First steps to become a game designer

Hi there! My name is Alexander. I am a Game Designer at Realore and I’ve just volunteered to write our corporate blog. What is it going to be about? Well, for now it is going to be about game industry in general, the company I work at and the everyday life of people working in game design. I also hope that you, the readers, will help me shape the blog into something useful and fun to read. After all, I write for your entertainment, so feel free to ask questions and suggest topics.

Now, without further ado, let’s start off our blog with... a request from our HR department. When our HR director found out that I’m going to be writing a blog on game industry she threatened to make my life a living hell if my first post won’t answer the question of «How do I get a job at your company?». Apparently she gets a lot of letters from people wondering how to make it into the game industry. Well, that’s an easy one. Here is my Captain Obvious’s 3-step guide to getting a job at Game Development.

Step 1. Know what you want

Decide what area of game development you are most interested in/good at.

It might sound easy but I’ve talked with hundreds of job applicants who didn’t have a slightest clue what they wanted to do during their work hours. For us, people responsible for hiring staff, not knowing what you want is a 100% turn-off. Choose what interests you most: art, design, programming, marketing, sound, wringing, animation etc. and proceed to step 2.

Step 2. Learn your trade well.

Become good at what is that you want to do

Game industry is a serious business. Certain games make more money than top box-office movies. The times when you could get a job at a game development company for just being very enthusiastic about games are long gone, so your practical skills are the most important things we will be looking at when reading through your resume. To get the skills you need I’d recommend applying to a school that has a good reputation for teaching whatever is that you want to learn.

Step 3. Make games!

Your education will certainly get your future employers’ attention and they will be delighted to invite you to the interview but the thing that will make your success a certain thing is finished games that you can show.

There are dozens of difficulties that lay ahead when you decide to make a game but there are hundreds of ways to overcome them if you really want to.

So that is the basic getting-your-foot-through-the-door course for aspiring game developers. I will certainly elaborate on some of the topics discussed today in future posts, but as for today let’s leave it at that.