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Getting into the Video Game industry

Advice for those who want to get into the video games industry. The article was originally written in 2001 while Ste was the head of a successful video game development studio. As Ste is no longer actually employed in the video game industry you may consider this article out of date, but we think there's some good, honest advice here so we're presenting the article in its original form. Take it as you will.

What was this page for?

We used to get a lot of e-mails at Zed Two from newcomers to the industry looking for jobs, placements or training positions, or from people simply asking for advice on how to get started in the video game industry.

Unfortunately we were rarely in a position to accept trainees, industurial placement or work experience staff. As a small development studio we only ever had a very small number of vacancies for full time staff, and we almost always required people with previous experience.

Of course, that doesn't mean that there weren't fabulously talented people out there without experience who just needed a chance to prove it. Of course there were! We all have to start somewhere. But, as we didn't have the resources available to take risks on newcomers, we chose to offer our advice instead.

Please note:
The advice given on this page is not intended to be any kind of definitive guide to getting into the video game industry. Rather, it is just a collection of tips and opinions based on our own experiences and prejudices, and may well prove to be completely useless in your case. You may get better advice elsewhere which contradicts what we've written here, so don't consider anything we've written here as gospel!

» General advice
» Game Designers
» Programmers
» Artists
» Musicians
» Non-creative

General advice

Teach yourself. This is our number one piece of advice. Try to teach yourself the skills you will need for the job you want before you go looking for that job. This applies to all development work in this industry. This isn't a career you just choose, and then expect to be trained in by the company which employs you. 'On the job' training does happen (constantly), but you are generally expected to know what you need to know, or at least know how to find out what you need to know, before you start.

There are now many university / college courses specific to video games, and these are probably very useful, but at Zed Two we are mostly from the time when everybody in the education system sneered at you if you suggested pursuing a career in video games, so we don't really know much about the formal education side. We are all mostly self-taught, and find it difficult to imagine how anybody could survive for long without being able to teach themselves. Because of the constantly changing nature of this business, and the fact that we mostly work with cutting-edge technology, we believe the ability to teach yourself is absolutely vital. You will constantly need to learn new skills, new software, new hardware, new techniques, and there may be no expert around to teach you (very often *you* are the expert), so get used to teaching yourself.

There will never come a time when you 'know' your job completely, when the learning process has finished and you are an expert in what you do. If such a time comes, it will be short lived. In the next month, or the next year, or during the next project something new will come along, and half the skills and techniques you have learned will be useless. You will have to start learning again because if you don't keep up you will be left behind, and you may find yourself unemployable.

This isn't a problem, in fact, this is one of the most exciting and rewarding aspects of working in video games. Learn to embrace the constant change, and enjoy the challenges of constant learning.

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If you are trying to get into the industry and don't have previous employment experience, you somehow need to demonstrate your ability, or prove that you can actually implement your ideas. A letter, CV, resume, qualification or whatever, without real world experience to back it up, just isn't enough. The best way, hands down, to prove your ability is to create a video game.

That sounds like a tall order, but it doesn't have to be a releasable commercial blockbuster, just a complete game, however simple, with a front end, a game, an end-of-game sequence, hi score table etc. Putting something like this together covers a hell of a lot of the basics of game development, and is a very good exercise.

If you are a programmer, this is probably easiest for you, but it is great experience for budding artists and designers to learn to code, even at only a basic level, to understand the sort of problems and limitations you are likely to experience in professional life. And, a budding programmer who creates his / her own graphics and sound for their self written game, however bad, will also learn a lot.

Even recreating your own versions of classics like Pac Man, Space Invaders or Tetris demonstrates that you can do what you say you can do, and that you can actually finish a project (probably the single most important skill in this industry).

If you are a little more ambitious, or have a little more free time, try teaming up with friends to create a game together. You may have friends at school or college who want to create a game with you, or you can search out like-minded people on the internet. There are dozens of artists and programmers on the internet looking for partners / team members to help produce real games. This is a great learning experience, and you will have an invaluable demo to show to your prospective employers when you finally get an interview. As well as technical ability, putting a game together on your own shows self-motivation, imagination and ingenuity, all qualities any good employer will be looking for.

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The best and easiest way to get your first job in the industry these days is as a tester (QA). If you don't plan to go down the education / specialist route, or just want to get into the industry and don't really know where your talents lie, try game testing. The pay will probably be low, but its a great way into the industry, and you will learn a lot about the way games are made without necessarily being responsible for making them. Also you can apply at both developers and publishers, as everyone needs to test their games.

