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FACTS ABOUT THE VIDEO GAMES INDUSTRY by BRIAN REYNOLDS
- AAA video games usually take between 2 and 4 years to complete, and the trend is only growing longer. Perversely, this time period seems to increase as the technology improves... DVD's and bigger hard drives just mean we need to fill up more space! Faster and higher-resolution graphics capabilities mean more detailed artwork is possible (and therefore needed), and there are more pixels to push! Faster processors mean more complex gameplay and better AI are possible (and therefore needed), so more code to write and more bugs to find.
- By the time it's finished, a top-selling video game usually involves the work of 40, 60, or even 80 or more people, just on the development side alone!
- A typical game development team consists of a handful of designers, a couple handfuls of programmers, several handfuls of artists and animators, a music composer, a sound engineer, and several producers to manage schedules and budgets. Towards the end of a project, even more artists and programmers are often added, as well as a whole raft of testers who do in fact spend the whole day playing the game over and over and over and over.
- At the time I'm writing this, game budgets range from a few hundred thousand dollars for some "casual" and XBLA games, to upwards of $20 million for some "AAA Console" titles. If that seems crazy, try this thought experiment: figure out the cost of paying salaries and benefits for 40-80 people for 3-4 years, plus equipment, software, rent, and so forth. I think you'll find the numbers do add up!
- This is the entertainment industry! That means "hits" and "flops". A classic saying about the industry is 10% of the games on the market make 90% of the money, and if anything, the truth is probably even more extreme.
- Being in the entertainment industry is fun! But that means lots of people want to do it and the job market can get pretty competitive. Among other things this has the effect of making it hard to "break into" the industry from the outside. I definitely only recommend this industry for people who are passionate about games, because anyone who's only so-so about the job is going have a really tough time competing with the many people who are really excited about it.
- Everyone wants to "design games," but actually to get a position as a designer requires years of experience and dedication; nobody ever gets an "entry level" position designing their own game from scratch. Designer positions are few and sought after, and so fall to seasoned veterans who have meanwhile developed skills in other game industry career paths. On the other hand, in recent years a "career track" in game design has indeed developed: entry level folks typically start as "level designers," creating individual scenarios and levels for existing games, and then gradually work their way up to designing the game worlds themselves. If you're thinking of pursuing a career in game design, you should nurture excellent writing and communication skills as well as broad general knowledge of subject areas you'd like to work with and learn everything you can about how games are put together. A great "add" to your resume is a set of levels or scenarios you've designed for commercially available games, to demonstrate your level design skills. So get your hands on the latest RTS, RPG, or Shooter, and start making levels for it.
- The four largest career paths within the game industry are Programmer, Artist, Producer, and Designer. These positions come in many flavors and levels of seniority, varying by company and project.
- Depending on the company, producers variously organize, schedule, manage, budget and lead projects. If you don't think of yourself as an artistic or technical person, or you know some coding but don't have absolute confidence in your programming skills, the "producer track" would be a role for you to consider. But a full Producer position almost always requires prior industry experience, and the competition is fierce for the few Assistant Producer roles that come open.
- So, one way to "get in on the ground floor" and obtain coveted "industry experience" is to take a job as a professional tester, and learn the ropes while playing games for a living (not always as fun as it sounds, unfortunately!). Most of the major game publishers support a large testing staff, often working right alongside the in-house development staff of programmers, artists, etc. So you get a chance to rub shoulders with more experienced developers and eventually move into a development role. Also, entry-level development positions are much more numerous at large publishing houses.
- No one will hire you because "you have a great idea for a new game" or "you've thought of an idea to make an existing game even better." Pretty much everyone who loves games enough to want to make them for a living has a great idea for a new game. Saying something like that in your cover letter or resume is usually perceived as a negative, since it shows that you misunderstand what the developer or publisher is really looking for in an entry level hire (they're looking for someone with demonstrable skills as a programmer, artist, producer, level designer, or tester who can help them with their current projects).
- A college degree helps a lot but your major probably doesn't matter as much as you think. My own degrees are in history and philosophy, which I suppose makes at least some sense now that I'm a designer, yet I began my career as a programmer. I now work with a lead engineer who got his masters degree in physics, a designer with a degree in dramatics, a producer with a degree in international studies, and (aha!) an artist with an art degree. A degree mostly signifies the dedication that was required to obtain it, a positive sign but not nearly enough in itself to land you a job. An employer will look separately for other signs it wants to see. Signs of intelligence, writing and communication skills, and mastery of a skill set useful in the industry.
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