How to Develop a Gaming Career

Crispy Gamer has posted a How to Develop a Gaming Career article that contains some advice from game industry veterans on how to get into the industry. The veterans who offered advice include: Gabe Newell, Sid Meier, Ted Price, Brian Reynolds, Lars Gustavsson, Chris Taylor, Randy Pitchford, Greg Zeschuk, and Ken Levine. Below are the advice from Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds:

Sid Meier (Firaxis Games): Get a good well-rounded education first, take advantage of internships, play lots of different video games and get together with other folks who want to make video games and make a prototype -- that's the best way to show your skill.

Brian Reynolds (Big Huge Games): The way to get a job in the industry is to show companies you can directly and immediately start contributing to their current projects with a near-zero amount of training. There are several common ways to accomplish this:

• Be a completely bad-ass C++ programmer. Send executable samples of your own programming work, preferably as bad-ass as possible.
• Go to a well-known art school and study 3D animation. That's where we get most of our artists.
• Design some amazing levels/scenarios/mods for your favorite games, and use their inherent coolness to apply to those very companies.
• Apply to the QA / Playtest departments at local videogame companies and get your foot in the door. You'll learn a lot about the nitty gritty of how games are put together.

To those interested in trying to make a career out of gaming, I can vouch for Brian Reynolds' advice above. Your best bet is to learn skills in programming or art asset creation. If that's not possible, however, you can definitely get a start through QA testing. All that this requires is a critical eye and a willingness to spend many, many long hours hunting down and reproducing obscure bugs.

I worked with Firaxis in the summer of 2005 on Civ4's development, and we had several guys working with me in the QA division who had no formal programming skills. Two of them now work full-time for Firaxis, having graduated into more senior positions within the company. (I was offered a full-time position as well, but had to decline to continue work on my doctorate.) So it absolutely can be done, if you are willing to work very hard and put it a lot of time and effort.

Your best bet is still to learn some programming/3D modeling skills, of course.

It is a dream of mine to work for Firaxis, I'm trying to learn C# from a book, so I can start XNA, but it's confusing, and I don't know what I should be trying to do/find, besides learning programming, I can't draw/ make 3d models.

C# is a good start. You don't say how old you are but you want to get a degree in either maths or computing (in which case take as many maths courses as you can especially linear algebra).

Ideally you want to learn C++ and some kind of GPU programming (i.e. vertex and pixel shaders). You will want to work through the DirectX examples and exercises from the MSN library.

If maths isn't your thing you want to study AI algorithms, a good place to start is programming a well known game and getting the computer to play it. (e.g. reversi, checkers, poker, etc.). There are lots of AI resources on the net.

Ok, that's enough. I feel I've to explode right here. When will the indusrty listen to the localizers? When will they advise those who, like me, are trying to become localizers? Lots of help and advise for those who want to make a career as programmers, artists, musicians and so on but I've never, repeat, NEVER seen the industry trying to HELP or ADVISE the future localizers even though they know they need us.

There're no standards for the localizers, every developer uses the tools he wants. Such a thing would be unacceptable for programmers or artists, but we have to bear it every day. Sometimes we feel that, during the development, no one has ever thought about the localizers and their work, and so we have cool programs no one can localize. My professional colleagues (I'm still a wannaber in this field) told me that it's usual having no contact at all with the developer, but with the distributor only. There're no requiered skills or knowledges for localizers, all we got is chaos...

I could keep complaining hours and hours about the current situation of localizers. Everyone acknolwedges that they need us in order to make their programs internationally sucessful (specially the gaming industry) but no one thinks about us.

That's enough!

Yeah that sounds right Gangleri2001.

Most localisers are subcontracted by the producers and have nothing to do with the developers. We just send them a list of words in an Excel spreadsheet.

