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Crytek shows interest in PSP development
Crytek is known for cramming high-end graphics into titles that are just as capable to give your PC a hernia as they are to entertain. However, with the Crysis developer now done with PC exclusives, the company has adopted a new strategy, one that apparently includes the PSP. A new job posting on the developer's official website notes that the company is currently seeking a PSP programmer with multiplatform experience to work out of its Budapest office, suggesting that Crytek's next project following the recently announced Crysis Warhead will target Sony's handheld. Of course, nothing is known about the developer's PSP agenda or whether that includes plans to somehow squeeze its CryEngine technology into a more bite-sized format. That leaves us wondering if we'll someday be playing Crysis on the go, or if Crytek has something entirely different up its high-def sleeves.
Friday Video: Professions of the Rift
With our economy in its current dwindling state and the unemployment rate rising, it's nice to hear that some people are still able to find jobs, even if they're fictional jobs for fictional members of a fictional race existing in a fictional game world. Square Enix has released several short video clips introducing five of Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rifts' new jobs -- Chocobo Knight, Seer, Berserker, Geomancer, and Arcanist (above). They're not nearly as interesting as the "rejected FFTA2 professions" we featured, but these jobs are at least a little bit more real than the ones we made up.%Gallery-5422%
Motorola slashing 20% of its research division
Another month, another round of layoffs over at Moto. This time, we're seeing 120 out of the 600 positions in Motorola Labs -- the unit responsible for researching pretty much everything ranging from handsets to radio technology -- slashed; another 180 are "being reassigned to work in individual business units." According to the company, the moves from Moto Labs "will help R&D teams work with their business partners to optimize R&D investment and focus on projects that deliver the greatest value for Motorola," though your guess is as good as our as to what that actually means. Granted, we wouldn't normally support hacking off a good part of your innovation department, but considering that it's been stuck in fail mode for far too long, maybe this really is for the best.
EA Mythic looking for WAR customer service monkeys
Are you a glutton for punishment? Do your friends and family often remark about how rewarding it is to berate you with insults and make nonsensical demands that far outstrip your capacities to fulfill? Do you have exceptional attention to detail, with encyclopedic knowledge of the proper bust sizes for a game's various races? If you answered yes to these questions, we might have a position for you!According to a message sent out via the Warhammer Herald, EA Mythic is looking to hire some trustworthy Warhammer Online CSRs to start working in the Fairfax, VA facility starting this August. The listing makes mention of benefits and opportunity for growth, which is frankly more than we were expecting from a company that was gobbled up by the EA monolith not long ago. (As you might remember, EA has a less than stellar reputation for treating its employees well.) In any case, if any of you Massively readers gets the job, be sure to regale us all with your tales misfortune and lunacy!
E-mail a resum, work for SOE
Sony Online Entertainment is hiring for a few positions, and is soliciting resumés on its game forums.Specifically, it's looking for customer support representatives to work with knowledge base articles for Free Realms and Vanguard. The job descriptions note that SOE's knowledge base articles are extremely important because they're the first and most common point of contact for customers. The CSRs will be responsible for producing, reviewing, and regionalizing knowledge base content.The jobs appear to be entry level -- only a couple of years of gaming experience and a high school diploma are required. So if you know your MMO stuff, you live in or near San Diego (or are willing to move there, presumably), and you're out of work, e-mail SOE your resumé. You never know; it might be good.
Player vs. Everything: Putting raiding on your resume
Ten years ago, the idea of putting something like being an officer in a hardcore raiding guild on your resume would have been laughable. When trying to sell yourself to a prospective employer, you want to put your best foot forward. The last thing you'd want them to know is that you spend upwards of 20 hours per week frittering your time away on something as silly as a videogame. Businesses want employees who are punctual, intelligent, analytical, and driven -- problem solvers and team players. What's funny, however, is that those are exactly the same qualities which a guild looks for in its raiders. Good luck trying to explain that to a non-gamer, though. Fortunately, gaming is slowly becoming a mainstream activity. As the generation of gamers that pioneered the online gaming craze begin to climb into their 30s and 40s, a younger generation of gamers is just starting to graduate from college and enter the mainstream workforce for the first time. Unlike their older peers, these young men and women face a business world where their boss is as likely to enjoy playing World of Warcraft in his free time as golf. For the first time, it's possible that your hiring manager might actually view your dedication to your guild as a reason to hire you, rather than a reason to dismiss you. Does that mean that it's time to start putting your MMOG experience on your resume?