I know testers who have gone on to become lead programmers, lead artists, lead designers and producers, by being promoted from the QA departments within their studios. None of these people would have got a job as a programmer, artist or producer if they had applied to the studio for that position, as they had no previous experience.

Another tip if you don't have employment experience is to apply to big developers and publishers, not small studios. Bigger companies are more likely to have facilities to train promising newcomers, and probably have a higher staff turnover (so they may be constantly recruiting). Smaller studios have less resources available to train newcomers, and have more to lose if one of their projects (or their only project) is late, so are less likely to take a risk on an untried team member.

I want to be a Game Designer

There are probably more people around than ever who want to be Game Designers, yet, there are actually very few jobs in the industry for Game Designer, and lots of competition for those few positions.

If you think want to be a Game Designer, first of all you should define exactly what you mean by Game Design (to yourself at least). There seems to be general confusion in the industry between people who design elements of a game (such as maps or levels), people who write the back story or scenario for a game, and people who design the actual game itself. Each of these jobs can come with the title 'Game Designer', but they are all very different roles.

If you like to make your own Quake maps, design levels for games, position objects and baddies etc. then you are a Level / Map designer, not a Game Designer. This is a vitally important and rewarding job, but it is inaccurate to call it Game Design. You are not designing in the game, you are designing an element of the game. It is often called Game Design, but you are really a part of the development team, like the programmers and artists, working under the direction of the Game Designer.

Its much easier to get a job doing Level Design than as a Game Designer as it is much easier to prove you can do this type of work, and it is a good stepping stone to becoming a full Game Designer. Very often this work is done either by the artist building the level, or by testers. If you want to get into this type of work teach yourself about graphics, polygons, pixels, packages, and even programming as well as just Game Design, as there is a lot of overlap between the level designer, artist and programmer jobs. And don't be afraid to take a job in QA - it's a good way in.

If what really interests you is the story line behind a game, then admit this, and don't call your story lines Game Designs, and don't apply for a Game Designer position with a story or plot synopsis. There are some full time job opportunities for writers within development studios, but very often professional script writers are contracted on freelance basis to write scripts and storylines for video games. If you really want to be a writer then pursue writing, instead of trying to use video games as an easy way to get paid to write fantasy stories.

There is also a third category of non-game designer out there - the 'but better' brigade. We see a lot of specs submitted by people which go along the lines of, "An FPS game like Quake, but better", or, "An adventure game like Zelda, but better", and then a list of features not found in Quake or Zelda. If the ideas you come up with are like this, you are really underestimating the amount of skill, talent and resources that go into making world class products like Quake or Zelda, and the incredible difficulty of even matching the quality of these titles, let alone bettering them. You may be able to think of features that would improve games like Quake or Zelda, but perhaps the designers of those games also thought of similar, or better features... Perhaps they didn't implement them due to time or budget constraints? There is a lot of compromise in Game Design between what would make a great game, and what is realistically possible within the limits imposed, and the job of the Game Designer is not just to come up with the best ideas, but to design a game that is possible to develop with the resources available.

So, what is our definition of Game Design? To us, Game Design means coming up with a new game idea from scratch, defining the parameters and possibilities of gameplay, the risks and rewards to the player, identifying the challenges and difficulties facing the development team, and understanding the practicality of implementing an idea within a given budget and timescale. It may involve level design ideas, and storyline ideas, but is primarily focused on game mechanics, play control, game flow, difficulty progression, and working closely with programmers, artists, designers and musicians.

If this type of Game Design is what you really want to do, then good luck. There are VERY few Game Designer jobs in existence anyway, and you simply will not get one by applying cold. Most people doing this job are also either the lead programmer, lead artist, or producer on the project. They are basically in charge of the development of the project, and therefore responsible for possibly millions of dollars of spending. Applying for this job (no matter how great your idea) is like applying at Universal Studios to be a director of their next summer blockbuster straight from school - it just isn't going to happen.

If you have a killer game idea, but no experience of programming, art etc, but just know that your idea is amazing and will be a number one best seller and want to know how to sell it, our advice is, "give up now". You will never sell your game idea. You will not find anybody interested. Sorry, but its true (unless, possibly, the idea is so 'pure' it requires no development skill whatsoever to be implemented and is incredibly addictive and completely new - like say Tetris. Even then, your chances are miniscule - Tetris flopped time after time before Nintendo took it up for GB).

There is no shortage of great game ideas within the industry, but virtually no market for those ideas if they are new (unless a proven development team is attatched) - there is only a shortage of desire / resources to actually develop original game ideas. There are probably programmers and artists at every studio in the world with great game ideas sat in their drawer, just waiting for the opportunity to be developed. These studios will not be interested in game ideas sent in on spec, when they already have undeveloped ideas in-house.