Interesting, I guess that explains why someone with a long background in miniature gaming, combat effectiveness evaluation and rating, weapons effects, and the development of technology cannot get any contacts, and will basically be told, "Get Lost", by the computer guys, who do not have that background. That also explains why I have to mod every game that I buy. Sort of reminds me about my wife's tax preparation software, written by programmers with no knowledge of taxes.

Modding should get a foot in the door for programming or design (or art if you do models).

There;s a lot of competition for programming jobs though so most without a degree just get tossed unless they have an exceptional portfolio (or previous experience).

ParadigmShifter said:

Yeah that sounds right Gangleri2001.

Most localisers are subcontracted by the producers and have nothing to do with the developers. We just send them a list of words in an Excel spreadsheet.

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Don't you just love Excel?

So is C++ far superior to Java when considering gaming programming? I'd really like to program for my own reasons, even if I dont decide on working for the "industry"

Java is OK for mobile phones. C++ is the one for PC and console programming but I wouldn't recommend it for beginners.

Do you know which programming language iPhone apps use?

From what I've read, iPhones support Safari web browser-based applications.

And there's an iPhone SDK that looks derived from GNU versions of C/C++.

Hi, Thunderfall, I found this:http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/how-to-develop-iphone-applications-in-java/

Tasunke said:

So is C++ far superior to Java when considering gaming programming? I'd really like to program for my own reasons, even if I dont decide on working for the "industry"

Click to expand...

C++ = fast code. You want to go any faster than that you need to drop down into assembly. Learn C first, then pick up C++ (which is basically C with object oriented elements). Don't bother with Java - it's slow as hell... Look at C# instead.

ParadigmShifter said:

Modding should get a foot in the door for programming or design (or art if you do models).

There;s a lot of competition for programming jobs though so most without a degree just get tossed unless they have an exceptional portfolio (or previous experience).

Click to expand...

At 57, I doubt that I am going to worry about getting a programming degree. i am more likely to get a doctoral degree in military history.

LordRahl said:

C++ = fast code. You want to go any faster than that you need to drop down into assembly. Learn C first, then pick up C++ (which is basically C with object oriented elements). Don't bother with Java - it's slow as hell... Look at C# instead.

Click to expand...

I tried, but I couldn't let this one go:

C# is just Java with MS modifications. Java is capable of running just as fast as C#.


I do agree with learning C/C++ for game programming, in general. That's what (nearly) all current games are written in. But any developer worth his salary will quickly become familiar with multiple OSes and languages, so he will have a larger "toolkit" to draw from, and can select the appropriate tool for the task at hand.

Yeah, I want to some day get a job in game development, too. I'm in 10th grade, but in 11th grade science and math, and my grades are mostly 90s. When I am on CFC, I spend 95% of my time in the C&C for Civ IV. But I'm not having too much luck on learning how to mod. I'm trying though, especially in the RFC area. This summer I plan on going to 1 of 2 colleges to take a 2 week game development course. Next year in my school, I'm taking Introduction to Programming, and Web Programming.
So... with that short summary of one of my aspirations, do you think that I am on my way to actually having my future in the the gaming industry?

ZachScape said:

Yeah, I want to some day get a job in game development, too. I'm in 10th grade, but in 11th grade science and math, and my grades are mostly 90s. When I am on CFC, I spend 95% of my time in the C&C for Civ IV. But I'm not having too much luck on learning how to mod. I'm trying though, especially in the RFC area. This summer I plan on going to 1 of 2 colleges to take a 2 week game development course. Next year in my school, I'm taking Introduction to Programming, and Web Programming.
So... with that short summary of one of my aspirations, do you think that I am on my way to actually having my future in the the gaming industry?

Click to expand...

It's a good start. Desire is always the most important when getting into the industry. There's a lot of people who want in and not many spots (for new hires). A lot of times it comes down to who wants it more and what lengths you're willing to go to. I would recommend figuring out modding for sure though, as that's exactly the kind of work game developers do every day.

Jon

You went through the intern program, didn't you Jon? What do people look for in interns, and how often do intern positions turn into permanent roles?