Pete Nichols

So sorry to hear about layoffs at Modern Wolf, with 6 staff members being affected. The news broke last night, with my former CA colleague George Willard posting the news, as well as providing information about those also laid off to support re-hiring as quickly as possible. You can find that here: https://lnkd.in/eEXWSgNQ To those impacted by these layoffs, please find a comprehensive list of resources, below: 🥇First, Discipline Games Jobs Resources: Over the past weeks I have created 9 (at time of writing) Games Jobs Resources to find jobs in a wide range of disciplines: 🎨 Art, Animation, VFX and UI: This resource contains around 1,200 jobs worldwide across all links. Link: https://lnkd.in/eu2bjadW ⚙ Engineering and Programming This resource lists just over 1,900 jobs worldwide across all links. It also talks about interview tips and questions to practice. Link: https://lnkd.in/etPj22BE 🕹 Quality Assurance: This resource lists over 450 QA jobs worldwide. This post also talks about the craft of QA and contains tips and interview practice. Link: https://lnkd.in/dwwVjZuc 📑 Game Production: This resource lists around 400 jobs worldwide. It also contains info about game production as a whole and GDC talks. Link: https://lnkd.in/gxDvFM-Z 📢 Marketing & Community: This resource lists around 400 jobs worldwide. It also gives an intro into game marketing and community management. Link: https://lnkd.in/e5MuViug 🎶 Audio and Sound Design: This resource lists around 190 jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/eSkPSsWf 📠 Studio Support, HR, Recruitment and BizDev: This resource lists around 290 jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/ePG57_7v ⚙ IT, Helpdesk and DevOps: This resource lists around 140 jobs worldwide. Link: https://lnkd.in/e8ZsuiZh 🎮 Game Design: This resource lists around 480 jobs worldwide. https://lnkd.in/dCv_hQXv 🥈 Second, the Ultimate list of Video Games Career Resources: This should be your one-stop shop for all information. My dear friend Amir Satvat maintains these documents, he is a legend for doing this - please check them out: https://amirsatvat.com/ 🥉 Third, If you have worked in publishing, please message me. I am looking for quite a few roles right now! ⬅ 🎖 Finally, do not give up. Ever. No matter how dark things may look right now, I KNOW you will get through this, you have got this! 👊 Remember you are not alone. If you need help, advice, or even an ear to listen, we're here for you. Always! ➡ A request to my community, please can I ask you to repost this post to your colleagues and friends, so that we can get as many into jobs as possible! And please comment if you or your studio are currently hiring - let's help each other! Much love ❤️ #layoffs #gamesindustry #jobsingames #modernwolf

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Yesterday, Zenimax workers were added to the Labor Neutrality Agreement between CWA (Communications Workers of America) and Microsoft. This definitely showed a glimmer of hope for its layoff-impacted devs, but how effective is it? In a small yet complete context - After the MSFT acquired AB in 2022, QA workers from Raven Software and Blizzard Albany started unionizing because they were severely under-compensated and undervalued. (This is not the story for only ABK QA workers, right?) However, AB opposed recognizing Albany QA workers as a union, and surprisingly, Microsoft was not against it at all. MSFT acknowledged this issue and signed a labour agreement with CWA backing the QA Workers Union. In 2023, Zenimax workers also formed a union called Zenimax Workers United, backed by CWA, to improve the game industry's working conditions. Even they were voluntarily acknowledged by MSFT all along, with yesterday being a moment of happiness for them. After being added to the agreement, Zenimax workers can now unionize and manage their own working environments without any interference from MSFT. So, the real question is how beneficial this agreement will prove regarding your job security at MSFT. Allowing unionization might give the game devs a sense of power, but does it guarantee their job security? Studios were still shut down, people still lost their jobs, and MSFT hasn’t broken any silence on it even now. Many were impacted this year by MSFT alone. We can’t comprehend even a single per cent of the problems they must be going through. But what we can do is find resources for them! So here’s a list of resources we have been tirelessly collecting to provide game developers with every tool that could possibly help them at any game development stage. The Layoff Support Kit 2.0 (Link in the comments) This Support Kit contains: 1. YouTube Channels, Playlists, and Videos: 219 Resources to learn basic and advanced Game programming concepts. 2. Unity and C# Boot Camps: Over 50 vital sources to learn Unity and C#. 3. Reading Resources: 394 tutorials on game programming, designing, art, animation, and game engines. 4. Free Engine Assets: 200+ free 2D and 3D game engine assets to help you in building games. 5. Podcasts: Over 30 podcasts on developing games, Virtual Reality, and how indie developers can grow from games industry experts. 6. Tools and Game Engines: Widely used game engines and game art tools across the industry. 7. Communities: 91 largely known Reddit and Quora communities dedicated to all things video games. 8. Frontline Warriors: A list of all the top warriors on LinkedIn working day and night to help the layoff-impacted folks get back strong in their careers. I am also requesting Kelly Bender, Alexander Rehm, Caitlin Cooke, Jordan Mazer, Ruty Rutenberg, Hailey Rojas, Kevin F., Kat Craig, and Ali Farha to drop their resources in the comments below or add them directly to the Support Kit 💪 #layoffsupport #gamedev

