Discovering Your Path in the Gaming Industry: A Guide to Finding Your Career
by: Arthur Davis
For many people who are avid gamers and who love nothing more than spending their free time playing their favorite games, it’s often an aim to work within gaming. And there are plenty of opportunities to do that with the massive growth that the industry has seen in recent years. We’re going to talk today about how to find the career path in gaming that’ll work for you, so read on to find out more.
Assess the Skills You Already Have
First of all, you need to step back and think about the skills you already have and how they might be utilized as you aim to find a sustainable career for yourself in gaming. Everyone has a particular set of skills in place and these might help you to find the career you’re looking for. So find out more about that below.
Game Development
Game development is perhaps one of the most obvious routes into the games industry you might be considering. The competition is fierce in this niche but there are opportunities out there. It’s up to you to find the ways in which you might be able to develop your skills and make them relevant to game design and development. That might be quite easy to do if you already have a background in developing software.
Give Streaming Your Favorite Games a Go
Streaming has never been bigger, and although gaining a large audience for your streams isn’t easy, it can be done if you have the kind of personality necessary to entertain others. Most people start out on Twitch, but there are actually a whole host of Twitch Alternatives you might want to explore too when starting out.
Recorded Video Content
Streaming obviously isn’t the only way of creating content in the area of gaming. You might also want to record content and present it on Youtube. Doing so gives you more creative control over the output as it’s not just you sitting there for hours being watched live.
Games Journalism
If you have a background in writing and you’ve always loved discussing the positives and negatives of games, as well as tracking the latest industry news, a career in games journalism might be for you. There are tons of digital platforms, both written and video based, that offer opportunities for those starting out.
Game Testing
In the world of gaming, before a game can be launched, it first needs to be tested by people. Those testers find bugs and problems in the game that can then be fixed by the development team before the game is fully launched. It’s a vital job and one that many gamers would love to do.
There’s no shortage of ways in which you can make money and create a sustainable career in the arena of gaming. It’s up to you to find the approach that you feel is going to work best for you, but be sure to consider each of the options discussed here if you’re determined to work in the games industry.
Join a Gamer’s Group
Joining a group is perhaps one of the best ways to find your career in gaming. Joining a community of people with the same interests has a wide array of benefits. It can expose you to different thinking perspectives, you can get moral support, and most crucially, you can improve your gaming skills.
You will also get connected to various people in the gaming industry who can help boost your career. Being a member of an online gaming community can help you find solutions to problems you may be currently facing. This might happen when you encounter someone who has been through the same scenario.
This is the place where you will also be yourself. You can openly talk about your gaming thoughts without the fear of getting judged. It is a safe space with like-minded people ready to listen to you.
These groups are on different types of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more. For instance, you can join Skillz games, a Facebook gaming group with open-minded members who can help take your career to the next level.