Getting into the industry?

[darthbator]

I've worked in the game industry most of my life. Not just my adult life, pretty much my entire life. I actually dropped out of high school to take a job with THQ back in 1999. I was 17 years old and am 99% sure I am the youngest person who was ever hired by the company. After reading that sentence you should almost surely regard me as a complete idiot and maybe should not take any of my advice? I may have a twisted perspective but I think working conditions as well as the work itself is about a billion times better then when I started in this industry. However you do have to understand how to choose your jobs. I have turned down "video game" work to do far less exciting programming or technical infrastructure work because I knew what those particular game jobs would entail. Lets just say that there are a lot of studios out there who understand how enthusiastic some of us are about making games and have no qualms exploiting that. 

 

Oh yeah breaking into the industry! Here's some solid advice, don't try and be a game designer, don't try and be a producer. There is basically always a glut of studios looking for programmers, modelers, artists, audio engineers, IT people, etc. Now at those studios of the people currently doing those jobs probably 20-25% are trying to be game designers or creative directors and are simply leveraging their existing skills to get closer to that goal. The chances of you coming and landing that job with little to no experience and no history with the studio is extremely poor. However most people I talk to at conferences are looking to be designers or producers almost exclusively. My big advice to anyone really wanting to break into the industry is to work on developing actual functional technical skills that help get things onscreen and functioning inside the software, and then worrying about your perspectives on narrative dissonance and compulsion loops. Lots of people who tell me they want to work in this industry are completely in love with that theoretical angle and seem to somehow dismiss the fact that it's a HUGE amount of work to actually prototype and implement those ideas to find out if the theory you've come up with is actually something that's fun.

[Roderick]

Luckily I had that exact experience on art school (here's an example why school can be really profitable!). I had a big game design assignment in a team and saw first-hand that designing a game is actually a huge amount of work, almost all of which on a granular level didn't actually appeal to me at all! The endless, endless toying with hundreds of variables to tease out a balanced experience; buried in design documents; tinkering away like some mad watchmaker. I then and there made the informed decision that I didn't want a career as a full-on game designer at all.

 

It's important to get those experiences, because it's so easy to picture yourself as the guy who just 'dreams up the great game' and then has other people executing on it.

[miffy495]

If your goal is to make stuff with friends, find the friends first and then figure out what you want to make with them rather than the other way around.

 

Absolutely this. Don't count on work to get you the friends. Sometimes you're lucky and find coworkers you get along really well with, but if you want to be creative with friends then you're far better off by having those friends and deciding how your strengths may combine with theirs. If you can't swing that, then just be careful that you're not LOSING friends because of work and make stuff with them in your spare time. If that stuff happens to be games while you do other things, that's awesome. Don't count on it being games though.

[osmosisch]

I found this to be a cool story tangentially related to the subject at hand:

http://www.magicalwasteland.com/mw/2014/1/16/the-moisturizing-soap-game-jam.html

[Dewar]

That's a really interesting article. Good writting too.

[Entriech]

There was an essay I read a year or two ago that I feel applies a little bit, at least.  Credit where credit is due, it was http://ranprieur.com/essays/dropout.html .  I don't endorse most of what this guy says, as he's got some pretty radical ideas about civilization and society and so on.  But one thing he said that I appreciate is this:

 

Do not try to find a job doing what you love. This is my most radical advice. There are some people in the world who have jobs they love so much that they would do them for free. If you become one of these people, you will probably get there not through planning but through luck, by doing what you love for free until somehow the money starts coming in. But if you make an effort to combine your income and your love, you are likely to end up compromising both, making a poverty income by doing something you don't quite love, or no longer love. For example, if you decide to become a chef because you love cooking, it will probably make you hate cooking, because cooking will become linked in your mind to all the bullshit around the job.

What I recommend instead is to separate your money from your love. Get the most low-stress source of income that you can find, and then do exactly what you love for free. It might eventually make you money or it might not. "Do what you love and the money will follow" is mostly false. The real rule is: "If you're doing what you love, you won't care if you never make any money from it -- but you still need money."