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Capcom has released a less-than-positive annual report. There's nothing critical in it; all the declines are tied to a pause in releases. Capcom certainly has a vast catalog of successful franchises for upcoming releases. Resident Evil (RE) stands out distinctly. While Capcom didn't start with RE, it played a crucial role in their history and has had a significant impact on the gaming industry as a whole. Today, RE comprises 32 releases across 33 platforms. These are incredible numbers and a testament to success. Moreover, judging by Metacritic scores, Capcom manages to maintain a high standard of quality. I gathered a timeline of all RE releases on one website (link in the comments). I thoroughly enjoyed watching videos, reading books, reminiscing about my own experiences playing the games, and playing with friends and colleagues. Here are a few interesting facts about RE and Capcom: - Resident Evil 4 was released on 14 platforms. - The first RE took 3 years to develop, instead of the usual 3-6 months for Capcom in 1996. Consultants hired from the U.S. advised shutting down the project when it was almost complete, predicting its failure. - Devil May Cry and Dino Crisis were born while searching for fresh gameplay for RE. - Capcom was one of the first companies to start paying revenue shares to developers, which is particularly noteworthy for Japanese companies. - Toy Story I and RE I were released around the same time. - For a while, music for RE was composed by a well-known Japanese composer who was said to be deaf. It later turned out that he wasn't actually deaf and didn't compose the music himself. PS. In 2026, the series will celebrate its 30th anniversary, and there will likely be a special release or edition. Or perhaps they'll simply release a version with full DualSense support.

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Products are complex and multi-faceted, with different maturity lifecycles and levels of market adoption. The reality of each company, product and target market is different and nuanced. Companies looking for simple answers to drive product performance should use frameworks as a guide. They help organise thoughts but are not a tailored or exhaustive solution. But the challenge is that product people rewarded by speed of outputs, are then simultaneously punished for poor product market adoption. As a product leader pushing for the right approach is challenging but necessary. It's in the best interests of the entire business which relies on a great, sellable product to drive revenue, and salaries.

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Another example of how Knapsack helps teams go from design to code quickly and efficiently to deliver real value to the product teams that use your design system. So many folks are focused on documentation being the way to connect design and code (and docs do matter), but having a structured, codified, version controlled way to specifically define how you connect Figma to a coded component is really what helps us deliver value to product teams that use the design system.

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Reflecting on some recent advising sessions, something I don't see talked about as much is how critical it is to have an incredibly strong, unified* Design leadership team in order to build an even stronger design team and product. Why this is so critical 👇 What I’ve seen happen when you DON’T have that unified Design leadership team: 1. Massive gaps in the user experience – Let’s start with the obvious one. When Design leaders are staying neatly in their corners and not communicating, the experience degrades pretty quickly. Especially where the "seams" of their teams/org are. We've all seen (and let's be real…probably have been guilty of at times) the navigation structure that clearly shows the org chart vs. what users actually need. This can happen way too quickly without that unified team. 2. A lack of Design’s ability to influence product direction — The best Design leadership teams work together, pushing each other, to have a unified perspective of what the big things are to tackle in the user experience that leverages the unique expertise of the Design functions, all the way from it being grounded in research, to it having a compelling narrative. When they have that unified perspective and are all consistently sharing that perspective, it is so much easier for cross-functional partners to understand and buy-in on it. 3. Design works against Design — When Design leaders don't have a shared perspective on what is important (both in the user experience and the culture), don't have the right level of visibility into each other's work, or even worse, when they don't have mutual respect for each other, it leads to the leaders (mostly) inadvertently working against the progress of the other leaders/teams vs. together toward a unified vision. 4. A limit to the flexibility and scalability of the Design team – To build great experiences at scale, having the flexibility of shifting people to focus on different parts of the product is critical. When the culture and processes are dramatically, instead of it being exciting for that person to focus on a new space, it is incredibly disorienting, slows everything down, and can quickly lead to burnout. *A note on when I say "unified". I don't mean at all that they agree on everything. In fact, the opposite. They push each other the most, early and often. However, they have shared respect, cultivated by their leader, and shared responsibility around aligning within a timely manner. THEN they support each other in any way they can with hurdles they may each face (e.g. cross-functional buy-in or team-wide communication). ——— Is this interesting? Let me know if you want me to share more on how exactly you can cultivate this strong design leadership team –OR– if you want more personalized advice around this, set up some time with me here: https://lnkd.in/g-vyymtW

