I’ve not really had anything I wanted to write about for the past two weeks as I’ve been busy with other projects and trying to have a social life and even just trying to squeeze in the time to play games.
This week I’d like to talk about Networking. The inspiration for this article came from a game developer on facebook who was attempting to mislead people into giving him $20,000 for his “Young Prodigy Prototypes”. Following his facebook posts to reddit I found that he was telling people that game testers get paid $5 per 5 minute video of gameplay.
So I’d like to talk about networking and the importance of checking multiple sources for facts.
Networking is probably the most important aspect of game development, music, or film production. If you don’t put yourself out there and meet other likeminded people you’ll miss out on great opportunities. Thankfully in game development we have hundreds of ways to network; Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Game Jams, PAX, E3. If you live in a large city there will most likely be some sort of meet up you can head along to, if you’re a student there will be plenty of people wanting to make games.
Networking will help you make contacts and contacts are useful for so many things. They might be in a position to put your name forward for a project, they might need someone with your skills. Even if they can help you generate some buzz around your own project, having contacts helps.
I obviously can’t speak for every city in the world but I can give some help to those from Glasgow who follow this blog.
Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh – For weekly meetups with Game Developers from your city follow BertWednesdays and they will tell you where to meet every week. (Almost always pubs so you’ll have to be over 18)
Glasgow, Paisley – If you’re a student then you can meet up with game developers at the UWS Game Development group. There are groups at Glasgow University, Abertay, Glasgow Caledonian and probably others but I don’t know their policies.
The Game Tester Fallacy
Many people will tell you that being a game tester is the best way to get into the industry. I remember when I was in high school I was told by the career advisor that I should go into game testing because I wanted to become a developer.
As I’ve found out, game testing is not the best way to get into the games industry and it certainly won’t get your name out there as many people think it will.
Game testing is a tedious and difficult job that requires great writing skills and the ability to remain focused on the same task for hours. Often you’ll be tasked with playing the same quest in an MMO repeatedly with every combination of characters or without using magic or by only using the bow and play dead skill. Then you have to log up what happened, any bugs must be filed and how it happened must be logged accurately so the developers can fix it.
It is definitely not like this.
If you’re just starting in the games industry and you want to work but don’t have the coding or design skill needed to release a commercial product. Then game testing is a not bad way to make money while you work on those skills. But don’t go into game testing assuming that you’ll get famous for your leet skills and being a show off isn’t going to help either.
To get recognised in the industry;
- Decide what it is you want to do, either programming, design or another aspect and pursue it.
- Make dozens of crappy games, learn by doing.
- Go to Game Jams and join a team, make contacts and work with other people.
- Once you have some small games you are proud of, make an online space and show people your work.
- If you see any work come past you, take the opportunity. Any work is good work.
If you want to make good games you will need to play and review games. Listen to experts, attend talks, talk to other people about their projects and even just watch other people play games.
I’ll try be weekly with these articles but as I’m taking Those Who Play to Kickstarter at the end of the month, I’ve been busy trying to get the rulebook up to date. Get the system tested and get the art in place. More about that closer to the time though.
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