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Hi TL!
Today I will be competing in my first ever live event - the Bay Area StarCraft LAN III at Hacker Dojo. I'm looking forward to seeing PainUser, HDStarCraft, and lots of other people there. I'll also do a writeup on it, since it'll be my first time playing at an event instead of just spectating.
Anyway, in the meantime, here's something I wrote for a question on Quora about how to get into the gaming industry. I'm on my 4th 3rd (I forgot that the first related to Korea, but not to games) gaming industry job right now, and for me finding jobs in gaming has been a pretty painless experience, so I figured my perspective might help people who are wondering about the process. Enjoy!
How to Get Into the Game Industry: General Tips
The game industry is a big place, which means that both opportunities and pitfalls abound for smart, motivated people. Don't be intimidated by the prospects of breaking in - you just have to put some thought into it and the rest will come naturally.
1. Play a lot of games. Not just one game - a wide variety.
2. Identify which games/gaming genres you'd want to work on. Where do you see opportunities for industry growth? What sorts of problems would you get fired up about solving? For example, if you're good with developing architecture and database/network stuff, maybe you should focus on the online sector (social games, MMOs, casual games, etc.). Don't discount mobile, either - get an Android/iPhone and explore!
3. Find out who makes the games you like. Are these big-budget studios like Valve or up-and-coming ones like Armor Games? Can you find patterns within your research that might suggest characteristics you'd want to look for in a potential employer?
4. Find people. Figure out whose friend's uncle does contract work for EA, get in LinkedIn, and start asking questions. Not huge and overwhelming questions like "How do I get into the game industry," but questions which show that you've put time and effort and thought into zeroing in on what you want to do. The clearer your vision and questions, the more likely that people will help you find the resources you need to progress.
5. Go to conferences. Not ComiCon-type conventions, although those are fun. I mean industry conferences where you can get in free as a volunteer and drink in everything you can from the people who've been doing it for 20+ years. GDC has a great CA (conference associate) program where you can meet other people with similar interests and you can get into the conference itself free (otherwise it's like $1k+ for the full deal). If GDC's a little too big to start out with, try niche conferences like Casual Connect for social/mobile/casual). Always go to the parties.
5a. At the conferences, talk to lots and lots of people just to get their perspectives on the industry. It's not about dropping your business card in as many hands as possible - it's about looking for people who you'd want to learn from and emulate and approaching them in a respectful way.
6. Make sure your resume is up-to-date and easily customizable for approaching various companies or various positions (game engine dev vs. server maintenance vs. QA, etc.).
7. Keep your ear to the ground. Read Gamasutra, TechCrunch, and any other more specific news site/blog that addresses the part of the gaming industry you want to be in. Do you agree with the opinions expressed on these sites? Are you confused about the names and terms they throw around? Look stuff up and keep your thoughts on the back burner so you can show an interviewer that you can generate your own ideas and not just work on other people's.
I really think that if you put as much time and energy as you can spare into these activities, you can start feeling like the industry is coming to you instead of like you're trying to jimmy open the doors to Paradise. This has been my experience, at any rate.
EDIT: JOB HISTORY
Co-launch team head, community manager, production, localization for Aika Online (Gala-Net, Inc.)
Online Content Manager for Playfish (post-acquisition by Electronic Arts) (equivalent to Marketing Manager)
Community manager, launch marketing, game design for MindSnacks
  
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glhf
User was warned for this post
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I am also looking to find a job in the gaming industry. What are the 4 gaming industry jobs that you've had, and how long were each of them?
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I'm sorry, but this is a ridiculously bad blog post.
Are you serious? Your advice is know people, be extrovertive, have a strong resume, and be knowledgeable? I wish this was a troll post. There isn't a person out there that has control over their bowel movements that doesn't know this.
Even if this wasn't the most mundane, obvious filth of a list ever, you ignore the elephant (hehe) in the room. You're a girl. People are willing to talk to you because you're a girl. The gaming industry has no women. Every gaming company wants more women to make their company look better.
User was warned for this post
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On December 13 2010 03:23 cutebabyelephant wrote:
I'm sorry, but this is a ridiculously bad blog post.
Are you serious? Your advice is know people, have a strong resume, and be knowledgeable? I wish this was a troll post. There isn't a person out there that has control over their bowel movements that doesn't know this.
Even if this wasn't the most mundane, obvious filth of a list ever, you ignore the elephant (hehe) in the room. You're a girl. People are willing to talk to you because you're a girl. The gaming industry has no women. Every gaming company wants more women to make their company look better.
That was pretty mean dude. Peanut gets a lot of flak but that was just hateful and dare I say sexist?
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On December 13 2010 03:23 cutebabyelephant wrote:
I'm sorry, but this is a ridiculously bad blog post.
Are you serious? Your advice is know people, be extrovertive, have a strong resume, and be knowledgeable? I wish this was a troll post. There isn't a person out there that has control over their bowel movements that doesn't know this.
Even if this wasn't the most mundane, obvious filth of a list ever, you ignore the elephant (hehe) in the room. You're a girl. People are willing to talk to you because you're a girl. The gaming industry has no women. Every gaming company wants more women to make their company look better.