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Our latest jobs update 👇

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fam, i'm looking for a new role in product marketing/ops! i like to work in the intersection of design x product x ops and • tell good stories • have good taste in design • can take ideas from zero to one over weekends • have built teams • have spoken to atleast one customer a day in all my prev roles • can make pretty decks or prototypes and functional mvps instead of those ;) • bring customer-obsession to the culture • teach no-code to the teams and increase net output and efficiency ( big words) i have: • built websites for pocket money since 11 • done a chaotic mixtape of irl/internet hustles ~ sold tees with cute cats on them, to insurance and filter coffee • built, scaled and sold a design and smma agency at 15 • sold multiple weekend side-projects • worked as an ea, customer support, founder, product lead, ux designer, automations guy, i know my way around startup land. • have worked as a ui designer for companies like johnson & johnson • worked on the gtm & pmf hunting on multiple startups & made a few work • spoken at a few events, advocated for more non-technical founders to bet on their ideas • built & monetised communities to 2000+ members • worked with founders on their mvps whilst raising investment (3/6 did!) • organically built and ran cohorts/bootcamps with two universities to teach no-code x ai • written market reports for a venture studio that was adopted as a standard part of the process for each idea. • shipped something every week at work consistently for over 16 months and a few more less brag worthy things if you know someone’s that hiring or if you’re hiring, would love to connect! would have extra love for no-code & creator econ companies ;)

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Loom is essential for engineering teams, but are your Looms getting lost in the shuffle? We use Loom for everything from code context to onboarding to sprint updates. But as our codebases & team grew, we struggled with: ❌ Videos scattered across Jira, Asana, Notion ❌ Lack of visibility for the whole team (QA & Design) ❌ Difficulty finding relevant videos later Our solution? Bring Loom to the code. • Engineers put Loom links directly in our code files • I built a package to scan for those links & store the metadata • Videos are filterable by author, date range, & sprint/feature tags • Everything is accessible in a user-friendly web interface The result? Our Loom knowledge base is now: ✅ Easy to find & reference ✅ Organized & accessible to all ✅ More impactful for our whole workflow If your team uses Loom and you've got a Laravel project, I welcome you to try Laravel Loom Updates. It's open-source and ready to use & adapt. Check it out at `composer require mlusas/laravel-loom-updates` Questions or feedback? Drop a comment! And let me know if you're curious about other Loom organization versions for stacks like Next.js or Express.js - if there's enough interest, I'll open-sourcing those implementations as well. Loom #Laravel

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I'm looking for senior front-end engineers to build tools that enable healthcare providers to get paid fairly and quickly. https://lnkd.in/gXUzdCvJ At Anomaly we're solving one of the biggest problems in healthcare-- payments. We are on a mission to fix the broken payment system in healthcare. Despite billions of $ invested in EMRs, revenue cycle vendors, clearinghouses and insurance companies, the outcomes have only gotten worse for everyone (except...shockingly...insurance companies). Providers see 15%+ of all claims get denied and lose 3%-5% of net revenue due to fatal denials, millions of patients have care delayed and receive unnecessary bills, and we all end up paying for the $300+ billion in annual administrative waste that plays a big role in the double digit annual increases in insurance premiums. We are using healthcare expertise, modern ML techniques, and common sense to break through the crap and reinvent the way financial transactions work in healthcare. We are early in the process and have a lot of work ahead of us, but we have the best client partners, a big vision, backing from great investors, and an amazing team...if anyone can do it, we will. Please share and email me at jon@findanomaly.com if you're interested

