Why you're not going to work in the game industry.

I read an interesting article on Kotaku this morning that I'm sure a lot of folks around here have probably heard about by now. See, there's this girl, Erin Michael Vondrak, who wants to work in the game industry. Specifically, she wants to work at Valve. Tired of being ignored through the usual channels, she's created a video love-letter to the company, essentially begging for a job, and said video is now becoming viral.

First of all, if you haven't seen it, give it a watch at the link below. It's a cute, clever video, and it's no doubt going to end up on somebody's desk at Valve eventually. So, in that respect, I can appreciate what she's done, and I admire her creativity in getting her name out there. That said, she makes a pretty weak case, and this whole story is actually an excellent opportunity to talk about this insane delusion so many people are saddled with when it comes to working in this particular industry.

Let's call this, "Stuff I wish I'd known 20 years ago", or "Why Erin is not going to work for Valve."

 1.) Despite what my mom, friends, and high school art teachers told me, I'm not really that talented, and there are eight million other guys who are better then me. If you have trouble believing that about yourself, at least understand that even if you have this great "talent", you probably don't have the skills to apply this talent to something that makes money for someone else, which is really what working is all about.

 
 2.) Being "creative" is not a skill in itself, and does not guarantee you any success. From what I've seen, it's the obnoxious people that succeed, not the creative ones. By that I mean that you can be marginally talented or educated in a field and still achieve great success just by being able to network and bullshit. Of the dozen or so developers I've seen come and go from my current company, maybe two of them were actually talented at the job, the rest were just good at networking and knew how to google for the components or code that they needed. These are your "Duct-tape"' developers, and as much as the concept sounds neausating to me, these guys do very well in corporate situations. They don't do anything to push the boundries or innovate, but they work fast and cheap; guys like myself who want to create every aspect of something from the ground up are not as good for the bottom line and therefore not as well "liked".

 
3.) Being creative doesn't pay very well. (Of course, neither does game development, but that's a whole other issue.) What I mean here is that just because you like to draw and may even have a half-dozen ideas for great games, it doesn't mean you have a marketable skill. In software development, there is no such job as "idea-man". Yes, game designers do need to be creative in their ideas, and innovation surely has its place in any industry, but really, it's not something most companies are clamoring for.

 Game companies are for the most part corporate businesses who only care about one thing, making money. Innovations can sometimes yield impressive results, but there's always a risk, and most businesses don't like risk. This is why we see a new Call of Duty every year rather than a new franchise. Point being, nobody wants your game ideas. If you want to design a game from the ground up, you're looking in the wrong place. Start working on your indie game and stop trying to shoehorn this dream into a job where it doesn't apply.

4.) Work is called work for a reason. Yeah, it's awesome getting paid to do something you love, but making something you love your job is also a sure-fire way to stop loving it as much. It doesn't matter if it's gaming, drawing or break-dancing, once someone is paying you to do it; you're going to want to do it for free a lot less often.
I can liken this pretty easily to the pizza place I worked nights at for ten years while I "tried to break into the industry". I used to like pizza; actually, I used to like it a lot. Then I made it, sold it, and delivered it for a decade. You know what? Now I can barely stand the sight or smell of it. Also, despite it being really fun to eat a pizza, it's not really a party to make one. In other words, just because you like playing games does not mean that you will like making them.

 This idea of people wanting to work in gaming because they love playing them is pretty similar to a twelve year-old boy saying he wants to be a gynecologist.

 5.) Game companies aren’t looking for computer nerds with a ton of gaming experience. Well, let me rephrase that… Development or art jobs in the game industry aren’t looking for that, QA on the other hand does have a need for that to a degree, as long as you also posess good writing and communication skills, and the ability to do something absolutely mind-numbing for very little money. (Also, in my personal opinion, doing testing or QA makes you a game developer about as much as writing reviews of restaurants makes you a chef.)