 

Now I know there's lots of folks who might disagree, but I'll be honest, this approach has made for a much better life for me than if I'd committed wholesale to only working in the field that I thought I'd enjoy.  I've loved games since I was a kid with a Commodore 64, and the thought of making games is incredibly appealing to me.  But when it came down to it, I pursued a computer science degree, and ended up getting a job working as a developer for a financial company.  My job is occasionally rewarding, mostly boring or frustrating, like a lot of jobs.  But it keeps food on the table and a roof overhead, and gives me the time and ability and security to invest myself during the hours I'm not at work in whatever strikes my fancy with no strings attached.  Maybe in five or ten years of puttering around making games as a bedroom hobby I'll have enough experience or success to make the transition.  But until then I won't have the day to day necessities of sustaining quality of life impinging on my passions or the pursuit of them.  Extra bonus points for getting an education in a field relevant to my interests as it makes it all the easier to chase my interests as they align.

 

I wish you all the best wherever your path takes you.

[Forbin]

@Entriech that's a pretty depressing outlook, but it's not without merits.  If you want a job that lets you play the most video games, it's probably not making video games.  Whether or not you're going to enjoy it more or less after being a part of the creation of a game is a matter of personal taste.

 

As for the original question.  A degree is not required to work in the game dev industry, but it certainly will make you easier to hire.  When people ask "should I go to school or build a portfolio" the honest answer is both.  If you're a programmer, then you're much better off with a degree from a University than you are from a College (by Canadian definitions).  But it seriously depends on the College, generally I think it's good to be skeptical and do some research. The truth is, most people hiring can't tell the good game design programs from the diploma mills.  If you consider yourself a programmer, it's hard to advise against a traditional Software Engineering degree.  Just make sure you continue to make games on the side, because that will be important.

 

If your heart is set on not going to school, then it can be done, but you're going to need to put in a lot of work.  If your aim is to get  hired at a company, they're going to need to be impressed by a broad portfolio of work.  If you want to start your own company, or support yourself off independent development, then you're going to have to practice a lot to build something that people enjoy enough to buy.  It's definitely not the easy route, you're going to have to work a lot harder than you would at school.

[Roderick]

In my youth I heard the same advice (it's old advice, really) that Entriech posts above, and over the years I've come to appreciate it as absolutely not true.

If you have a passion for something, doing it for work won't burn it out, but only deepen it more and more over time. Great pursuits have a endless depth and appreciation to be gained from mastering them. Of course, it's not easy, it's never easy, nothing ever is. Conversely, if you choose a job that'll earn you a better or more stable income but that you don't really like, that has its benefits too, but for me it doesn't work. It's a ticket to depression and burn-out. If you have no alternative, sure, take the job. But for fuck's sake, don't withhold yourself from doing the thing that you love out of some delusional maxim that's based around fear for losing your hobby or making your life as convenient as possible. life is not about convenience and minimizing pain, it's about living it to the fullest; sometimes it hurts, but what you get back is infinity more valuable.

[osmosisch]

It's not absolutely true but it's definitely also not absolutely untrue. It depends very strongly on the person and the job/field.

[dibs]

I love cooking, but I would never want to be a chef. The thought of Having to cook makes my skin creep. I cook to relax, and entertain and to get delicious foods in my belly. Similarly, I wouldn't like to make video games for a living. The thoughts of dissecting the very thing I love is not at all appealing.  Instead, i dissect engineering and maths problems and very much enjoy it.

 

That said, farting around in gamemaker is fun. I solved a problem last night!

[Entriech]

Yeah, to be clear I wasn't endorsing that position as the be all and end all.  There's definitely a whole range between the two positions, and I think part of growing up and getting out into the professional world is figuring out where you fit along that continuum at given points in your life.  I think espousing either extreme can be dangerous.

 

Either way, some oft-repeated advice in this thread does hold true, which is if you really want to pursue game development then keep/start making games, to broaden your skills and create a good portfolio.

 

In terms of pursuing education, I'd recommend going for a more general degree at a college/university than taking a program oriented specifically towards making games.  In the event that you end up not wanting to work in the industry, or aren't able to immediately start working in it, that education will transfer more easily to a job in another field.

[Zeusthecat]

I love cooking, but I would never want to be a chef. The thought of Having to cook makes my skin creep. I cook to relax, and entertain and to get delicious foods in my belly. Similarly, I wouldn't like to make video games for a living. The thoughts of dissecting the very thing I love is not at all appealing.  Instead, i dissect engineering and maths problems and very much enjoy it.

