7 steps that got me a job in the game industry

In the year 2014 I decided that I want to work in the game industry. Many things happened during the next three years, which in retrospect I perceive as the most intense period of my life. When I made my decision, I had absolutely no idea that getting to the game industry will be such a demanding task, a task that will test my learning abilities, technical aptitude, interpersonal skills and, last but not least, my perseverance and willingness to accept failures. Many failures. But finally I managed to achieve my goal - in 2017 I got a job as a Junior Gameplay Designer, working on a yet unannounced game created in Unreal Engine 4. In this article I would like to share some of my experiences by breaking down the process of getting to the game industry into 7 steps. I hope that some of you will find them as useful as I did.

(In case of TL;DR, just jump to the last part of my article, where everything is summed up.)

However, before I begin, I need to add two disclaimers.

1. My 7 steps don’t fully apply to a gamedev-aspiring person who already has experience e.g. as a programmer, graphic artist, or sound engineer and would like to pursue a similar role in the industry. When I began my journey, I had no real experience in anything practically useful in game development, apart from some music production skills, but as a matter of fact I didn’t want to make music or sound (it doesn’t mean that, at the time, I actually had ANY concrete idea about what I might be doing). I don’t count my (at the time) almost forgotten basic programming skills from high school. So I basically started everything from scratch and the 7 steps reflect that particular perspective.

2. A popular way of getting to gamedev is starting as a tester. Experience is often not required; you need to be a passionate gamer. However, even if this could be an easy path to gamedev for really young people or students, for such people as myself, who have some financial commitments etc., it is just not feasible due to a very low entry level salary. What is more, as the game tester’s job is really not what most people expect (it’s NOT only playing computer games and being paid for it), one can be easily discouraged. I’ve also heard people from the game industry recommending skipping this stage, if possible (unless, of course, you aim at developing your career in the QA area!).

OK, now let’s get to the point.

Step 1: Start with Game Engines

I remember exactly how I began: by typing “game development” in Google and reading the first Wikipedia article from the search results. As simple as that. From the article I learned that a main tool in the game development process was something called “the game engine”. I googled further and a few hours later I had Unreal Development Kit and Unity installed on my PC. I bounced off Unity almost instantly due to my non-existing programming skills. So I continued with some really awesome online UDK tutorials.

At this point it is not important to make a full game. Aim at making some working prototypes to get a glimpse of what a basic gameplay consists of. As a reference, you can check out my first prototype level that I created in UDK after ca. 2 months of watching and practicing online tutorials.

Important thing: I strongly recommend you to begin with the video tutorials created by the game engine’s developer, instead of trying random YouTube tutorials. Developer’s tutorials can be easily found on the game engine’s website and are usually very well structured and easy to follow.

Step 2: Learn basic programming

As much as I think that Unreal Engine (now it’s UE4, as UDK is long time deprecated) is better for starters as you can relatively easily prototype a simple game without any programming skills, I’d also say that Unity is a better choice for creating your first full game (I will write more about this in point 5). It has a more clear interface and it does not enforce any specific development patterns that might be hard to understand for a beginner. However, it requires some programming. Therefore, I strongly recommend you to start learning programming as soon as you start learning a game engine of your choice. I started with C++ (the most popular programming language in the game industry), and switched to C# and Unity after approx. 6 months.

As for the learning resources, I recommend Sololearn for learning basics - it’s interactive, free, and has a mobile app as well.

This step does not only apply to people who want to pursue a technical role. Programming develops logical thinking, problem solving skills, and… it’s fun! Even for aspiring Project Managers it might be helpful in some situations, so they could communicate on a slightly more technical level with production people. When I started to learn C++ my goal was to learn basics only, but I liked it so much that I carried on (I still carry on) and after half a year I managed to create my own simple C++ game.

Step 3: Work in IT

As I have already mentioned, getting to the game industry is not easy. However, getting to the IT industry is relatively much easier and here you can gain a lot of invaluable experience which could be equally useful in the game development (and will look good in your resume), regarding e.g. Agile processes, version control systems, technical documentation, or task management systems (e.g. JIRA).

There are numerous large companies that are constantly recruiting for junior positions. I started working in IT in the Helpdesk department with no previous IT experience and after some time I moved to Quality Assurance where I learned a lot about software development. In the end, games are software as well.

Step 4: Attend lectures and workshops

You can learn a lot by yourself (certainly more than you think you can!), but you also need to learn from others. You will most likely find some opportunities to attend lectures or workshops concerning various aspects of the game development in your area, many of them for free. Taking part in these has two main advantages.

Firstly, you can learn new things in an organized and well-structured way, which is sometimes hard to achieve when you organize your learning process on your own - after all, you don’t know the subject so how can you know what is the best way to learn it? You can often gain much more by listening to an experienced game developer for one hour than from spending the whole frustrating day with Google and video tutorials trying to sort out some complicated stuff.

Secondly, it is a great opportunity to meet new passionate people with whom you can share knowledge and, perhaps, make a game…

Step 5: Make your own game from A to Z

A single finished game looks way better in your CV than 5 unfinished ones. It can (and should!) be really simple and short. The main advantages of making your game from A to Z are:

If you can’t create graphics or sound, there are tons of free assets available on the Internet. Also, you don’t have to make your game alone. I mentioned in the previous point that during workshops you can meet your future teammates. That is exactly how it was in my case: I joined the summer game development course, where I met a graphic artist with whom three months later I released my very first complete game, Advanced Pirates & Monsters: Arcade Edition. In time, more people joined the team and we created a few more games as Bob Games.

Step 6: Do Networking

Without practical skills you will not achieve much, but meeting people from the industry is equally important.

There are smaller and bigger game industry events where you can show your games and/or contact recruiters from the game development companies. Attendance is usually paid, but if you honestly picture yourself in the game industry it’s absolutely worth it. In retrospect, I consider attending the Digital Dragons 2015 conference one of the most important milestones on my road to the game industry.

Apart from that, look for local informal meetups in your city. You will learn much, you will discover previously unknown opportunities (in my case it was the possibility to join Game Jam - a fantastic experience that I sincerely recommend), and you will meet some really cool people with similar interests and hobbies.

Step 7: Take it slowly, don’t give up

Probably the toughest one. Game development is a really huge field. You need to plan your goals carefully, be consistent and, most importantly, don’t try to learn too much in a short time. The subject matter is so vast that trying to solve more than one problem at a time will take you to the point when you start to doubt whether you can actually grasp any of this. Especially in the beginning I’d recommend no more than 1-2 short tutorials per day. If you feel it’s not your day, put it off for a while. Plus, take into consideration your daily job and your private life, as you really need to keep the balance.

Finally, prepare for failures. I could write A LOT about this one, but I will just say that: during the 3-year period of searching for a job in the game industry (now I know I started sending CVs way too early, by the way) I sent approx. 50 applications. I was invited to 7 job interviews, and, despite getting to the final stage in 2 recruitment processes (in one case I was so certain I’d get the job that I started to write THIS VERY ARTICLE!) I was finally rejected in all of them (not counting the final, successful one, of course). But not for a single moment did I seriously consider giving up!

That's it.

Let’s jump to the promised TL;DR summary. So, how to get a job in the game industry in 7 steps?

I’d really like to know what you think on the subject. All comments and remarks are greatly appreciated.

Thank you for reading!