A Career in Game Development

What and where did you study?

My degree was in computer science at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Before that, I’d done a higher and advanced higher (the Scottish equivalent of A-Levels) in computing, along with a higher in maths. I’d say that those kind of qualifications are really useful for just about any job in video game development, though obviously a deep knowledge and passion for gaming is just as important. I also worked in the QA (quality assurance) department for a few months. This involved testing games that are in development to make sure that they play properly. That’s a very traditional route into the industry, and one where a lot of people start out. To do that, you need to be systematic and thorough and be able to spot problems within the context of the game that no-one else may have noticed. It's actually great training for future roles.

What attracted you to video game development?

I’ve always loved playing games and it seemed like a totally natural idea to make video games my career. Certainly, a lifelong love for something makes for a really obvious choice about where to go, and seeing as I enjoyed making my own content for games as much as I did playing them it was a no-brainer to make a move into games development. Half Life 1 was the game that got me really into the creative side of gaming, as it had some great tools that let anyone have a go. I’d say that getting to grips with those tools, and experimenting with creating levels and maps, was a really valuable part of me learning how games are actually put together. I soon realised that there was a method to the creation process, both in terms of design and gameplay, that made for a  really rewarding experience when it all works perfectly.

Do you need to be really technical and maths-oriented to work in video game development?

It depends what you want to do. If you want to program the hardware, then yes. That's very technical and a good knowledge of maths is absolutely essential. However, there are loads of jobs within a development team that don’t require such high-level skills. Game Design is one area where an in-depth knowledge of games is much more important, especially in knowing what makes a good game, how people interact with them, what makes a game easy to play and so on. As I mentioned earlier, I started out making game levels with tools that were provided on the Internet, and the game design knowledge I acquired from that is more important to my job now than a maths qualification. 

Where do you see yourself in the next 5-10 years?

Still in the video games industry I hope! Ideally, I’d like to be a lead designer in five years, overseeing the game design for a whole project. My dream is to design a game completely from scratch and guide it through the development cycle until it's a final, finished product that people can buy. Hopefully I’ll have a few of those under my belt in 10 years’ time!

What advice would you give to anyone looking to get into the video games industry?

The most important is to play games. Play as many as you can, across a wide range of genres and hardware formats. A broad knowledge of everything game-related will help you a lot more than if you just stuck to playing, for example, fighting games. If you have a particular talent, stick with it and learn as much as you can, as being an expert in one facet of games development is much better for your career.

As I mentioned earlier, getting some experience in QA for games can give you a really good grounding, especially if you get to test games from early on in their development cycle, as you’ll be able to make creative suggestions to the more senior members of the team as well as point out bugs and possible design issues. A lot of game developers have in-house teams for this, so keep an eye out for jobs as they come up. It’s fairly gruelling work, but it’s the closest the games industry has to an apprenticeship. Another important thing to remember is to read up on development practices.

There are lots of websites that can give you a great deal of info on game development, like Gamasutra.com and Developmag.com. It's free information and is written by people in the industry, so it's incredibly valuable. The final thing I would suggest is to learn how to use tools you’ll end up using on the job. You don’t necessarily have to learn the exact software packages, as most of them share similar basic rules and ways of doing things, but get a feel for things such as 3D Studio Max  and Maya. But most importantly, you have to love games and have a desire to understand them. If you’re truly passionate about them and are really interested in how great games work, then a job in the games industry is probably the best career you could have.