So You Want to Work in Video Games

When people find out that I work for a video game company, they always ask me how to get into the industry. This may be for themselves or for one of their kids. I get the question often enough that I thought I would take a stab at answering that question on this blog.

It is important to understand that in my current company, there is no middle class. There are either well-paid employees or low-paid employees. Nothing in the middle. So that means I have to answer the question twice as there are different standards for each class of employee.

The low-paid employees are the game testers. Some of them are really good at what they do. Unfortunately there are so many people trying to become game testers that we don't have to pay them very much. The job is also very short term and lasts between 8 to 18 months. Then we let them go and hire a new crop of video game players. If you want to be a tester, start looking at video game companies right after high school. You will also want to have fairly good writing skills as there is a lot of reporting associated with testing. The rest is just being at the right place at the right time. It is a great summer job that will look good on any aspiring software developer's resume.

The high-paid employees have corresponding educations to match. It is rare, not impossible, but rare for someone to join my department without a college education from a top-notch school. Looking at the current list of people we are trying to hire, there are a lot of requests for people with Masters and PhD degrees. You will need a good math and stats background as well as very strong computer skills. It also helps if you are passionate about video games.

Would I recommend a career in video games? Definitely. It sure beats going to work every day.