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Spooky post ahead! 👻 For the Seattle Indies Halloween party, I dressed up as one of the scariest things: the Evil CEO laying people off. (Ignore my awful handwriting!) On a serious note, many of my friends have shared that they no longer feel secure in their jobs again after these harsh years of layoffs. Being laid off, or "surviving" a layoff while friends around you are removed, can be traumatic. Even if I don't have employees yet at Timeless Toucan I've been thinking about this issue. What can we do as studio directors to support people, preserve their mental health, and prevent them from constantly looking for other opportunities out of fear of layoffs? Is reassurance enough? Should we offer generous severance packages? Do we just accept that this is how people will feel? Ultimately, leading by example and avoiding layoffs in our studios, transparently communicating the studio's finances and runway length to ensure people are not caught off guard is probably the only way to repair this damage long term. I'm curious about your perspectives on this, as employees and studio owners - what would you like to do or see done?

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Closing slide from my presentation yesterday on design quality. This is the standard I hold for our industry: Every company large enough to have a CPO or CTO should also have a CDO. The Chief Design Officer (CDO) is most responsible for elevating the quality of the customer experience, with special attention to craft. No other individual should care more about craft and quality, with the exception of the CEO in some cases. If you're actively interviewing for your next role, when you're asked “what questions do you have for me" ask who Design reports into. Follow up by asking how this impacts design quality and craft, and how your role can also impact these. #design #quality #craft

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In my experience of interviewing and working with many product leaders, a common trait among the great ones is treating their craft more as a science than an art. Delighting users, creating magical experiences, and ultimately developing software that users love to use is a science. An immediate red flag during interviews is when product leaders can't express details beyond "talking to customers" on how they build lovable products. While talking to customers is paramount, I listen for the structure and tools they use to become customer-centric and experts in the users they serve. Here’s what I look for: Methods to Listen For When Evaluating How Product Leaders Create Lovable Products: 🗺️ Journey Mapping: Understand what users do before and after they interact with your product or attempt to accomplish their job. 🔑 Key Moments Identification: Reveal the key moments that matter in the user journey. 😌 Emotional State Awareness: Understand the emotional states of users and how they change as they progress through the journey. 📊 Data Collection and Analysis: Collect and analyze data to understand funnels, drop-off rates, attrition, etc. I’m also on the lookout for specific techniques on how the product leader builds high-performing product teams. Here are some of the practices to listen for: 🏆 Recognition and Rewards: Establish clear KPIs that define success, create accountability, and drive alignment. Implement a system for recognizing and rewarding team achievements and individual contributions. 🤝 Consistent 1-on-1s: Conduct regular one-on-one meetings to mentor and guide the career and development of the product management team. 👥 Team Collaboration: Allow teams to craft their process and evolve it over time. My favorite team performance ceremony is the retrospective, where the team can gather in a safe place and collectively define how they will improve. 🔄 Cross-Functional Alignment: Create alignment between product, engineering, sales, marketing, and leadership. This involves regular cross-functional meetings, transparent communication of goals and progress, and a unified vision that ties the efforts of all departments together. Ensuring that all teams are moving in the same direction is crucial for driving consistent and sustainable growth. Overall, there are many important items across both themes that define effective product leadership. By listening for a product leader who employs these structured methods, companies can make a better hire to turn insights into actionable strategies, ensuring that the user experience is not left to chance but meticulously crafted and continuously improved, while building and managing high-performing teams that drive success.

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NEW: Ignore rumors Apple is lowering production of Vision Pro due to slow demand. Avi Bar-Zeev, former lead of experience prototyping at Apple who worked extensively on AVP, has a wiser take: "I'd consider 200k US + 200k worldwide to be successful." Read more on his LinkedIn page + further comments (and a Lisa video I found!) on New World Notes: 👇

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Reader feedback for my latest post about how to use AI and my PRD template to never have to write a PRD from scratch again. Read the full post here: https://lnkd.in/eJjVXJUJ

