Torque isn

The Past
Historically, many of the opportunities that have become available on these forums are in the normal "indie" mode: join a team, perform your tasks working on a project as an indie developer for future royalties/credit, and along the way not only gain strong knowledge of Torque, but many of the team skills and experience needed for successful game development.

Some of the time the projects make it to publish, and studios such as Bravetree (now part of GarageGames), 21-6, Large Animal, MaxGaming Technologies, PocketWatch Games and many others have been able to generate income--in many of those cases continuing to work together as a studio to continue on the path to their dreams.

Please note that this post isn't intended to suggest this original paradigm is bad in any way...but things are quickly expanding!

Over the last 9 months GarageGames has been focusing on the marketing, technology, training, and services areas to make Torque extremely attractive as a development platform for markets other than indie developers: we have established companies in Military Simulation/Visualization, Casual Game Dev, A/AA/AAA Game Dev, and many others that are quickly finding out that both GarageGames as a company and Torque as a development platform are extremely attractive--great tech, excellent training (Torque Boot Camps), commercial support, and deep penetration into the educational sphere (we have more than 40 schools using Torque, and the number is growing exponentially).

The Present
I participated in a call yesterday from an extremely experienced studio that was researching all commercially available engines for development of a new funded title, and even I was surprised to hear the following:

Quote:

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One of our selection criteria is availability of experienced developers and artists. Our research has demonstrated that the Torque Community provides a developer/artist pool of experienced individuals that rivals Unreal 2.

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(Note: that's paraphrased, but the spirit of the quote is spot on)

Now, that's wonderful, but it got me to thinking: one of the (in some ways at least) downsides of being an experienced member of an "indie community" is that we see a lot of projects and job opportunities that simply don't pan out. That's not a bad thing honestly, but it does have an effect of having individuals looking for paying work to become jaded regarding both their expectations and their "belief" in things they see here on the forums and especially the "Job Opportunities" section of the community--everyone knows that these posts are going to be glowing, promising the world, and it becomes sometimes a bit difficult to take them seriously--just human nature.

One of Jeff Tunnel's biggest tasks this year is putting together a program to make sure Indie Developers and projects can coordinate, and get their projects published by providing organization, resources, and team building capabilities to help overcome the issues I mention above. I am extremely excited about this project, because it is sorely needed--we as a company are best situated to help tie together motivated and skilled Torque users into teams that can be successful.

However...there is another segment of the Torque developer market that doesn't really fit into this category: experienced (and jaded, see above) developers, artists, and designers that may be looking for a more traditional (or new generation) role in a non-indie company, using their experience in Torque to leverage success.

Disclaimer: the following list is absolutely not complete, and selected only to provide a spectrum sample of just some of the possible opportunities out there. None of these companies have asked, or even suggested they should be listed, I'm just picking a sample of the ones I am very familiar with, and/or have recently posted Job Opportunities on our website. The one randomly chosen criteria I used is that these are pay positions (not royalties/intern/percentage of profit), simply because that's the topic of this blog.

Valador -- Military, NASA, and Corporate Visualization, Simulation, and Training, looking for a Engine Coder/Script Programmer

Houston Community College-- looking for a Full Time Digital Gaming and Simulations Instructor and Artist

Roxor Games -- looking for a short term Experienced Programmer

Mind Control Software -- Looking for: Level Designer, Game Engineer, and Senior Artist

These are just a few of the opportunites available out there (and just the ones that have publically notified the community, I know about a lot more that are coming down the road!)...as a community, you guys and gals are so respected in the marketplace now that even Electronic Arts has started posting positions in our Help Wanted forums for 13 positions!.

The Future
GarageGames will always be focused on our indie community, and Jeff T's initiative to make indies more capable and productive by tying together motivated and experienced team members and associated resources is extremely important--and something the entire company is excited about. Indies are our core mission: "To provide independent developers with tools, knowledge, co-conspirators - whatever YOU need - to make great games."

However, as the title of this blog says, Torque isn't just for indies anymore--and we want to make sure those professional developers, artists, scripters, and anyone else with Torque experience are aware of the opportunities that exist. We as a company are going to continue to provide quality technology to all comers, as well as the training and support needed for the companies using our engine. You as a community are responsible for using your Torque expertise to meet your dreams...and if that dream is a position in a corporate structure that uses Torque, this is just a small selection of what is coming!