Getting Into Games: What You Should Do if You Want To Get Into The Industry

I might not have a job or any experience in the gaming industry but currently I'm in a college course focusing on gaming. From being in my second year of this course I feel like I can share my knowledge for other people who would also like to get into the industry but don't know where to start. Take it with a pinch of salt if you want someone with experience but I can potentially give something to you to think about anyways.

Now lets get into the tips that I came up with.

Tip #1 - Pick a Speciality Early and Build on it.

In the games industry there are many jobs that you could do to help make a game. Even if you end up doing a general games design degree, gaining knowledge in this one area would get you a better chance of landing the job. For example, if you want to be a programmer put more time into programming then on your art. By doing this it'll allow you to build more on programming skills whilst having a basic knowledge of art which will stand you apart if you want to develop/design games in the future.

Tip #2 - Preferably Get a Degree in that Speciality

If you want to go and get a games design/development degree or don't know your speciality then go get it and ignore this tip.

Continuing on from the last tip, I believe that you should get a degree in the speciality you picked. From research alone I have learnt that the industry is rather cut-throat so having a degree that's not entirely game related would help tremendously to get a job in general. On top of this, people would want to hire specialists and not generalist so getting a relevant degree will help to prove this. Games Art/animation and programming degrees are included in this tip but only as backups as having a general programming/animation degree would be more employable if you are not dead certain on being on the games industry.

"The reason colleges offer game degrees are that there's a demand from students, *not* that there's a demand from the game industry." – Seppo Helava

Tip #3 - Build a Portfolio

How many gamers would like to get into the industry? Yeah, a lot of them. You may have the skills and degree to show that you have the skills but a portfolio proves it. If you can, make indie games and if you can't do that kind of portfolio then build a portfolio with relevant experience. This would allow you to build upon your skills and be able to say that you can definitely do the job that you want. You, probably, wouldn't take the risk employing a newly qualified plumber without a portfolio of work and potential employers would be the same.

Tip #4 - Experience- QA or Other Ways

Like I briefly mentioned above, if you can't build a portfolio build experience instead. Business type jobs would benefit the most from this tip as it's hard to build a relevant portfolio without experience. From my understanding the best way to gather relevant experience is doing QA and getting relevant jobs. QA would allow you to grow within that company as your are already helping with the game and you can show off your skills. Relevant experience proves your competence so the managerial roles that you have had and succeeded in would prove much more than a business degree. In other words portfolio, experience, and a degree would be very beneficial for a career in the games industry.

Tip #5 - Don't Give Up

Lastly, just persevering would eventually land you were you want to be in life and in the industry. At the end of the day, even if you think that you can't get the job applying is better than not applying. All you are getting out of it is a rejection letter and ways to improve for next time. If you give up at the first hurdle than the hurdles of regret will catch up to you and that's fun for no one. just believe in yourself because I believe in you.

Thanks for Reading

Thank you for reading and if you have any other tips or you learned something then please share it with me! See you soon.