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How Would One Start A Career In The Gaming Industry?
Bullschmidt asks: "I'm currently a second semester senior at MIT. I will be graduating this term, and I'm looking to get into the gaming/computer graphics industry. I will admit that I have little experience with the gaming industry. I have done some 3D programming for NASA, as well as some for a small computer graphics company. I have taken the only graphics class at MIT, too. So how do I, a soon to be graduate from a high level school, get into the gaming industry, which typically requires 2-3 years experience for almost any job?"
- You are disciplined enough to work on and stick with a project for an extended period
- Your programming skills are sufficient for what we need you to do - You are independently creativeYou don't necessarily have to write a 3D engine to impress me. Go out and get one of the many freeware engine packages out there and make an interesting demo out of it (since most companies license engines, this is very appropriate to what you will be doing anyway). Animate several objects in a complex and interesting fashion in an interesting scene. Do something that makes me laugh! In doing so you are providing me entertainment, which bodes well for your abilities to provide entertainment to others.
Understand also that there is huge competition for any given position. When I post a job ad in the paper or on the net I get hundreds of faxes/emails for the position. About 75% are people who are blatantly unqualified for the position, but the other 25% is still about 50 people or so with which you have to compete. The number of people wanting jobs in the game industry FAR outweighs the number of actual positions. Don't get discouraged! Keep working to make your demo more and more impressive while you search, and keep trying!
You could also make contact with others in your area and form a group (similar to what bedel231 has done) to work on your own game. Even if it never progresses to the point where you get published, it can still serve as your demo, and the fact that you've been involved with something that closely approximates the team-environment can only look good on your resume. This is much harder to do, but can be rewarding as well.
I work at a midsized PC developer that you've probably heard of, but it isn't important who. 100% of my experience is with PC games, so I can't really speak for the console developers out there.
What you need all depends on where you want to work. There are a lot of smaller two-programmer game developers here and there that probably can't pay very well, but would be happy to have someone with your programming background on the team. Larger studios like Blizzard or Lucas Arts, however, will definitely want some industry experience (barring internship, of course). When it comes to small-but-heavy studios like Id or Cyan, who you know is definitely just as important as what you know. In general, really, having a connection on the inside can really help your chances of getting a job. When you work long hours and interact with the same people a lot, your personal character is just as important as your skill, and if someone can say "yea, he's cool," then all the better.
Aside from that, though, having one well written, well thought-out game under your belt can help a bunch. And keep in mind that 8 or 9 of the top 10 selling PC games are completely 2d! Being able to write a fast 3d engine doesn't really get you much unless you have a lot of experience in the industry, because companies aren't going to put their eggs in your basket unless they know for sure that you're going to deliver (and on time!). Work experience is especially important when it comes to designing a game engine of any kind.
My advice is: start writing games. Find a niche that is neglected and try to fill it. Do a solid (and as complete as possible) remake of a simple console game on the PC (tetris attack, rampart, missile command, whatever). Be prepared to show the code (without saying "oh, well, this is kinda messy I just haven't gotten around to cleaning it up yet") and explain exactly why you chose to do things the way you did. Actual content graphics for a programmer demo doesn't really matter very much. And keep in mind that game companies *don't want* you to submit original works because of the legalities involved. The more skills you can demonstrate in your demo, the better. If you want to work in a particular area of game programming, such as A.I., that should affect your choice of demo material. Oh, and you may want to make sure that any prospective employer anywhere can easily find you online, read your resume, download your demo, and maybe learn a little about you on a personal level.
The last thing is headhunters. There are a lot of them in the California area, but they generally have jobs all over the place. They may be able to help you, but I've never used one. At the very least they might be able to set you up with a personal interview somewhere.
Good luck!
I think the most important thing you can have, besides good math and computer science skills, is a *FINISHED* game or demo.
What he said. Every single person I know in the games industry got in like this. OK - I admit, I only know one person in the industry. ;-) But yeah, one of the coders from the Amiga demo group I was in, he wrote a game, self published (via one of those cheapie CD pressing places usually patronised by indie bands), and sold by mail order. He ended up with a bunch of unsold CDs in a cupboard and lost a reasonable amount of money, but man, that kind of initiative was like gold when it came to job-hunting..
He works for Tantalus now..
