4/28/2017Time to read: 3 min
To me, and I think to a lot of people, game industry seems to be filled with geniuses all with multiple years of experience. Indeed, game is one of the most complex system in software engineering. I was lucky to attend the Strategy Guide: Breaking into the Game Industry hosted by NYU Game Center on April 13, 2017. 4 Panelists from the game industry discussed on how to get into the game industry. They shared their experience and demystified the game industry for us. In this post I will try to write down most of the things I remembered and be as unbiased as possible.
The event focus on mainly three points from what I see:
The main point of this event being the second part.
At first, the panelists introduced themselves, and answer one question, how they got the first job in the game industry. What surprised me was that, not all of them are programmers, and not all of them work on the production of the game directly. It's interesting to see, some of them got their job through traditional on-line job board, such as monster.com(Wat? it actually works?) Some created their own game-like project for an event and preached to the organizer. Some got job through connection with professor, etc. There are a lot of ways to get into game industry, but they all recommended talking to a lot of people and building up one's network (isn't that obvious?).
The panelists called getting an interview getting through the first gate. If you are lucky to get one, you will be evaluated not just your technical skill but also your cultural fit. To my disappointment, the discussion tried to accommodate a broader applicant group, instead of just programmers. So it didn't go into the technical requirements for job applicants. The panelists mentioned a couple qualities of a good interviewee / new employee that I think worth noting.
When talking about academic or hobby projects (it's preferable to have some projects), the interviewer looks at how an applicant deals with team issues. This help them gauge if one is a good team player. Especially when the team has conflict or disagreement. You need to make teammates look good even if you believe it's their fault. You can't say you made the major contribution and you are much better than your teammates.
It's important to have passion in what you do. A lot of applicants do. But interviewer wants to see "passion but not obsession". Game developers needs to be open-minded. They should think about the end user, not just how themselves want the game to be.
Game studios, look for applicants that are versatile, and would like to work on multiple different areas. "So you are good at physics, can you also do accounting?" Flexibility is valued a lot especially in smaller game studio.
Applicants might be from elite colleges, or have a lot of experience with games, but still needs to be humble. You might think that you know much more than your coworkers. Especially if you have previous experience. But the truth is, you don't know things. Game is a super complex system, and your coworkers have been in the industry for a long time. But that doesn't mean not to give ideas. Ideas are great.
An interesting question to ask the interviewers in game studios is "how much do you guys play games". As a game studio, they need to keep up with the trend, but at the same time, they might have little to no time playing game. The panelist talks about how much they play games. It's surprising that, some haven't play for a year. However this varies from companies to companies, and it also depends on the field of the companies. For some companies, they allow employees to play for a portion of time during lunch or after work.
As for the third point. Panelists briefly talks about the game industry. There is still some misconception or doubts about this industry. One panelist told a funny story that his mom had to tape his job description to the fridge, in order to refer to it when telling other friends what her son does. Some higher management leadership would diminish games, especially in a non-game company, so developers would have to label what they do in different terms. One panelist working at a virtual reality department says "We believed we are making games, but when higher up asked us, we would say, no no, this is virtual reality. It’s totally not game."
The game industry is very big. You might think you just need a programmer, a designer, an artist, etc., and you are all set. But you will soon find that you need all kinds of talents, that's why people with various skills can better adapt into this fast pace industry. Making game is also very risky. Studios are very vulnerable (often the smaller ones). One bad move might cause the studio to go down.