 Anyone in the industry needs to have knowledge of it, but pay attention to this part, because it’s really important and clearly some people don't get it… Spending 16 hours a day playing World of Warcraft does not count as industry experience. Yeah, the guy developing the next Half-Life at Valve has probably played the last one, but he was probably also juggling school, free internships, and nine hours a night working on conversion mods and skinning existing 3D models. Big difference. The people who say they want to work in gaming but have never actually tried creating any aspect of a game are just mind-boggling to me. If you want to be in game development... try developing something! You don't have to create an entire game, try creating a character model for Quake 3 or something. Copies of the game are cheap, all the tools are out there, and there is a monsterous community and wealth of information that will help you. If you like the proces, then by all means, pursue it. If it seemed like insanely frusterating monotonous work to you, or you don't see how you could possibly pull something like that off, then maybe you shouldn't spend 40 grand on a tech-school degree to find that out. That might seem obvious, but I could introduce you to at least a dozen people I know that did exactly that.

  
6.) Ok, this is the big one… This is probably the single biggest misconception about the industry, and that confusion is the impetus for all 47 thousand tech schools in the US offering “game degrees”.      There is no such thing as an education in game design.

Well, let me back up a little… Outside of administration, QA, HR depts., etc, there are really two major fields in game development. There are artists and there are programmers. Yes, there are higher-level jobs that may require a knowledge or experience in both, but those jobs are given to veterans, not newbies. Just like you typically have to play a sport before you can be a commentator, you have to work in the industry before you’re going to be hired to be the guy at the top of the chain. Obviously there are a hundred different delineations or specialties for each of these jobs, such as texture artist versus concept artist, or AI programmer versus netcode programmer, but the point is still the same; half of these guys are artists, the other half are programmers. Most of the time, neither one of them are both.

 Ok, so with that said, let’s take a look at my personal experience here, as I have a degree in “Multimedia communications with an emphasis on 3D modeling and animation” from one of these schools. (Although, to be fair, I went in NY, so I actually got a state accredited degree, which is not typically the case with a lot of these schools in other states, and it's insane). Anyways, my school sold me on the idea of “3D Animation! Game Design!” and I bought it hook, line, and sinker.

 Over the course of my degree, I took classes in programming, scripting, interface design, animation, 3D modeling, you name it. At the end of my run, I had a really great understanding of how games are made, a HUGE bill to pay, and absolutely ZERO marketable skills. I assumed for some reason that my“creativity”, my drive to be in the industry, and this kick-ass jack-of-all-trades degree was surely going to get me a job; well guess what, it didn’t.

After graduation, I tried fruitlessly to get a job at Vicarious Visions, simply because it was near me. After a dozen emails, a half-dozen phone calls and many, many months of waiting, I realized that they weren’t going to call me back, and I decided to needed to find out why. A friend of a friend knew a guy that worked there, and through some luck I ended up at a party with this dude and started grilling him. He told me a lot of stuff about working there that I didn’t know (and honestly, he totally scared me away), but the one thing that I took away from that conversation was this, and it went against everything I had thought to be true up till that point.

 He said (paraphrased), “You have a degree in multimedia… That’s not what we’re after. You should have gotten a fine-arts degree if you wanted to be an artist or a CS degree if you wanted to be a programmer.” “We would much rather teach an artist how to use a computer then attempt to teach a computer nerd art skills.”

 I know, it seems so simple, and yet, I had never heard, or even thought about it that way before… Somewhere in learning how to model and animate in 3D I’d forgotten to learn any real art skills. So, while I can model and animate a 3D ball bouncing like you wouldn’t believe, I would be completely lost drawing an accurately proportioned human being in action. Somewhere along the line, I’d gone straight to the end-game without learning any of the fundamentals you need to get there. Luckily I picked up enough programming in college that I was able to change the course of my career and do development on that side, but let me tell you man, it was a massive blow when I realized I wasn’t going to be an artist. I was so sure after twenty years of parents and teachers telling me how great I was that I was going to succeed. What they failed to mention to me that was I had creativity, not skill. There is a WORLD of difference, and I for one don’t think this girl with the viral video has learned that lesson yet.

