I’ve been working in marketing for the past 5 years. However, I found I don’t have any passion and desire for this. I want to change careers to something worthwhile. On top of my mind, I’m thinking of getting into the video gaming industry. I’ve been exploring Youtube and blogs on what to expect on the job. I even watched some basic tutorials.
Recently, I came across the channel “Bura Tech”. One of his videos seemed to be informative and insightful on how to turn developing games from a hobby into a paid job here.
To the seasoned developed out there, can you guys confirm what he said? Can you also let me know if he missed anything? I’d love to hear from more people who have more experience than I do.
I don’t know about in the US but I think here in the UK you’d need to have a 2.1 Degree in programming on your CV before most Software Houses would even entertain you.
I wrote and sent off a letter last week to local Software company Sumo Digital to see if they do work placements to learn how to make games, they do have an “Academy” according to their website but at 44 I’m probably too old for that.
I haven’t watched the video (and likely won’t), but if anyone tries suggesting they know the formula for how to break into the games industry, they’re likely full of it. It’s an extremely competitive field, and honestly it seems to involve luck more than anything. But there are things you can do to up your chances, of course, and they’re all extremely common sense. Instead of saying what they are – since we’ve all said it here so many times it feels pointless to repeat again – I’ll tell you how to successfully AVOID getting a job in the industry.
1. Don’t bother making games
The games industry is already full of people that know how to make games. Stand out from the crowd by acquiring no knowledge of how to put a game together. Your completely uninformed perspective will grant an outside-the-box perspective to your thoughts and ideas, which will be important, since that’s all you’ll have to show during your interview, if you somehow managed to get one.
Oh, geez… That’s it. That’s all I have. It seems like the number one thing you can do to ensure you never get a job making games is to just not make games! So I guess if you were interested in the opposite outcome, you could instead learn how to make games by doing it over and over again. Then, once you have experience, and have put together a portfolio, you could just apply to a bunch of jobs and see if you can get interviewed there, where maybe one of them will hire you.