Verizon unloading $86 million on Rhode Island network expansion
Verizon's doing more than just blessing Oregon customers with more HD content -- it's also preparing to bring its fiber-based services to even more folks in the Ocean State. $86 million has been set aside to invest in network expansion within Rhode Island, promising FiOS TV to an additional ten communities (specifics were solely absent) and giving another 50 union-represented technicians and customer service representatives a job. Yep, all that new cabling means expanding its Providence-based Fiber Solutions Center, but it failed to mention when the new hires would take place. Lastly, it's planning on upgrading the internet services in Cranston, Hope Valley, Jamestown, Narragansett, Pawtucket, Providence, Tiverton and Weekapaug, giving each of those locales download speeds of 7-megabits per second.
Walter Bender speaks out about leaving OLPC, de-emphasis of radical projects
What do you know? The former OLPC head of software and content did indeed resign at least partially over NickNeg's growing fondness of Windows XP. In a recent soul-spilling interview with xconomy, Walter Bender made clear that he resigned his post at the non-profit due to the general de-emphasis of "radical projects like Sugar," the innovative XO user interface which Mr. Bender was unsurprisingly neck-deep in during his stay. Essentially, he felt as if the outfit had stopped trying to "be disruptive" and started "trying to make things comfortable for decision-makers," hence Walter darting out "to do his own thing." Needless to say, the lead developer of Sugar isn't satisfied with seeing his work forgotten, and while details have yet to be worked out, he is looking to "find a new central home for the community of educators and software developers who have been creating Sugar-compatible applications."[Image courtesy of The New York Times]
AT&T expands U-verse to more of Wisconsin, adds 200 jobs in the state
For folks camped out in Southeastern Wisconsin, chances are you've got yet another choice for pay-TV coming to you. AT&T is trumpeting the fact that over 200,000 living units in the region now have access to U-verse, which isn't half bad for just being around 14 months. More specifically, viewers in and around Milwaukee, Racine and Sheboygan are likely to now have access, and the growth has apparently been substantial enough to warrant the need for 200 new jobs in the state. As of now, the carrier is seeking to employ 200 U-verse service technicians in the Badger State, with spots to open in Northeast / South Central Wisconsin.
AMD's CTO Phil Hester resigns, not being replaced?
Man, we know AMD's had a bit of trouble meeting shipment (and chip performance) expectations lately, but it looks like things are really beginning to come apart at the seams. Merely four days after AMD trimmed its Q1 sales outlook and announced that it would be doing away with 10-percent of its workforce by Q3, the company's CTO and senior vice president Phil Hester is voluntarily "stepping down." According to Market Watch, the bigwig is doing so to "pursue other opportunities," which is about as canned a reason as you can get. Still, the most intriguing part of the whole bit isn't that Mr. Hester won't be coming in to work on Monday, but that no replacement will be either. A chipmaker. With no chief technology officer. Sorry, but we aren't buying that one just yet.[Via PC Perspective, thanks Ryan]
AMD decreases Q1 sales outlook, expects to cut workforce by 10%
It's one thing to put the kibosh on whispers of across-the-board layoffs; it's another to go and fire twice the amount rumored. Sure enough, a recent report from the AP notes that the California-based chipmaker is expecting to layoff 10-percent of its 16,000-person workforce by Q3 2008. Additionally, the outfit is trimming its sales outlook for Q1 due to "poor sales in all of its business segments," and as if that wasn't enough, it's expecting to "incur an [undisclosed] restructuring charge in the second quarter as a result of the layoffs." Ouch.[Via The Street, thanks Aaron]
Motorola to cut another 2,600 jobs
The tough times just don't seem to end at Motorola -- the company announced today that it's laying off another 2,600 workers, for a total of 10,000 positions eliminated since the start of 2007. That's on top of the various high-level executive departures that have been taken place lately, not to mention the company's plan to split off its mobile phone business, which will undoubtedly lead to more cuts down the line. The goal is to reduce costs by some $500M by the end of the year, and some of the jobs being lost come as Moto closes a factory in Singapore and a WiMAX development lab in Florida. There's no word on when the cuts are going to come, but here's hoping all these aggressive steps lead to a little vacation for Sad Moto here.