Your post was pretty uncalled for. She is taking the time to provide a bit of knowledge that she probably had to figure out on her own. Whats wrong with giving people a little insight into the things she had to go through to get into the industry. Im sure alot of people are thankful for even just a little bit of extra help, rather than arrogant and extremely rude/sexist like yourself.
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I should probably make a second post here to apologize to any female who is studying in comp sci or a related field. They obviously have to deal with an extremely hostile environment.
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Norway28520 Posts
not easy being peanut with first people criticising her for being overly focused on her gender, and then when she makes a new blog a couple days later where she completely omits to mention that she is a girl, that exact aspect of the blogpost is also targeted.
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On December 13 2010 03:23 cutebabyelephant wrote:
Even if this wasn't the most mundane, obvious filth of a list ever, you ignore the elephant (hehe) in the room. You're a girl. People are willing to talk to you because you're a girl. The gaming industry has no women. Every gaming company wants more women to make their company look better.
just want to back this guy up, most people probably think this is some troll or hate post but i agree with it 100%. was going to post something similar myself. pretty negatory though =/
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Though, it is pretty much general job hunting advice it's still nice of you to think that you could help in any little way. Keep on keeping on.
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The 5th tip wasn't too bad. Volunteering and knowing where to find people who want volunteers is fairly useful. I think it'd be better to go into detail, even provide an anecdote about that, than to spend time on the really basic stuff though.
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On December 13 2010 03:23 cutebabyelephant wrote:
I'm sorry, but this is a ridiculously bad blog post.
Are you serious? Your advice is know people, be extrovertive, have a strong resume, and be knowledgeable? I wish this was a troll post. There isn't a person out there that has control over their bowel movements that doesn't know this.
Even if this wasn't the most mundane, obvious filth of a list ever, you ignore the elephant (hehe) in the room. You're a girl. People are willing to talk to you because you're a girl. The gaming industry has no women. Every gaming company wants more women to make their company look better.
User was warned for this post
Even if what you were saying was correct what's the point in making a rude post about it. Nothing she says here seems wrong, if you're not interested or it doesn't apply to you go somewhere else. Its a post explaining from her own personal experience the best way to get a job in the industry she works in. It isn't wrong its just her telling us her experience, and this could be valuable information to certain TLers.
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Has there ever been a peanut blog that has not featured someone getting banned? Good luck with your lan but maybe in the future the mods should just lock your blogs to prevent any extraneous discussion.
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On December 13 2010 03:23 cutebabyelephant wrote:
Even if this wasn't the most mundane, obvious filth of a list ever, you ignore the elephant (hehe) in the room. You're a girl. People are willing to talk to you because you're a girl. The gaming industry has no women. Every gaming company wants more women to make their company look better.
This is completely wrong.
Sure, women are in the minority, but the ratio is not absolutely horrendous, nor do people bend over backwards to get women on their team.
Since we're on TL, one of the best ways to network is within a competitive community. I was part of the DDR scene in Socal in 2001 and met a ton of people all across the US. Many of my friends in Norcal got started with RedOctane and Konami, as they wanted us to promote their products. Some have gone on to become producers, some work on note charts for DDR / Rock Band, etc. Some worked for EA, then moved on to smaller game companies. Actually, I don't think any of us play DDR anymore.
I knew Markman (and SDTekken) years before they started working at MadCatz and turned it around, and I know FilthyRich, who became MLG's Tekken Director and is now working as the Community Manager for Namco Bandai, just because I played Tekken with them.
Even years later, the network will develop itself. I ended up meeting a mobile games producer for Namco Bandai who was a friend of a friend, and later I had dinner with him and all his friends who held high positions at other companies (Tecmo, Atlus, etc.)
If you get your foot in the door at a low-level position (tester), as long as you're not a jerk, it's an excellent way to network. That dinner also included low-level testers because they were cool.
Lastly, volunteering at ComicCon is actually not a bad idea, depending on what position you work. Checking badges at the door is probably not gonna pay off. I remember that the head translator for Square Enix's US Branch staffed at Anime Expo in years prior as a translator. People negotiate with gaming companies and entertainment companies to become sponsors all the time.
The amazing thing about all this is that I've never really tried to network in the gaming community, nor do I have aspirations of working there. I've only worked there once, as a localization tester... and even then, the network runs deep. Friends there were friends of people at Blizzard, who would get them free WoW accounts and stuff. =)
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On December 13 2010 04:15 Meapak_Ziphh wrote:
Has there ever been a peanut blog that has not featured someone getting banned? Good luck with your lan but maybe in the future the mods should just lock your blogs to prevent any extraneous discussion.
Way to try to kill the best entertainment on tlnet... I know you're not serious but obviously that's not an option.
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On December 13 2010 04:21 kainzero wrote:
Sure, women are in the minority, but the ratio is not absolutely horrendous, nor do people bend over backwards to get women on their team.
It's hard to take the rest of your post seriously when the first sentence is just 100% wrong.
The ratio of men to women in the gaming industry is something along the lines of 20-to-1, even worse than the female-to-male ratio for being a nurse. That's not horrendous to you?
