Looking for Starting Opportunities

[Jordan Aslett]

Hello All,

Like a lot of us, I'm looking to get into the Video Game Industry,and wanted to put a quick post in here to see if there were any opportunities around where I can get a start. I'm more than happy to talk past experience and qualifications if you'd like to contact me!

As a side note, I've talked to a few of you already regarding this, but I love hearing everyone's input. What is a great way to get into developing games professionally? Like many of you, I love a lot of aspects of development, but I personally need to refine my skills in certain areas. All advice is appreciated!

Thanks everyone,

Jordan Aslett
JordanA...@gmail.com

[Jeff Postma]

Hey Jordan,
If you are wanting to land at a specific company research what tech and tools they are using and build projects with it. For example, lots of local studios are using Unity these days, but some use Unreal Engine. If you are wanting to get in with them, tailor your resume and portfolio to highlight those areas.

For me personally, nothing has opened more doors than my simple little prototypes and games I've built. They've landed me in an interview chair way more than I thought they ever would. So I would say make stuff and keep making stuff.

Hope that helps,
Jeff

[Spencer Buchanan]

We should do a sticky post about this. Jeff has some good points. 

I would love to see what else people have found helpful during their career. Maybe we can compile this all together some how. 

Additionally, I found this that I wrote a year ago when someone asked this question.

Learn about your industry that you are interested in. Learn what size company you want to work for, and what type of company structure. Part of this comes from experience working for different companies, but you can do some things to get more information. 

1. Informational Interviews - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informational_interview - Simply find someone on this list that has similar career interests as you and buy them lunch. Pick their brain and ask them everything about their job. They get free lunch and get to talk about themselves. Super effective
2. End each of these interviews with, "can you think of anyone else that you know that I could talk to?" You begin to meet the people that they know and you build your network. 
3. LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook etc. - Connect with people and get to know them. 
4. Ask Questions - When you get to know them, they inherently get to know you. Don't try hard, or even act like you know what you are doing. People can smell BS a mile away. Act like a dog begging for scraps. Look up to these people and respect them. It makes them feel good and they will think higher of you. This is all classic Dale Carnegie stuff - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People
5. Meetings, group events conferences - Join the club and learn. We are all learning and ask more questions than answers you give. 
6. Know what you want - As a producer, what kind of management style does the company use? As an artist, what art styles do they employ and is that your style, or can you adapt to it? Designers, what practices do they use and what is the team dynamic and does everyone work with the designers? Engineers... I have no clue what you guys want, but what do you want? Does the company you are interested in provide it? 
   Further questions could be of benefits (not just insurance), team structure, company culture, company priorities, company policies for things like overtime, etc.  
   If they do not fit what you want, then there is a high chance they will not hire you anyways and you most likely will not be happy to work there. Be willing to walk away if you have tried. 
7. So you like X company - Start stalking. (In the least creepy way possible) Try and connect with the artists at the company and ask them if they like working there. Find out what is valued, and what their workload is like. Find out what they do to maintain their skills, and how does the company encourage that. Tell them you are interested and find out how what it would take to get a job with them. 
8. Research - Have you looked at their work? Did you see what makes up most of their products? For most, you should have a pretty good grasp of the platforms they produce for, the art styles they use, the audience and type of games they make. If you cannot tell, keep looking or start asking around. 
9. Identity - You know the "to thine own self be true" phrase? Think about that for years and you start to understand the importance of identity. From how you dress, to what your email signature is all becomes vital when people are trying to get to know you. Be who you are, but be consistent. 
   Keep in mind a level of professionalism just out of respect for others helps though. Does your email address ofsunshinepr...@aol.com keep consistent with your website portfolio that is all death metal illustrations and the URL is a nickname that only one person in 5th grade used to call you? Your presence on the internet is obviously important, and so does that keep consistent with how you act in person? 
   If these things make up your identity, then own it. Do not change who you are every month. It makes you appear inconsistent and confusing. 

