Salka

Fund Tim Schafer's next game YOURSELF!

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QA in other industries may make a bit more, but not really. Especially when you compare it to the salaries of the engineers working on those projects.

Either way, this seems like an awful lot of backseat budgeting. Double Fine's best track record is with low scope, low budget titles, so I assume they've figured it out.

They're also located in the city of San Francisco, which is expensive and which commands higher employee salaries, regardless of industry or profession, than equivalent jobs elsewhere.

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What, is San Francisco some kind of expensive luxury town?

Essentially

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"Loosey-goosey."

:buyme:

He must have been hanging around Jack Black too much.

They're past $1.8 million now! And I haven't even pledged my $15 yet!

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Yes, everyone gets paid at least 60k a year. Even the folk at Starbucks.

Well, the state of California has one of the higher minimum wages in the country, but on top of that the city of San Francisco has the actual highest minimum wage in the country (until March, when Santa Fe will edge it out by a few cents). So while obviously not everyone living here is living in the lap of luxury, not by a long shot, what I was saying is that companies across the board have higher operating expenses and payroll simply by virtue of being here, even for low-wage positions.

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Fucking Santa Fe.

I've always thought San Francisco seemed like an interesting place to visit. I don't know much about it other than:

  • The Rock (the island)
  • The Rock (the movie)
  • They're famous for some unhealthy food, like a burger or sandwich or something
  • The gays
  • The Golden Gate bridge
  • The steep roads
  • That one steep and curvy road that gives you an achievement in Driver (Lombard something?)
  • Driver
  • Midtown Madness 2

but my impression is it's a pleasant place to be, and that it has lots of interesting things going on all the time. If I ever go to the US I hope I'll be able to go there.

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I went to San Francisco when I was too young to appreciate it. Now I want to go back... and almost exclusively partake in the interesting food there, like Sushirrito and Dynamo Donuts. I'm a foodie. :(

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If anyone is doubting Schafer's adventure game development potential, Marek Goldstring dug up this gem, a review of one of Schafer's earlier pieces, "The Day of a Tentacle", penned by budding games journalist, Christian Remo. You can find a link to it here: here.

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If anyone is doubting Schafer's adventure game development potential, Marek Goldstring dug up this gem, a review of one of Schafer's earlier pieces, "The Day of a Tentacle", penned by budding games journalist, Christian Remo. You can find a link to it here: here.

That wasn't even that long ago. :shifty: :shifty: :shifty:

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If anyone is doubting Schafer's adventure game development potential, Marek Goldstring dug up this gem, a review of one of Schafer's earlier pieces, "The Day of a Tentacle", penned by budding games journalist, Christian Remo. You can find a link to it here: here.

Not Christopher?

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(It freaks me out a little that YouTube was new in 2005).

San Francisco is a great city, and a lot of it is walkable. I've spend a total of about three weeks there, and loved it even when the weather was bad.

Best tips:

Japantown is a quiet place to stay

Arizmendi's, near the corner of 9th and Irving, does the best pastries.

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That wasn't even that long ago. :shifty: :shifty: :shifty:

I was still in high school when that was published. I now have a degree and am halfway to a second. I'd say that qualifies it as a while ago.

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According to this review, Day of the Tentacle is only slightly better than The Longest Journey.

However the real travesty is that the precious Syberia is aligned to the same 4 and a half star ghetto when Day of the Tentacle offers nothing but pooty jokes and funny faces. The problem with Tim Schafer is he does not know how to be serious and write for dry and long winded conversations of nothingness. There's no exquisite sense of wonder inherent with the universe and the design lacks discovery. What I would like to see is for adventure games to move forward, maybe incorporate elements of my favorite subject, quantum physics. No two puzzles could be predictable in the normal human thought process but it would exceed our boundaries of intellect as adventure gamers to have such a special game designed around something so complex yet so simple. We would thrive.

We shall see if this Double Fine game can deserve to be called an adventure when it proves itself to hold up in the likes of Alice: An Interactive Museum and Riana Rouge.

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Wow, it's like Evan Dickens is suddenly on this site!

Wow, last time I thought of the guy was when I made fun of him for quitting Adventure Gamers to become a married man or something. Almost a decade later, I am married own a house and do a bunch wacky adult things my 21-year-old mind couldn't possibly comprehend, and I still think as far as arguments go "I have to grow up now" is the dumbest reason ever to leave a fun, relatively low-pressure, probably not too labor-intensive extracurricular job one is competent to perform. Dude is only 2 years older than me too.

I guess we did give him a lot of shit for his lists and opinions and general JustAdventureness. He had full right to bail on the thing and be sick and tired of it. It is just the argument he used was ridiculous and condescending.

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Well, the state of California has one of the higher minimum wages in the country, but on top of that the city of San Francisco has the actual highest minimum wage in the country (until March, when Santa Fe will edge it out by a few cents). So while obviously not everyone living here is living in the lap of luxury, not by a long shot, what I was saying is that companies across the board have higher operating expenses and payroll simply by virtue of being here, even for low-wage positions.

I guess you missed the bit where SiN claimed that the starting salary for (games) testers was $65-$80K per year? That's where this all came from. The fact that San Francisco offers a few cents more on minimum wage is besides the point. (I live in London, I'm well aware of living in a place with a higher cost of living, and so higher wages to match -- even increased minimum wage.)

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I was still in high school when that was published. I now have a degree and am halfway to a second. I'd say that qualifies it as a while ago.

The review wasn't that long ago. Not the game. (2005 vs 1993)

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Unfortunately, I've only been to the San Fransisco airport, but not the city itself. I was in some place called Milpitas and Santa Clara for a conference. But even there I had some excellent sushi!

I hope to visit the city one day.

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Going miles off-topic here, but dang do I miss the sushi in California. That's right there at the top of my list of things I miss most. Turn around, step on another fine sushi place where you can load up for no money at all. Going out for sushi in the Netherlands is tantamount to being robbed at gunpoint.

Delicious gunpoint, but still.

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I guess you missed the bit where SiN claimed that the starting salary for (games) testers was $65-$80K per year? That's where this all came from. The fact that San Francisco offers a few cents more on minimum wage is besides the point. (I live in London, I'm well aware of living in a place with a higher cost of living, and so higher wages to match -- even increased minimum wage.)

Yeah, oops. :P So I don't know about the games industry (and in my defense, I mentioned that up front), but in my experience at bigger software development companies, testers are computer scientists/engineers, so they get the same (or close to) starting salaries as developers.

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