 

I totally agree with this. I think there is a very real possibility that making a living doing something you love to do can diminish the enjoyment you get out of it. Not to say that that will necessarily happen for everyone but having an obligation to do something can definitely take the fun out of it, especially if it is a high stress situation, which is clearly common in the video game industry.

[Roderick]

I think it's all too easy to lump two distinct things together here: an activity that you (greatly) enjoy as a hobby, and a driving passion within that makes you feel everything else is just wasting time. For the former, absolutely, the necessity of doing it might hurt it. For the latter, I doubt it.

Another thing that makes it more complicated is (false) expectations. Playing a game is absolutely not the same as making a game - not even a guarantee you'll remotely enjoy the experience. But when your passion, as is mine, is writing, then there's only the blurriest of lines between hobby and work. Almost to the point where to me, there's little distinction.

But lest we get into some ridiculous argument, I don't think there's much disagreement between us in the first place. My fierceness on the topic comes from a place of anger at the thought of people settling for something that's not their passion based on (in my opinion) not altogether convincing views.

[dibs]

Another thing that makes it more complicated is (false) expectations. Playing a game is absolutely not the same as making a game - not even a guarantee you'll remotely enjoy the experience.

 

Yes, I imagine a lot of it is this.

 

My sis in law kept telling me a while back I should have applied for Havok in Dublin though (her friend works here). Could have been interesting, but back then i thought you could only get jobs if you actually knew all the skills they were looking for, rather than walk in and bullshit your way to success and so i was too scared to apply. I do like maths.

[Entriech]

But lest we get into some ridiculous argument, I don't think there's much disagreement between us in the first place. My fierceness on the topic comes from a place of anger at the thought of people settling for something that's not their passion based on (in my opinion) not altogether convincing views.

 

You're likely right.  I'm probably just coming from the other side having seen a lot of people encouraged into following their interests or passions without necessarily being made aware that there can be negative consequences to doing so (debt, poverty, losing an interest).  At the end of the day, I certainly don't think you're encouraging the spectre of the starving artist, and I know I'm not holding up settling for the 9 - 5 drone grind as an ideal to strive for.

 

To the OP I think you just need to keep both sides in mind when you're making your decisions.  It's tough that the world is set up in such a way that you end up having to make reasonably large choices without much of a safety net.  I will say that all of the tools and knowledge you need to make games is out there on the Internet and available for free right now and in my opinion the best way to proceed in the immediate future would be to engage with that material and see how you feel about it.

 

I'm sure if you wanted specific recommendations, either people in this thread or over in the hobby developer thread would be happy to offer an opinion.

[dibs]

Or I guess you could just do this:(

Warning: Sads incoming.

 

http://www.bluecloudsolutions.com/blog/money-apps-turn-1k-200k-portfolio/

[Impossidog]

Or I guess you could just do this:(

Warning: Sads incoming.

 

http://www.bluecloudsolutions.com/blog/money-apps-turn-1k-200k-portfolio/

oh man, that is some gross stuff going on right there

[Professor Video Games]

HOT GANGSTER TIP: On the game over screen, make the level score tick up from zero to whatever score they achieved. That way the user has to wait for 4-5 seconds while the scoreboard gets to their score…while they stare at the banner ad. Not only does this give the servers enough time to download the ad and increase your fill rate, it will increase your click rates A LOT. I did this on some of my runner games and it crushed it.

 

Magnificent.

[Jason Bakker]

I think the biggest obstacle I have had and maybe some others have had as well is making a game on your own gets super hard when things aren't working, or you hit a design wall etc.

 

I have about five different games half finished because half way through I got lost in the details. I am gonna have to get in that thread and make some friends.

 

Sorry for dredging up a post from a few pages back, but I just wanted to quickly say that this doesn't really go away once you start working in the industry - working with other people helps a bit, but you can get just as lost on a team as on your own. If you're able to show that you've been able to make it through the process of making a game and get it done, that's the biggest factor that I've found positively affects hiring chances. This is why a good portfolio is more important than a degree - you can show that you are able to work through the tough times in game dev and get a thing done.

[TheLastBaron]

I've heard from a few different people like Kenny Young at Media Molecule that the show Grand Designs is an excellent show to watch as it's a great analog for working on a game at a big studio.