Game Reviewing for profit

Well, sometimes you can code but you get into a software company in a CS role. Sometimes you get hired as CS and take programming courses in the evening. I’ve worked at software companies (not game companies) where I’ve seen people make those kinds of career upgrades.

The big step is getting hired by the company and learning its products. After that, a lot of different opportunities may present themselves.

Start writing programs for yourself. You will have to spend A LOT of time doing it. (And/Or practise modelling, texturing and animating).

Get used to failing, and trying again and again with the code. Eventually you’ll start to see stuff on the screen, and if that doesn’t give you a buzz give up on the whole game developer thing. Of course, you will get a kick from it, at which point you need to keep on working hard until you have demos you are not embarrassed to show people.

Then either (a) apply for jobs as a junior programmer until someone likes you, (b) develop your own small project with like-minded people and try to get income some other way. (b) will be more satisfying, and may eventually lead to a decent income.

If you want to be a game designer, I would discourage you from that until you have some mad art or code skills.

How much does a CS degree help in getting into the programming end of things?

I wouldn’t really know - I dropped out of mine when I got offered money for a game I had written (way back in 1987).

It probably helps a good deal. Whether you have a degree or not, you have to write lots of code for yourself and actually try to complete a small project. Its the only way to learn.

Depends on the school. If they just teach you “hurr, here’s some compiler theory, and OO,” then it’s not that useful; you can learn that from the textbooks. If they actually teach you some useful business practices - like, oh, how important writing test harnesses is, and the proper roles of test/development/PMs whatever - there might be a point.

I’ve kind of soured on academic engineering.

Weird. My experience has been the complete opposite. I got lots of useful academic information out of school – sure, you can find the books yourself out there, but a structured program of study gives you a good overview of everything, and more importantly, gives you enough background to explore further in unrelated topics. Now, as far as practical project-based experience goes, real-world experience far outweighs what I did in school – it’s no contest. There’s certain things that I don’t think can be taught in school.

That being said, my recommendation would be that aspiring game programmers go through a “traditional” CS program. I don’t care if it’s considered boring – it gives a solid foundation for motivated people to jump off into games. Game programming problems are pretty much indistinguishable from regular programming problems nowadays anyway, so I don’t think there’s any advantage to a specialized game programming curriculum.

I can’t think of any CS class I took during college that either hasn’t been useful to me already, or would not be useful in a game programming job. For example:

[ul]
[li]Boring database classes? Oh, wait, what is a MMORPG but a giant database?
[/li][li]Compiler construction? Comes in handy when you have to integrate third-party scripting languages, or implement your own. As a bonus, I learned MIPS assembly while taking this class, which just happens to come in extremely handy when working on the PS2.
[/li][li]Hardware design? It’s good to understand hardware design issues, timings, pipelines, what have you, because you’re very much affected by them when writing a console game. The difference between a blazing fast render loop and an okay one is still cycle counting, to a degree, and knowing about hardware issues also makes it easier to debug compiler/hardware problems.
[/li][li]Numerical computing? Hey, even if you aren’t a graphics programmer or writing your own filters, it’s still a really good thing to understand computer arithmetic, floating point formats, and how to structure your operations so as not to lose precision.
[/li][li]Data structures? If you’re questioning the importance of this, then I question your sanity. :D
[/li][/ul]

As far as getting your foot in the door goes, I’m a bit puzzled as to why everyone thinks you have to know someone to get into the industry. I didn’t, and I don’t think this is limited to programming jobs, either. (I don’t know about producer-type positions, or publisher positions, though.) The most important thing to have is tangible demonstrations of your skills – levels, models, textures, scenarios, demos, programs, the more relevant to your potential employer, the better. It doesn’t need to be a giant-ass mod or something huge like that, either, it just needs to demonstrate that you have the skills required for the job.

To find a job, you just have to pound the virtual pavement – check Gamasutra and GameJobs, and get a list of game companies and check each and every one of their websites for ‘help wanted’ ads. Heck, submit your resume even if they aren’t advertising – you never know!

Oh, and one other thing…on your resume, please don’t put your title down as “Cyber Ninja” or some other garbage. The industry is a lot more professional than that… :D

Oh, and I wouldn’t view starting as a CSR or tester as the only way to get a foot in the door. It “might” give you an advantage when moving within an organization, but I’m not convinced it’s the best way to start, mainly because if you’re looking to do something else, you may be waiting a while before you get the opportunity. (I do know quite a few people who did test and then moved on, however.)

Oh, I agree that stuff’s very very good to know, I just don’t think you really need to shell out god knows how much money and time to sit in class learning it. The textbooks contain literally everything you need; just have a go at every class in the syllabus for a decent university’s program. There’s so much stuff online now that it’s quite easy to virtually take a class.

That’s how I’d do it if I had to repeat it, at least…

I don’t know if I’m an expert or not but…I’d say the best thing to do is make your own site (write for profit) and write your own programs. (programming)

If you are good, people will notice eventually, on both accounts. By that point you had better have read some books on advertising and marketing. Just some suggestions…

So you don’t think that having the degree itself helps you get the job?

Dunno. I have a math degree and it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. Hiring seems to be based on connections, not qualifications.

Having hired hundreds of people over the years - degrees from good schools help a lot – like Jason said, unless you otherwise know a lot about the person, it’s really one of the only objective standards you can easily apply (if you’re seeing a large number of candidates).

For people without a lot of previous work experience, marks in a good school almost entirely determines whether or not you even get an interview, and it’s easily the single most important factor in determining whether or not you get the job (unless you’re a real social misfit).

Take it from someone who’s very actively trying to get published in the reviewing field: It’s very, very difficult.

One suggestion I have is to write a few reviews for DIY games (sorry about that RPG review, Greg) because it lets you have something to show people. Other than that, start querying magazines and websites.

I’m making some progress but it’s very slow going.

You know, while I’m on the subject does anyone have contact info for GamePro’s review editor?

Hell, I’ll query Tylers mom if it means I can review something.

Qualifications count. But luck is part of it too.

[size=1]But blow jobs trump luck and qualifications everyday.[/size]

I wouldn’t let anyone query my mom and get away with it!

As I recall, GamePro doen’t have a single reviews editor; rather, it has section editors.

Peter

I want to say that more than anything else, writing skill is what lands you a reviewing job, but so far, that hasn’t been my experience. Aside from the site I started and maintained, I’ve gotten all of my writing gigs by knowing the right people. I like to think that it was my writing that cinched the deal, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that knowing how to network was a big part of it.

Still, for a lot of us, that comes naturally, just by hanging out in forums and on usenet. Usenet is what really ended up being important for me - I met and developed friendly relationships with many industry folks and other writers that way. I wonder if it won’t be harder for new writers now that we’re all secluding ourselves in forums like these, eschewing the chaos of usenet.

Not if the editors visit said forum.

I’ve picked up a lot of writers based on forum posts. I figure if you’re eloquent and interesting in a forum post, chances are you’ll be a good writer… though I also find that people suddenly “tense” up and produce less interesting reviews than their forum posts because they’re suddenly, I dunno, trying or something.

Not if the editors visit said forum.

I’ve picked up a lot of writers based on forum posts. I figure if you’re eloquent and interesting in a forum post, chances are you’ll be a good writer… though I also find that people suddenly “tense” up and produce less interesting reviews than their forum posts because they’re suddenly, I dunno, trying or something.[/quote]

It’s difficult to avoid adopting a more formal tone when writing for publication.