Have you ever considered a career in video games? When I started making video games professionally after graduating 26 years ago, I didn’t really consider it a lifelong career, it was something I fell into and not a conscious career choice. I had programmed my own games on my computer while in college, which helped me find my first job, but I never thought I would for 25+ years. As the industry continues to mature, there are many opportunities that the video game industry can offer individuals and offer a long and rewarding gaming career.
Video games are the largest entertainment industry in the world, even dwarf movies and music. In 2021, the value of the global video game market was $138 billion, and growth shows no signs of slowing down. Therefore, there is a significant demand for talented and experienced people to bring toys to market. A strong job market means that many employees have good salaries and benefits packages, especially as they gain more experience in the industry.
It takes a great deal of skill to create and sell video games. Just as the Hollywood movie title list has huge titles, modern games can often have hundreds, even thousands (!) of people working on them. Developer RockStar North claimed that more than 1000 people were working on GTA V.
Some examples of Careers in the video game industry:
Artists (3D modeling, texturing, lighting, etc.), Animators, Game Designers, Level Designers, Script Writers, Sound Engineers and Musicians, Voice-Over Cast Members, Producers (who help schedule, budget and share tasks and more), developers, front office support staff, finance, functions, community managers, QA (game testing), administrators and team leads, developers, sales, marketing and social media, user acquisition specialists, revenue designers, video editors
This list is not exhaustive, but it shows the wide range of industries involved in the creation and sale of video games. The important thing to keep in mind is that a career in video games is possible even for people with no experience in game development, as there are so many more things to do than just the games themselves.
The most important requirement to get involved in the games industry is a passion for video games: creating real-time, high-quality 3D cutting-edge software is very difficult, as are the business and organizational challenges of having a large team working together. . “Send a game”, as mentioned, it can be a stressful period and requires mental stamina. Therefore, it is important to have love and respect for video games in order to have a successful career. Making video games is a lot of fun, but it’s also hard work, and definitely not just sitting around and playing all day!
With the market being so successful right now and looking likely to continue for many years to come, there are plenty of opportunities for graduates to climb the ladder of a video game career. If you want to apply to companies, consider the following:
- What do you want to do;
- What are your areas of skill or specialization?
- Do you have a portfolio that you can show potential employers? The portfolio site is extremely useful and can be linked to other material online such as YouTube videos, images or music. Show what you can do using whatever media is appropriate and relevant to the role you want. If you don’t have a portfolio, create one.
- Developers and technicians must have a code portfolio on GitHub or similar. This must be considered absolutely necessary today.
- Who do you want to work for? Find out which companies and studios make video games. You may already know of some of the bigger companies, but there are literally thousands of game developers and publishers out there. Businesses can range in size from a few people to thousands. If you have an idea of the type of company you want to work for, their websites will have career pages with their job openings posted.
- LinkedIn is another place where you can find yourself. Gaming recruiters use LinkedIn a lot, so try to build a network of recruiters who can help you.
Landing your first job in the industry can be difficult.…
There is a lot of competition. Lots of people like to play games, but not everyone has the skills to make a career in the industry. So it’s important to show potential employers why you’re more than other first-time job seekers.
However, once you find a job, there are endless opportunities to develop your field-specific and soft skills and continue to advance your career. Thanks to the worldwide success of video games, the payroll and benefits packages are strong and you can expect to increase your wages and benefits as your experience and seniority increase. Medium and large companies will have defined routes and promotion and career plans so that you can move up and face bigger challenges.