Piece of advice

On Tuesday we had the great pleasure of talking with a group of highschool students who are interested in potentially pursuing a career in game development. It was a humbling experience, for me at least, because I was in their exact shoes not that long ago.

They asked us what skills they would need to be successful/survive in the industry and that made me think back to one of the first pieces of advice I remember being given. It goes a little something like this, “Don’t join the game’s industry”

Our speaker, Adrian Earl, a twenty year veteran of the industry told us to, “Get out and leave while you can.” He took a pause, looked at all of us before he continued, “Well, if you’re stubborn enough to ignore that piece of advice, here is what you need to know in order to survive.”

1. “You better not be in it for the money.” Which has become readily apparent over the course of my college career. As a designer we only make somewhere in the realm of 40K, with senior positions position’s ( 3+ years industry experience) making $77,000. And while these numbers can look high, they are actually far lower than what is normally paid to a highly technical/ creative individual in other fields like Engineering, IT, and Software Programming.

1. “Be prepared to get laid off” The industry is an ever changing landscape that is intensely competitive. 38 Studios, just laid off their entire staff of nearly 400 people after selling nearly 1.3 million copies of their first ever IP. The majority of the people I have talked to in the industry change jobs about every three years, with larger studios like Ubisoft with a turnover of around 2 years because of the intense working conditions.

1. “Communication skills” This is a team environment, almost no one makes games by themselves anymore. In order to thrive you must be able to successfully communicate your ideas to the rest of your team as well as being able to take criticism. If not, you will quickly find yourself without a job.

1. And last, but not least, “You need to love it” Because If you don’t, everyone is going to know. Passion is one of the binding features that everyone in our industry has, we wake up to build games, go home to play them, and build more of them in our free time. The best minds in our field love the industry and the work they do every single day, and to be one of those you need to as well.

And he was right. These are some of the harsh realities of our industry, but just like everyone in the Industry we are too stubborn to give up and work in another field. Nothing comes close to the feeling of bringing something absolutely new into the world and watching your players reactions.