Thank you SO MUCH for your help!
My question is related to the game industry in general, not this jam in particular, but if you have time I'd appreciate a reply!
There are a lot of game studios in my area. What would you say are the more important things I need to get a job working for one of them? How do I get those things?
Glad to answer this:
It depends on what kind of job you are looking for, what kind of studios you are considering, and what your background is.
I always recommend any newbie get involved with their local IGDA chapter. (https://igda.org/) Don't expect this to land you a job directly, rather use it meet other devs and learn the layout of the local dev scene. I used to Chair my local chapter.
Keep in mind 3 things: 1) Game studio jobs are some of the most sought-after positions in the world. 2) Studies have shown that 80-90% of industry hires go to someone who is personally connected to someone at the studio. 3) Many devs experience joblessness for a year or more at the start of their career, meaning that you may be competing with experienced professionals even for entry-level positions.
For entry level positions, small indie studios might be more willing to take a chance on a newbie; but a large studio is more likely to have slots for someone. Still, some studios have explicit relationships with major colleges to fill their internship/entry-level positions. Some simply prefer to hire from 1 or more specific programs due to having found high-quality hires there before. Sadly, some studios will also blacklist graduates for negative past hiring experiences. (From what I've seen, FullSail and The Art Institutes are on a number of blacklists, while MIT and Digipen are on a number of preferred hire lists.)
The hardest jobs to get are those in design, writing, and art (possibly also music, but I'm not as familiar with that area). The easiest position to get is a job programming tools, as a technical artist, or doing network programming. I'll try to breakdown the various job types.
Writers generally need to have succeeded in another medium (books, movies, TV, or game design). The exception to this is if you are willing to do the drudge work writing "barks" or if you can land an entry-level job doing missions/quests for an MMO/giant free-to-play.
Game Designer is the single most sought-after, and least understood, position. You need to have a portfolio for this, what goes in it depends on whether you want to be a level designer, combat designer, UX designer, or another kind of designer. Sadly, there is also a lot more room for discrimination here. Studios will "niche down" to distinguish hiring a third-person sci-fi stealth action game designer from a first-person sci-fi stealth action game designer; but if its an IP intended to target women or kids, suddenly ANYBODY is fine in the role. (Seriously, I've seen a studio hire someone who said they didn't know what a game designer is but thought "it sounds fun" and made them the lead designer for a game targeting females.) You should learn how to work in Unity, Unreal, and Godot (because it is up-and-coming and makes you look good for understanding it). For some reason, being a designer for a sports title used to stigmatize you so you could only work on sports titles after that, not sure if this is still the case. Designers are the most likely to be out of work, so its best to have a solid fall-back skill (like coding, art, or writing).
Artists have to be AMAZING at their craft and have a KILLER professional portfolio. For some reason, 99.9999% of artists want to be "concept artists", so next to no one gets to be one. I've been told the easiest job to get in art is as a UI artist. Apparently, very few people like doing that. If you specialize in 3D art/animation; learn in Blender, but download and get used to the experience in Maya. Learn Photoshop no matter what.
Game Music/SFX artists are rarely hired in-house. When they are, they have a track-record for success elsewhere. I know next to nothing about freelance or contract music/SFX.
Programmers are the ones most often called "devs". If you want to get a job as a coder/dev, learn C++, C#, Python, Java, and get comfortable with both Unity and Unreal. It seems like 85% of coders want to be "gameplay" programmers, so that's a hard role to get. Tools, database, and network programming jobs are easier to land; but you'll likely be stuck doing that for the rest of your career. Build-up a portfolio by contributing to open source projects on GitHub.
Producer/Project Management - learn SCRUM and AGILE. Full stop. If you haven't doing this professionally for another tech company, expect this to be a difficult junior position to land. This SHOULD go without saying, but be aware of the culture you are developing. Be open and welcoming to people of ALL genders, races, religions, game preferences, etc. We have seen plenty of producers and leads properly ousted for harassment, we don't need more toxic harassers.
Tester jobs can lead to other jobs at a studio, while senior and lead testers can make a decent living. At the entry-level, these are often filled by new graduates from university CompSci departments and students from specialty programs (like Digipen). You should learn to at least read code in python, C#, C++. Get used to Unity and contribute to open source projects on GitHub. Learn to write solid bug and reproduction reports.
Community Management / Social Media jobs are often heavily sought after, but are more likely to exist at studios with large multiplayer or networked games. I'm not really up on this.
Here's a couple of useful resources:
https://www.gameindustrycareerguide.com/about/start-your-career-in-video-game-de...
(This is THE place for insider-industry news aimed at devs.)
https://www.gamasutra.com/
Good Luck and feel free to ask any follow-ups!
