shortsleeves

it's also the abbreviation used on the coaches going from San Francisco to "MTV"

There's a significant part of the staff working on game production that is not engineering. There are far fewer job opportunities for the folks working in the Art, Design and Audio departments.

For engineers, there's a wide range of disciplines (graphics, networking, systems, gameplay, AI, audio, etc...), so in theory there's a ton to learn and it's easy to continually be challenged. In practice, at a large company, you'll most likely end up working on a very narrow specialty, on a very specific genre of games. Much like the film industry, people continue to join thinking they will make it big, i.e.: have a critically acclaimed title on their resume.

I suggest you first consult with a US immigration attorney for these sorts of questions. The internet is full of bad advice. Work visas generally have an emphasis on being a skilled professional (i.e: education and/or many years of experience). FYI - TN status is granted when you cross the border, entirely at the border official's discretion.

Not to mention that the efficient market theory completely fails to explain the most basic boom-bust cycles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient-market_hypothesis#Cri...

I think you might be forgetting that by e-mailing said person, you become part of their contacts too. Should that person decide to import or sync their contacts in linkedin, a relationship between you and that person is established on their server. ie: it's an _undirected_ edge between you and your contact, which they seem to use to display stuff back to you.

I can't relate to this at all. I'd argue that the quality of life is actually much higher here. Even with longer work hours.

Sure rental prices suck, but to name a few things:

* Weather is amazing. * Wages are higher than anywhere else for my profession. * The quality of food/produce is better than anywhere else I've lived, year-round. * Within a 4-hour driving radius, I can be skiing, surfing, hiking or tasting world-class wine. * Easy to meet up with like-minded people.

If anything, that just goes to show how difficult it is to convey the right tone. Even when you're fully conscious of it, you may still fall for certain biases.