Game industry have always been one of the most creative media of all time and this element caused lots of competitions and challenges during the history of video games. We hear creating a AAA game costs a hundred of millions of dollars and several years of development which mean it’s not an easy task to do and require a lot of skills in order to success. There are smaller studios like indie developer that are not as expensive and AAA game but still no one can deny that creating games require lots of time and money. Meeting people in game industry can be an opportunity to learn about the reality of making games and learning from people who have experienced the challenges of this industry. Understanding about how to create a proper portfolio is a key for entering this field.
I always wanted to be a lead designer or look developer and since childhood I tried to learn different skills from sketching, 3D modelling, music production, sound design, animating, creating effects, storytelling, graphic design, programming, marketing, managing, prototyping and I never stopped learning and updating my knowledge base. I have interest in creating fast paced games combined with EDM (electronic dance music) and always tried to create the best art and mechanics for my game ideas.
Launch Talk
Being part of UKIE is perfect because we can start to attend the events and engage with the latest information and talks which will help us for networking in order to became aware of what is happening in the game industry. Finding opportunities will become easier as we find people to trust to.
Melissa Chaplin
Studying game was much more difficult in the past comparing to now, as this field is a new era unlike other type of media. There are many more universities started to teach video game design and game art as the technology is being developed and the game market expanding, and people are getting more interested. Creating games require lots of various skills like making arts, level design, quest design, programming, creating AI, directing, marketing, time management, etc. And not all the current industry professionals studied games related courses in their universities. It means if someone studied a different course or has a work experience out of game development, they still can make a proper portfolio in order to apply for a game studio. Some courses like IT, software engineer, economic or even medicine can be examples of these courses. It is interesting to know that rarely there are some people entered the game industry without having a university degree and they just tried to make a perfect work experience and portfolio and apply with their diploma.
Always there can be time limitations or financial problems from a single person to an indie game studio or even a AAA game developer, then it’s important to know where you want to go by the progression of your work and having goals is a key to achieve it. Considering meetings with your team members and clarify the strategy of your team can dramatically help you to keep your time and money well organized. On the other hand, if the team still needs more people to do the tasks, having discussion with industry professionals on social media like Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc, can help for networking and producers can find new talents.
Creating social media is an important part of marketing and community management. Instagram and Discord are great examples of social media that help a studio to manage their projects and marketing related works. It’s good to remember to keep your social media attractive by doing certain steps. These steps can be posting new contents, informing about your latest updates, avoid posting offensive materials, streaming or asking streamer to advertise your game, keeping the contents relevant to your game, avoiding arguments in communications, engaging with relevant people and making connections with other developers or professional fans, using relevant hashtags to help people find you game, etc. Creating games cost a lot of time and money and this is the reason why marketing and community management are important part of the process because people should be attracted to your game in order to buy it. Marketing should be done mostly about reasonable targets, not too much, and depends on the game company its different. As an example, marketing a free to play mobile phone game is much different from a paid hardcore AAA game as the free to play game attract people who usually don’t spend money for games and some in-app purchases should be considered but a AAA game costs around 60 dollars and loses its price over time.
There is a time and money rule that says if you don't have enough money, it takes more time to create the project and if you have a limited time, you need to spend more money in order to speed up the process. Always do what you can do and ask others for help if you are not able to solve a problem. Your passion is important, create your part of the job special.
For any job applications and creating your CV, Cover Letter and Portfolio, you can use the job application requirements form to write your key skills in order to bold the abilities you achieved. Sharing is important because people start to talk and think about you.
Dan Bernardo
When you enter a new company, it takes around six months to know your team members. Being able to express your opinion in a team in a way that other people understand you is a key to success and keep in mind talent alone is not enough and you and your team member always should learn more and more. In other words, you need to know your teammates in order to understand them and communicate.
