first shipped game

[egan.]

Hey guys. So Bioshock 2 ships today and it's my first shipped title. I don't want to overstate the facts, all I did was some dialog editing, but I'm still pretty happy since it's the first game I've worked on that made it to publishing and it's a pretty big one I think.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share my stoke with you guys. Cross your fingers that I actually made the credits.

 

[narcossintese]

uhu! I´m playing it as soon it arrives.

 

[Notuern]

Congrats dude!
Im going to buy it just because the first one was so awesome.. im not a big fan of the idea that you're playing as "the" big daddy in the new one though. ;X

 

[Skinny Viking]

thats pretty fuckin cool Egan, congrats man

Now that I have a PS3 I guess I can actually partake in this whole thing

 

[Metaltastic]

Fucking awesome dude, I'm sure many many folks on here would kill to be involved in the AE side of video game design! Foot in the door for ya hopefully! How did you get involved?

 

[joeymusicguy]

does having to claim activision/blizzard income on taxes, count?

i've raked in quite a fair amount from rock band and guitar hero

congrats!

 

[hoehlentroll]

the game is more like an expansion pack I'd say. not really much changed (gameplay+graphics). the story is a bit weaker though, could be due to the information given in the predecessor or due to the fact that the setting isn't new. but nonetheless it's fun playing!

 

[kaomao]

good to hear this Egan!
congrats man

 

[JayB]

Awesome ! Congrats !

 

[arv_foh]

That's hella cool dude. Bout to pop my copy in the 360

Might I ask how you get in on that industry??

 

[JeffTD]

Man, that is really awesome - congrats!

I'd also like to know how you got involved in that; sounds like a decent side gig haha.

 

[egan.]

I've gotten a couple of emails about this. Like many things it's mostly about networking. I have some friends in the industry and have been editing for a couple of years. I'm a member of IDGA and GANG. I've gotten some work from the job boards over there but this came to me directly from a contact I had from an early smaller job on a game that never materialized.
All of that said I don't really feel like I'm in a position to give advice on breaking in b/c I don't feel like I'm really "in" yet.
Editing is cool but obviously the goal is to get to work with the more creative elements.

 

[TheDriller]

thats cool,

egan, when you say "dialogue editing" what exactly was involved?
just trimming audio or do you run up some EQ and compression too?

very interesting stuff and Congrats!!

 

[KeithTidd]

Very nice. I'm trying to break into the game industry but it's very competitive. Congrats.

 

[egan.]

egan, when you say "dialogue editing" what exactly was involved?
just trimming audio or do you run up some EQ and compression too?

It depends on the job. For BS2 it was pulling out selects or some minor comping and then getting insanely deep on the cleanliness of every syllable and breath. A game like this has tens of thousands of lines of dialog so there is a lot of work there. I was only one of several people working on this on this.
I did do a small amount of batch processing as well, which is simply applying a saved batch fx that has been created by one of the sound designers.

 

[TheDriller]

It depends on the job. For BS2 it was pulling out selects or some minor comping and then getting insanely deep on the cleanliness of every syllable and breath. A game like this has tens of thousands of lines of dialog so there is a lot of work there. I was one of several people working on this one.

so you're editing out noises, EQing out sibbilance and so forth?

 

[egan.]

Basically.

 

[TheDriller]

awesome

and is there much compression being used on that kind of job?

or would it all be volume-automation, as transparent as possible?

 

[Metaltastic]

I gotta say, the "old-timey radio" effect + his accent made "Atlas" practically unintelligible to me in the first game - thank god for the subtitles, hope it's a bit better this time around! (Egan? )

 

[Notuern]

Very nice. I'm trying to break into the game industry but it's very competitive. Congrats.

Really? o,0
A few years back i got several job offers as level designer & game designer at a few big shot companies.. too bad for me i was 14 at the time and couldn't possibly take on those jobs.

Now days i cant possibly compete, simply because i dont know or want to know how to work with modern game engines. ;P
Game designer would be fun though, to me that seems to be the most interesting job "in the biz".