 To wrap up, I just want to mention that while I did look at Erin’s online portfolio (http://web.me.com/erin.michael/newsite/main.html), I haven’t done any excessive research of what she has and hasn’t done to get into the industry. I was just inspired to write this column as I’ve had this conversation with a few people online this week and this article today just sent me off. For all I know, Erin may well have created some 3D models or done some mod work, but if she did, it’s not present in her video. That’s actually part of the reason this video stuck in my craw so much. You could argue that it’s kitschy or stylized and meant to be funny, but what I see is a bunch of poorly drawn 2d work surrounded by crummy animation. Which part of this video is supposed to inspire people to hire you? Where is the marketable skill here? Does it seem reasonable for Valve to pick you over the 15 million other people clamoring for that job, many of which having a huge body of work and examples to back them up? Yeah, it’s creative, but so what man? I could draw an interesting picture with a stick in some dog poop, but I’m not sure how I would make money off of that…

At any rate, I do wish her the best of luck, but I strongly doubt we’ll be seeing her name in the credits for Left 4 Dead 3. Call it a hunch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNgjecJY76g&feature=player_embedded

I read an interesting article on Kotaku this morning that I'm sure a lot of folks around here have probably heard about by now. See, there's this girl, Erin Michael Vondrak, who wants to work in the game industry. Specifically, she wants to work at Valve. Tired of being ignored through the usual channels, she's created a video love-letter to the company, essentially begging for a job, and said video is now becoming viral.

First of all, if you haven't seen it, give it a watch at the link below. It's a cute, clever video, and it's no doubt going to end up on somebody's desk at Valve eventually. So, in that respect, I can appreciate what she's done, and I admire her creativity in getting her name out there. That said, she makes a pretty weak case, and this whole story is actually an excellent opportunity to talk about this insane delusion so many people are saddled with when it comes to working in this particular industry.

Let's call this, "Stuff I wish I'd known 20 years ago", or "Why Erin is not going to work for Valve."

 1.) Despite what my mom, friends, and high school art teachers told me, I'm not really that talented, and there are eight million other guys who are better then me. If you have trouble believing that about yourself, at least understand that even if you have this great "talent", you probably don't have the skills to apply this talent to something that makes money for someone else, which is really what working is all about.

 
 2.) Being "creative" is not a skill in itself, and does not guarantee you any success. From what I've seen, it's the obnoxious people that succeed, not the creative ones. By that I mean that you can be marginally talented or educated in a field and still achieve great success just by being able to network and bullshit. Of the dozen or so developers I've seen come and go from my current company, maybe two of them were actually talented at the job, the rest were just good at networking and knew how to google for the components or code that they needed. These are your "Duct-tape"' developers, and as much as the concept sounds neausating to me, these guys do very well in corporate situations. They don't do anything to push the boundries or innovate, but they work fast and cheap; guys like myself who want to create every aspect of something from the ground up are not as good for the bottom line and therefore not as well "liked".

 
3.) Being creative doesn't pay very well. (Of course, neither does game development, but that's a whole other issue.) What I mean here is that just because you like to draw and may even have a half-dozen ideas for great games, it doesn't mean you have a marketable skill. In software development, there is no such job as "idea-man". Yes, game designers do need to be creative in their ideas, and innovation surely has its place in any industry, but really, it's not something most companies are clamoring for.

 Game companies are for the most part corporate businesses who only care about one thing, making money. Innovations can sometimes yield impressive results, but there's always a risk, and most businesses don't like risk. This is why we see a new Call of Duty every year rather than a new franchise. Point being, nobody wants your game ideas. If you want to design a game from the ground up, you're looking in the wrong place. Start working on your indie game and stop trying to shoehorn this dream into a job where it doesn't apply.

4.) Work is called work for a reason. Yeah, it's awesome getting paid to do something you love, but making something you love your job is also a sure-fire way to stop loving it as much. It doesn't matter if it's gaming, drawing or break-dancing, once someone is paying you to do it; you're going to want to do it for free a lot less often.
I can liken this pretty easily to the pizza place I worked nights at for ten years while I "tried to break into the industry". I used to like pizza; actually, I used to like it a lot. Then I made it, sold it, and delivered it for a decade. You know what? Now I can barely stand the sight or smell of it. Also, despite it being really fun to eat a pizza, it's not really a party to make one. In other words, just because you like playing games does not mean that you will like making them.

