[MUD-Dev] JOB: How to get into Game Design / Game content

[Brian 'Psychochild' Green]

I write this post to fulfill my karmic duty.  I was once the newbie
outsider looking to get into the industry.  Too often people on the
inside forget how hard it is to get into the industry.

I'm going to go mildly off-topic here and talk about the game industry
in general.  I'm going to start with Taylor's post, then go into some
more general words of wisdom for the lurkers out there that might be
asking the same question.

Taylor wrote:

> I've been a professional web developer for coming up on seven years
> now.  I've become frustrated with the web industry as of late and
> have begun to look into gaming, especially the online games.

Why are you frustrated at the web industry?  Unfortunately, the game
industry might have some of the same things here to frustrate you.  We
routinely have to put up with clueless bosses (Dilbert is a live and
well in the industry), stubborn people with fragile egos,
underfunding, insane deadlines, etc.  The game industry isn't a
perfect land without frustration. :) Lots and lots of people just
don't get the online gaming industry, but are put into positions of
power anyway.  Check out the most recent "Biting the Hand" article on
Skotos' web site.

(side note: Kudos to Skotos for hosting those wonderful articles!  I
was dismayed to hear that HappyPuppy wasn't able to host them
anymore.)

> I originally came into the web business from a theater background
> because I saw a potential in the web for storytelling and digital
> performance. It now seems to me that much of what I wanted to see
> out of the web in general is happening in online gaming, and I'm
> trying to figure out how to switch my career over.

Note that web work and online gaming aren't mutually exclusive.  The
here was a recent post to the mailing list about the online game
supporting the movie A.I.  The game takes place mostly on the web, and
includes quite a bit of good web development to make it all work.
>From what I've heard, Majestic is doing largely the same thing.  Looks
to be a rather exciting area, really.
 
> I've worked at a number of high profile sites, and have worked the
> gambit of internet jobs from HTML production, to animation, to
> programmer, to UI design. I have good programming skills (mainly
> javascript and flash actionscript, though I'm competent with many
> server side scripting languages as well), and good writing and
> presentation skills (I've written many articles and tutorials that
> have been published, and I'm a regular speaker at web conventions).

If you want to be a designer, these are all good skills to have.  It
is important to note, however, that technical writing and creative
writing are generally two separate skills one has to develop.

For large scale games, a designer has to know quite a bit about quite
a few areas.  It's been said many times before that designers have to
be Renaissance people.  You have to know enough about programming,
art, writing, music, etc to be able to talk to the myriad of people
that make today's games.  You don't have to be an expert, just at
least conversant in the field.

> I've also been trying to do my homework as to what I need to know
> about game design. I've been lurking on this list for a while,
> reading through the online information (thank you Raph), I've read a
> few books on game design, and worked on a game design document with
> some friends. I also attended this year's GDC and went to most of
> the online gaming sessions (I was the big bald orange guy).

Doing your homework is good.

I was the guy with long hair and... uh... a beard.  Yeah, that
differentiates me from all the other gaming geeks at the
conference. :) (By the third day of the conference, I'm lucky to
remember my own name.)

> What skills and experience should I be trying to rapidly acquire to
> get hired in the gaming industry? I think that my biggest barrier is
> no gaming experience. Ultimately I'd like to get a job as a game
> designer or as part of the content team for a MMORPG. I'm also
> interested in working on the web site for a game, especially one
> that is integrating the web site into the game.

Experience is the catch-22.  Can't get a job without experience, can't
get experience without a job, eh?

Not quite.  There are a lot of free text MUDs out there.  There are a
selection of good, free text MUD codebases available as well.  Yeah,
it's not glamorous, but it's experience.

Quite a few professionals got their start in text MUDs.  I misspent
nights I should have been working on computer science homework or
reading 19th century Spanish poetry playing and working on MUDs
myself.  :)
 
> Any advice on how to get my foot in the door? Are there any skills
> that I should be trying to get a crash course in? Any advice for a
> wannabe game creator?

And now, the bad news. :) A few important points.

  1) Game design isn't sitting around coming up with "good ideas".
  The fact is that 90% of a designer's work is filling in the details
  of someone else's idea.  Even if you manage to become a lead
  designer, someone higher up on the food chain usually dictates what
  you are going to do next, at least to some degree.  You have to get
  become a "name" like Sid Meyer or Will Wright to get to do your own
  games, and sometimes not even then.

