My CV

Matt Shaw

25 example street, Nottingham

07123456678 - 0115 123 4567

Email@gmail.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PROFILE

I attended Bluecoat Technology College located in Aspley. I studied there for 5 years. The subjects I completed and attained grades for were; Graphics, ICT Diploma, Creative Media, Maths, English and Three Sciences. I gained above C level GCSE grades in each of these (see below)

 

KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

·         Supported fundraising and organisation for a charitable event that the school held.

·         Worked closely with the company SERIF to create an advertisement to show and promote their company at the BETT 2012 exhibit for learning technology.

·         Leadership role for a local cubs group. Involving organisation and health and safety.

·         Completed Bronze Duke of Edinburgh award and currently completing the silver level of the award

 

EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE

Voluntary work for Cubs and Scouts leadership. ADS Computers employment (A small computers business).

 

VOLUNTARY, SCOUTING                                                               3/1/2012 – 1/1/2013

My main jobs were leading, organising and implementing planned activities with children. This was obviously a sensitive position of authority/trust and mentorship, a role which I thoroughly enjoyed.

 

EMPLOYEE, ADS COMPUTERS                                                    1/1/2011 – 1/1/2013

While working for this employer my main jobs were paperwork, banking and receipt management, building/repairing/customising laptops and desktop computers, phone communication skills & customer satisfaction skills.

 

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

BTEC Creative Media – Distinction

BTEC Diploma in ICT - B

GCSE Maths - A

GCSE Physics - B

GCSE Chemistry - B

GCSE Biology - B

GCSE Graphics - C

GCSE English – B

 

CORE SKILLS

Ø  Well-developed analytical and numerical ability

Ø  IT Skills

           (Microsoft) Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, Outlook and Explorer

            Adobe Photoshop

            (Autodesk) Maya, Mudbox

            Sony Vegas Pro 12

Ø  Leadership, Position of authority/trust and most of all a professional working attitude

Ø  Experience working to strict deadlines and in a pressured environment

Chosen Industry Career - Graphical Designer - Cover Letter

I chose this role because  I have a strong interest in designing things and have done for a long time. I like this sort of role because it has such a wide design range including magazines, games, film and lots more. I also have a little experience in a few programs like Photoshop, After effects and Sony Vegas which i think would be a good start to learning more programs that would be needed for this industry position. The work demands a creative flair, up to date knowledge of industry software and a professional approach to time, costs and deadlines which i have had to work to whilst doing my ICT Diploma where we had to design logos and a video for a company called Serif. (Back at school)

This job role appeals to me because of it's wide range of choice but also i have a strong interesting in designing things. You have to have a lot of creativity and a good imagination to do this job, it also requires you to be good at planning and talking to the client and manager of the project. A good understanding of a few of the following programs or whichever are required. (QuarkXPress, FreeHand, Illustrator, Photoshop, 3ds Max, Acrobat, Director, Dreamweaver and Flash)

Regulation

PEGI controls most video game regulation in europe but what is regulation?

Regulation – A rule or directive made and maintained by an authority.

Games content is regulated to assure the buyer of the game that it is suitable for them, some familiar ratings you may find on games include 3, 7, 12, 16, 18. All the ratings you see on the right are PEGI’s ratings for age and content, if any of the content mentioned is in the game you are buying it will be marked with one of those images.

The criteria that games are rated on are age and content, the more amount of mature content in there the higher the age rating. Generally it is how graphic the content is for example how much blood and how detailed the gore is would chose the rating between 16 & 18. All ratings in games really didn’t have much legal affect until 2009 where buying a game over your age rating became illegal, before that it was completely legal to buy any age game even if it was aged above you. There is no way to entirely prevent games from reaching the incorrect audience as this is totally up to the parent or buyer.

The media picks out any bad points in games and usually makes them seem a lot worse, I don’t think this reaction is appropriate but it could come in handy for the publishers as if the media wasn’t all true the game still has just been majorly advertised. The rating systems PEGI use do not work in my opinion because the more violent content in it the more attractive the game is to people under the age of it. Parents are allowed to buy games for their children and many don’t seem to be bothered that their child is playing an 18 game at the age of 10. (In my opinion games can be played at around that age but it depends on how mature the person is)

Sometimes games are censored on release; an example of this is Dead Island. This game was edited especially for Australia release, with most of the gore taken out. Obviously there was a normal version with all the extra gore in but it seemed that it was too much; the Australian version of the game ran 40% faster than the explicit version. It was worth spending the extra time editing out some of the corpses and blood because this edition got the game developer another country to sell it in, simply extra profit.

Legal Issues

Legal  Issues have affect the games industry since it's beginning. Legal issues come in two major types, Industry - Legal issues which affect the game makers and publishers for example contracts and working conditions & Consumer - Legal issues that affects the consumer for example jail breaking on multiple platforms and piracy.

When looking at how consumer practices affect the games industry piracy is a big problem and has been around for many years. It is a major problem for publishers, developers and producers because when a game is pirated none of them make any money at all. EA has countered piracy well because all of their games with online capabilities now require an online Player Pass (2011 onward) for an amount of money, this way it seems EA are making money even on pirated games.

Jail breaking is basically either editing a software to allow you access to options not usually available to standard users or changing the software somehow. This is a major problem for apple with the high rate of their products have either been jail broken and restored or are currently jail broken. Apple either have the choice to add this as an extra option and give the consumer the rights they wish to have or just leave it. Apple have used ideas from some available jailbreaks in their new software IOS 5.

The West & Zampella story is a good example of how industry practice can affect the games industry. West & Zampella were the studio heads of Infinity Ward, the makers of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series. They were fired by Activison (who own Infinity Ward) because they were conversing with other publishers, the reason for this was the lack of money that Activision hadn't paid Infinity Ward ($500m)

Gaming Problems – Ethical Issues

There are so many ethical issues in games it’s surprising but sometimes these are not all bad for the game’s publisher, they get the media’s attention which really is all they want. (Seen as their main goal is to sell as many as possible) Some of the ethical issues that are in today’s games include an attempt to modify player’s actions and behaviours to sometimes make them do the unethical for temporary rewards. Male and female perception is a big problem, along with their race. More and more issues come up every day, now for more detail.

Is modifying a player’s actions/choices/behaviours right? Should games reward them for this style of play or should they punish them. I have three examples for this matter. Firstly Bioshock’s little sisters, basically you have an option to save or harvest. (save or kill in easier terms) Saving the little sisters gives you half the reward of harvesting them but after saving 5 little sisters you get a bonus, the difference overall is only about 40 ADAM difference. So the game is rewarding you with double the currency for killing a little sister, the urge of gaining more weapons and upgrades faster sways our choice to doing the unethical.

 In some games when you are unethical for example killing the public or citizens in assassin’s creed it would De-sync you out of the game and tell you that it is wrong – making you start from the last checkpoint. The final example is Call Of Duty in which one mission you are undercover with a group of terrorists and you don’t get rewarded or punished no matter how much you obey to their commands, the ending is fixed – not much fun at all.

Male and female perception in games is a big problem. Generally we treat male characters as the big, strong main character that has to save the pathetic (usually skimpily dressed) female character that can’t fight for herself and is useless. Is that right? If they made it so that they were both able to perform equally would it attract more of the female audience because I’m sure they get bored of playing the male character and having to save their gender. 

Racial issues play a big part in the current problems with games. White male protagonists are usually the main character and that was a big problem in Resident Evil 5 because the main character was a tall, strong white American that shot at hordes of African zombies, not a single white or Asian zombie. This caused massive heated debates on many reviewing sites and even IGN.