Let me confirm what others have said already:
I was fortunately able to join a games company as a programmer without previous games experience, or even a demo - but this is pretty uncommon. In my case, I was able to leverage ten years of other programming experience (network code, embedded controllers, etc.) and a strong maths background. At the other extreme, our best programmer had no formal IT experience and was basicly straight out of high school; what brought him to the interview stage was his demo.
Also, it sounds a bit mercenary, but the best time to join a company might be after they've just shipped their first game and are looking to expand. Chances are they won't have the funds to be too fussy about game industry experience, but will be desperate to get some new people in to support their next more ambitious project and to replace the 20% of people who left after the stress of the first project.
As one of "the burnouts", I can attest to the underlying truth of this post. The crunch is inevitable, it damages whatever relationship you have at the time. Schedules are pretty rough in games. With that said... You're young and energetic... You've got time to play with, a lot of energy and lessons to learn - it isn't really going to cost you a whole lot to do that now (and you'll have more fun doing it now). Spend some time in the industry. It was what I did out of school and while I would probably never go back to it, I certainly don't regret the time I spent there. I am a better software developer for it.
The pitfalls I find most game programmers fall into are: "nothing else is this fun" or "nothing else requires this much skill" or "I'm no longer qualified for anything else". Absolutely untrue! When the time comes, don't be afraid to pack up your bags and leave. It is generally true that people not in the games industry don't recognize that games are pretty complex systems and will tend to trivialize them as "kids stuff"... But if you can make it through to getting a couple games "on the shelf", chances are you could easily prove your competence to the "suits".
I left the game industry because I found the person I wanted to marry and I wanted to settle down and have kids. It's pretty rough maintaining a healthy relationship like that when you're spending 8+ weeks / year in crunch (I hear from some folks working at blizzard north that the Diablo 2 crunch lasted quite a few months). I was rather surprised with the results of my "new boring job": It paid better. I got more respect. Crunch time was short (on the order of a few days to a week before a tradeshow). The work was very challenging. I have worked with a dizzying variety of technologies. And I have better mobility - which is important if you want options when deciding where to buy a house and set down your roots. This was not The same old thing day in and day out I was led to believe would become my life if I ever left the games industry.
Start surfing the web sites of game companies with product on the shelves and look for employment opportunity links there. Even if you don't see a job for which you are qualified, email them regardless - and be upfront about the fact that you enjoy games, which of your studies are relevant to games and see what happens. Since you are in Mass right now you'll probably be getting phone interviews at the start.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
My current position is lead engineer for one of the oldest gaming companies in the industry. I generally do the interviewing and hiring for the people that join my team, as do the leaders of other teams. From the sounds of things, you have a fairly sound education in 3D graphics, but like a lot of people you're assuming that is one and only factor in getting you a job in the industry. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't hire someone who didn't have the appropriate technical background, but what I'm saying is it's only one qualification of many. The others are much harder to come by. I look for someone who has a good grasp of what "fun" is, what makes a game "fun". I want to know that you are a dedicated gamer, first and foremost. I want to see that you have played many of the currently popular games, and I test that by talking about certain features of the game you would only know about if you had played it extensively. I also talk about the construction of the game, what worked and what didn't. Good phrases to hear are "I wish they had done it THIS way". Don't tell me it sucked, tell me WHY it sucked and what you would have done differently. This shows that you're thinking about the game from a *developers* standpoint, rather than an end-user out for a subjective distraction. I want to see that you've played games in the same genre as the project I am hiring for. You need to understand what the competition is doing in order to understand where the "bar" is. If you're still thinking in terms of Mario Bros. and the rest of the industry is making Donky Kong 3D, it will cost me time to bring you up to speed. It means I can't trust your judgement in matters of style or convenience of the user when I assign you a task to do independently. A lot of people have romantic notions about what it means to be a game developer, but let me tell you it "ain't all fun & games". The first time you're asked to be in the office for 10-12 hour days, seven days a week for months on end to meet that all important deadline (or the company runs out of money and folds), romantic notions will be the furthest things from your mind. Are you that dedicated? Can you make that kind of commitment? Are there other things in your life that are going to preclude making that kind of commitment? We all swear up and down that "we absolutely positively won't have to crunch on the next