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[Seb Hanlon]

It's a bit discouraging to see industry veterans warning hopefuls not to treat QA as entry-level, especially when some of those veterans got their foot in the door that way... 

 

Are there any entry-level positions in the game industry? All I ever seem to find are postings requiring 2-4 years experience.

Most of the "entry level" positions we recruit are typically (paid) internship programs in partnership with colleges and universities.

 

It is not unheard of to hire people with experience from non-game-industry jobs, where those jobs cross over in responsibility and related skills. Many parts of the game development machine have parallels in other industries - for example, several of our editors have come in with experience in journalism.

 

This crosses back to what I was saying before; a general broad based education will help you get a job. That job, game industry or not, might help you get the game industry job you want. Who knows, you might end up finding something you like more than game dev after all.

[CENIC]

Most of the "entry level" positions we recruit are typically (paid) internship programs in partnership with colleges and universities.

 

It is not unheard of to hire people with experience from non-game-industry jobs, where those jobs cross over in responsibility and related skills. Many parts of the game development machine have parallels in other industries - for example, several of our editors have come in with experience in journalism.

 

This crosses back to what I was saying before; a general broad based education will help you get a job. That job, game industry or not, might help you get the game industry job you want. Who knows, you might end up finding something you like more than game dev after all.

Thanks for the answer

[L. Han]

Also, I do like to mention that you must be able to accept or adapt into the industry culture; like working with some serious time constraints, working and communicating a lot with other departments, getting dropped off after a phase of a project has past, etc.

 

Of course it depends on the studio you are working in, but being a lone wolf in general won't get you anywhere. You have to learn to rely on others as they can rely on you.

[ziloe]

If you want to make a game like Dragon Age, at the scope and scale of AAA, you need to be a large team.

 

If you want to work on a game like Dragon Age, the advice I give students is to find a relevant area of specialty and study that - if you want to be a programmer, get a CS or Comp Eng degree. If you want to be an animator, study animation. If you want to be a designer - well, my team has a lot of designers with CS degrees.

 

The philosophy behind this advice is that if you get a broad education (aka "university degree"), you'll have a lot more flexibility and career opportunities if for whatever reason you can't get into the industry or change your mind later. As a programmer, you can pay your bills with (for example) PHP while you practice making games on the side and keep applying.

 

On top of a solid education (which recruiters will often straight up screen for - it's rare we hire people without either shipped titles or a degree), something you made (a mod, a prototype, a NWN module, a Twine game, a graphics demo, your art portfolio, etc) is one of the best things to bring to an application - it shows that you've taken raw ideas and cooked them down to the point where you can put it in front of other people and have them evaluate it.

The fact that you mentioned Twine, makes me all the more hopeful that one day I will manage to escape the Indie scene, not that it's a bad thing. But so far, gathering teams have been quite a disorganized process, lol. I'm still surprised when it comes to the game just completed, that it even got finished at all. xD

In my experience though, I didn't need a degree for any of these jobs. Just ability and as you said, something finished. Though, I think getting involved in events with places like the IGDA helped quite a bit, given all the networking possibilities.

[Seb Hanlon]

Gabe Newell says that college degrees don't matter. What you need to do to prove you are qualified to work in game development, as according to our lord and savior, you need to be able to 1) Make a game, 2) Successfully advertise and draw attention to your game, 3) Finish and Launch your game.

 

If you can do those three things, you don't need a college degree and you will get to work at Valve. 

Of course - YMMV, some conditions apply, void where prohibited by law, see in-store for details. My experience is but one path among many.

 

That being said, I wager there's lots of people who accomplish all three of those (definitely nontrivial) objectives and haven't yet received their Golden Ticket Offer Letter from Our Lady of the Lambda.

[ziloe]

Gabe Newell says that college degrees don't matter. What you need to do to prove you are qualified to work in game development, as according to our lord and savior, you need to be able to 1) Make a game, 2) Successfully advertise and draw attention to your game, 3) Finish and Launch your game.

