Jobs In The Game Industry

As you may or may not know, I’ve been a game tester for over 6 months now. So I thought I’d tip off you guys off on how to get in on it. Now, first of all you’ll need to find a game company in your area. If you don’t know of any, I’ll list a few in different areas below.  You can also try searching in Google with the name of your target studio you’d like to work for and the word “jobs”.

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Most positions with studios require previous experience in a video game career, so you may need to look for entry level jobs first. I know for sure both Nintendo and Microsoft offer these. Some companies use other companies to hire people for them. So while you may be working on their hardware, you are not working on their campus. Which isn’t a bad thing.

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As a guy, it will be harder for you to move up, but as a girl it will be easier. This isn’t always the case but it does happen a lot. That’s not because everyone likes girls more, but because companies need to fill their quota for equal rights laws, and girls don’t apply for this kind of job very often. To do a great job, here are a few tips for you:

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*Read through/listen to all your instructions carefully.

*Stay focused on your job.

*Don’t talk about your job, outside your job. You could be working with unreleased content and believe me, it’s not fun if you leak anything. If you leak something and they find you, it’s possible you could never get another technical/security/game related job again. Even at Gamestop.

*You may find yourself in a very relaxed and fun loving environment but remember, it’s a job, and you still need to treat it like one.

*Dress in nice clothes and shower. I know this seems like a no-brainer, but ugh… a lot of people don’t get the message.

*Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Your boss would rather help you than have to spend time fixing your mistakes. There are no stupid questions. Just make sure once you ask them, you learn from it.

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Moving on, I’ll now show you how to find a job in video games. I’ve never seen a posting on Craigslist so just skip it. Monster is a good option. I’ll show you my results and what they mean when I looked for a position in Redmond, WA:

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The first job is for an entry level position doing video game testing. This means that you don’t need any previous experience (though it helps). It’s a really great way to get your foot in the door of the industry, because a lot of better jobs require this kind of experience.  It’s also possible to move up within the position you were hired in for some companies. The second job is testing games that use camera equipment.  It requires previous testing experience with the company, in the area, or on the title. What that is, you wont know until you apply. The third job is through Excell, I’m not sure who they hire for since I never worked for them. This one would like experience with 3D modeling programs, and would probably prefer testing experience.

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As I stated before, you can also find jobs by looking into studios themselves. These types of positions will probably require extra skills such as fluency in another language, knowledge of C++ or C#, Java or HTML knowledge, and 3D modeling just to name a few.  If you don’t have any extra skills, I highly suggest picking them up while doing an entry level job. I know a lot of people think you need to go to school for this and although it does help, you shouldn’t be afraid to try new things.  I self taught myself HTML when I was age 8 or so, with a little help from my mom.  My best advice is to figure out a way to get familiar with your program of choice, and then just mess around. You’re not going to break it by pressing buttons or typing things.  Youtube is also a huge help with their video tutorials, and the internet is a vault of information in general.

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Here’s a clip from Square Enix’s US site (EU had a lot more openings, and I believe they were hiring core FFXIV testers, if you lived in the UK and were fluent in another language):

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Right now you can see they are hiring for high-level positions, and most of them are located in LA. They also have HQ in the UK and Japan. I didn’t check if there were more than that, but I don’t think they have any East Coast branches. Here is a list of a few more studios and their locations:

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Square-Enix – LA, California, Japan http://www.square-enix.com/na/careers/

Rockstar – UK, Toronto, NYC, California, more – http://www.rockstargames.com/jobs/

Bethesda - Maryland – http://www.bethsoft.com/eng/links/bethsoft_jobs.html

Bungie - Washington - http://www.bungie.net/inside/jobs.aspx

Nintendo – Redmond, Washington – http://www.nintendo.com/corp/jobs.jsp

Find a job near you – This is a useful site, just make sure what you’re applying for is authentic, as I have not checked all the postings, but I know for sure some of these are real. http://gamestester.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/find-jobs

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So there you go! I hope this helps for any of you who were wondering how you get into the business. If you have any questions feel free to post a reply and I’ll get back to you ASAP.  Replies go right to my e-mail so I’ll see them quickly.