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[Brett Unzaga]

The only real world advice I can give, is don't give up.  Also, don't hold your breath.

If you aren't currently working, find something to live on, and keep on keeping on developing things: Prototypes, proof of concepts, languages of interest, etc.  Help people on forums or with engines (for free).  Participate in game jams and various engine contests, etc.

That is how many of my colleagues found their current jobs.  They found an engine they liked, they created content with it, and were popular and supportive on the engine forums.  People remember that, and they remember your attitude and work.  When they move on to bigger and better things, or get into a position of influence, they will remember who you are and give you a chance.

The reality of the world is that it isn't what you know, it is who you know.  If your brother or cousin isn't the owner of a game creation company, the chances of you suddenly being offered a job, walking in off the street is very unlikely.  By participating in game jams and engine forums, you become familiar to 'the scene'.  You form bonds with people from the industry and create a way in, which didn't exist before.

Even when you land a job, the industry is fickle.  I em employed today, and love my job.  Will I be able to say the same in four months?

Good luck!

[vazor]

As far as advice, I'll give you a shorthand of my usual spiel:

getting a job requires having two of three things:
1) skillz
2) hookups
3) xp

Obviously you can't gain experience without having a job first, but
you can develop a portfolio and work in a team at events like Global
Game Jam or in related industries like web app development or mobile
app development.

Hookups are the thing most people don't understand. This is
"networking". this is making friends in the industry and maintaining
connections so that when an opening does come along where you fit,
then you have an "in".

Skills is pretty obvious- if you can do the job, you have a better
chance of being hired.  also- important point: it's not whether you
can actually do the job, it's whether the boss interviewing you thinks
you can do the job. so communication skills and presentation skills
are included here.


You'll want to develop your skills even as you attend events and
network and gain what experience you can in teams at work, or at
schools or at special events (game jams).
Here are some places to check out and articles to read about making games:

Here are a couple articles that list the most common ones.

http://www.debugdesign.com/2013/04/20/game-design-software-that-can-help-beginners-create-their-own-games/

http://kotaku.com/5979539/a-beginners-guide-to-making-your-first-video-game


Or try doing a web search for "modding" plus your favorite game and
see if there are some good tutorials there. That is how this awesome person got
in:

http://www.third-helix.com/2009/06/monday-musings-breaking-in-make-games/


Some other possibly useful sites:

https://www.scirra.com/

http://www.sploder.com/

http://www.tululoo.com/

http://www.codeacademy.com/

http://www.igda.org/

http://www.gamasutra.com/

( this article is a little outdated but still mostly good:
http://www.toymaker.info/Games/html/beginners.html )

http://archive.globalgamejam.org/wiki/venue-software


And just for fun:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/Crash512/level-editor-2

Still have questions?

Well, first review what I said before about skills, xp, and hookups.  Then think about how you can get those. Often times just googling for how-to guides on those things will tell you how to proceed. Well, except experience of course- there you'd have to search for events like game jams or go to indie nights and join a team there. 

www.utahindiegames.org

Unfortunately it's pretty rare to just go in cold and get a job. Keep attending meetings and making good connections, even with people not in the industry yet. You never know who might be your future boss. :) 

Then once an opening that is a good fit for your skills does come along, you'll have the hookups to get recommendations and land the job, assuming you don't flub the interview. 

For now, get a job in a related industry like animation, film, web dev, app dev, testing, or even game store retail, and then in your free time work on building up your portfolio. 

