Jobs
Job Details
| Position: | External Designer - London - £Neg - Console |
| Employer: | OPM Recruitment Ltd |
| Category: | Designer |
| Location: | UK - South East |
| Salary: | DOE |
| Date posted: | Wednesday, March 6th 2013 |
Description:
Location: London
Salary: £Negotiable DOE
Job Type: Permanent
Project: Console
This is a fantastic opportunity for exceptionally talented Games designer to join one of the UK’s leading developer and publisher of computer games based in London.
The successful candidate will be working within the design team to ensure the overall quality and playability of their externally-developed games is as high as possible, while ensuring the creative content supports, drives and maximizes the business goals and ambitions
Duties/Responsibilities:
• Oversee all aspects of a title from a creative and design standpoint including; single player, multiplayer, DLC, PDLC, companion apps, social layer, and franchise extensions.
• Guide their development partners in all areas of design. Evaluate titles in development and offer constructive feedback, assistance & solutions to developers to improve any weak areas, and make strong areas even better.
• Work with project stakeholders to:
o Set design intentions and priorities for key gameplay features
o Set design-based milestone content
o Review milestones
o Maintain a clear and consistent design vision for each game
o Review project timelines
o Contribute to mid and post-mortems
o Organize on-going focus testing and usability tests
• Work to keep the game on the right track and ensure the stability of the creative direction of the project.
• Ensure the play balance and difficulty curve works well, and that gamers of different skill levels can all get a great experience from the games while making sure the game is appropriate for its target audience.
• Ensure the core game play is strong, fun and challenging as early as possible in the development, and delivers the design intention at agreed milestones.
• Help drive strategic decision making in terms of: what genres we pursue, what platforms we develop on, and title-specific business models and demo content.
• Work with Acquisitions to review potential opportunities, find suitable development partners and perform due diligence.
• Innovate within the genre and in terms of the wider business e.g. new business models, PDLC strategies, and wider aspects of the franchise.
• Contribute original ideas, game designs and direction where required, including developing RFPs for new projects.
• Prepare presentations, status reports, solutions analysis and progress reports showing performance trends as required.
• Understand how your studio partners make games. Learn about their proprietary technology, editors, game engine, pipelines and who does what in the studio.
• Help keep the relationship with developers as positive and productive as possible.
• Build a good working relationship with the title’s stakeholders and assist them wherever possible.
• Present products both internally and externally, including to the media and games community.
• Work with Brand and Marketing to review franchise extension opportunities.
• Provide feedback as requested on titles developed elsewhere within the group.
Skills/Experience Required:
• Must have been Lead Designer at a video game developer or publisher on at least two published AAA X360/ PS3 titles from start to finish.
• Familiar with popular design techniques, tools, processes and pipelines for building video games, including prototyping, scripting, level editing
• Ideally will have worked with a number of design tools in the past, and have basic knowledge of programming, art creation using packages such as 3DS Max.
• Ability to articulate ideas, information and know-how with ease and clarity
• A high level of diplomacy whilst being unafraid to be explicitly critical where necessary
• Must understand what makes good games so special, and have the ability to pick games apart, pointing out what works and what doesn’t.
• Ability to write and convey instructions with clarity.
• Willing to travel and stay away from home when required
• Must be able to balance creative and commercial requirements to understand where resources are best spent on a game.
• Must love games, and play games in his/her spare time.
For the opportunity to be part of this team please send your cv (MS Word Format) and work examples FAO Catherine to officemanager@opmjobs.com or call +44 1206 214416
Catherine Cope| Design Consultant
Direct Line: + 44 (0) 1206 214416 | Email: catherine@opmjobs.com | Skype: catherine.cope.opm
LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/catherinecopeopm
Twitter - gamesdesignjobs
The salary bracket is approximate and is no guarantee of the income on offer. Salary and benefits will be discussed with candidates at interview with the company and are individually negotiated by OPM.
