Tips For Making It In The Industry - An article for beginners!

News & General Discussion
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Its been a while since I’ve posted on these forums. Between work, lectures, travel and several personal projects I’ve barely had a moments free time.

Recently I’ve been talking to some enthusiastic young people on Skype about my experiences in this industry. I can’t pretend to be some guru however, I’m no industry veteran with 20+ years under my belt, just a guy with some tips and tricks I’ve gathered. Please feel free to hit me up, my contact details are in my sig.

I’ll begin by explaining the target of this article. Many of my readers are experienced developers, most of which publish their own content. Generally I try and target my posts towards everyone, regardless of their experience level but today I’ll be simplifying things for our newest community members.

I’ll assume you’re a supremely creative human, like 99.9% of Unity’s user-base. I’ll also assume you’re not just killing time by making games/creative content. You want to learn about the profession and expand your skillset, maybe one day work full time in the creative industry.

What do I mean by “creative industry”? Most of us make games or apps here, some of us (myself included) don’t exclusively use Unity 3D, rather enjoy the community as a group of people to share and discuss content with. There are plenty of other forums yet none even come close to the variety and scope like this one. The Creative Industry is where all modern, digital art comes from. Whether you create 2D games, paint digitally, sculpt or consult for a publishing firm. We’re all in one boat.

So you want to work here? Everyone comes from a different background. I myself have been drawing since before I was eating Pay-Dough, playing games since I was about 7 and creating worlds for the last 10 years. Whether my medium was the page, the canvas or the computer.

The best advice anyone can give you is this: “Work hard, play hard, remain creative, and value your team”. Your potential employer will determine your worth based on your portfolio and how well you work with others. Don’t try and set yourself apart by causing a stir, no one wants to hire the Charlie Sheen of the game industry, ahem Sergey Titov.
Set yourself apart with your imagination, after all thats why you’re in this industry isn’t it? You MUST enjoy creating worlds, characters and stories. Challenge everything, the best movies and TV shows are a take on society as you see it, But the best games are a take on reality. If theres anything I want you to take away from this article it’s that idea.

Working as a team: many “indie” developers work on their own, but thats not to say that the skill isn’t vital. You wont last long here if “your way is the only way”, again, its all about imagination and two brains are better than one at this, unless its three brains, or four… and so on. When you find yourself working on large projects, your team is your family, no matter which department you’re working for, back them up and they’ll do the same for you.

Don’t be afraid to go “Hey, this bit is rubbish…” or “It’d be better is we…”, the studio management has hired you to be creative, think outside the heptagon. Your idea might not be one they’ll use, but thats not the point.
A common criticism of game developers is “why do they always make the same stuff?” Is a valid point, that has no easy answer. The publishers need a capital return for their investment, thats fair enough. The developers want recognition and experience, also fair enough. The compromise is generally a tried-and-true method: “make the games they buy”. This is where independent developers come in, they let their imaginations go crazy and come up with something they want to play, but others might not. Don’t beat yourself up over the fact that you’re working for the establishment, all you’re doing is practising your craft.

Its a common misconception that Michelangelo laboured in the dark his whole life, un-applauded and un-paid until long after his death. In actual fact he was a successful contractor, who damn well knew his stuff. His work was famous then, not because he tied to emulate Copernicus or Galileo (two supremely unpopular gentlemen during their lifetimes) but rather because he did what he loved.

Now i’m not saying stop innovation, we need it more than anything, but I am saying that its perfectly okay to remain a “title-pusher” as long as you don’t loose your creativity.

Please, share your own experiences below for those who will certainly benefit from them, if you have any questions that’d be a great place to put them too!
Take care,
Christian

Check out my other articles

▌ ► Visual Effect Over Saturation in Modern Games - When Will it Stop?
▌ ► Unity 3D is Missing a Trick - Here’s Why.
▌ ► On The Future of Video Games - There is hope! (Euclideon, Star Citizen Beyond)
▌ ► Modular Approach to Video Game Design Content Addition.
▌ ► Tips For Making It In The Industry - An article for beginners!.
▌

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No offense, but “Work hard and play well with others” is a requirement for any industry, not just gaming.

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Of course it is, but I’m generalising as much as possible here. Getting a conversation going too hopefully. Theres no magic trick, just a lot of hard work and creative intuition.

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You should improve your writing technique before launching into inspirational articles. This one came across as a bit sales seminar or maybe 80’s pep talk. I’m not saying give up on it, but you need to cut out the fluff and replace it with useful information. For example get some of own pieces of your work (with pictures, videos etc.) and talk through what you learned specifically.