[Arthur Brandon Nielsen]

It may just be because it's late and I'm tired, but I can't help but notice a correlation between getting a job in the industry, and winning at a dating game/minigame.  XD

In addition to what's above, I also have one bit of advice: know your strengths and weaknesses, and use them to your advantage.  Even here in Utah or in the Indie Dev industry as a whole, as much as being a jack-of-trades is an advantage, it's also wise to have one or more skills you can "specialize" in.  These specialties can change, but you need to make sure you are aware of such changes so you can market yourself properly.  2-3 years ago, my best skill - my speicalty - was documentation; the design documents and paperwork that went into making and maintaining a game.  That's what I knew how to do real well.  Now my top skills are Vector Art, 3D Modeling, and Level Design, and I do my best to market myself as such.

Knowing your weaknesses is also important, as you may have a compensating skill in another area.  My example is that I am not a programmer.  While I understand programing theory and have successfully programed games, language syntax has been, and probably always will be, my Achilles heel.  On the other side, however, I am one of the few people I know in Utah who understands music theory and writes my own music.  Rhett is the only other person I know personally who does so.  He also has better equipment than me, but that's another story.  XD

[Josh Sutphin]

There's a spectrum of "generalist --- specialist" which maps pretty much linearly to the spectrum of "indie --- AAA". The more indie the studio you're applying for, the more likely you'll need to have a wide variety of skills (but depth in any one skill will be less important). The bigger and more AAA the studio is, the more they'll be looking for depth in one skill (and all your other, weaker skills will be less relevant to them). Whether you target your skills development broadly or deeply is very dependent on the kind of games you want to work on and the sorts of teams you want to join, so you really need to be thinking about that early on.

On the other side, however, I am one of the few people I know in Utah who understands music theory and writes my own music.  Rhett is the only other person I know personally who does so.

I'm not great at theory, but I've been writing music for my games and for fun since 2001 or thereabouts. 

[Peter Christiansen]

I definitely second what Josh said.  If you want a job in AAA, you need to specialize.  That said, narrowing your focus also narrows the jobs you have available.  For example, becoming a physics engine wizard is a fairly rare skill and makes you way more employable in AAA than being just a generic C++ guy.  However, if you specifically want to work for a AAA company here in Utah, all the studios currently have their one physics guy who has probably been working there for 10+ years.  When one leaves or retires, they're also more likely to promote internally due to the importance of the position.

If you do want to specialize in one particular aspect of Game Dev, make sure you pick something that you're passionate about and really enjoy doing, rather than trying to make yourself fit a company's specific need (if you don't want to specialize, it makes it easy).  Beyond that, just keep making connections and making games like Josh (Jones) and a few other people have mentioned.

Also as a side note, I can name at least two or three professional game music people that I've worked with in the state, and a lot more like Josh and I who make music our own for personal projects.  Music education for young kids is actually pretty culturally important in many parts of Utah, so I know a lot of people who now compose for fun.

-Pete

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[Belinda Zoller]

Not specifically "game dev" advice, but this site (http://50waystogetajob.com/) helps you create an organized roadmap of how to get a job--even if you don't know right away what you want the destination to be! I've found these little exercises to be super helpful in general future planning as well; I still have a year left in my undergraduate program, but I'm currently torn between applying to the UofU entertainment arts program vs. job-hunting in Utah vs. job-hunting in LA/Austin/Portland/etc.

[Belinda Zoller]

^Specifically, the site's recommendations help you take everything that's been said here (improving your skills, networking, shopping around, etc.) which taken by itself can feel like a pretty dang overwhelming list, and turn into a plan of action that feels bite-sized and doable in a given day. This stuff doesn't just happen overnight.

[saberstorm_03_16_1989]

A bit of advice I got when Katie ID@XBox came to visit:
Even if you have projects that you can't talk about (under NDA and/or Unpublished, or in Private Sector), still list them on you resume.  It's still work and experience you have, even if you didn't get to see it out the door publicly.
I hope I got her name right.

[saberstorm_03_16_1989]

Here's an alert I keep getting from LinkedIn, for those who want to try out.

Check out this job from Nepris Inc. https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/268381395

On Tuesday, April 21, 2015 at 3:11:25 PM UTC-6, Jordan Aslett wrote: