How does one get to work for a video game company?

Question

Hello!

I teach an introductory course in Java at a state university. One student asked me if it was possible to major in game design. We may be a big university, but we have very few classes that deal with video games.

How does one get to work for a video game company? Is a good education in Computer Science enough? I've seen commercials on TV for colleges that specialize in video games and these commercials show students who seem to do more playing than working. What are video game company employers looking for in a programmer?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I would review Blizzard's requirements for these reasons:

(1)They are a 900lb gorilla.

(2)They've been around for a while.

(3)They produce high-quality games that dominate the markets they are released in.

Answer 2

The unfortunate truth is that most video game companies underpay and overwork their programmers - there's enough people willing to go work for them that they treat these resources as easily replaceable. Coding quality is often sacrificed for meeting deadlines. Since the deliverables will have very short product life, not much reward is given for clean maintainable code.

Most game teams are largely composed of recent college grads that are expected to put in a ridiculous amount of hours for fairly low pay. While there are a number of well-paid "star" designers and developer that most young people look up to, the truth is, these people are exceptions that prove the rule.

So the best advice you can give your student is to think about a job in another industry.

Answer 3

As with pretty much everything else in life, who-you-know and networking with the right people in the game industry has the best chance of landing you a job. Good education in computer science alone is nowhere's near enough. There are so many people trying to get into the game industry, you need to somehow stand out. At SCEA a few years ago, we hired a guy who, among other reasons, impressed us with a project that he won a Flipcode contest with.

Answer 4

Some schools have programs focused on games and design or at least labs on these topics. There are many issues (e.g., HCI) that go beyond the standard programming curriculum.

The late Randy Pausch was involved in that with the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon, I think several other schools have things like that.

Answer 5

At least based on the one I worked for, the two things you're going to be evaluated on are skillset & good fit with the gaming culture

The most important thing to do is develop a skillset matching the particular video game company (or type of company) you want to work for. A casual web-game company (like Armor-Games, or anyone you see publishing on kongregate.com) is going to look for someone with Flash skills. Activision / Blizzard feature more resource-intensive desktop games- So someone who can work magic with graphics programming and ridicuously efficient c++.

Gaming culture: Do you read gamespot? Ever been to E3? Can you discuss at length things like WoW, D&D, when the new Duke Nukem is coming out? Other software companies are a little resigned to the fact that not everyone is going to be absolutely pumped about the product they're working on. But if a company makes video games for a living, they can demand it as a hiring requirement. Show you know what makes video games good- Everything from art to balancing to interface to being able to describe why something is "Fun".

Answer 6

It all depends on the employer. I have a few friends in the game industry. Here's my anecdotal analysis.

Friend A is a famous game designer who got his start back in the 1980s developing PC games. He helped form a company that went on to great success in the FPS shooter industry. He has no formal education, but tons of domain knowledge after 20odd years in the business. He knows game design and game development.

Friend B is a graduate of Full Sail, which is a video game college, and he was the valedictorian for his class. He works for KingsIsle Entertainment as a senior designer on Wizard 101. This friend got his job at KingsIsle through my connection with Friend A, who used to work with Tom Hall (the founder of KingsIsle).

Friend C designed levels for Quake and other FPS games, then started writing reviews and guides for small video game websites. The last time we spoke, he worked for Microsoft Game Studios as a producer. Friend C has a degree in English.

All three of these people love video games and work very hard at their craft. There are failures along with the successes, but that's how they learned.

The key is if you want to be a game designer, then start designing games. Levels in other games, Flash games, anything. And network! Meet other people in the games industry. Get your work out there and with time and hard work, things will fall into place.

Answer 7

I graduated from RPI in 2001, and around that time they were creating a games major. I took some of the pioneer classes, and wish I would've been around to see the program start up.

RPI Games and Simulation program

Answer 8

I'm afraid it largely comes down to who you know. You need to make friends with game developers.

One thing to avoid, though, is trying to break into game programming via the QA department or other non-programming group. If you're working in a group that doesn't program, people think of you as a non-programmer, which is just another obstacle to getting onto a programming team. They'll be surprised if you know how to do thing, as opposed to just assuming you know your way around a compiler.

If you want to program, try starting in another programming group in the same company. I've seen people move from the billing development team to game programming (with some extracurricular work to build domain specific skills). Likewise, doing release management or installers is probably a way to show off some technical ability.

As an added bonus, those ancillary programming groups tend to be more stable and pay better than the game development teams. At least you're making a decent wage while you network, as opposed to QA or customer support.

Answer 9

I happen work for a company that doesn't treat its employees as expendable (In direct answer to levik)

It's true that there's a lot of unprofessional behavior in the industry, but it's possible to find good places. There's also that component; if you really love it, are good at what you do, you can find your niche.

It is true though, a lot of the process is like the masons... (2b1ask1) I got to my current job via parsenome's method, I started as a tools developer.

Answer 10

I believe a strong portfolio of games worked on would be one of the major factors in getting a foot in the door in working for a video game company. You can build this portfolio either on your own, or through a very good game development/design school

2 reputable schools are http://www.digipen.edu http://guildhall.smu.edu http://www.uat.edu

Once a strong portfolio is built, look for places where you can network and show off your work. Some places to look are

http://www.gdconf.com http://www.igda.org http://www.meetup.com

Answer 11

Our company work for a video game and requirements should have knowledge in programming language and have at least created even a simple video game that you could present for an interview and explain how you come up with that concept, also you have to have a good storyline to begin with. And for me it helps that I'm an avid wow player who's unstoppable with the quest and grinding wow gold which I think gave me an idea on how a video game should work and be presented.

Answer 12

A friend gave me the best advice on how to get a job at a game company: "Apply to a game company."

I followed the advice and a month or two later I was out of internet startups (Paypal) working at a game company (Blizzard).

What are they looking for? What everyone is looking for, great programmers. Have something to show that demonstrates you are a rockstar. Don't have anything to show -- make something. Not able to make something rockstar-ish -- keep programming until you can.