Occasionally, I'll get a question along the lines of, "How do I break into video games?"

After many iterations, this is the answer that I think works best:

There are many paths to breaking into games. Personally, I applied to every video game company I could find as soon as I graduated college. I ended up moving across the nation to work as the first junior programmer Microprose had ever hired. For that path to work, you have to be willing to accept low pay, long hours, and hard work just to prove that you can do it.

Another path I've seen is to work your way up from another job. Many people graduate from QA into development. Usually, they become designers or artists, but programmers are not unheard of.

What I think is probably the path of least resistance, is to write your own games, sell them or give them away, and use them as proof of experience in a job interview. Remember, the most important thing in applying for a game programming job is experience. Game Programming is not exactly like any other type of programming, because it is heavily user-centric, heavily random, and heavily optimized for speed (many of the best speed hacks have come from video game programmers).

It may seem daunting to say 'write your own games', but I'm not saying that you have to write a AAA title by yourself. Consider writing a smaller, common game (Battleship, Reversi, Space Invaders, Pong), then extending it to show that you know how it works (make the game multiplayer, put in your own special effects, improve the gameplay to make it the way you think the game 'should have been made'). There are books out there that show how to write games, specifying what needs to be done for the gameplay engine, graphics, sound, networking, and AI (Andre LaMothe is making serious bank on the subject). You probably only need to read one to understand the underlying code path that most games follow. The most important thing is to have a product that plays well, looks smooth, and shows that you know how to put the game together.

Another path to writing your own game is to build it off of someone else's engine. For $100 USD, you can buy a licence for the 'Torque' engine from GarageGames.com. This is an engine that has been used for several professional games, and has a lively development community. It's easier to look at a fully-developed FPS engine, and think of ways to enhance it than it is to write your own from scratch.

Once you've got your game (or games) developed, apply to companies near you, and don't get discouraged. With recent layoffs in several major game studios, there is more experienced talent than there are jobs, so it's pretty cutthroat.

P.S. I hate to burst your bubble, but I can almost guarantee you that you are walking into a pay scale far lower than you had before. I can promise you hard work, long hours, aggravating company politics, and no bonus. They will tell you that there's a bonus scheme in place, but after seven years in the industry and three shipped games, I have never received a bonus for shipping a game. Bonuses always disappear in the detailed definition of the bonus system, or they are delayed until people stop asking for them.



So, anyone have anything to add to that? I know some game dev people read this. Anything I left out?


Update: Sam de Pauw pointed out something I'd missed. Talent. It's pretty easily recognizable and absolutely crucial to video game development. The most fool-proof way to recognize talent is by job experience. In an interview, experience says more about your worth than your appearance, social skills, or educational background.