 This idea of people wanting to work in gaming because they love playing them is pretty similar to a twelve year-old boy saying he wants to be a gynecologist.

 5.) Game companies aren’t looking for computer nerds with a ton of gaming experience. Well, let me rephrase that… Development or art jobs in the game industry aren’t looking for that, QA on the other hand does have a need for that to a degree, as long as you also posess good writing and communication skills, and the ability to do something absolutely mind-numbing for very little money. (Also, in my personal opinion, doing testing or QA makes you a game developer about as much as writing reviews of restaurants makes you a chef.)

 Anyone in the industry needs to have knowledge of it, but pay attention to this part, because it’s really important and clearly some people don't get it… Spending 16 hours a day playing World of Warcraft does not count as industry experience. Yeah, the guy developing the next Half-Life at Valve has probably played the last one, but he was probably also juggling school, free internships, and nine hours a night working on conversion mods and skinning existing 3D models. Big difference. The people who say they want to work in gaming but have never actually tried creating any aspect of a game are just mind-boggling to me. If you want to be in game development... try developing something! You don't have to create an entire game, try creating a character model for Quake 3 or something. Copies of the game are cheap, all the tools are out there, and there is a monsterous community and wealth of information that will help you. If you like the proces, then by all means, pursue it. If it seemed like insanely frusterating monotonous work to you, or you don't see how you could possibly pull something like that off, then maybe you shouldn't spend 40 grand on a tech-school degree to find that out. That might seem obvious, but I could introduce you to at least a dozen people I know that did exactly that.

  
6.) Ok, this is the big one… This is probably the single biggest misconception about the industry, and that confusion is the impetus for all 47 thousand tech schools in the US offering “game degrees”.      There is no such thing as an education in game design.

Well, let me back up a little… Outside of administration, QA, HR depts., etc, there are really two major fields in game development. There are artists and there are programmers. Yes, there are higher-level jobs that may require a knowledge or experience in both, but those jobs are given to veterans, not newbies. Just like you typically have to play a sport before you can be a commentator, you have to work in the industry before you’re going to be hired to be the guy at the top of the chain. Obviously there are a hundred different delineations or specialties for each of these jobs, such as texture artist versus concept artist, or AI programmer versus netcode programmer, but the point is still the same; half of these guys are artists, the other half are programmers. Most of the time, neither one of them are both.

 Ok, so with that said, let’s take a look at my personal experience here, as I have a degree in “Multimedia communications with an emphasis on 3D modeling and animation” from one of these schools. (Although, to be fair, I went in NY, so I actually got a state accredited degree, which is not typically the case with a lot of these schools in other states, and it's insane). Anyways, my school sold me on the idea of “3D Animation! Game Design!” and I bought it hook, line, and sinker.

 Over the course of my degree, I took classes in programming, scripting, interface design, animation, 3D modeling, you name it. At the end of my run, I had a really great understanding of how games are made, a HUGE bill to pay, and absolutely ZERO marketable skills. I assumed for some reason that my“creativity”, my drive to be in the industry, and this kick-ass jack-of-all-trades degree was surely going to get me a job; well guess what, it didn’t.

After graduation, I tried fruitlessly to get a job at Vicarious Visions, simply because it was near me. After a dozen emails, a half-dozen phone calls and many, many months of waiting, I realized that they weren’t going to call me back, and I decided to needed to find out why. A friend of a friend knew a guy that worked there, and through some luck I ended up at a party with this dude and started grilling him. He told me a lot of stuff about working there that I didn’t know (and honestly, he totally scared me away), but the one thing that I took away from that conversation was this, and it went against everything I had thought to be true up till that point.

 He said (paraphrased), “You have a degree in multimedia… That’s not what we’re after. You should have gotten a fine-arts degree if you wanted to be an artist or a CS degree if you wanted to be a programmer.” “We would much rather teach an artist how to use a computer then attempt to teach a computer nerd art skills.”