Sony replaces top TV executive, attempts to boost profits
As of tomorrow, Takashi Fukuda will no longer have his job as Sony's top television executive, and no, it's certainly not an April Fool's joke of any kind. Reportedly, Hiroshi Yoshioka, the current head of the company's audio business, will be taking over and attempting to slash costs and boost profits. Sony's TV unit has been struggling of late to remain profitable in the incredibly competitive flat-panel market, and while its Trinitron CRTs once ruled the roost, tables have certainly turned since. Recently, Mr. Fukuda noted that Sony may have honed in too much on large, high-end sets while overlooking demand for budget-priced TVs, and quite frankly, we couldn't agree more with his assertion. [Warning: Read link requires subscription][Image courtesy of Tech-On]
Ken Graffeo leaving HD marketing role at Universal, still sticking around the studio
Ken Graffeo, who formerly served as executive VP of marketing before signing on as executive VP of HD strategic marketing at Universal, has decided to step down from a position that had essentially crumbled since the fall of HD DVD. Curiously enough, the bigwig noted that he wouldn't be taking on a similar role for the Blu-ray side, but did assert that he would be hanging around Universal Studios Home Entertainment. More specifically, he was quoted as saying that he would be "looking at what [his] different options are and what [his] next moves would be," which -- to be fair -- is about as canned of a response as one could hope for. Somehow, we get the feeling Ken will be quite alright, though.[Via FormatWarCentral, image courtesy of FutureNet]
OLPC security chief resigns, cites ethical concerns as final straw
Nary a fortnight after Nicholas Negroponte affirmed that his role wouldn't be changing all that much once a new CEO was strapped in, along comes word that the nonprofit's highly regarded Director of Security Architecture, Ivan Krsti??, has moved on to greener pastures as of three weeks ago. According to a soul-bearing post on his own blog, the ex-chief outrightly noted that he could no longer "subscribe to the organization's new aims or structure in good faith, nor [could he] reconcile them with [his] personal ethic." Additionally, he admits that he was "asked to stop working with Walter Bender," someone he greatly respected, and forced to report to a replacement "with no technical or engineering background who was put in charge of all OLPC technology." It should be noted that Krsti?? seemed to admire his colleagues overwhelmingly, but we can't help but wonder who else in there is feeling similarly about the recent internal restructuring.[Via Yahoo / Infoworld, image courtesy of TheAge]
DISH Network hiring 200 in call center to handle growth
Just days after hearing that Verizon would be staffing its Syracuse call center with 335 new employees over the next few years, DISH Network is announcing that it too needs a few good men / women to "accommodate customer growth." Reportedly, the satellite provider is looking to hire 200 folks in its Tulsa, Oklahoma facility before June 1st of this year, primarily in the Technical Support division. Once the hires are made, the total workforce at the 78,500-square-foot center would amount to 650, but there's still room for a few more heads considering DISH's plans to "eventually employ about 1,000 people" in Tulsa.
That pretty much settles it: Telus hiring LTE engineers
We still don't know whether Telus will be so hasty as to decommission its existing CDMA network in favor of UMTS / HSPA ahead of the long road to 4G, but it any rate, it looks like the Canadian carrier's next-gen technology of choice is darn near locked up. A job listing for a Senior Switch Engineer details CDMA and EV-DO experience as part of its requirements, naturally -- but here's where it gets interesting: they want "knowledge on UMTS, IMS, and LTE evolution" as well, without any mention of UMB or WiMAX to be found. In other words, if we wait around long enough, we'll be able to call Telus a GSM carrier, which should make the Rogers monolith just a little uneasy.[Thanks, Justin Y.]
Verizon adding 335 jobs to handle rapid FiOS growth
It's no surprise that Verizon is adding FiOS customers at a mind-numbing rate, but apparently, signing on some 80,000 new subscribers per month is going to require a few more employees. More specifically, the carrier will reportedly be hiring some 335 more workers over the next few years to "staff a FiOS call center in suburban Syracuse, NY." We aren't told if any other job openings will surface as a part of FiOS' rapid expansion, but here's to hoping it branches out to more locales in the not-too-distant future, regardless.
Blizzard says "WTB Fiction Writers"
We like to keep you updated on the opportunities to make some money off of all that WoW experience you have, so when we saw an announcement on the Blizzard job postings site that they're looking for fiction writers, we had to let you know. Not too often do people get a chance to write for their favorite game making company. The announcement says that if you get this job, you'll be working with their intellectual property (read: writing cool stories about all your favorite Blizzard characters), do lots of creative writing, and work on story development. And what sets this announcement apart are two little gems from the "Pluses" category of the announcement: "Experience creating and running pen and paper RPG campaigns and/or live-action RPGs" and "Experience in playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games, especially World of Warcraft."So get out your 10 sided die and roll a 9 or above to work for Blizzard. Well, that and a bit of those uber-writing skillz. And who knows? Maybe one day you'll be writing a story about the Rise of the Lich King.Good luck!
Nokia boycott urged by German unions
So apparently, that whole "plan to shut down a Bochum Nokia plant" didn't exactly sail over everyone's heads, particularly not in Germany. Reports are now flowing out that unions in the nation are taking it upon themselves to urge consumers not to purchase wares from the firm, with Dietmar Muscheid, regional head of the Confederation of German Unions (DGB), being one of the most vocal. Muscheid went on to state that "whoever buys a cellphone today should think about the choice they are making and what catastrophic consequences the company's actions in Bochum will have for thousands of workers." 'Course, the EU has already proclaimed that Nokia won't be getting a dime in relocation (to Romania, supposedly) aid, but unspecified government officials are reportedly lined up to speak with suits from the handset maker later this week to "discuss the plant's future." Whether or not all this commotion will actually change any minds, however, remains to be seen.
