I took a gaming job back in 99/2000. It was right at the beginning of the dot com boom, and the website I was content editor for was at the time the largest/busiest simulation site on the web, with around 30 mil page views, 1 million unique hosts/subs and several TB of data transferred every month. It was a monster back then.
Believe me, a job in the gaming industry is a LOT of work, and your "hobby" becoming your job isn't as easy as one might think, so I would advise anyone who applies for this job to take it very, very seriously, and that if you aren't already used to working at a desk 8 hours or more a day, you best be sure it's something you can do without going berserk. As Ack Ack said, probably the best person to get advice from as he works in the gaming industry himself, and for one of the largest companies as well, it's a huge opportunity, but also consider that it'll be a huge responsibility, and not just a job where you'll be flying around shooting your customers down all day. I think that the very fleeting appearances of Hitech, Skuzzy, and other staff at HTC in the mains probably speak volumes on how much time will be available to actually "play" this game. Once you go home at night, I'll wager seeing another PC monitor or joystick will be the last thing you'll want to lay your eyes on.
That said, I hope they get a really good, capable person who is indeed a player, and a player that is very enthused about moving the game forward. My spider sense is tingling with this job add, and it's telling me that new things will be on the horizon very soon, possibly AH 3, something like the old combat mission idea, or other major additions and improvements. I also hope it's a sign that HTC's recent advertising campaign I've read about here, on the BBS from US players who get those TV commercials, has been a financial success. I think that the reason AH has lasted so long is that the basic formula and foundation of the game is extremely sound, and that it has much potential still after 15 years almost to be "rebooted" so to speak, and improve greatly in terms of participation and subscribers.