Nearly all great games require good development, so a Game Designer needs to understand development to design a game that is possible to implement well in a reasonable time for a reasonable cost. If you're starting out and have a great idea the only way to implement it is to do it yourself, so either learn to be a developer, or find some friends who are prepared to work on your idea with you, then you may have a chance of landing yourself a deal, or a job.

A good Game Designer, as well as being a good designer of games, must have a very good grasp of technical and development issues. They need to understand programming techniques and difficulties, art techniques and difficulties, the technical specs of their target platforms etc. And by understand, we don't just mean read an article in Edge and know a few numbers. We mean the sort of understanding that comes from actually working as an artist or programmer or level designer or whatever on a number of projects, through to completion.

Also, if you want to be a Game Designer, you need to be able to design games, any games. This may sound obvious, but if your idea of Game Design is coming up with a slightly different set of weapon parameters for an FPS, with a new jump effect, or a new boss design, you are not designing a game, you are tweaking an existing game. If you do get a job as a Game Designer, you will be asked to design all sorts of games, even one's you may not fancy.

Test yourself; come up with a Game Design which has a fresh angle or a new spin, or will stand out from other titles in the same genre, for the following briefs:

• A shooting game for a console light gun accessory, but with no 'death' in the game (marketing requirement for a particular territory)
• A game for under 6 children, that is easy enough for 3 year olds to play, but is an actual game, not an educational product.
• A 3D platform game based on a popular cartoon character where the character is never allowed to die (licensor requirement)
• A new puzzle game (not a variation on Tetris with slightly different rules)
• A soccer game, with no license attached (how can you make it stand out from all the others?)
• A game based on a film license, where the main character is non-violent, a pacifist, non-speaking and very slow moving and clumsy (is there *any* game genre that that character would work in?)

(Please don't submit these Game Designs to us, they just serve as an example of the range of game types a professional Game Designer will be expected to design, and yes, all of these are real design briefs that we have worked to...)

When coming up with a Game Design don't focus on the fine details too soon. Many details just can't be pinned down until the game is actually playable. Its no good working out tables of exactly how many points you will earn from each bonus type, or the exact positions of baddies on a map, of the length of a jump, until you get a feel for how easy or hard it is to score points, how easy the baddies are to kill, or how nice it feels to jump a particular distance. Game Design isn't necessarily about the fine details, it is more about the bigger picture and the overall feel and aim of the game.

Ultimately, we feel that if you really want to be a professional Game Designer, the best route to take would be to get first get a job in doing some other aspect of game development, such as programming or graphics. Don't aim too high too soon. If you don't think you are talented enough to be a programmer or artist, then maybe you are not as multi-talented as you need to be to be a Video Game Designer.

I want to be a Programmer

The best advice we can give to anybody who wants to become a video game programmer is to write a game. Sounds obvious doesn't it? It doesn't matter if the game is rubbish, or if you did the graphics yourself and you can't draw, but a copy of a full game you've written is far more valuable than any number of code samples, demos or qualifications, because it demonstrates that precious programming skill - finishing! Better still, hook up with some friends (maybe you know an artist or a musician?) and make a game together. Its much harder to work with a team, especially if none of you can work on the project full time, but you'll learn a lot about team work, and your game will be all the more impressive if you do finish it.

The ability to finish a project is the primary skill that video game programmer needs. This sounds silly - surely the ability to write good code, or knowledge of languages or programming tricks is more valuable? Nope. You can look these up in a book. There are a lot of incredibly good 'coders' out there who just can't finish a project, either because they over-complicate and get into a mess, or because they get lose interest, or just don't know how to stop and tie up all those loose ends, and these people make terrible video game programmers. They leave behind a trail of late, over budget or cancelled projects. There are also many distinctly average coders out there, who do nothing flashy or innovative, who always finish the project they are given on time and under budget, and these people are amongst the most valuable in the industry.

Showing a completed game, with all the boring menu screens, installers etc., however simple or low tech, demonstrates the ability to finish, to see a project to its conclusion, to tie up the loose ends etc., in a way that a flashy 3D demo or sprite multiplexer (remember those?) never will.

Don't tie yourself to a particular processor or language or platform. Don't box yourself in as a 3D programmer, a PlayStation programmer, or a C++ programmer. A programmer should be able to program, full stop. Very often companies are looking for a Gameboy programmer, or whatever, but if you can demonstrate you can do this and also demonstrate that you can adapt to 3D, C++, Java, WAP, or anything else that comes along, you will be a far more attractive proposition in a constantly changing development environment.

