-Harris, Development Director, Avatar Games Recruitment “Within the console space, I expect more emphasis on environment art, and programmer vacancies. We are seeing a steady rise in these areas for console. Within mobile and other areas, we expect to see a rise within eSports, product management/ownership and monetisation-based roles. But programmers still remain a huge focus and that has always been the case. As for least common jobs, we have seen a dip in roles for QA and localisation. This could also be because these roles are filled fast by word of mouth, and the growing number of reputable third-party studios who can offer an excellent service within this area are being used more often by studios.”
42,43,44,45 GamesIndustry.Biz Top 100 Supplement - Survey_v5.indd 4
21/03/2017 13:17