Dennis O'Connell

Ach 102

5/11/2008

Ms. Erickson

Getting Into the Gaming Industry

Working in the gaming industry to some seems like one of the best jobs you can have. But what they don't know is the skill, education and hard work that needs to be put into this rapidly growing industry. To make the video games of today you will learn how it is not an easy task and there are many differnt jobs and positions that gamers take for granted while playing these high developed games.

If you are looking for a job in the gaming industry you have to have a very specific idea in the field that you want to peruse. The reason for this is because when video games are made there are different professionals for each step in the video game process. At the start of the video game production you have the job of the "Game Designer". The name of the job explains itself this is the job that the whole video game is surrounded by, this is the person who comes up with the story line how the game is played out and what type of game play it can undergo such as multi-player and online features. Next after the game designer you have the "Game Artist" who is responsible for what the games characters and levels look like. However to obtain this job you need to be a very good artist and have mastered the art of 2D and 3D graphics. One of the harder positions is the "Gaming Programmer" this is difficult because the amount of education in math and science that you need. The gaming programmer needs to understand the different languages through computers and the designing skills to make everything come to life in the game. Last but not least you have the most sought after job of them all the "Game Tester" this job seems to be the easiest but it's not. To take on this job you have to devote almost all your time to playing the same game over and over again until you have done everything in the game and found all the glitches the game has. It is also this person's responsibility to make sure the game runs smoothly and that it is possible to play from beginning to end.

Getting into this industry now of days is extremely tough considering all the people who apply for these jobs. Some ideas on getting a better chance of obtaining the job is to build up your portfolio and to make demos of games you would like to create. The best idea is to internship as much as you can, which will give you ties to the company's that you will one day want to work for and you can see firsthand on what the company is looking for in their employees while at the same time gaining experience and much needed knowledge. Also another important thing is to get involved in the community meaning join gamming clubs and interact with people already in the business.

With all the new technology coming out these days people take for granted the games they get to play with the newest and best graphics. But to produce these games you have to always be on top of the new programs and skills that are making these games so good. No one ever takes time to think how much time and effort were put into the video games they buy, they mostly just think of how much fun it would be to make them but never actually realize how hard of a process it is to just alone get a job for a high end video game company these days. Although the road to becoming a part of the video game industry is very tough once you have finished all the work you may have just come out with the next best video game.