Will

I just got a quote with Quinn and it was ridiculous! £1500 compared with most companies offering £300. Don't think I'll be using them! Insurance is just one of those things, you have to have it and we get completely ripped off by it. Give it time though and it will come down for you.

The thing that annoys me most of all is idiots who sit in the middle lane of the motorway causing no end of problems for the people behind who all have to get past them in the outside lane. I just don't get how these people can be so stupid. The only other thing is my annoyingly small engine often needs a good run up to overtake on A-roads and if the gap doesn't appear at the right time I have to drop back and start it all over again. Hopefully that one will be sorted with a new car pretty soon though.

You wouldn't exactly call it a success though. I'm really pleased about this announcement, the first had all the building blocks of a great game it just felt somewhat lacking in areas. Hopefully they can address the issues this time around and get something that delivers on its promises.

Loads of games are launching at budget price for the Wii. It's only a good thing imo, we've needed this for a long time.

So far I haven't noticed the affects on day to day shopping and bills. Its actually been good for me so far, there's so much rental property on the market around here that I've managed to go from paying £1,440 a month last year to just £1,000 this year for a similar property that has the added bonus of a garage - which in turn knocks my car insurance down. Those savings alone would mean things need to get pretty drastic before I'm going to suffer.

They know when the new Fifa is out due to being general gamers and fans of the series as much as, if not more than, the advertising. I've seen more adverts for Wario Land than I have Fifa but you don't quite see that one selling as many. Fifa is a 'gamers' game, it might not be for the hardcore connoisseurs but its still very much a part of the traditional gaming mix. As a way of tapping into the largest demograph on the Wii? They know most cross platform owner will opt for the HD versions so need a way of generating sales on the uniquely positioned Wii.

Oh I'm not saying they're bad at all, just that most people buying the game at launch will consider the HD versions to be superior. The majority of people that own a Wii do own another platform, those that don't are generally the very casual gamers who are happy with Wii Sports and Wii Fit and then don't really buy many games after that. People buying a Fifa game on day 1 know something about gaming and in general will opt for one of the other versions over the Wii - as we've seen here. Maybe those who had a just a Cube last gen and now have just a Wii will have bought the Wii version, but thats a very low proportion of all people. I don't think there's anything wrong with the Wii version, just that the vast majority of Fifa's fanbase will opt for one of the others.

To be fair its only sold marginally lower numbers on Wii this year. Why would people buy it on Wii though? There's much better games on Wii compared to last year and there's still better versions of FIFA on other platforms. It doesn't surprise me at all that its performed much better on other platforms.

Those figures seem very good for Nintendo, not too sure on how accurate they are though. 360 seems to be benefiting from price drops but across Europe as a whole it really has nothing to fight even the PS3 with.

Why not try and sell them on the trading forum? No doubt some of those would go on here.

He should surely have within his budget for the department money for equipment? They can't have just thought they get a person in and they magically bring with them everything that's needed. If you wouldn't have bought that stuff anyway then I would say you seriously need to negotiate this a bit with him.

I'd tell him to stick his job where the sun doesn't shine! Its a ridiculous amount of money for you to have to pay out, why isn't the company paying for it? Sounds like an absolute con. You don't say how much the rate is but have you worked out how long it would take you to cover your expense? Is this sort of thing common in design jobs? I wouldn't go near something that asked me to pay out all that cash.

Most Wii owners have the attitude of buying stuff they know nothing about. My copy arrived this morning along with Warioland. I'm in a similar situation actually and don't really know much about either title. Start of the Christmas games rush for me I think. There's a LOT of stuff I'll be picking up over the coming weeks/months.

Be confident and show that your able to get on OK with new people and you should be fine. Prepare a few examples as said above and depending on the person interviewing you, you might need to know a little bit about games. I actually really enjoyed my time working in Game (Way back when it was still EB). I'd actually quite like to do it again - I'm insane.

Well my current situation I'm gaining money that isn't mine which is better. My situation is basically: 5k loan over 2 years costing about 400 pounds in interest. 4.5k in savings (that I couldn't access at the start of the loan period) gaining probably about 500 over the course of the two years. The loan is now down to about 3.5k so I could pay it off and still have some savings but it actually works out better for me to keep the loan and all of my savings. If interest rate changes make it more worthwhile to pay off the loan then thats what I'll do.

Not really, I'd just pay off the loan with my savings.

I'm probably about 12k in debt from my student loan (No idea on an exact figure). To be honest it doesn't bother me at all. The repayments are taken out with tax so I don't miss the money at all. I also have a 5k loan that I took out at the start of the year which is now down to about 3.5k to pay, I might pay that one off with savings but at the moment the savings gain more interest than I lose on the loan so its not worth it right now. I agree its the people taking out the loans fault, they just don't seem to think about the consequences of these things. The main problem is interest rate rises, people found it easy when they were low and credit was easy to get. Now payments are going up and people just weren't planning for these things.

I thought as much, we do occasionally have some up where I am at the main office by Kew Bridge. Are you just there on a temporary basis then? When are you starting? Plans to get into the industry full time or do you have something else planned for afterwards?

Welcome on board! Which office are you based at?

I'm pretty lucky in that I live more centrally than I work so in rush hour I'm going the wrong way and miss the crowds. Means I almost always get a seat and a nice relaxing ride to work. Compared with other transport systems I've used I really can't fault it. I can see why people might complain but it really is miles ahead of anything else in this country.

Of the top of my head the license is about £140 a year at the moment. I don't think they do the stamps but there's a lot of direct debit options available.

My current spending list is something like this: Rent Bills Food Loan Payment Drinks Savings for new car There's also a few random bits and bobs I buy but they're not really worth mentioning. I used to spend a fair bit on games but now I get those on work expenses which saves a hefty amount each month.

Probably just over £31k at the moment. Been doing a few big projects at the moment though and have been promised a bit of a rise in the Autumn. Haha, if only. I wish!

This. Use your name in nice big writing as a title. Also get rid of the long paragraphs describing your jobs and skills. It looks poor and people won't be bothered with reading it when they have a pile to get through. Instead a brief 1 or 2 sentences to introduce each and then bullet points for each key thing you did in the role. Don't worry about having space in your CV, lay it out so that it takes up the 2 pages evenly though. Presentation is massively important, its saying something about you before the person even reads a word on there. I'd spend a bit of time cleaning it up if I were you - it can make a massive difference to your chances of getting the job. I'm also happy to send you mine if you want to take a look.

Making games is a creative process so in my opinion they absolutely should be considered as art. As with most art forms, the vast majority is worth very little from an artistic point of view, with just a few absolute gems being highly regarded and worthy of discussion. Its these games that prove games are undoubtedly art.