Welcome to How to Start a Career in the Video Games Industry. Every year, thousands of people around the world complete games development, computer science, and arts courses, with the hope of building a career in games. If you’re considering a career in video games, I would definitely say, go for it. It’s a fantastic industry. I think it’s a great place to build a career, and it can be very rewarding and very challenging, as well. I am just in awe of the creativity and the talent and just the technical brilliance of the people that I work alongside every day. I can’t imagine working anywhere else that would be this exciting day in, day out. I could create worlds, and they became real.

I could take a player on an emotional connection and have a lot of fun with it. And I feel like the video games industry gave that to me. Over the next four weeks, you’re going to follow in the footsteps of a games programmer, a designer, an artist, and a producer as they recall how they got their first jobs in a game studio. You’ll also hear advice from some senior people about preparing yourself for a career in games. I don’t think there’s any such thing as a perfect candidate. No. There are too many elements, I think, to capture the perfect person. Yeah, exactly. It was really nerve-racking putting myself forward for a job I really wanted.

I don’t think I had really any confidence at the time that I was good enough for the role. If I don’t put myself out there, then I’ll never know whether I’ll get that position or not. I hadn’t done much C++ for a little while. So I went and read a C++ book, which was very helpful. The professional skills that I need in my day-to-day job would definitely be communication. Communication’s a really big one. As the producer in the room, I’m often the one facilitating those negotiations and always making sure that we come to an outcome, that we come to a decision. A lot of the job is working with other people.

What you need to focus on are the soft skills that’s allowed you to build and to create. So if you’ve worked in a team, talk about your communication skills and your team skills. If you’ve worked on your own, talk about how that’s helped to develop those sort of skills. These are all transferable skills that the games industry will want to hear about. Have you been involved in other game events, been networking, involved in communities, been involved in game jams? Talk about all the positive stuff that you’ve made an impact in. That will really make a difference, and that will really show your passion. I never would have expected to get to work on a main character.

So I was very surprised when I come in, and they’d be giving me these tasks that were to work with that kind of stuff. I would certainly recommend a career in video games to anybody. I think it’s a fantastic industry. It’s very creative. It’s full of intelligent, inspirational people. It’s very diverse. For me, video games, it’s not a job. It’s more a way of life.