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There’s better and more concise advice in regular posts here than this “article”. I guess its nice you’re trying to throw some advice out for the beginners, but there’s more than enough of that floating around and being generated on a daily basis that has more meat and practical application than this.

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Inspirational words. As someone who currently works in government IT, I have to bring these ideas to the office every single day - it’s really good to see someone with experience confirming things I’ve been doing for the last couple of years. Hats off to you!

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I’m … so confused.

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Could you elaborate on this? You say it’s the most important part of the article and then only devote one short thesis statement to the idea. I mean, I think I know what you’re trying to say–but I can think of some good movies/TV that aren’t derived from modern society and I can also think of some good games that are. Am I completely missing the point?
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I might be inclined to believe you but considering I’ve worked in government IT too I know that superficially to non-government workers it looks like you’ve written 2 English sentences, in truth those sentences are entirely constructed out of government acronyms and are quoted from the government TM on how to make coffee. Good job. Try to spend more time working productively today then huddled with your coworkers outside smoking.

I’ve watched half a class get recycled in AIT trying to follow English such as that.

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Well, the trick they don’t teach you in AIT is to stew the coffee beans over the nuclear reactor, not merely near it. Bet you didn’t know that!

Seriously, though I the advice for operating as a part of a team is some of the best-worded advice. There’s some I work with who are scared crapless by the prospects of using newer technologies, or worse, newer development philosophies like Agile; Half of the job’s creativity involves writing stuff that isn’t a total trainwreck, and getting coworkers to go along with it. Convincing teammates to periodically refactor for code cleanliness is still quite iffy, sadly. You think they’d be all in for it, because of the fact that we have to support our apps for a decade before we get the chance to rewrite anything using a newer technology*

Working with people is tough, because everyone brings their own motivations and concerns to the table.

*: Yes, I know, I work somewhere in government where they actually rewrite stuff using newer technologies every decade. This makes me lucky. Believe me, I counted that blessing a long time ago. Some who work for the government aren’t quite so lucky.

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And while we’re at it, let’s have our cake and eat it too.

Challenging IS causing a stir. In Grand Theft Auto, you ARE Charlie Sheen, having your way with hookers, driving around like a crack-fueled maniac, and randomly killing anyone you see.

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Scared crapless wouldn’t describe my former coworkers - very comfortable salaries and lucky to have been hired lacking experience in what they claim to have experience in was more like it. Then resisting change and improvements in the hopes of job security would be accurate to describe them. Eventually, a developer will override their resistance to better technology as developers always carry more weight and the only argument systems administrators can then use to argue against the new tech for their job security is the administrators are the ‘trusted gatekeepers’. OK, so we’ll need fewer of them then. As it was I was hired as a systems administrator not a developer and despite plenty of experience with both as the newest I carried not wait.

You’re right about getting along with coworkers though - despite the scripts I wrote that could turn 5 salaried jobs using 40 man-hours weekly into one ‘trusted gatekeeper’ job when they resisted my scripts, I kept my mouth shut despite there being plenty of other work at the same location available. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t invent more work to keep us employed. You simply have to realize that in the US at least about 50% or in some places more of the government’s jobs are permanent ‘pseudo jobs’ created to reduce unemployment and win votes. Behave accordingly.

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Charlie Sheen. Or not. As most didn’t and won’t play that game. Charlie Sheen and the orchestrated shenanigans of the Hollywood types is in large measure why news and newspaper readership is down. Are there beautiful, intelligent, young female singers NOT going through drug abuse and psychosis in the modern Hollywood?

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yeah …
http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2013/10/confirmed-grand-theft-auto-breaks-six-sales-world-records-51900/

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Good to see people talking about this.
Just to reiterate again, this isn’t a well researched post full of ground breaking ideas, just a little something for the new guys to think about.
While I enjoy (need, like any writer) criticism I don’t think theres any value to picking apart semantics. I just wacked this up in half an hour. The sole idea was to give some very basic advice to someone who has no experience at all.

For those of you who read my stuff, i’m not a journalist, just someone putting developments, changes and facts about the creative industry into slightly more formal “articles”.

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I enjoy the fluff.
Although, you’re correct in that my posts are overly general. I plan to set aside half a day every two weeks to research, draft, proof, revise and publish on one specific topic or another. Is this something you’d read?

17

thanks for the post. seems more like a blog entry though.