 I know, it seems so simple, and yet, I had never heard, or even thought about it that way before… Somewhere in learning how to model and animate in 3D I’d forgotten to learn any real art skills. So, while I can model and animate a 3D ball bouncing like you wouldn’t believe, I would be completely lost drawing an accurately proportioned human being in action. Somewhere along the line, I’d gone straight to the end-game without learning any of the fundamentals you need to get there. Luckily I picked up enough programming in college that I was able to change the course of my career and do development on that side, but let me tell you man, it was a massive blow when I realized I wasn’t going to be an artist. I was so sure after twenty years of parents and teachers telling me how great I was that I was going to succeed. What they failed to mention to me that was I had creativity, not skill. There is a WORLD of difference, and I for one don’t think this girl with the viral video has learned that lesson yet.

 To wrap up, I just want to mention that while I did look at Erin’s online portfolio (http://web.me.com/erin.michael/newsite/main.html), I haven’t done any excessive research of what she has and hasn’t done to get into the industry. I was just inspired to write this column as I’ve had this conversation with a few people online this week and this article today just sent me off. For all I know, Erin may well have created some 3D models or done some mod work, but if she did, it’s not present in her video. That’s actually part of the reason this video stuck in my craw so much. You could argue that it’s kitschy or stylized and meant to be funny, but what I see is a bunch of poorly drawn 2d work surrounded by crummy animation. Which part of this video is supposed to inspire people to hire you? Where is the marketable skill here? Does it seem reasonable for Valve to pick you over the 15 million other people clamoring for that job, many of which having a huge body of work and examples to back them up? Yeah, it’s creative, but so what man? I could draw an interesting picture with a stick in some dog poop, but I’m not sure how I would make money off of that…

At any rate, I do wish her the best of luck, but I strongly doubt we’ll be seeing her name in the credits for Left 4 Dead 3. Call it a hunch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNgjecJY76g&feature=player_embedded

That was a great write up; it gives a lot to think about. Thanks for this!

I wouldn't hire her. She seems more like a fan than a potential employee.

Those 'game design' schools are such a rip-off.

That said, I'm not sure if my graphic design degree from UGA will help me or be utterly worthless in the long run.

However, it did land me an art/design job at a tiny software company that deals in educational games... I guess this is what you'd call the first step?

Really good write up...

also that flash was really, really shitty

Really good read, i agree and would also like to add that as for as being a artist goes i think its one of those things that you have to have some natural talent at. I bet a lot of artists in the game industry have very little schooling and leared from years and years of experience building on what they already knew.

I don't really have any delusions about working in the games industry, but after reading that I feel (once again) like I'll never get a job in a creative career. Yet that is all I can do.

Being a low level programmer/artist/whatever will and does suck. But it's because you're on the lowest rung of a hierarchy. The cheddar is there, but like The Apprentice tells us, we need to shit all over other people to get there. Yummy.

As others have said, this makes for interesting reading. Nicely done.

Yeesh, I find that video kind of creepy. And yeah, not specifically in video games, but I've pretty much given up all hope to land some kind of creative job.

I know how much the game industry sucks, and i know all the pitfalls, but most importently i know my limits. I really creative, and im really good at adapting, but i cannot draw or program. That being said, i really dont want to either program or create art assests and to be honest, i really dont want to work ON games. Currently i have taken loads of management classes and degrees, and currently im taking Mediaproduction and Management, looking towards getting a job in the marketing area of the games industry. To me, The management and marketing side of the games industry looks much, MUCH more appealing than actual development side of things. I have also guarded myself, so i havent bet everything i have on this. My degrees and education are focused at all kinds of media, not just games, tho what is what a prefer, but if suddenly find myself looking for a job, i wont just be looking for a place in a niche industry, where people are just begging to get positions.

Am i crazy or should i do perhaps alter something?

Thanks, that was quite eye opening. There isn't enough information about work in the industry so this was a big help.

@Noct said:

2.) Being "creative" is not a skill in itself, and does not guarantee you any success. From what I've seen, it's the obnoxious people that succeed, not the creative ones, and I don't mean that as an insult. Point being, you can be marginally talented or educated in a field and still achieve great success just by being able to network and bullshit. Of the dozen or so developers I've seen come and go from my current company, maybe two of them were actually talented at the job, the rest were just good at networking, or great at telling people what they wanted to hear.

Couldn't have said it better myself, and it isn't just the games industry where it rings true.