Based on the GDD, the team creates a lot of prototypes for an idea and try to remove those ideas that don’t work. If you have a nice idea, talk to your team about it and don’t afraid to take feedback. If you have an idea which you think is hard to accept for others, again talk about it because if you don’t share it, the chance of failure of your idea is 100%.
Creating games are hard, there are too many hidden works and problem solving. Be patient enough and do everything step by step. Don’t hurry because it may cause some problems that may not be solved easily in the later parts of the development.
Always value yourself, every work deserves a payment and don’t work for free. As you spent a lot of time and money to learn your skills, expect other people to respect you when you want to do something for them.
Patriciate in events to know about what is going to happen in the future and making networks and keep in mind your curiosity is the element make you a great designer. Ask professionals for advice and watch their interviews, ask question and learn more and more about the game industry.
Joel Beardshaw
When you find a job in a company, it doesn’t mean that you should stay there forever; you can earn experience and apply for another place. It's important to enjoy the work you do, as creating games takes at least 1 year and you need to be patient working in a team. Sometimes you may find a new idea which can't be done but the team can combine it with the game idea in order to create a better game. Many people may redo what they’ve done because of the sudden changes but don’t give up and enjoy making your part of game.
Soft skills are easy to learn and very effective like your hard skills. Having a great communication, being able to describe your idea, making networks and self-motivation are examples of perfect soft skills.
Proper planning is very important before starting to create the game because there are a lot of details and every person should be aware of what they are doing in different time of the development.
Updating the game after launch of the game is very important because the game may have bugs and glitches which should be fixed as soon as possible. Some of these games are Player vs Player and certain number of bugs causes cheating and negative impact on your game, and your players base will be decreased over time. On the other hands, some games have in-app purchases that bugs and glitches may cause players to earn free in game currency and then the game company can't make money from in-app purchases anymore.
Lili Ibrahim
Ask questions about details of the jobs you want to do in the interview because the same role in a different company may be different from the current company that you are applying for. Some names like Lead developer, Creative director and look developer can be the same or completely different role in various game studios all over the world.
The more you do a role, the more you do it in the future. As an example, if you do UI works, people will give you more UI jobs and you will become a UI artist and applying for a UI role causes other people to give you UI work. Don’t apply for the role that you don’t like to do.
Be honest with the manager or recruiter of the company that you are applying for, if they can’t provide the reasonable things that you want, then it's not a good place for you to work. Ask recruiters for feedback about your portfolio, about your mistakes and what to do to improve your works. Interviews are not only for recruiters to know you and see your works, but you also need to ask questions from them about the benefits of working for that company, about your life situation, culture of the studio, income, etc.
As a leader, you are responsible for the scope of the game, making timeline, having meetings to talk about deadlines, day to day workload and project management. All these need to be done in order to lead the team. Setting up conversations also can be helpful as each person has their own needs, preferences and goals.
The main steps of creating games are idea generation, preproduction, full production and late production/polish. First you generate the relevant ideas, then start to create prototypes for those ideas. After that you chose the best possible idea by considering your time and money budget, then start to make a well-organized timeline for creating all the assets for the game plus the marketing part. Then the developer starts to do the game art, game design and programming of the game and the publisher starts to create the community and advertising the game. When the game is finished (if it’s not finished, they usually announce delay for the release date of the game) then it’s the time to polish the bugs and releasing the game.
When you apply for a game company don’t afraid of job requirements, if you think it’s a good job, apply for it. There are two important examinations that you should be ready for; one is the art test which is relevant to your hard skills, and the second one is your interview that is connected to your soft skills. For your art test, they will give you a brief and you have a deadline. Consider you style flexibility as the artistic vision of the company may be different from your style. The way you generate and present your idea is very important. For your interview, they want to know about your behavior, culture fit, feedback, flexibility, communication and willingness to learn. Being polite and forward thinking can help you to successfully do this. Remember a work day is around 8 hours and it’s important that you be nice to others as communication skills have 80% of success.