 

If you can do those three things, you don't need a college degree and you will get to work at Valve. 

If that's it, I'm already done. Game launches on the 12th.

[Maverick827]

Gabe Newell says that college degrees don't matter.

Gabe Newell hasn't had to look for a job in 35 years, so I wouldn't exactly call his career advice practical.

[AppealToReason]

I wouldn't go to school to get a degree for Dragon Age, go to school for what you like to do and then find out how that can work into being on the dev team.

 

It would also be a good idea to start working on a portfolio and basically make up your own entire game world, more or less.

[AppealToReason]

Gabe Newell hasn't had to look for a job in 35 years, so I wouldn't exactly call his career advice practical.

 

Yeah, its hard to get yourself passed the initial screening phase without a degree or diploma of sorts. It shows that you 1) managed to commit to completing something for 2-4 years and 2) you actually have legitimate training for the required feild compared to going off on your own and hoping to free spirit your way in.

[Mes]

 

The philosophy behind this advice is that if you get a broad education (aka "university degree"), you'll have a lot more flexibility and career opportunities if for whatever reason you can't get into the industry or change your mind later. As a programmer, you can pay your bills with (for example) PHP while you practice making games on the side and keep applying.

 

I think this is key. You need a degree so you can get a job, ANY job, and THEN you can start worrying about how to get into the business you want to be in.

[ziloe]

Yeah, its hard to get yourself passed the initial screening phase without a degree or diploma of sorts. It shows that you 1) managed to commit to completing something for 2-4 years and 2) you actually have legitimate training for the required feild compared to going off on your own and hoping to free spirit your way in.

Not true at all. You just need to show you know what you're doing. A kid attemped a DLC like mod for Skyrim, because he wanted to have Bethesda notice him, but instead he got hired by Bungie of all places, simply because he showed potential. So essentially, having something completed, that is good, still shows your commitment to a project, etc.

[CuriousArtemis]

To the OP and anyone else interested in this topic: There is a PAX panel about getting a job at BioWare. Might want to look into that one

[DonaldFwump]

Interning is (as stated) definitely one of the best ways to get your foot in the door. You can also look at Blizzard, they seem to almost always be hiring and every year they do a summer internship for kids about to go to University. Worth checking out at least, even if it's not the company/games you want to be working on.

I wish I had done an internship when getting my degree in Chemistry, as it was near impossible for me to find a job since my only experience in the industry was working in a lab. Great place to start, but not enough to get noticed.

Decided to go the teaching route, but since I had no experience in it, I had to start as a substitute for a year. Got my foot in the door with the schools and principals while doing it. Ideally I'd like to go further than teaching high school chemistry (Walter White much?), but right now I have bills, I'll be getting married, starting a family, so I need a stable income right now. Bills, bills, bills.

Point is, start some where, even if it's not ideal and work towards your goals. It will be highly unlikely that you get to exactly where you want to early on.

Great thread for advice for all the younger crowd trying to make their way .

[ziloe]

Yeah, these stories are not common exactly, but they happen once or twice a year. You will see a modder or a team of modders get hired up to a professional position. Even Bioware used to hire out of its modding community, back when Bioware had a modding community (RIP). 

Not common, sure. But as an indie developer, who has been amongst the people of the IGDA (International Game Developer's Association), most of them have talked about having something completed. It doesn't have to be a mod, of course. But you need to show your abilities.

I've been told there are three areas that are most important: Art, Programming and Marketing. It's sort of like the triple threat of the gaming world. Sadly, writing wasn't in there, and as a writer for the most part, that always disappoints me, just as much as the lack of modding community does for you.

[Maverick827]

Please don't encourage people to try to become game software developers by posting extreme fringe cases of modders getting jobs.

[ziloe]

Please don't encourage people to try to become game software developers by posting extreme fringe cases of modders getting jobs.

Modding was an example, and it's not to the extent of making a nice sword or character. It's to the scale of what might be considered genuine DLC expansion packs, that add to the entire world/continent or an entirely new one in itself.

