A little over a week ago, I landed what right now is my dream job. I got hired by the video-games studio DICE (Battlefield series, Mirrors Edge...) as a VoiceOver designer.
This wouldn't have been made possible without the help of Newgrounds.com
Le story:
- It started close to two years ago, in 2010, when I flew to Philadelphia to take part of the Pico-day party. On the flight to Chicago (transfer location), I sat next to a guy who worked on DICE (and still do) as a lead-level design dev. for multiplayer. We had a good time chatting most of the flight away. By then I had started to think about what I was going to do as my final thesis, but hadn't decided yet, as it was still early. But after meeting this guy and his wife (who also worked and still works for DICE), I figured I'd give it a shot to apply for my thesis at DICE. During the latter part of summer, that's what I did, and after a few months and a some odd turns, the thesis-project happened, and started around this time one year ago now.
After the thesis was done I got contracted for a total of six months to help out with VO for BF3 and writing (audio) documentation for Frostbite 2, DICE in-house games engine.
And now, after two months off (unemployed) I get to keep working with one of the absolutely best audio-team in the games-industry (if not THE best team, considering the amount of audio-awards DICE have gotten for BF3 and BC2...).
The above was seemingly completed without the help of Newgrounds. It was just luck I ended up next to the DICE-emplyoee on the flight. I didn't actually get recommended by him for the thesis-project and created the oppurtunity myself by approaching the sound-department, and once in, I tried to snag whatever good stuff was presented in front of me.
BUT:
- As the poor student I was at the time, I would NEVER have been able to afford the trip to Philadelphia and the Pico-party, hadn't it been for the Newgrounds Revenue-system and a little push from Tom Fulp for accomodation, and beer + mental bullying from PsychoGoldfish.
To sum up what this site can be:
- Newgrounds.com comes bearing oppurtunities for individuals, crews/groups of people. There are TONS of good ways to gain a reputation through out the whole world, make important contacts and friends (maybe even your future better half?!), practise your tool(s) (yes, tool, lololol) of choise, use as a source of inspiration and even make some money that very well could be the start of your future career!
I think that some of the NG Staff would agree a little extra with the above, seeing as quite a few of them started out as fans and contributors to the site - and now they make a living helping to improve and run the site!
This is my story of how Newgrounds.com helped me to land my dream-job. I wanted to share it to bring out in the open what can happen by just socializing on a site that comes packed with oppurtunities for the users (compared to masses of sites that are just consuming...).
I'm sure there are great amounts of people out there who have similar stories. What do You hope to get out from hanging out on Newgrounds? You got a story? Share it with us! :)
FrozenFire
It's pretty impressive, the scope of this website's power.
It has changed my life significantly (I think for the good)
A lot of significant life altering decision stem from Newgrounds.com
I knew I wasn't the only one, and we are probably 2 of thousands that have been affected positively by Tom&Friends.
Rucklo
Yeah, I think the key to this site being influencal in such a positive way is mainly due to Tom and the staffs attitude towards both fans and how they want things to be, on a world-scale even. They've had their run-ins with the law and whatever powers that have been ignorant/unknowing about the power of Internet.
They're doing it in a great way, and I hope for Newgrounds to keep kicking ass!