In a team, the project is priority number one (the first real priority is the physical and mental health of every member in your team) and your energy affects the team and people remember what you do, then it's important to be nice and patient especially as a leader. We are all human beings and If you feel the game studios that you are currently work at is not a good place for you, it's time to move to another company which values you and your works.
Emily Brown
Translating a game in different languages is a very difficult task. Every word and sentence in different languages and cultures may have different meaning and it’s important to keep in mind that there must be certain people to translate the game texts and dialogues to make sure that the game can give the meaning that it should does and avoid any misunderstanding and aggressive languages.
When a game idea works for you, it doesn’t mean it works for everyone. People are different and there are players from young ages up to adults. Everyone has different skills in playing different genre of games and every country has its own culture that makes it challenging for everyone to like the same thing as you do. The other problems can be time or money limitations (even licenses) which prevents the team from creating your idea. Always be patient and talk about your idea with your team, the marketing team can help you to understand what people like and you can consult to combine your idea with some trending ones. Of course, it may lose its core mechanics but it’s a business and companies also want to earn money as they spend a lot to create a game.
Sometimes during creating the project a problem may appears that no one is able to solve; then it’s the time that everyone in the team should gather and try to solve it. If you were not able to solve the problem, then search for people out of your studio like contract or freelancer professionals who have the required skill you want. Meetings are the important part of the project because there are sharing points which help the leader and other members of the team to understand where the progression is and where the destination is going to be.
The future of gaming is unpredictable; mobile phones, VR devices, consoles, PC, portable consoles all have different futures; some will remain expensive like VR or high-end gaming PCs, which means they don’t disappear but remain for small group of people who can afford them. On the other hand, some will become easy access like what happened to mobile phone games and others stay at the point they are like hardcore AAA games. We have seen a dramatic evolution in the graphics of video games and more importantly game engines. As an example, Unreal Engine added Blueprints option which is a simplified programming with graphs and people without expert knowledge of programming can be able to make games easier than the past and in the future.
For testing a game, always have a plan; know your audiences and make sure what they should expect. Even the most professional gamers can be lost in an environment without a proper level design. Your level should guide the player. If you want to show the key events of your game to people, think about the process of designing it in the game, a casual player never plays 15 hours to get to a specific emotional scene of your game.
AAA emails
During my studies I contacted a lot of different game companies and game artists; not all of them answered my emails but I didn’t give up and tried to do my best. I’ve received lots of useful information about the game industry, how to create portfolios and how start my career in this field.
Screen skills: Look at the credits of the games you play, you will find people who have worked for different roles. Ask them how they started their career in the first place and ask for advice.
Vitaly Bulgarov: Practice, practice and practice. Learn about 2d drawing and sketching even if you don’t do concept art and real about world mechanics and machine engineering. Try different methods like subd, non-subd, cad, sculpting. Develop your own art style.
Insomniac games: Customize your portfolio, CV and cover letter to the company you are applying to. One good example is better than a few normal ones.
Lead roles require extensive experience and are not suitable for students straight out of college. It's better to start as a junior/associate role and work your way up until you become a leader.
Guerrilla games: Strat with your best work, as recruiters spend 5 minutes to review your work. Show playable examples, documents are not interesting. Remove the works you don’t like or are incomplete, more isn't better. If it’s a teamwork or you used extra assets, clarify what you did.
To become a lead designer or creative director you need to build experience in the industry. After getting several years of experience in the role you applied for, you can grow into a position as leader of that role.
Capcom: Every game design qualification is unique, the are some recognized qualifications but there is not right or wrong.
Bethesda: We look for people who are good at what they do. Having an educational/work background is great.
Daneil Hahn (Day Toner): If you think your art is close to what professionals do, you can apply. Keep practicing and posting new artworks, that helps to be seen. Have special art style.
Nicholas Cort: Focus on the thing you are most passionate. Pick one or just a few assets like vehicles or characters, environment, weapons, effects but not all. We want to understand the focus of the artist we want to hire. Have a special art style.
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