But having something to show, that is a full game on its own, that you made/helped build? That shows your ability, regardless of a degree, because what matters is your experience. For every 800 graphic artists who are told by their teachers that they can connect them somewhere in the industry, maybe two get a job because of them. It takes people going out there themselves and making connections with other developers, and networking is one of the least talked about things when I see these kinds of conversations, which is why I brought it up.

[Maverick827]

Making some sort of video game portfolio is fine secondary to going to college and learning a more applicable skill.

[ziloe]

Making some sort of video game portfolio is fine secondary to going to college and learning a more applicable skill.

If you already have the skill, you don't necessarily need it. If you want to, sure. Go for it. No one is stopping you. But I know plenty of people who have gotten jobs simply via their experience in the field, making games.

If you have no skill on the other hand? Yes, go take classes for it. But if you've been doing it awhile and have something to show, it makes a world of difference in an interview, regardless of a piece of paper. Because there's a difference between learning something and getting a document that shows you took classes for it, and actually implementing that knowledge alongside a team, to the point of a finished product, etc.

I know this because that's exactly what I'm doing, and I was one of the unlucky people to be dooped into a scam college for this very profession. The only way I found a way into the industry, was going to various events and meeting people while honing my chosen skills in my alone time, which is what you should be doing regardless of whether you're in school or not.

[Maverick827]

I'm not disagreeing that getting experience with making games and networking with developers is a good way to get into that industry, I'm disagreeing that it is a good idea to put all of your eggs into the "I eschewed education for a narrow career path" basket in the first place.

The Skyrim modder who got a job at Bungie was very lucky. In an already-limited industry, "desinger" positons are even more finite and should not anyone's Plan A. From what I remember, he had invested ~2,000 hours into his mod, which is about how long it would take to earn a master's degree in computer science.

Instead, he spent that time learning Papyrus, which is the scripting language of Skyrim's Creation Kit. By design, this is an extremely high-level language and is intended to be easy to use. It's coding-by-numbers; the language mostly exposes hand-holding methods that do most of the work that real languages would require. It demonstrates no useful knowledge or abilities outside of using the Creation Kit or other such game development tools with similar scripting languages and is a meaningless skill outside of that one (still relatively small) industry.

Championing this kid is essentially saying "you don't have to go to college and get an education because Justin Beiber was found on YouTube, so that's all you have to do to become successful!" It's such an incredibly rare occurrence that it's irresponsible to recommend it to kids who are in the planning stages of their lives.

I realize that these are the forums of a game developer, and I'd hate to insult game developers who might be reading this, but solely pursuing a career in game development is not a good idea. In fact, I hope it never becomes a good idea. I'd hate to think that we'd be losing potentially great minds in important CS fields like...anything but making video games, come to think of it. This is the age where everyone feels entitled to their magical childhood fantasy career, but the world needs minds working on cryptology and artificial intelligence wherever applicable, not expansions to role playing games.

[Maverick827]

I think we're both on the same page. The important part is going to college, which (theoretically) serves as a de-facto method of filtering people into the "right" paths. If along the way you developed a passion for computer architecture and think you can really make a difference in that field, then great. If not, and you're still dead-set on becoming a game developer, then that's fine, too (and now you can actully get a job to support yourself while you look).

Moreso than in any other field, I think, college lets the computer scientist discover his or her niche. Picking your nich right out of high school with reckless abandon doesn't really work as well, in my opinion.

And when I said Papyrus = high level language = bad I didn't mean all high level languages were bad. I'm currently primarily a Java developer myself. I specifically said "very high level" for a reason: it is an absurdly hamstrung language. It would be like writing a Java program, but only having access to the java.util package. Which is fine, because it was designed this way on purpose. But I certainly wouldn't hire anyone based on their Papyrus laurels for anything but a job that predominately uses Papyrus or other limited, game scripting languages.

[ziloe]

I'm not disagreeing that getting experience with making games and networking with developers is a good way to get into that industry, I'm disagreeing that it is a good idea to put all of your eggs into the "I eschewed education for a narrow career path" basket in the first place.

