gamesecosse

Careers in the Video Game Industry

If you browse through the internet for video game industry jobs (I happen to be thinking of Wikipedia at the moment!), you're bound to find various descriptions of each position.
The well known jobs include programmers, testers, designers, etc. But designing is always the 'desirable' one, partly because most people misunderstand it to some extent. A lot of young people think the designing is 'coming up with a few cool ideas and getting paid a fortune for it'. However, at designing's highest level, this is not too far from the truth, but many forget that there is a lot of tough paperwork and other jobs to be done at the same time. Like with many careers, that 'dream position' is never one you can just 'swagger into'.
I was also thinking about jobs in testing. These are again thought of as being very 'desirable' by many people. ie. getting paid to play games, but the job in reality is hard work - testing involves extremely long hours, not to mention complicated problem solving. Ok, so this post is beginning to sound like a textbook topic, but my own opinion is that testing is, I daresay, effectively at the 'bottom of the pile' in gaming careers - I do know it is seen as a 'stepping stone' to higher positions and believe it or not, playing games every waking minute is bad for your physical (and mental) health.
A final thought; is testing maybe one of those 'addictive' jobs? I could imagine that quite a few testers start as recently graduated students, at about 21 or 22, hoping to earn a bit of 'quick' money for 6-8 weeks before moving on, and then find themselves at 30 still doing the same thing! I can't really judge, but this did cross my mind...

posted by qmchaz64 @ 2:26 pm