A basic google search will *also* inform you that companies all over the world *are* bending over backwards to try and draw more women into their companies. It helps the environment and is invaluable to developing video games which are more approachable by female audiences.
It's almost as easy to get a gaming job as a woman if your qualified as it is to get into university if you're a minority with good grades. Gaming companies are literally going out of their way to find you and hire you.
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I also have a job in the game industry [as a programmer]. A lot of you guys were critical of this post but a lot of it is actually incredibly true regardless of what position you're seeking. It really has nothing to do with being a girl, and at any rate it seems like more girls are joining the industry [just as more girls are becoming noncasual gamers and even casual ones].
These tips are kind of important for a lot of jobs where you need to break in as opposed to being able to find jobs easily, and basically it boils down to Networking. If you play a lot of games, if you have passion for making them [which is very different, some people don't know], you can talk to people who share the same passions and who knows they might recommend you for a job post and boom you get an interview and the ball is in your court. Networking is ridiculously powerful in the game industry.
I would say, however, that depending on what job you're going for these tips don't always apply for everyone - for example some apply more to designers, some to producers, and the most general ones hit programmers.
For a designer, you better know every game that has any relevance to one you might make. In other words you play games all the time and are kind of a fortress of everyone elses ideas [Unless you can prove that your ideas are standalone amazing without this help, usually everyone else just plays games lol].
For a producer, it's good practice too I'd imagine. Producers really need to stay on top of cutting edge dev techniques and be able to manage teams. This kind of falls into the Gamasutra thing that Peanut is talking about. Knowing this will allow you to try new things with the team briefly, and then have them reject or accept them and it keeps things fresh for everyone.
For a programmer, though, not so much, actually. A programmer needs to know how to program. Some programmers interact with design but it's because they want to and they play a lot of games or simply see obvious flaws. But generally speaking. A programmer is good when he knows his craft, when he can solve tough challenges in a well scheduled amount of time. That pretty much involves knowing C++ very well, and nowadays it seems like people are leaning on scripting languages more and more, so Lua, Python, Flash are getting more and more jobs. Or web languages since the social gaming stuff doesn't really need as much C++ power. The other thing that's downright critical is knowing vector math, 2d and 3d. And being able to prove it. Interviews are challenging, and the team will try to find the edges of your knowledge.
To be happy in the game industry, though, you really need a passion for it. Oftentimes the hours to pay ratio isn't all that great due to crunch etc., and as a programmer you fight problems that can be seriously terrifying but you have to push through them. Without real passion, you will simply be miserable. With it, the work day can be a lot of fun.
Anyway, thought I'd add stuff and defend peanut, because honestly, no matter what you're trying to be in the industry, networking helps a lot.
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On December 13 2010 05:24 Zerokaiser wrote:
It's hard to take the rest of your post seriously when the first sentence is just 100% wrong.
The ratio of men to women in the gaming industry is something along the lines of 20-to-1, even worse than the female-to-male ratio for being a nurse. That's not horrendous to you?
A basic google search will *also* inform you that companies all over the world *are* bending over backwards to try and draw more women into their companies. It helps the environment and is invaluable to developing video games which are more approachable by female audiences.
It depends where you're getting your stats. I've seen 20-to-1, 5-to-1, 10-to-1. Did you just google it and click on the first link?
And I don't know how you can't take the post seriously when the first sentence has nothing to do with the rest of it. You sure don't like reading past the first sentence, do you? So networking in competitive scenes has no worth because there really are few women in the game industry? Really?
Even if I did make a mistake on the ratio, I don't really care.
Just don't discredit the rest of my post, thanks.
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I'm going to apologize for my earlier post as it was rather rage fueled.
I still standby my point, though I should have worded it more wisely. In a crumbling industry (could expand this point to just about any industry also) that is cutting people everywhere it comes off as rather frustrating when some one posts something like "I'm on my 4th gaming industry job right now, and for me finding jobs in gaming has been a pretty painless experience," followed by the most generic, pointless advice.
I was way out of line though.
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I would like to point out that Asian Americans actually often face discrimination (or maybe more like "reverse affirmative action") when it comes to college admissions, particularly at top private colleges. It is not always the case that being a minority gives you an advantage in the competitive world of college admissions.
As for getting jobs "painlessly," which apparently is aggravating to some people: perhaps the fact that I graduated cum laude and was a Phi Beta Kappa nominee at one of the top universities in the world has more to do with my getting jobs than the fact that I'm female.
Additionally, people in the gaming industry tend to be much less sensitive to the gender issue than the StarCraft community. I have not found a situation where I have been treated differently in the jobs I have had in game dev/publishing because of my gender. The same cannot be said, of course, for my experience in eSports, for better or for worse.
I acknowledge that the tips were basic, but I find that a lot of people who ask me about getting into the game industry lack knowledge at this level, especially if they're still in college or grad school and haven't tried to really start a career at all. If you are past this level of knowledge, congratulations - you obviously don't need these tips. There is no reason to hate on them.
I may write other posts about my gaming industry experience in the future, but obviously I'm not very keen on it right now.
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EPT
