Industry Pros on Breaking into Video Game Design

By No Author
Learning & Life Columnist

	Printable Version		E-Mail to a Friend

	Add to Favorites

Designing video games is a huge opportunity. It's even bigger than making feature films. You probably knew that. In fact, you might have helped make it that way, based on all the cash you've forked over for game titles. In 2004 alone, analysts say, U.S. gamers paid close to $10 billion for hardware and software, beating the U.S. movie box office total of $9.2 billion.

Maybe you're hungering to get some of your cash back by launching a career as a video game development pro. America's education industry is standing by to help. Over 300 schools offer game development courses, according to the industry website gamasutra.com.

The question is, even with good courses or a degree under your belt, how are you going to separate yourself from all the wannabe's and actually win a spot on a development team? To help you make the right moves, industry pros have a few words of advice.

Prepare to Work Hard

You'll need to find your speciality fast and work harder than you've ever done to stand out from the competition. For instance, to find the 22 artists that made Rise to Honor for PlayStation 2, lead artist Julian Liao looked through hundreds of resumes and reels. Meanwhile over at Electronic Arts, perhaps the biggest game developer in the world, there are usually several thousand applications for the 60 intern spots each year.

A great transcript, no matter how dazzling, will not get you in. You need a knockout portfolio or reel if you're an artist or animator. Experience making working game prototypes is critical if you're a designer or programmer.

"I'm a huge believer in project-based learning," says Bing Gordon, former Chief Creative Officer at Electronic Arts, where he oversaw 2,200 developers. He has become the first holder of the Electronic Arts Endowed Faculty Chair at the USC School of Cinema-Television.

"Class or textbook learning gets stale in a matter of years" he says. "More important is to take advantage of time in school to do apprentice-type projects. Try to build games. Or do projects for credit with game companies."

Learn by Doing

Gordon recommends finding a school near a game developer with whom you might be able to negotiate that project experience. He sees the difference that academic training in game development is making.

"Students who are now in school are not only playing games in their spare time, but are also building game-like assets. They are doing Maya animations and CAD modelling in art classes, and they are creating games and game tools in their computer science classes. They're showing up on our doorstep ready to make dramatic, immediate impact and prepared to be project leaders within three years."

Specialize and Stand Out

Find what you're best at early, the pros advise, and push on it hard to stand out. "Really know what you want to do, and specialize in that," Julian Liao says. "I've seen so many people send us reels, especially on the art side, that encompass so many different things. But they don't do one thing really, really well. It's almost in a sense like less is more. I'd rather just see one image or something really good that sparks something in me and gets me to say, 'wow, you're really creative.'"

One sought-after job is to be a game designer, creating a detailed level map that describes the gameplay each step of the way. Mat Kraemer performed this role for PlayStation 2's Rise to Honor. "Game designers need to know a little bit of everything, such as animation, modelling and design," he says. "The most important thing is an excellent understanding of scripting and C++ coding. Some of the best designers in the world are well established programmers. Those skills together are the most sought-after design talent."

Kraemer got his foot in the door, like many in the industry, as a Quality Assurance (QA) Analyst, or tester. Testers can make up as much as a third of a game developer's payroll as a title nears completion.

"Having started as a tester really helps me in my design job," he says. "As a tester you play the game differently than as a consumer. You want to find all the bugs. You want to rip it apart. I tested tons of games that made me angry or frustrated. I've seen pitfalls other designers have fallen into and I want to avoid them. It's a good way to learn what to do and what not to do in game design."

If you do make it onto a development team, it's not unusual to work 6 or 7-day weeks for months or even a couple years. But during that push, you just might make history.

"In the next decade," says Bing Gordon, "digital technologies will bring almost unimaginable changes to the entertainment industry. Videogame quality will improve 150 times, cell phones will become pocket high-definition TVs, all media will be re-mixable and instant message-able, and game techniques will be used to provide human-centered education. Today's students, who are already the world's leading experts in new technology, are the best bet to have the vision and energy to invent such sweeping change."

Will you be one of them?

Sources:

Estimate of U.S. video game sales in 2004: $9.9 billion. http://www.npdfunworld.com/funServlet?nextpage=pr_body.html&content_id=2076
2004 U.S. Box Office: $9.21 million. http://www.boxofficeguru.com/studio_2004.htm

More Creative Articles