Why I can't get a job in the video game industry

Unity Courses Talk
#1

Hello everyone!

For the last month, I’ve been trying to get a job in a studio as either a game designer or gameplay programmer, I have been rejected twice already and I’m starting to see a pattern as to why this is happening.

In straightforward terms, I don’t know how to showcase my skills and some of those skills need to be polished quite a lot. I know about patterns, I know about graphs, I know about complex algorithms, I know about good coding practices, but I’ve been working alone for so long that I completely dismissed how to work with teams, and, more often than not, I don’t think about certain things, like coding scalability, reusability, and how to properly comment my code, mainly because I’ve been working on projects that are quite small, so I haven’t encountered any of those needs, but if you want to get a job, they are a must.

I’m sharing this so you don’t fall into this trap, these sorts of things aren’t commonly taught, so it’s really important for you to start communicating with other people and ask what they are looking for, that’s another huge mistake I made, I failed to network properly.

If you are planning on getting a job, this is my list of ‘musts’:

  • Go and talk to people, network.
  • Make your code scalable.
  • Study math.
  • Get into graph theory.
  • Learn how to comment your code.
  • Create a video showcase portfolio, a lot of studios won’t see your portfolio unless is in video format, quite annoying, I know.

Here’s a list of the courses I highly suggest you take if you want to become a gameplay programmer or game designer, also keep in mind, being a game designer is really hard to showcase because the term has deformed quite a lot over the past years.

  • Unity 2D.
  • Unity 3D.
  • C++ fundamentals.
  • Coding Patterns.
  • Unreal 5.
  • How to get a Job in the Videogame Industry
  • RPG series (Combat, Dialogue, Quests, and Inventory)

Why Unreal and Unity? You really need to learn C++ in order to get better at C#, trust me, I know.

I’m also going to be really honest with you, this isn’t enough, you’ll need to get into very complex AI behavior, GOAP, Behaviour Trees, State Machines, and so on. You’ll need to learn about complex graph techniques like Binary Space Partitioning and more, but all those courses will give you a nice foundation, especially the RPG series.

My final tip, and I think this is what truly separates professionals from hobbyists. Stop making simple games and get into really complex projects, I’m not saying make the next Breath of the Wild, I’m saying that you need to create games that use complex algorithms and techniques, it doesn’t matter if it is yet another platformer, as long as you can show you know how to create complex, clean code, you’ll be good to go.

I hope this helps!

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#2

It’s a good list, don’t really agree on the C++ angle, but that’s not really much here or there. More exposure to more programming concepts is always good.

One thing I’d like to mention are the soft skills that coders are often missing. Work on those.

Things like communication, both written and verbal, working in teams, learning to understand things from other people’s perspective etc. You’ll be working with managers as much as other coders, so they’ll need to be confident you’re going to be working with them, rather than against them. Dealing with people is an important skill.

It doesn’t hurt to learn the business side of it either.

There’s a lot to learn.

4 Likes
#3

I’m relatively new to game development, but I have several decades of experience designing, developing and releasing software.

I started with a company that had 4 employees, and eventually had more than a thousand, so I’ve seen how both environments work.

I suspect just like any job, experience is going to be number one on the list for anyone hiring.

If you don’t have much ‘corporate’ experience, I think the best way you can demonstrate Game Dev experience is by creating and publishing games, even if you’re just ‘publishing’ free games to ShareMyGame, Itch.io, Gamejolt, etc.

My experience is with development in the corporate world, but I’m pretty sure the same applies to game development studios. Anyone interviewing is going to want to see experience with the ‘Software development lifecycle’. Designing, implementing, releasing, and maintaining software. And experience with development tools:

  • A source code editor/compiler, such as Visual Studio
  • Source Control - You should be using this even if you’re just ‘playing around’ learning development
  • Project management tools (such as Trello, Jira, etc.)