If you are new to programming and want to learn, but find it all a bit daunting, or if you are a non-programmer (say an artist, or designer) who would just like to pick up a bit of programming to help understand your job a little better, you could do worse than try out something like Blitz Basic. This is a PC based version of the BASIC programming language, specifically designed for programming games. Basically it handles all the dirty stuff like setting up Windows, video RAM, talking to hardware etc., and lets you just get on with programming your game. It is a great way to learn game programming skills without having to become a Windows / C++ / PC guru first.

I want to be an Artist or Animator

If you want to be a video game artist, be an artist first, and a video game artist second. Do not neglect your art skills in favour of video game or computer knowledge. There used to be a time when skill with a computer could make up for a lack of artist ability. Not any more. You will be judged on your artistic ability first, and your computer or video games knowledge second, and the specific packages you know last.

That said, get hold of any and all art packages you can, and teach yourself to use them. You may have to learn new packages every few months if you get a job, or use proprietary tools, so don't consider yourself to be a Photoshop artist, or a 3dsMax artist; be flexible.

If you are primarily artistic and not particularly computer literate, become computer literate. Better still, learn a little programming. You will literally double your chances of getting a job as an artist if you know the rudiments of C, or even just BASIC or HTML. Good artists who also understand the problems of the programmer, who can arrange their data in the most convenient ways, who are comfortable with exporters and converters, and basically know their bits and bytes are worth their weight in gold. These are the rare breed that every studio wants as a Lead Artist, probably the single most important job on the development team.

Do not limit yourself to 2D or 3D or anything like that, don't be a texture artist, or a modeller, be an artist. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and a good studio will give you the work you are best at, but limiting what you are prepared to do simply limits your employment opportunities. Studios need staff that are flexible as they often don't know what project they will be commissioned to develop next. By all means show you can do wonderful high polygon, well lit, well rendered animated scenes, but also show you can do a 300 polygon walking human if necessary, and a 32 * 32 pixel animated walk cycle. You could be working on a 3D movie sequence one month, and on a WAP game the next. Don't box yourself in to one style / genre / technique.

An important question you should ask yourself if you are the type of artist who loves making high polygon 3D rendered movies, is do you really want to be in this industry? Do you really want to be making games, or would you rather be making Hollywood movies and special effects? If your answer is the latter then stop wasting everybody's time, and taking up a job somebody else could be doing better, and go to Hollywood and try to get a job making movies.

I want to be make video game music

Right now it seems that everyone and their dog want to make video game music. Since the advent of CD based games, anyone with a keyboard or sequencer who can record a track at home thinks their music would make great background music for a game. Your home-made tracks may will be brilliant for a game, but nobody will ever know because there are about 2,000,000 other people with the same idea, bombarding every development studio on the planet with emails and demo CDs.

So, how do you get your music noticed, or get a shot at a job as a musician? Well, its hard. Like Game Designers, there are few full time positions for musician available, and must full time musicians are usually expected to be very computer literate, often involved with the development of audio drivers etc. So, computer knowledge and programming skills are a distinct advantage, as is a willingness to create sound effects.

Audio is a vitally important component of every video game, and arguably sound effects are far more important than music. However, nobody wants to create sound effects, everybody wants to compose music. If you learn to create sound effects, and become good at it, you have a much better chance of getting a job as a sound artist (where you will get the opportunity to compose game music as well).

As with artists, ask yourself if you really do want to be in video games, or if you just see it as an easy stepping stone to creating film soundtracks for Hollywood movies. If the answer is the latter, spend your time trying to get into Hollywood instead, and don't take a job away from somebody who loves video games.

I have no creative talent at all!

OK, if you are not a game designer, programmer, artist or musician, but love video games and want to help develop then, or if you have a little bit of talent in all these areas but aren't sure where you should specialise, then you should take a job as a tester.

This isn't to say testers aren't creative - far from it - testing is now pretty much accepted as the standard way to get into the industry for people without experience. Most test departments are packed with budding designers, artists and programmers, and testing games is a great way to learn the ropes of game development, and maybe see what you're good at. Testers often get roped in to help out on projects that are behind schedule or need an extra push, designing maps or placing baddies etc., so there will be plenty of opportunities to get your 'hands dirty' in actual development.

Even if you don't consider yourself particularly creative, testing is also the start of an accepted career path leading to project manager or producer.

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And finally - good luck! The aim of this page is not to discourage anybody. If you have the talent and the desire, keep plugging away and you *will* make it!

 

Ste Pickford
13th March 2001
Updated: 5th July 2004

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