project because we'll do things differently next time", and we always end up crunching anyway. Crunch-mode is a fact of the industry. It is the single most common reason for people leaving the industry, prime cause of burn-out. Can you handle it? I bet you say yes now, but it will be a different story when you live it. Most importantly, are you someone who will fit in with a small team of people who have to talk to and interact with each other on a daily basis (not forgetting how that will intensify during crunch)? I won't hire the most brilliant rookie 3D programmer in the industry if he doesn't have any social skills. When deadlines approach, things sometimes get tense and tempers get short (I am definately no exception). Can you handle that? When we sit down and have a design meeting, are you going to be able to speak up and defend your opinion of how something should be done, despite the fact that others don't see things your way? Are you capable of negotiating an intelligent compromise that will satisfy the goals of your mandate, while meshing with those of others? Don't assume that when you do finally get a job in the industry that you'll be immediately thrust into the role of building this cool 3D technology from scratch that blows the industry away and gets rave magazine reviews. Most companies license an engine these days anyway, not many develop their own technology platforms. You could be made responsible for the 2D interface, maybe you're going to be the guy who works on the game loader code. There are very few of what most people consider the "glamorous" Carmack-positions on a team, and they are never given to rookies anyway. Plan on working your way up by showing good judgement and a solid work ethic, like any other industry (except politics). Scan the websites of companies you are interested in working for. Most companies post their available positions there, and it also gives you a change to find out if you like the kind of product they make and where they are located. Plan on relocating. With the exception of San Jose and Dallas, there are likely going to be very few game companies in the area where you live now. Hope that helps, good luck! A career in gaming can be very rewarding if you approach it with a realistic outlook and the right attitude!
Having been in (and out, here and there, including right now) the industry professionally for about five years, here's my advise.
Write a game.
No one will hire you without experience (unless you get lucky), so give yourself your own experience. Sit down and create a complete game, 2D or 3D, with graphics (drawn in the Gimp or modeled in Blender), sound (recorded on a cheap microphone and edited in DAP), written in the language used almost exclusively in the US game industry (C++).
It doesn't have to be the most amazing thing since sliced bread, but it should do all the basic things that a game should, and do them well. It should be the kind of thing that someone should look at and say, "Wow, this guy knows how to write a game."
It doesn't have to be long, or even all that much fun. It's really more of a demo than it is a game. But it should carry all the trappings of a semi-professional title, visible the moment you load into the game.
That's how I got my first job, and that's how almost everyone I know in the industry got their first job.
FWIW, here's the companies I've worked for. They are usually always on the lookout for new talent.
Cinematix Studios in Mesa, AZ
Angel Studios in Carlsbad, CA
Treyarch LLC in El Segundo, CA
They want to know what you can do. And it does _not_ have to be 3D. I've seen a lot of great 2D demos.
Howeaver you said you don't know it yet so 2 great books on the topic are:
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Spelling by m-w.com.
Game programming is one of the top most difficult industries in computers. You need to create fast performing code that uses top of the line hardware that most users don't have yet. You also have to do all this in very small time spans. Games have a small turn around time due to the demand and competition and also the rate at which new hardware is phased out.
So what I am trying to say is that almost all game companies want people with industry experience that will prove that they have these capabilities. Graduating from college with a degree doesn't prove you are a whole lot better than most people, even if you come from a name school. If you have a sample game or something you did on your spare time then that might prove something about you. I've been applying to game companies for a while and the only response I get is to apply again after a few years when I have real industry experience.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
For a long time I have wanted to be involved in the games industry, and i face even worse prospects than you, I am in Australia, I am in a school that doesnt have a name like yours. I and a number of other core people who want to work in the industry set up the Newcastle (AUS) University Computer Gamers Society (http://cgs.wox.org), whilst we do play a fair amount of games what we also try to develop links between developers over here and people looking for Digital Entertainment careers. Its been hard work trying to be noticed, but after 2 years its kinda working. For the first time our school will be helping us this year, and not just our student union and we hope to have some deve,lopers come out and look at potential jnr employees and talk to us. We also visit every event involving game development we can. I think what we have been doing is working. I dont know if its going to be a solution for you though. OH and if you are a game developer, or some one else who might be interested in helping us out please contact me here bedel@dingoblue.net.au