I’m using git/bitbucket for source control, Visual Studio as my editor, and Trello for my design. I’m not working on a game for design yet, but getting in the habit of designing a game the ‘right’ way using the proper tools is just as important as learning the technical skills. FYI: I’m not saying these are ‘the best’ tools, just the ones I picked.

It’s tempting to just ‘wing it’ with some basic tools like notepad and backups to a removable hard drive. But it’s much easier to get in the habit of using the right tools when you’re still working on small projects. I leaned git on a project with 500 dlls, and it was very very painful.

I started with C++/MFC and later moved to C#, but I’ve worked with plenty of excellent developers that primarily had C# experience or even VB6/VB .net.

I don’t personally think C++ is mandatory, unless you’re trying to get a job with a company that is primarily using Unreal. If you like Unity and want to work with it, I don’t think C# is necessary at all. Maybe a programming fundamentals course would be more helpful.

The biggest hit your going to take trying to get a job as a programmer is probably going to be not having ‘formal’ programming experience. (A degree in Computer Science). I think actual programming experience (publishing games) can maybe offset that a bit. And someone who considers themselves a programmer would generally be insulted to be called a ‘coder’. Programmer = Someone who has a degree in computer science and experience writing and deploying commercial software. Coder = Someone who learned a bit of scripting on their own, such as Python.

The other big issue is experience working at a company in a team environment. This one is just as tough to overcome. Companies want a sure thing. Maybe showing an active community presence could be helpful. Such as on this site.

I’m finding I’m on the opposite side of the fence than most people here. Lot’s of development experience, but no experience with level design, art design, sound and music, etc. And I’ve never worked on a commercial game.

Also, everything you said about programming ‘right’, such as Coding Patterns, commenting you code, organizing your project, etc. is also crucial. Do it right all the time, even when you’re just ‘playing around’. Nothing is more demoralizing than going back to an old project and you can’t get it to work because it’s confusing and hard to follow. Make it easy to follow, and it’s a reference for going forward.

Think of all your old stuff as a library you can reference. Both with Unity and Blender. Bookmark and organize all the info you find as well (Help pages, Youtube videos, useful GameDev posts, etc.) This helps for work and if you’re ‘freelancing’

Sorry for the wall of text.

I hope this helps. If anyone has any questions, let me know.

3 Likes
#4

I don’t like the term soft skills because, actually, they are quite important when working in a team and perhaps, even more important than coding knowledge.

I also noticed there’s an issue with that, which Rick mentions during the Get a Job course, more often than not, programmers and people that work on something related to IT tend to be quite introverted and quite inexperienced leading interviews, and that’s exactly what happened to me, the questions they asked were binary, yes or no, it was kinda hard to show anything when the interviewer is so unidirectional, it gets even worse when the interviewed is also an introvert, which is my case :rofl:

That’s true, but… not really… That’s what everybody is doing, so it’s a win but a very small win. I once got the chance to talk to some HR people, and they said that, yes, free published games are ok, but what truly impresses them is to have a released commercial game, the size doesn’t matter as long as it is commercial, preferably released on big platforms like Steam, because it’s a pain to release commercial games in big platforms, and if you make it that far, it’s because you truly want to make a living out of games. At least, that’s their thought process.

3 Likes
#5

I’d going to suggest picking up a couple sales training packages if you can find some decent ones cheap. While you don’t need to learn to become the shifty silver tongued salesperson, there are some simple techniques you can learn to help control situations better. That being said, it takes a lot of practice to get good at it, but it’s a good life lesson to learn. It really helps you get more of what you want, especially when you’re dealing with introverts.