@christonice said:

Getting a job in the industry is the videogame equivalent to running away to Hollywood to become a famous actress.

nice read. the flash was horrible. nice music also. i guess you just have to be lucky with finding jobs. i'm on the works of looking for a job but that doesn't seem to work. 
 
today i applied at yale for a part time job. i think there are a lot of people that applied there.

The best two ways into the business (from what I've read) are 1) Developing your own games or 2) Develop free community content for someone else's games. I assume game making is just like any other creative job and follow-through is more important than overall skill.

Y'know, number 2 would come off as bad to most people, but most people just don't get it. The social aspect of being human is one of the most underrated things, especially by nerd culture, that is so essential to success in anything in life. People see it as a bad thing, that it's somehow unrelated to merit, which is normally defined as being book smart. The thing is, you can be the most talented person in the world, but if you don't know how to communicate to people then your talent doesn't mean anything because it doesn't have value to anyone other than yourself.

People will always hate the guy who they think is worse than him/her but who got the job anyway because he knew how to talk to people, but they fail to realize that it's not a cheap work around for value. It's an essential part of being a successful human being.

Although mostly negative, I rather liked this write up.  It's down to earth, rational, and makes valid points.  
 
It also reminds me that I'm still glad I backed out of the idea of going to game design school after taking a tour of what they had to offer.

Very good article. I was ready to come in and dislike what I read, but you nailed it on every point.

I don't understand point 4. How is developing video games similar to playing video games? I understand the point that playing video games is definitely not the same thing as making them, but I'm not certain why making them would make you dislike playing them. 
 
This was a very interesting read. Makes me even more depressed concerning my future, though, but whatever.

Glad to know I'm doing the right thing by getting a CS degree. At least I can use it for other jobs as well...

Why you're not going to work in the game industry.

It's gonna crash.

But I also liked your realistic assessment of why people don't get hired during normal times anyway. Unrealistic expectations is something people don't assume. Children brought up from the age of 2 to believe they can be anything and everything they want to be. It sets skewed expectations of the real world and how it functions. And when life hits them in the face, they're not ready for it.

Good article. It is depressing a fuck, but still truthful and well written.

I wanted to be an journalist or an author in my senior year of high school. I have always been a decent writer and I excelled while working on the school newspaper. But I decided that I didn't want to bust my ass to try and make it in two dying industries. It wasn't just me saying this, but actual journalists, authors, and teachers telling me to major in something else.

Well the other thing I excelled at was working with computers and I was interesting in programming. So now I am majoring in computer science and personally would love to work for a game company. But I also know that it is super hard to do, and while I will bust my ass trying to get in, I will be perfectly happy programming for any other kind of field. I love games, but I am not nearly creative enough to draw, make levels, or do any kind of design. My strength is in being asked to do something specific or given a problem to solve, so that is most likely why I was drawn to programming.

Change your future so you're not chasing some impossible dream that's not gonna ever happen ever. Problem solved.

It really seems just like the movie industry at this point. Most people expect if they look good and like movies they will get the roles. I bet there are close to a million waitresses in LA that can testify against that. In relation to the gaming industry and that ladies video; if you like valve games and can draw a picture is in no way assuring you of a job there.

@Brendan said:

Y'know, number 2 would come off as bad to most people, but most people just don't get it. The social aspect of being human is one of the most underrated things, especially by nerd culture, that is so essential to success in anything in life. People see it as a bad thing, that it's somehow unrelated to merit, which is normally defined as being book smart. The thing is, you can be the most talented person in the world, but if you don't know how to communicate to people then your talent doesn't mean anything because it doesn't have value to anyone other than yourself.

People will always hate the guy who they think is worse than him/her but who got the job anyway because he knew how to talk to people, but they fail to realize that it's not a cheap work around for value. It's an essential part of being a successful human being.

This. Since when did networking skills become a negative trait in a person? You can get upset because someone else knew the right people and you didn't, or you can just go out and meet new people instead, and beat them at their own game. Bitching and moaning about how someone got their job in a company doesn't really help the situation you are in.

