How hard is it to get a job in the games industry?

This quick video will look at how hard it is to get a job within the games industry. It focuses on research from the UK industry but has similarities with many other countries.

How to get hired:
Discussions on Careers and finding work in the industry playlist

[EienNiKenJa]

I was a QA tester for over 10 years with hopes of becoming a permanent employee, but learned quickly that most AAA game developers really don't care about their lower level employees. I even joined the military and served during OIF 2 in order to earn money to obtain higher education, but ultimately at NOA, Square-Enix and Activision, it's was all about who you know, not what you know or how well you know it. Politics, favoritism and racism all showed their negative faces, both in my own experience and the experiences of my co-workers. I got tired of trying to jump through hoops when I just wanna make games, so I recently became an Indie dev, and I couldn't be happier!

[DKprime]

I would take it a step or two further to say that getting a job at all in the entertainment-industry outside of general-labor jobs that don't require any artistic-skill is quickly encroaching on being a waste of time, unfortunately. It's like this in the animation industry, music industry, TV industry, and movie industry.

It's really all about WHO you know, rather than WHAT you know. Out of the last 5 jobs I've had 4 of them were from people that I knew who worked there. The best way to get in is to cultivate relationships with people working at the place where you want to be employed. The only reason these days why companies post jobs is because they are legally-required to. They are NOT however legally-required to hire you.

If you want to be a game developer these days, the best way is to just learn how to do it, and then make games yourself. This path is obviously *extremely-difficult* and will cost you a lot of time, effort, and money before you make back a single penny, but ultimately as an artist this is the most rewarding-path to traverse. You have full control over your artistic-vision. No corporate-bureaucracy or political-nonsense forcing unfinished products onto the marketplace. That's why indie-games these days seem to have more polish than so-called AAA games. More passion, more attention to detail, more artistic-freedom, and the TIME necessary to work out all the bugs.

[Konverex]

My last job was QA at a company that used to make games, ended up going into general software that still related to game engines.

Went into the job expecting it to be a stepping stone and a way to get my foot into the door into being a 3D artist, since you always hear about people in the 90's and 00's that would work their way up from being QA and the like. After shadowing environment artists and working on an environment in the hour per week I was given to do it. (with me using Blender because the higher ups refused to buy an extra 3DS Max license for someone in QA) I eventually asked up the chain if it would lead anywhere (worded much nicer than that), ended up being told that they don't have any plans at all to open any roles in the UK for it since it's cheaper for them to just outsource it elsewhere.

Was great to be told by the artist I was shadowing as well as other people on the art team how it was looking really good. The art director did say it's exactly where he would expect it to be with the time I've been working on it - so nice to know that I was meeting the expectations that were on me, but paying me to do it full time was just out of the the question for them.

That was pretty much the nail in the coffin that made me sure of my decision to leave.

[davidrogers]

This video brings up some points I'd like to share. My experience in Triple-A studios & Indie is on the technical side, working closely with Art, Audio, VFX, etc daily.
Firstly, I'm from Canada. I went to school for Game Design. 1/3rd of my class has had some form of professional career be that QV testing, contractual or full-time permanent. I'd say this statistic is accurate for other graduating years as I also keep in contact with them.

Some quick general tips from me.
1. Make relationships with people in the industry - reputation is so important.
2. Have your portfolio reviewed by industry professionals (Have people review your stuff as much as possible, get it out there)
3. During an interview, besides having some experience with what you're applying for. Express how you think and always explain the WHY.
4. Do what successful people are doing in the career that you're trying to get into. (This goes for anything in life)
5. Focus. Bring things to completion. That doesn't mean working 5 years on something until it's your ideal "perfect". Prove you can complete something. Start small and expand from there.

Bonus Tip: Love everybody. Be a genuinely friendly and accepting person. Nobody wants a jerk on their team, regardless of experience.
Cheers.

[ekhidnis]

The reality is that if you are not a)extremely lucky, b)have outstanding talent or c)got a link into game industry via friends and etc, you will have to grind and hop onto small low-experienced companies with lower than average salaries in order to grind more to receive required experience, knowledge and connections. So basically if you're not gifted with those, you will have to grind to grind later, lmao. I myself had a very hard time getting into industry, I won't recommend anyone risking if it's not your passion and you're not willing to grind the hell out of it.

[StarChomp]

In Japan at least there are so many people fighting for same spot. So basically if you're not doing a good job there will be someone to fill you right away after the company fire you. Because of that some work for low pay.

I was studying to get it but then switched to Business-IT and made the gaming thing a hobby that I do in my free time. Now I have access to a wide range of jobs plus since 2020 IT salaries been over the roof. So happy days.

This does depends on the country. So a least in Japan that is what it is. Because of that's it's better to pick IT over Gaming industry.

[dishantkashyap]

It has been more than 1 and half years I have applied in many gaming companies, given tests but no use, still rejected.My passion and dream to join a gaming industry but still no hope.