Take this with a grain of salt. I haven’t worked in game dev (and to be honest, I’m not that interested in working for a games company). I’ve worked in two industries that can loosly be described as incestuous. A big corporate gaming (not computer games based) and film. From the outside, games dev has so many of the tell tale signs which leads me to believe they’re very similar:

  • Formal quals aren’t cared about.
  • It’s often who you know.
  • It’s about your aptitude and atitude.
  • Talent does makes a difference.
  • Experience usually means you have to retrain people to your way of doing things, but experience is still desired.
  • If you need to work in teams, outgoing people are highly preferred.
  • The vast majority of those working for these kinds of companies can earn nearly double (or more) on the open market. I tend to lean towards talented, high performing people who are a bit quirky who are looking for a home to challenge themselves and grow.

At least that was my frame of thought when I was hiring my team members.

After the talks I’ve had with a couple of owners of small game studios, I understand it’s very different to a corporate work environment, even in the big computer game companies. It really does seem like the cowboy industries, like the ones I’ve been talking about.

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#6

So, spend the $100(ish) if you want the job? I’m sure it’s a little more than that, but I’ve heard that too.

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#7

Yeah, you perfectly described the vg industry.

#8

I can’t afford that right now :weary:

But I’ve got a plan! I’m going to make a small game and publish it on itch, I hope it makes the 100 I need to publish it on Steam, if not, I’ll just keep making games and make my portfolio as impressive as possible.

One of the issues I have is that I never do things outside my comfort zone, I always play it safe, which is a terrible idea. I’ll just have to keep pushing myself, I’m working on a procedural maze game right now, something I personally don’t like, but HR people seem to like those sorts of things.

#9

Every indie game Youtuber says the same thing. Make and ‘publish’ at least 2 crappy games before you try to make a game you really want. The GameDev courses help with this, especially if you put your all into the game. I’m putting all the features I want in a ‘real’ game into my GameDev course game, because I want to try all the hard things out in a ‘throwaway’ test-bed before I try a ‘real’ game. Unless you’re a savant, the first couple of games you make aren’t going to be that good, no matter what you do. Although there was that gut that got a job making Portal after they say his little portal based game demo…

I’m not looking to get a job at a studio though. My goal is to start my own one man studio. If that fails, maybe any job doing Unity development. I’ve served my time in the corporate world. I’m hoping I don’t have to go back.

2 Likes
#10

I don’t think that description of the VG industry sounds much different than my experience working in the ‘corporate’ world. When I started (in the 90s) it was really the wild west. You could do whatever you wanted, but lots of long hours. As the company gets bigger, connections start to matter more.

But that’s the same no matter what industry you’re in. ‘Connections’ appear to be all that matter now for marketing small games. If that’s what you want to call YouTube, Twitter, and Steam followers.

1 Like
#11

Yeah, I now remember the thing we talked about for the Skill builder. Sucks to be in that position.

An issue is that you have a comfort zone. Personally, I’m uncomfortable with everything, so I’m never in my comfort zone.

I saw a course on that the other week. I’m interested in doing that… Then again, I’m interested in learning and doing everything.

My experience was different. I did whatever I wanted. So long as I brought in the big numbers, no one really cared too much. Long hours? I was never afraid of long hours, but never really had to do much. The days I turned up were long, but I didn’t turn up often. Most people over here have a 4 week holiday. I turned up for about 4 weeks a year (spread over whever I decided), topped the KPI’s by a wide margin (there were times where I was pulling 1/3 of the countries numbers by myself), told my boss I didn’t care about Some minor BS. Occasionally I’d get summoned to another state or country, but for some reason, they tolerated my shaningans for over a decade. This was all before the GFC.

Times have since changed. At the time I thought it was how everything was everywhere. After I left, I quickly found, the real world works differently. Really differently.

Personally I haven’t decided. I’ve gone back to school for IT (it’s kind of wierd as I’m older than most of my teachers) but I don’t know where my path lies. I’m enjoying programming business systems, so who knows.

Tried jumping the queue? Get to know the boss. Get the boss to bring you instead of having to interview through HR… or recommend you to another company.

