The below is a free sample from my book, Start Your Video Game Career. Enjoy! – Jason
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
I’ll never forget the day I got my first video game console. It was a chilly Montana morning. I climbed out of bed and stumbled bleary-eyed to the living room, with plans to watch Saturday morning cartoons in my full-body Spider-Man pajamas. (Did I mention I was six years old?) As I turned toward the television, there it was: a brand-new Atari 2600 home video game system, in all of its beautiful faux-wood and black-plastic glory.
Understanding the game designer job requirements is the first step to mastery.
Is your goal to become a video game designer, but you don’t know how to get there? Start by understanding the game designer requirements and qualifications that game companies demand.
Every game company has specific requirements you’ll need to meet before they’ll hire you as a game designer. Luckily, you don’t need to ask companies what those are. Instead, simply find an online job posting by any game studio you’d like to work for, and read the game designer job requirements they’ve listed. It’s that easy. Read more »
What’s Eliott Lilly’s secret recipe for getting attention and standing out as a concept artist?
Eliott Lilly is a concept artist working as a freelancer in the video game industry, with credits on heavy-hitting franchises including DOOM, F.E.A.R, and Black Ops. It takes hard work and persistence to achieve success as a concept artist, but it also takes dedicated mentorship (Eliott was personally trained by Donato Giancola) — and that’s why he’s paying it forward by mentoring thousands of aspiring concept artists through his books and his website, BigBadWorldOfConceptArt.com.
We spoke with Eliott to learn how new concept artists can start their careers and stand out from the crowd, and build their own success in the big bad world of concept art. Read more »
Marek Makosiej is expert at translating words into profits.
Marek Makosiej is a professional technical translator and localizer for games and other software. His guest post below is aimed to help aspiring game localizers understand a bit about the industry, without getting lost in translation. If you think a job doing game localization might be for you, then don’t miss this! Read more »
Damien Yoccoz: “Speaking two languages doesn’t make you a translator any more than having two hands makes you a pianist.”
Hundreds of new video games are created every year, but unfortunately, most are made by developers who speak a language you don’t. That means unless you learn Japanese, French, Mandarin, and a dozen other languages, you’ll miss out on thousands of awesome game experiences in your lifetime.
That is, unless the developers translate their game into a language you understand, using a painstaking process called localization.
Before the 1990s, if you didn’t speak the language, you simply couldn’t play the game. Some players learned a second language like Japanese, solely so they could play rare unofficial imports. Others took matters into their own hands and made “fan translations” to distribute to other players using dial-in bulletin-board systems (BBS).
Fortunately, game localization has become so affordable that publishers release each game in multiple languages so players around the world can enjoy their creations.
Today I’m speaking with Damien Yoccoz, the founder of Level Up Translation in Basse-Normandie, France. He explains what a translator does, how he got started in the job, and what it takes to succeed as a game localizer. Read more »
Dan White: “You don’t lose respect because you don’t know things; you lose respect because you don’t ask questions.”
For every job in the video game industry, there’s a natural career progression as you gain experience over the years.
For video game programmers (also called engineers) there are typically two options. One path is to become a senior engineer and take on more challenging projects. The other is to become a technical lead, possibly increasing in scope to eventually lead multiple engineering teams and projects.
That second path — the engineering-leadership path — is a job called the Technical Director.
Today we’re speaking with Dan White, a highly-experienced Technical Director in the video game industry. He’s been making games since 1995, and in 1999 he started a game studio that’s still going strong today. We ask him what it takes to become a Technical Director, why management is rewarding, and how you can start your own career in video game engineering. Read more »
If you want to get into the video game industry, you might be considering “traditional” game dev jobs like programmer, artist, or game designer. Those are some of the job roles that make the games, but as games have grown into massive experiences with millions of players, a new job role has emerged to guide and amplify masses of players after the game launches. That’s the job of the video game community manager.
Some community managers focus on social media, while others are experts in moderating and growing massive hordes of passionate players and other fans.
How much do video game community managers make? And how much could you earn as a community manager?
After four years of research and over a year of writing, editing, and re-writing, I’m thrilled to announce that my new book Start Your Video Game Career is finally complete, and available for purchase!
This book is a big deal for me personally, since it’s the most in-depth book I’ve ever written. More importantly, I think it will be a powerful tool for you, because it’s packed full of knowledge, guidance, and inspiration to help you start your own successful career in the video game industry. Read more »
John Dennis wants to know: Could writing for video games be your cup of tea?
What does it take to become a Video Game Writer, and how is writing for games different from linear media like books and film? How can a game writer create a story with endless possibilities, adapting to any choice a player might make — whether expected or unexpected?
Those question (and more) are answered today by John Dennis, who has worked in the game industry over 20 years on diverse titles from the beloved Worms franchise to the mega-hit Call of Duty series. He’s currently a tutor at Arvon academy for their course, Writing for Games: The Art and Business of Creating Interactive Narratives.
“It just makes me try harder every time someone says I can’t do something. Find a way.”
The following blog post was written by Kristofor Durrschmidt, co-founder, CEO and creative director of Crazy Viking Studios, an indie game development shop in the Seattle area.
Kris Durrschmidt: As a kid whose imagination exploded playing Atari 2600 and reading Conan the Barbarian comics, I never thought in a million years that I would be exactly where I am today, living this crazy dream where I get to make fun things that millions upon millions of people have played (and hopefully enjoyed).
It was not a direct path. These are jobs I have held, in chronological order, with life-long aspirations of working in Comic Books and/or Video Games. There is a reason I am sharing all this information, I will explain at the bottom. Read more »
