Getting into the games industry, 16/01/06, The Video Game Design Society

January 16, 2006

Getting into the games industry

There are a number of ways to get into games design. The best way is to build up a portfolio of work and submit it to a number of games companies, who may take you on for an interview. A lot of companies want experience, but some companies will take on good applicants wo have a good portfolio.

The qualifications you'll need depend on which area you're interested in – obviously the qualifications needed to become an artist are different to those required to be a programmer. This is written on the assumption that you want to become a programmer – if you want to be an artist, a script writer, or an audio engineer, then the links at the bottom of this post may be of more help.

Programming-wise, you might not like to hear it but you're probably gonna need maths in there. Most of the members of the Video Game Design Society are doing a degree in computer science, which gives some experience of programming, and (in our course at least) some experience of working in a team on a large-ish project. It also involves yet more maths…

One thing that the Warwick Computer Science degree doesn't have is anything to do with C++, which is the language most games are written in. You'll almost certainly need to learn that, and then create a nice shiny demo cd to give to potential employers along with a CV.

Our sponsors, Blitz Games gave us a number of info sheets on working for Blitz, and here they are:

Warning, each of these files is a 2mb PDF file. It is strongly suggested that you right click them and "Save target as..." or "Save link as..." and read them locally

Many thanks to Phillip Oliver and Simon Smith who came down to give a talk to us and gave us the leaflets. Hopefully we will also be able to distribute the presentation that they gave.

Resources

Some content abridged from Nick Forrington

Mathew Mannion : 16 Jan 2006 17:38 | Tags: Articles VGDSoc | Comments (11) | Report a problem

11 comments by 1 or more people

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Liam Morrey

What is the most important qualification or skill for being a concept artist if you havent had any experiance?
Also how much does a Concept Artist gets a year?

23 Apr 2006, 22:41
Mathew Mannion

The only information I have is in artist careers above

23 Apr 2006, 23:44
chris B

My question is where can i sumbit my concept design documents to companies? And what companies are even interested in my game idea?

08 Sep 2006, 04:14
chris

ideas*

08 Sep 2006, 04:15
Mathew Mannion

The best thing is just to email lots of companies and just ask if they’d be interested…

08 Sep 2006, 09:35
chris

thanks alot, the thing is i dont know where to start. Do you know any email adresses that i could send an email like that?

if not perhaps some good companies to start at?

thank you for any help :)

09 Sep 2006, 21:32
Mathew Mannion

To be honest I’m not sure. The society is sponsored by Blitz Games who may be interested

11 Sep 2006, 10:57
david

How could I get more information about getting a trial or demo of one of Blitz’s games? and How could I get a company intrested if I have already created a game using game maker 1.6

31 Jan 2007, 16:11
Mathew Mannion

You would be better contacting Blitz directly, I think.

http://www.blitzgames.com/

31 Jan 2007, 16:19
Kerry

Im about to graduate my degree course in Spatial design (principles of architecture, interior design, and urban landscape planning), im seriously toying with the idea of getting into games design particuly level design but would a company only be intrested in somene with a games design related degree or computer science? Also is it harder to get in been female?

22 Mar 2007, 00:11
jack

yo can you send me info on how to get a job as a games designer as in the guy that actually comes up with the games idea

05 Dec 2007, 21:30

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January 16, 2006