I’m really hoping to get into QA in the future, so any advice would be helpful 
Hmm, don’t do it for the money!
There are better ways to use your programming skills if that’s the goal.
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“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”
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Hi,
Go to meetup.com and sign up to attend as many in-person game dev-related meetups you can find. Game devs are generally very welcoming in person, although some are shy and others might talk your ear off about their favorite games. Most in-person meetups have a lot of aspiring or hobbyist game devs, but they and any attending professionals will be able to point you to opportunities as they come across them. If there are any mobile game studios in your area, check their websites for QA openings. Mobile studios generally need a lot of QA people, and turnover is relatively high as QA staff move into other roles or other studios. Good luck!
do it because you want to, if you find you can make a living at it, cool, but dont be disappointed if all you ever do is make some games and have like 10 people play them
Get ready for hell.
If you’re going to get a job doing internal QA at a studio, you’re going to have next to no job security. When a game is finished production, the first round of layoffs will always hit QA first, so keep a copy of your resume on-hand. You’ll have more stable prospects if you can get work at a QA contractor but even that’s going to be rough going.
You’ll probably find that you won’t actually be able to put individual games on your resume if you do QA for long enough because they’ll be under NDA. QA happens at a lot of stages of development so you might find yourself working on unreleased games. Those games might never come out and that means you’re basically not going to be able to put that on your resume. Your position will be NDA locked.
If you aren’t interested in AAA QA, try and hit up QA contractors r get work at a mobile studio. Keep in mind that these positions are going to be extremely difficult to get into regardless. AAA QA is difficult because it’s an extremely aggressive and competitive entry point because people have this somewhat antiquated view of the QA to Designer pipeline while contract companies will be difficult to get into because they lack the turnover rate that AAA does.
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Just start making games. I see entirely too many people focused on trying to get into it in a weird way but the simplest is to just download the software required, find a tutorial that looks interesting, and start following it.
Once you’ve made the project it teaches go poke around in it and make small modifications to see what happens and if you can alter the behaviour of it in a way that’s interesting. Hands-on experience is extremely valuable.
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- start making games
- go and meet people, the amount of nepotism this industry has is mind-blowing, you have to know someone to get a job (some exceptions always apply, obviously, but don’t count on it)
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This comment right here:
“Hands-on experience is extremely valuable”. It doesnt matter if its a video tutorial, or a example project/asset, you need to start using it, learning it, how it works, and what you can do with it. Dont waste your time, there are so many youtube videos/online documentation/info available for Unity that its insane. Tip: Google is your best friend, lol.
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not agree, specially now that the game industry is so important and big…
Don’t be a fanboy, work in your favorite game engine but give some time to try other game engines too
Important, big, and extremely poorly paying compared to other industries. If you get a job doing database programming for pretty much any company you will be making more money doing that than you will with a job in game that requires the same skill level.
i’m doing pretty good as a 3d artist for studios who wants characters, props, materials, etc… every year is better
WORKSFORME WONTFIX
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According to Glassdoor a database programmer with no experience starts at $90K in the US, and with experience they list a database programmer as high as $150K.
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“not agree, specially now that the game industry is so important and big…”
@impheris i do have to correct you on this, lol. Yes the gaming industry is big, but theres one bigger problem… its flooded with developers (indi and pro alike). Theres so many devs looking for work that now-a-days you really need to already know someone on the inside, as they say.
Even if you were to get in or land a job at a good studio, the pay is going to be far less than someone doing entry-level programming in other fields. Also you wont be doing what you probably want to (level design, modeler, etc.) as your on the bottom of the food chain. You will probably be developing tools, and lesser-end work.
Just wanted to let you know what some of us devs see and know 1st hand.
Game devs are the roofers of the tech industry, game dev also isn’t really fun.
I wouldn’t suggest aiming for a game dev position but an engineer of some sort.
I would say very skewed data.
I wouldn’t trust it.
It may be correct one in USA California, but in other continent will be irrelevant.
Even in UK, you won’t get suggested minimum as a Junior. Not to mentioned with 0 programming experience. Probably halve of that is even far exaggerated.
It’s true, but part of the reason that folks need to know people to get in is that over the years with ubiquity of free development tools, and shocking amount of “game development” courses/schools, is that a huge amount “developers” applying for jobs are vastly underskilled/knowledged. One of the large studios I was at ~7 years ago, we would get thousands of replies at any posting. And even after rejecting 80% of those on initial read, during the first phone screenings one of the first questions we would ask was “which VCS do you prefer and why?” The idea, at first, was just to get an idea of how they work in teams, but what happened is that we were usually getting over half that had no idea what it was at all. Very surprising and disheartening. On top of the poor applicant pool, studios are also always closing/forming. If an opening comes up, it is easy to find a very skilled/experienced developer you already know who is looking for work, or looking for a change. Even in a big studio, teams can be smaller/tighter, and you want someone who can get up to speed in very short time.
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