You should realize that game companies have more ideas than they could
ever handle.  Consider that the typical team size for modern games
ranges from 15-40 people.  Say half of those people have an idea for a
"great" game.  Who's idea are they going to use for the team's next
project?  Probably the manager's. ;)

  2) Making games isn't the same as playing games.  This point should
  be obvious, but some people don't get it.  They think that playing
  games is fun, so making games should be just as fun.  Unfortunately,
  doesn't work that way.  It's still a job; it can often get stressful
  and frustrating.  But, it can also be extremely creative and
  rewarding, too.

  3) Everyone wants to be a game designer.  Only a select few really
  geeky programmers that just love programming aren't interested in
  designing; everyone else thinks they'd make a great designer.
  Mostly because they haven't learned the truth of item number one
  above.

  4) Be prepared to pay your dues.  You're going to spend a lot of
  time doing grunt work at the start.  Especially in design work,
  there's going to be a lot of people looking to get into the
  position.  Many of these people have more experience than you do.
  Your best bet is to get in on an entry level job, but those aren't
  exactly common.

  5) Hope you don't have a family or like money.  Be prepared to make
  less than you are now.  Unless you are horrifically underpaid, you
  are going to take a pay cut going into the industry, especially
  without experience.  After working at a game company for about 2
  years, I left the company for a dot-com job.  I was making almost
  twice the salary at the dot-com compared to the game job; the hours
  were better, too. :) The stories about 80-hour work weeks aren't
  exaggerations.

  6) The industry is small and incestuous.  This industry is based
  upon who you know.  Often really nice jobs won't be posted publicly,
  only internally.  A friend in the industry that knows you are
  looking for a job can often keep an eye out for jobs they hear
  about.  Having a good recommendation from a person inside the
  company *never* hurts your chances.  The flip side of this is that
  you gotta be nice to everyone. "The toes you step on today might be
  connected to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow" is how it was once
  colorfully put to me.

To demonstrate this, let me give you an example.  I worked with Tim
Brengle at my last job at Communities.com.  He was head of Engineering
when I left.  I went and started my own gaming company and took a
contract with a wireless developer in order to cover the
bills. Unfortunately, Communities.com has gone out of business,
scattering the employees.  Who do I happen to bump into at the GDC?
That's right, Tim.  He tells me that he was just hired onto the
wireless company I'm doing a contract for to give them guidance in
providing tools for the game industry.  It's a small, small world.

  7) Luck helps.  I got my job working on Meridian 59 by being at the
  right place at the right time.  I wanted to get into game
  development, and I figured I'd pay my dues on the single-player side
  of things.  I used a recruiter an applied to 3DO to work as an N64
  programmer (with no previous experience!).  I happened to have had a
  lot of MUD experience, and the hiring manager just happened to be a
  producer that wanted a developer to work on maintaining Meridian 59.
  The rest, as they say, is history.

  8) You have to have a passion for what you're doing.  It ties into
  most of the points above.  You're going to be working long hours for
  low pay.  You're going to spend most of your time implementing
  someone else's idea.  You're going to pine for the days when you
  could sit down for a few hours at night and play the latest game
  without interruption. Why do you keep working under these
  conditions?  Because you have a passion for these things we call
  games and are ready to get back into the trenches tomorrow.

Okay, so maybe you're still reading this instead of curling up under
your desk and sobbing.  So, what should you do now?  Sounds like
you're on the right path so far.  You have enough interest to start
learning about the industry.

Read industry news and get familiar with the people and companies in
the industry.  Get in the know on the topics important to the field.
This mailing list is a great resource for that.  When I was a wannabe,
I read Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com/).  I stopped reading it
after a format change a few years ago, but I've heard it's still a
good place to chat with other people and get industry information.

It's also important to be a gamer.  This seems pretty obvious, but
you'd be surprised the number of people that want to make games that
can't stand playing them.  Having a good knowledge of what else is out
there helps.

Never stop learning.  I have spent a lot of time reading literature,
talking to experienced people, and experimenting on my own.  This
industry truly embodies the old saw, "the more you know, the more you
realize you have no clue about."  Be willing to absorb the information
provided out there.  Especially in the online gaming industry; some
teams have been terrible at learning the lessons of previous
generations of games.

If you have the passion and you are willing to learn, then I think
you'll fit in just fine.  Just be prepared to be a bitter, crusty old
veteran of the industry after 3-5 years. :)

--
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...."  -"Defender", Manowar
     Brian Green, brian at psychochild.org  aka  Psychochild
       |\      _,,,---,,_      *=* Morpheus, my kitten, says "Hi!" *=*
 ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_   "They're not bugs, they're 'place-
      |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'    holders for code that works.'"
     '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)         - Andrew Kirmse, Meridian 59 creator
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