The Skyrim modder who got a job at Bungie was very lucky. In an already-limited industry, "desinger" positons are even more finite and should not anyone's Plan A. From what I remember, he had invested ~2,000 hours into his mod, which is about how long it would take to earn a master's degree in computer science.

Instead, he spent that time learning Papyrus, which is the scripting language of Skyrim's Creation Kit. By design, this is an extremely high-level language and is intended to be easy to use. It's coding-by-numbers; the language mostly exposes hand-holding methods that do most of the work that real languages would require. It demonstrates no useful knowledge or abilities outside of using the Creation Kit or other such game development tools with similar scripting languages and is a meaningless skill outside of that one (still relatively small) industry.

Championing this kid is essentially saying "you don't have to go to college and get an education because Justin Beiber was found on YouTube, so that's all you have to do to become successful!" It's such an incredibly rare occurrence that it's irresponsible to recommend it to kids who are in the planning stages of their lives.

I realize that these are the forums of a game developer, and I'd hate to insult game developers who might be reading this, but solely pursuing a career in game development is not a good idea. In fact, I hope it never becomes a good idea. I'd hate to think that we'd be losing potentially great minds in important CS fields like...anything but making video games, come to think of it. This is the age where everyone feels entitled to their magical childhood fantasy career, but the world needs minds working on cryptology and artificial intelligence wherever applicable, not expansions to role playing games.

It's like you're not paying attention, and only reading what you want to read. I am not championing this one guy, so you can stop fixating on that single point. If you actually read what I said, I was referring to both his work and time put in. So you're basically telling everyone reading this, a person who is surrounded by game developers both indie and AAA, doesn't know what they're talking about, and on the hunch that you assume a degree is everything. It's not like I've been associating and working with various developers for the last 3 years or anything, and going to events that teach how to create things or talk about how to get ahead in this very industry. I've already mentioned one of the places people should look into, if they're serious about this.

And in regards to work, all I've said was to have a finished product and reiterated that it doesn't have to be a mod. It could be a game you made in Unity. It doesn't matter. What matters is the hours you put in and what you learned from it. And that even when you're done, you still continue to strengthen your abilities by making new things.

There are plenty of places you can go to learn these things, without spending thousands of dollars that you might not ever earn back for years. And you want to tell me that those hours in college are the same? They're not. Most of the technology that they teach you, is out of date by the time you'll make it into the industry, if you do at all. These words I type, have been reiterated countless times by people who have been in the industry longer then I have. And if you get hired, a lot of studios will help you a little, as long as you at least know what you're doing where it counts. Where it counts being, whatever you were hired for.

So again, I don't want to have to keep repeating myself, but what matters is the time you put in, both with learning things and making them, degree or not. College is not going to help you find your niche. The worst thing you could do is put yourself into debt, without even knowing what you want to do. If you're good at art, you work on your art. Strengthen your abilities that you already have. And while it's good to learn other things (I've already mentioned the triple threat), you don't want to neglect what you're already good at because you can always be better.

I don't need an art school, to learn form, for instance. Where I live, there are weekly life drawing classes held at night that cost less then 20 bucks. So I could do that and hone my skill, or shell out 1500+ for something that I may not even like. So this is no fantasy. It's a reality, for this industry.

If you want to be a doctor? You go to school. If you want to make games? There are countless other ways to do so.

[Cyonan]

This would be a good post to read in my opinion

 

It's on the World of Warcraft general forums from their previous Lead Systems Designer known as Ghostcrawler. He talks a lot about getting into the industry for both developers and artists.

 

Something I actually do a lot of that he mentions there is looking at games I'm playing and thinking about how I would change the game. What didn't I like about the game and how would I have gone about fixing it?

 

As somebody who would like to make games themselves one day, I would also generally agree with the idea that it's a good idea to have a fall back plan. Even if it's only a temporary thing, it's nice to be able to pay the bills.