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What's the revenue on a Roblox game? Why does a typical Roblox game collapse so quickly? Is there any way to build a sustainable business on Roblox? Those are the questions raised by the Deconstructor of Fun Slack community. Kudos to Andrew Rose who bravely joined the podcast to discuss them and talk about how Voldex is thriving on the platform. Few key points I got from our discussion... 🧠 Rethinkg game genres and categories. What works outside Roblox doesn't necessarily work on Roblox. 📣 Engage with players through Discord, gather real-time feedback, and integrate player suggestions into game updates. 🎮 The single most important element when developing games for multiple platforms (Xbox, PlayStation, and VR) is a flexible approach to UI/UX design. 📦 Focus on in-game experiences rather than standalone branded environments. Maintaining authenticity is vital with brand integrations. 🎨 When developing for Roblox, there's more tolerance for imperfections. This tolerance allows for rapid iteration and experimentation. Check the full chat on your favorite podcast platform and YouTube. #gamedev #gameindustry

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Calling Investors: Invest in the original Xbox “Duke” controller… I am working with a new gaming peripherals company set to take the world by storm and they are looking for investors to join the team. Founded by Duke Schnepf, son of gaming visionary, and Xbox founder, Brett Schnepf, backed by multiple founding fathers of the Xbox, this company is pushing the boundaries of the gaming peripherals sector. Their journey began with Brett Schnepf, a luminary whose contributions to gaming history are etched in stone. As a founding member of the Xbox console team, Brett's design prowess shaped modern gaming, with iconic creations like the Sidewinder PC controller and the legendary Duke controller. Today, Duke Schnepf carries forth his father's legacy. Upside and a half! In late 2024, a major streaming platform will release a series chronicling the founding of a pioneering gaming console (can you guess which one) and the launch of Duke's ground-breaking products, offering an intimate look at the visionary minds behind this revolution. Looking for investments of $10K, $20K, $50K, $100K, $250, $500K, and $1M. Higher investments with equity shares are available for discussion. We foresee full returns and profits delivered within 1 year. If you're interested in being part of this exciting journey, please get in touch to set up a call ASAP. #Gaming #InvestmentOpportunity #Innovation #GamingPeripherals #TechInvestments #gamedev #investors #angelinvestors #gameinvestor #PEinvestment #AngelInvestment

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Whether the PM serves as the CEO of the product or not—a topic ever since Ben Horowitz's "Good Product Manager / Bad Product Manager"—they must fulfill their primary responsibility: ensuring the viability of their product domain. I see this unfolding in three main areas (to any PMs who disagree, tell me why I'm a dolt in the comments): 1. With internal stakeholders. From sales to customer success to marketing to the CTO, stakeholders face problems that PM collaboration, prioritization, even a quickly turned around execution can help solve for. This might sound like "feature factory, stakeholder-driven work" to some, but how Product engages internally—from aligning on and delivering on the brand promise to impacting the product experience with new value to strategizing on how to reduce friction across the greater org—affects business viability. Inexperienced PMs can struggle with supporting internal customers, as if it conflicts with their perceived job of building a great product in and of itself, yet these discussions operate within a realm of abundance that lead to alternative paths of human-centered value propositions of all shapes and sizes 2. With external human-centered needs. PMs must ensure their products serve their customers, yet this gets tricky as "customers" vary. > There are internal customers as mentioned above > External customers present as buyers controlling budgets, and their end users; in the consumer space they're one and the same > Some business models have paying customers that are separate from end users > And then there are the intangible, yet ever so real customers, such as investors Depending on the capabilities and adaptability of design and research, and how a PM might engage with them and other stakeholders, identifying and delivering high-value human needs is a high wire act of iterative investments of both discovery and execution. And while delivering a desirable user experience is important, it isn't the sole variable for reaching product-market fit and revenue streams. 3. With system needs. Our industry moves quickly towards delivering realized value, and systems accrue debt regardless. > Design systems need constant nurturing and intermittent updates. > Platform architectures need iterative shifts and code needs refactoring. > Product features often need to sunset, and certain elements reconsidered into other areas of the experience (UX). And rarely are these investments considered to be new value opportunities by the business. If the Heads of Design and Engineering can't get alignment with the Head of Product as to why their respective functions need to allot resources to such system debt, the viability of the product will begin to wane over time. This same struggle trickles down to PMs and their IC counterparts. For many reasons, the PM ≠ CEO, but good ones claim similar degrees of responsibility, and may very well lose the same amount of sleep for a fraction of the compensation.

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