Hollywood talent pool luring firms eager for creative skills.(Entertainment Quarterly--Let's Make A Video Game!)

Courtesy Los Angeles Business Journal

PARENTS might reconsider telling their kids to quit playing video games.

The industry has been one of the bright spots in the local job market, with the bigger companies in the midst of hiring hundreds of people, mostly for creative and technical positions.

Besides tapping into the ready supply of dot-com castaways, larger game makers like Activision Inc., THQ Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc. are raiding the creative staffs of Hollywood’s film studios.

The hiring binge has been focused almost exclusively on graphic artists, animation experts and computer programmers, as well as movie industry employees such as lighting personnel, music composers, screenwriters and actors.

“They are looking for a mix of 3D art and animation and programming and engineering,” said John Baldrica, a graphic design instructor at the UCLA Extension. “The skills are very specialized and if you’re experienced, you’re in demand.”

Salaries reflect that demand. An experienced art director at a video game company now makes well over $100,000, significantly more than a few years ago when art budgets were 25 percent of what they are now.

The average salary of a technical director with six or more years’ experience jumped to $104,000 in 2002, up from $84,000 the previous year, according to Gamasutra, a game industry publication. Average salaries for programmers ran $66,000.

Redwood City-based Electronic Arts, looking to accommodate 500 employees at its local operations within the next two years, up from the current 300, will move its studio in December from Bel-Air to a larger facility in Playa Del Rey.

“We’re looking for game designers that have game experience or those that come from non-traditional industries,” said Carol Brickner, director of human resources at EA Los Angeles.

EA recently landed an art director who had worked at Sony Pictures Entertainment and Walt Disney Co., a special effects designer who operated a nuclear submarine in the Navy and artist Mark Lasoff, who won an Academy Award for the visual effects on “Titanic.”

Over the past six months, Santa Monica-based Activision has added 100 employees, mostly game production staff with programming, art or animation skills, and plans to add 50 more before April.

“We’ve hired more people in the first six months than all of last year. We wanted people on board before our peak holiday season,” said Mike Rowe, its executive vice president of human resources.

“Creative positions like art or animation, not corporate or overhead jobs, give the biggest bang for the buck,” said Rowe, who estimated that 80 percent of new hires would be in those fields.

The competition for jobs has been fierce, and those without entertainment or creative experience looking to break into the video game industry are having a tough time.

Rowe estimated that each job Activision posts on its Web site generates 4,000 resumes. One was from Ron Quezon, a 30-year-old with a degree from USC’s Marshall School of Business who has vainly been looking for a spot in the local video game industry since he graduated in May. “Like the entertainment industry, there are a lot of people who want to get into this business,” said Quezon.

He has applied, to no avail, for creative and operational positions at THQ, Activision and EA, each time told he lacked the entertainment, consumer goods and games experience they were looking for.

Smaller companies seeking those for programming, art and animation spots are looking for new ways to compete for talent.

Sammy Studios Inc., a Carlsbad-based video game maker, started sponsoring game design classes at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena last month. It is looking to fill more than 70 creative positions over the next year and sees academic alliances as a key to competing for talent.