Question

I’ve been working in C++ in embedded environments for a number of years, developing navigation applications. There is a gaming company in my hometown that I like the look of, but I don’t have game development experience. You could consider a navigation app as a type of game, depending on who you are running from.

My question is, what steps should I take to enter the industry? Is it a bad idea to enter the industry at this stage (I’m 30)?

Answer 1

Being 30 doesn’t really matter, you can enter the games industry at any age assuming you have the drive and ability.

• Start reading about gaming topics, and game development websites (gamedev, gamasutra etc.)
• Start writing games. Clones of games you like, your own original ideas, tech demos, anything that you can point to and say “I wrote that, and along the way I learned these things, and solved these problems.”
• If there is a specific area of interest to you, AI, Rendering, Frontend, Tools & Pipelines, Audio, focus on building game/demo/sample projects that challenge you in that area. “Yeah, I’ve done that” sounds a lot better in an interview than “yeah I’ve heard of that”.
• Get to know people in the industry if you can, through online forums, friends of friends, etc… One good contact can do more for your chances than weeks of demo coding or months of sending resumes out. Game companies may have open houses or job fairs.
• The “entry level” jobs in game development are likely to be Frontend or Tools. If you’ve done navigation apps, sounds like that might be a decent fit for you. If that has included more low level work and optimization on embedded platforms, you might also look at Systems roles.