@ChristianConservativeVinny said:

@FluxWaveZ said:

I don't understand point 4. How is developing video games similar to playing video games? I understand the point that playing video games is definitely not the same thing as making them, but I'm not certain why making them would make you dislike playing them. This was a very interesting read. Makes me even more depressed concerning my future, though, but whatever.

Change your future so you're not chasing some impossible dream that's not gonna ever happen ever. Problem solved.

Seems kind of foolish to tell him he can't pursue his dreams. If not him, then who? Someone is going to make games in the future, there is a demand for it. Just because it isn't easy doesn't make it 'impossible'.

That video was awesome and cute and I wish her the best, but yeah. 
 
This was a good write-up.

So called higher education is a business and they are in it to make money first and foremost. Nowadays the "game" has changed and just because you hold that diploma in your hand doesn't mean a sure thing.

Don't give up on your dreams and let others dash your hopes, aren't they what make life interesting?

Great read, although a bit pessimistic, or realistic depends on your point of view. Nothing to add really, except for the fact that true creativity will never get you a job. Anywhere. Don't try to use your art for making big bucks, art and business never go well together.

All these points seem like they would be incredibly obvious to anyone who isn't 13.

I agree. I'm going to college right now for a CS degree, not because I want to work in games specifically, but because I love that aspect of technology. The games industry is certainly an option, but it's not the end all be all. For me, I'd throw out a few pieces of advice. Take communications courses. They do help and people that go into the tech industry tend to need them more than others since they're more likely not to have developed them over their high school career. Heck, even if you've got good ones, it's good to hone them through courses. The greatest advice anyones given me is expect to have a crap job out of college. That's the way it is. You'll be on the bottom, but if you work at it, you will move up. Work is work for a reason. You can't go and expect to have your dream job handed to you.

The problem is, any decent paying job you want to work towards you will be competing with tons of others for. That's the way it is. You have to look at the work required really hone yourself towards that.

You don't want to be a gynaecologist.  

@Noct
 
Good article. 
We don't see eye-to-eye on some things though. First off, creativity is extremely important. Maybe not in the specific capacity you're talking about, but it is. Also, you would have to elaborate on your definition of what the difference is between your usage of the word "skill" and "creativity" is for me to fully comment on that. This is what i gathered from it though. If i understand correctly what you're using the word "skill" for sounds like...technical ability. Yes, you're right in that fact that there are...(what did you say, sec...."I'm not really that talented, and there are eight million other guys who are better then me") eight million people better than you. You use the words "skill", "creativity", and "talent" so loosely it is hard to get a grounding on what each one's distinction is in your terminology. If you're saying that "skill" is a prerequisite for "talent" then which i assume, if we're talking about an artist, you're meaning their technical ability to render something realistically there is definitely several million people out there that can render an image to look "photo realistic". That is relative to your personal technical ability which i have no idea what it is. 
So, if there are millions of people out there with an apex technical ability to render something realistically aren't you contradicting yourself? The contradiction is because are you not saying that you went through school and you did not learn the technical skills you needed to succeed? I quote the Noct " I was so sure after twenty years of parents and teachers telling me how great I was that I was going to succeed. What they failed to mention to me that was I had creativity, not skill." You say you thought you were going to succeed but what you had was creativity not skill therefore what i would gather form what you're saying is that to succeed you need skill and not creativity, correct? But what about those eight million other people out there that have "skills"? Doesn't that make the market for people with technical ability (skill) a surplus? 
 
What is the point of skill? This is my main point. Creativity actually trumps skill. Say the ability to render an image from scratch to look 100% photo realistic is paralleled to the ability to write. If skill is technical ability and creativity is unimportant than writers should be very frightened because there are billions of things out there that can do the technical side of writing...it's called "Microsoft Word". "To Kill a Mocking Bird" and "Moby Dick" are not classics or works of art because every word in them is spelled correctly; they're works of art because of creativity.  Do you know what those eight million people that can render photo realism in the industry are called? A wrist. Go to any major city and you can heir a wrist for twelve-dollars-an-hour to render you something perfectly realistically. You say it yourself, there are eight million other people out there with technical talent. If a developer wants something done and rendered the way they want they have eight million people to look to. 
 