1 Like
#12

I got my evaluation assessment feedback, a lot of the feedback is super weird, one of the things that truly stood out was that they didn’t like that I didn’t cache certain values, but, as far as I’m aware, caching values removes flexibility from the code, there are coding books that touch on that, I honestly can’t get my head around how that would be a bad thing.

For anyone reading that is looking for a job, try to research how the studio you are applying to works. I can clearly tell that the style of the guy that reviewed my code is all about hardcoding things, which I avoid because it removes the real-time part of the engine while testing pretty much useless, he’s also kinda obsessed with scriptable objects since a lot of his feedback talked about them, I don’t use them as much as I used to because I found better ways and patterns to do things. Also, apparently, he doesn’t really care about circular dependencies since part of his feedback kinda implied that I needed one, again, that’s something I avoid like the plague because it makes debugging really hard. He also suggested a singleton, something really weird since they were supposedly looking for clean, reusable code, singletons are the antithesis of that.

They didn’t care about how readable was my code, something that should stood out because it was barely commented, and yet, they didn’t had any issues reading it. They didn’t care about all the tools I added to make the Game Designers life a lot easier, and they kinda wanted me to do the Game Designer’s job too, something I didn’t take into consideration since the job I was applying for was Gameplay Programmer, not Game Designer. I’m honestly kinda baffled, the assessment was more about getting the answer they wanted, not a good answer. I’m not implying that the way they work isn’t good, I’m saying that they wanted a specific good answer instead of a universally good answer.

This is probably because the gaming industry here, in my country, is really small and the people working on it have little experience. Keep that in mind while looking for a job.

#13

Welcome to the wild, wild west… Where the keymasters make the rules.

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#14

Now I’m picturing a Matrix movie in the wild west, that would be fun.

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#17

Getting into the game industry can feel like hitting a brick wall sometimes. I’ve been there myself.
Networking is key! Don’t underestimate the power of connections. And yeah, polishing those coding skills is crucial. Teamwork and code readability are big deals in the industry. I hope you will find the job!
Speaking of games, do you guys play bingo? I do, and I recently found this gambling guide with bingo for cash reviews that helped me a lot. Check this out if you’re a bingo admirer. Good luck!

#18

From my experience it does not harm to work in a startup as well. The feeling between members is usually very good, you have some tight schedule to work with (although I was not in that category), but you need to be your best self every day because you do not know when the company will fold, it is a collective effort and since the number of employees is so small, every mistake’s impact will be multiplied. Lots of parallels between my experience there and the Game Dev industry.

#19

Just an update. In the end, I got a job as a Game Designer, the game I worked on won the Unity for Humanity grant, you can see it in the link, it’s the last one, just be warned, the game’s subject is quite delicate: Meet the 2023 Unity for Humanity Grant winners | Unity Blog

I’ve been working at that studio for over a year, but I’m seriously thinking about quitting, it’s not what I think it would be, and working for a AA or AAA studio is even worse according to what I’ve heard, so I’ll probably end up going full indie just to be able to create the games I truly want to make, and don’t get me wrong, I truly wanted to work on “Patito”, that’s why I join the team, and the whole team gave everything to make it work, but after that game, there’s not much on the horizon yet there’s too much work which doesn’t allow me to work on other things.

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#20

I have seen Patito before and it was an exceptional take and effort to raise awareness in that topic. Late congratulations for the amazing work!

The last part you said, about giving all your time in other things and not the ones you want, is the feeling I have had with my job the first year or so, but it does get better with time (3+ years at my current position, plus publications and MScs). I have managed to make a small game when I started with Unity 5 years ago but stopped when I started working and recently came back to it to keep working on my craft and land a job. Or as you said, go the indie way.

Do not sacrifice your learning and creative time for anyone, it is a big leap to quit but it is a necessary one to keep our sanity and motivation going. You at least have this great advantage in your résumé now, a published, award-winning game.

Let’s keep in touch, maybe we can create something together in the future if you are up to it.

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