You apply to several places to only get a call back on one and try to follow up with the call back so you get a nasty response so you fall into a depression hole for two years and then try to make games for jams instead while working retail 8D;;
I don't wanna be the downer who says "you can never celebrate your successes" but like, 25,000 people just got sacked, maybe remember that when you're posting
Hi, I have a full-time game-related job and have STILL not "broken into the games industry" because design isn't perceived as valuable unless you've gotten critical acclaim multiple separate times
I wanted to go to Fullsail when I graduated HS in 2004 but parents convinced me I didn’t want to take out a 30k loan and move to Florida for two years. Instead I got an AS degree in networking, spent 6 years doing random jobs then went back to school for a BA in CIS and 30k in Student loans.
Not game dev but- As soon as I heard that the biggest and busiest stop motion studio in LA paid minimum wage or less for entry level animators and I got paid more as a key holder at hot topic, I decided the industry wasn’t for me
Honestly? I kept applying to studios that were on the edge of bankruptcy and then wondered why they wouldn't take on juniors onto their, retrospectively, sinking ships
But also... so many applications eaten by the void. Usually after I'd hand-picked or written pieces for my portfolio and spent a weekend on each. One particular one that I made a video for stung.
+ joined two unpaid art positions, but the projects just kind of fell apart because of poor leadership.
I had a pretty good run of composing for indie games 2012-17, culminating in a surprise IGF win, but nearly every project I've been involved with since then has crashed and burned in some way
I’m not saying you or anyone should! I only bring it up because I thought it would lead to more work and instead it’s become more and more scarce since then. I often try and figure out how or why things went wrong and if I’ll ever get to work on a project that ships again
I became a freelancer by accident/necessity. Nobody would hire me in-house out of school, everybody wanted 3-5 years experience. It was just lucky that it was the onset of the rise of indie games and I had skills to offer. Going full-time was a huge risk.
A lot of assumptions going on there about my life based on a paragraph. I'm gig to gig making less than most folks I know, still pivoting careers at 40. But I'm happy to be quiet if I misunderstood that it had to be a permanent problem. Capitalism sucks.
No seriously, I see a lie of people's success stories and here I am trying to get into the industry while having a few barriers to entry to even make games myself
Ubi and Frima both made me build extremely detailed Excel sheets for Facebook games (2011) and then never followed up after telling me they were great. I now work in business software instead, work normal hours and make a lot more money. Thanks for ghosting me game dev!
does it count if you went through the entire interview process for team bondi, were offered the job, and then you politely declined because of the staff half joking, half serious about not having seen their families when you were at the lunch
haha, took me 2.5 years to be financially stable! What does breaking in even count as? Because sure i had my first gig, but financially, i needed a lot more!
Yeah, there's the implicit idea that in the concept that once you're in, you're in; but that's not how it works.
It's mostly not decade-long career jobs, it's a series of fragile positions, and each layoff means a new hunt for the next one, each hunt a new struggle.
I don't know if count as a failing, but I retire from my professional industry work due to disappointment on companies culture and general industry ethics.
I see it as a failing on my part for not being able to create a safe space to growth in, and just quitting everything.
Mine: born in Brazil, tiny industry, you only get in if you're friends with someone. Lots of people make games independently, but those are solo or tiny studios that won't ever hire anyone for anything.
Some guy had an idea for a game and it was just "oh I'll get some people together to make it". There was no design document, aside from a pay-to-keep playing scheme built in. And the people making it was me, and pretty much no one else. Because no one else was stupid enough to agree to free labor
I competed with one of my best friends for a position at this one studio and my confidence was too low to convince them I was fit for the job so I basically hyped up my friend instead, so happy conclusion for her at least
I applied online (as one does) and was rejected even though I absolutely had the experience from already working in software QA. I was put into interview loops after reaching out to one of the hiring managers directly. If I didn’t already have an in, I never would’ve gotten where I am today.
Missed my ideal entry job after making it through first selection, tech test and first interview by mentioning I was hoping to move to an adjacent role after a few years in that one.
That was 2 years ago. It's been only plain rejections since.
1) Rejection email sent two years after I had applied and interviewed for the position.
2) Told my lack of experience in Perforce, not version control software in general, specifically Perforce, was a nonstarter for a job that they admitted they saw me as a perfect fit for.
I got hired to write for a relatively big IP and after months of work it got suddenly shitcanned and the managers stopped answering our emails. No evidence of the project exists publicly online. It was my first and only formal industry work.
Comments
+ joined two unpaid art positions, but the projects just kind of fell apart because of poor leadership.
It could've been an email, guys.
Looking for work is a painfully soul crushing experience now. It's psychological torture
But I still do freelance localization, which is not much, but it happens sometimes
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:xzs6unlaxszbl2yj7kni2vjy/post/3l7m7qj3mae2v
I know literally no one who is that lucky
If it wasnt for the low rent here, there would be NO WAY
Then the studio quit making games. There are no other game studios in the region, and I can’t move easily 😅
It's mostly not decade-long career jobs, it's a series of fragile positions, and each layoff means a new hunt for the next one, each hunt a new struggle.
I see it as a failing on my part for not being able to create a safe space to growth in, and just quitting everything.
You really wish you could just be like "Could I just have the money instead of the plane ticket?"
That was 2 years ago. It's been only plain rejections since.
I removed my previous comment bc my reading comprehension is definitely BELOW ZERO
1) Rejection email sent two years after I had applied and interviewed for the position.
2) Told my lack of experience in Perforce, not version control software in general, specifically Perforce, was a nonstarter for a job that they admitted they saw me as a perfect fit for.