This is the point of skill. It is needed to follow in tandem with creativity. It is not that creativity alone can not take you anywhere or skill alone can not take you anywhere, but it is the really unique people who combine the two that overshadow the people that only have one or the other.
 
Da Vinci had sketches for flying and war machines in his imagination (creativity) but he also painted the "Mona Lisa" one of the most technical and skilled paintings ever created. He is just the easiest and most known person to go to, there are thousands of other examples. 
 
Creativity is extreamly important. Skills is important.

Oh yeah, as for the girl trying to get into valve...
 
I liked her video, it was cute and all and i like the fight club reference, but i wouldn't heir her. Her art work is sub-par and cliche' and guess what...valve isn't a jingle company.

Excellent read, thanks for writing it.

Every job I've gotten so far in life have, in one way or another, been through connections. Family, friends, former co-workers, you name it. I can imagine the same could be said about any profession, especially working in the game industry, since it's so over-hyped by millions of people around the world as the best industry there is.

Why do all of these people always beg for jobs at Valve? Valve stinks.

That video literally gave me cancer.
 
Fuck, how do people like this graduate?

I think this quote is fairly fitting to ponder for anyone who is looking to work with anything creative, or even better themselves in a skill: 
 
"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt

4.) Work is called work for a reason. Yeah, it's awesome getting paid to do something you love, but making something you love your job is also a sure-fire way to stop loving it as much. It doesn't matter if it's gaming, drawing or break-dancing, once someone is paying you to do it; you're going to want to do it for free a lot less often.

In other words, just because you like PLAYING games does not mean that you will like MAKING them. I can liken this pretty easily to the pizza place I worked nights at for ten years while I "tried to break into the industry". I used to like pizza; actually, I used to like it a lot. Then I made it, sold it, and delivered it for a decade. You know what? Now I can barely stand the sight or smell of it. Also, despite it being really fun to eat a pizza, it's not really a party to make one.

This idea of people wanting to work in gaming because they love playing them is pretty similar to a twelve year-old boy saying he wants to be a gynecologist.

Yeah used to have that dream, gave it up years ago cause it was stupid; I am both a terrible artist and only average at math, nor does grinding away at a low level programming job where you do very little related to making games appeal to me.

Also I had to stop watching that video out of embarressment for that girl, came off both stupid and pathetic.

thank you, sir.

I know now, that me oppsesing with the human anatomy was a waste of time. Plus my later works might be too brutal so it will never sell. Man that sucks, I who have spendt that much time improving my drawing skills. Just to find out that I would never be welcome to an over stressfull working place.

Realistic and pessimistic aren't the same.

This is more the latter. People interested in the trade can find ways to make opportunities out of each of the points this article makes, but this article doesn't do the work to highlight that. It'd rather just browbeat the folks who have an aspiration for this sort of thing.

Long story short, kids: if you want to work in the industry, don't let some doom-and-gloom blog written by some anonymous fool on the internet coerce you into changing your mind.

Again, you guys make the video game industry sound like shit. I actually love my job as a level designer, I work normal hours (sometimes more because I enjoy it and forgot what time it was), I get plenty of nice extras (free food, parties, massages etc) and it's very challenging (I learn something new every day). Guess I must be lucky then.

@CrazyChris said:

Excellent read, thanks for writing it.

Every job I've gotten so far in life have, in one way or another, been through connections. Family, friends, former co-workers, you name it. I can imagine the same could be said about any profession, especially working in the game industry, since it's so over-hyped by millions of people around the world as the best industry there is.

Absolutely agree with this. The games industry is like any other industry. There's more than lead design and programmer. Many people think just because they can't draw or they suck at math that they can't break in but the truth is that there's many ways to get in and it's not much different than getting a similar job in another industry.

Programmers of any kind pretty much need a CS degree or experience equivalent. Designers need their portfolios or whatever. Gaming industry hopefuls shouldn't forget that gaming is like hollywood now and should know that gaming jobs are widespread and aside from artists and programmers include journalists, story writers, mocap actors, marketers, producers, production managers, community managers, QA/Tester (entry level gets lots of guff but believe me the lead QA's fare okay) just to name a few!

No matter where you want to work, the most important thing is how you sell yourself.