Gamasutra and Game Career Guide recently published an article coaching enthusiasts on what they can do in 2008 to break into the game industry.
Chris Hecker pointed it out to me, because it was such a bad list, and would actually be detrimental to anyone following its advice. We chatted for a bit about what the real list ought to be; then he wrote it up, and you can read it here. [You can find a link to the original article at the beginning of that one; it’s bad enough that I cannot conscionably link it here.]
Note that there are only 5 points in this article, whereas the original list had 10. Note also that the items on our list require more initiative, and are generally harder to do than the items on the GCG list.
This is probably not a coincidence; it’s a pattern I see all the time.
To make a non-game analogy, all over the place you can find extensive advice lists with lots of itemized steps about how to lose weight or what foods to eat. But it’s all bullshit.
In fact, “losing weight” is a pretty low bar to set. Anyone can do much better than “losing weight”; anyone can become physically healthy and energetic, and look buff and toned. There are only two steps to this process:
* Eat reasonable quantities of nutritious food.
* Exercise regularly in a way that you find interesting.
That’s all there is to it. It doesn’t even take very much time! Yet few people do this, because most people would rather be lazy than healthy. Instead they turn to worthless/misguided/damaging lists in magazines like Cosmopolitan, because those steps are easier to do. It’s not hard to go to the store and buy a tub of cottage cheese and eat it!
(Though when I say “most people would rather be lazy than healthy” that’s somewhat flippant; it’s actually a very psychologically complex thing going on, having to do with peoples’ self-identification with their poor/unhealthy/beaten-down conditions and lack of true belief that they can be anything other than who they are used to being.)
This has been another game-related tangent. Well, that’s why I put it below the fold.
I fully agree with the posted article, especially this point: “Learn new things; push yourself in your discipline”.
Personally, I’ve been using the awesome power of Google Reader and have about 30 subscriptions to RSS feeds to blogs (such as this one and Level Up) and other sites (such as Gamasutra, Game AI for Developers, and your favorite website The Escapist).
I’ve found by readings all these design blogs and articles, I really learn a lot and get a variety of opinions. Raph Koster’s recent slides from GDC Prime and your own Design Reboot lectures are excellent examples of that. I’m already in the industry as a programmer at a large company, but I feel there is so much more to learn, which is why I try to read as much as possible.
Something I’ve been thinking about is using the Friends feature of Google Reader to share more items that may be of interest to developers or soon-to-be developers. Half of the 30 feeds I have were linked to in another blog I read… I am sure there are tons of sites I should be reading regularly that I’m not, because I don’t know they exist.
Do you or anyone else reading this know of a good way to share information like this with other individuals. I haven’t played with the Google Reader friends features so I don’t know if there is a way to centralize that sort of thing. Devbump is a site that SHOULD be able to do this, but it seems to get so little hits or ratings that it’s not nearly as useful as I would have hoped.
Sorry for the ramblings of a sleep depraved developer… stupid New Year’s.
Nice list. And you’re right about the losing weight stuff, too: I’m attempting to lose weight by training for a 128-mile bike ride in June. I figure that ought to do it.
A number of years ago, before I was in the games industry in any way, I went to some seminar thing up in Washington about “how to break in.” It took all afternoon and was basically a panel of industry people sharing their experience with the assembled crowd. Even though they went on for hours, only one solid piece of advice surfaced, no matter what discipline you were pursuing: “Make Cool Shit (and then show it to people.)” That’s really all there is to it; it applies to programmers, artists, or designers. Regardless of the fluff you might do in the periphery like attend a conference or read gamasutra, if you don’t make something cool and start showing it off, to peers, to forums, to potential employers, you’re never going to get where you want to be. Just like with the simplicity of your fitness advice, it’s taking the initiative and having the discipline to follow through that is the real challenge.
Hmmm, I was about to say – but Chris got their first – it really does come across as a thinly veiled attempt to get people to use Gamasutra and associated resources more. The remaining points seem focused on career-building rather than the aim of the career itself – on rubbing shoulders and networking rather than actually making games and refining your skills. Why are you reading books? To facilitate conversation with people in the industry. Why talk to developers? Why, to find out how their job interview went, of course! It’s a dismal and impersonal view of the industry, from my perspective, though perhaps just realistic.
Anyway, I’m off to get some cottage cheese.
Is there an official sign that tells you when you have broken into the games industry? Is this just about getting a job? (ergo: independent developers can never break in?)
In my experience, the games industry is very easy to “break into” -in the larger sense of the word. There’s a very active community of gamers, developers, journalists, academics and publishers eager to look at new things. It’s fairly easy to channel some attention in your direction. It helps, of course, if you have made something that is worth looking at.
But what do you do after you’ve broken into the industry? That’s the more interesting question, in my opinion. Getting into the industry is easy. But what do you do when you’re there?
[quote]Regardless of the fluff you might do in the periphery like attend a conference or read gamasutra, if you don’t make something cool and start showing it off, to peers, to forums, to potential employers, you’re never going to get where you want to be.[/quote]
Obviously that’s step number one the moment you actually got something to show. The feedback, especially the very first you get is invaluable to further designing your idea and game. It’s a crucial process and it’ll also show the first signs of whether or not your game will have a chance of becoming succesful at all.
Ultimately if you want to ‘break in’ the industry, the only way is to get known for what you can do. The phrase “An artist is only as good as his/her last painting.” comes to mind too.
[quote]Is there an official sign that tells you when you have broken into the games industry? Is this just about getting a job? (ergo: independent developers can never break in?)[/quote]
No it’s a blurry line that you’ll only be able to see long after you’ve crossed it.