Hello! I would like to ask general questions about how difficult it is to enter the games business in the USA as a foreigner and what issues one would face. I'm pretty sure there's no racism or over nationalism issues in the industry, but I imagine that an employer would be a bit reluctant to hire a foreigner for several reasons. For instance, make him get a business VISA or something. How are the requirements about English language? Should a foreigner applicant speak a rather good, very good or perfect English? Pass some standard tests like TOEIC, TOEFL, GRE, etc; which one exactly? If not mandatory, does it really gives confidence to the employer? Do you have a foreigner coworker in your company? Did you experience any problem with him? Suppose you had to choose between 2 applicant developers, a native and a foreigner. Assuming they have similar technical skills and that the foreigner is quite fluent in English, which one would you choose ? 1) The American (why? easier to communicate/integrate?). 2) The foreigner (why? more interesting to have different cultures in your team? or perhaps he could be less paid?). 3) Obi Wan Kenobi (because the force is with him). Also, it's way more difficult to "network" and make good dev' friends when you can't see them on a convention like GDC or a local IGDA chapter. How can one do? Some more personal questions now. I'm French and I'm currently living and working in South Korea. For several good reasons, I'd like to go and live and work in the USA next year. My English is not perfect but I think it's good enough. Additional problems are: - I'm only a software developer and I work in a not-so-related-to-games domain (distributed computing in Java). - I have no impressive game-related portfolio to show for the moment, but I'm seriously working on this. - I'm 27 years old. I read that the average age is 28. My dream is to work on a AAA title, go to the local store and say to my (future) children: "See this game played by millions of players all over the world? I (as a part of the team) made it". In order to achieve that, when I'll go to the country, should I directly apply to games companies, or first apply to other software/business development companies (I guess it would be easier), and when I'm quite established, go go AAA titles companies ? Where are most jobs? Mobile game companies? Sorry for the very lengthy post and all those questions. PS: I can also make coffee, do the washing up and I'm a quite good cook. Cheap. Buy me! [Edit: changed "gaming" to "games"] [Edited by - Splo on March 9, 2008 11:24:54 PM]

I work with lots of foreigners (in Canada though, not in the USA). There have been problems on occassion (almost always due to poor communication skills in English), and a few have been fired for this. On the flipside I know a lot of foreigners that have better English skills than people who have lived in Canada their whole lives. If you have decent communication skills in English then you'll probably do ok (I have many french coworkers, and I've never had a problem communicating with any of them...of course I can speak french and I grew up in a part of Canada that has a lot of francophones, so I might just be used to accents).

If you wish to work somewhere in the games industry where you can speak French, I'd suggest looking into Montreal, Canada (EA, and Ubisoft), or France itself (Ubisoft). I'm not sure where in France Ubisoft is based off the top of my head.

As far as the legal side of things (i.e. work Visa's and such), I'm completely clueless myself as I've never worked outside of my home country.

> I'm only a software developer and I work in a
> not-so-related-to-games domain (distributed
> computing in Java)

Given your background (Java, Korea, French), I'd suggest you try and talk to Won Cho of Gameloft (Gameloft is the mobile arm of Ubisoft. Sort of.) Their offices are near the COEX. He knows the industry and being a local working for a French games company can give you some career pointers. Also, you definitely want to look up G*star and KGDC too in Oct-Nov; v.noisy, but v.nice place to make contacts.

Hope this helps.

-cb

Thanks for your answers.

Well I guess searching for a job in France or around Montreal would be easier for me, but I'd like to follow my girlfriend who will live in USA starting next year :). She hasn't decided yet where she will go, but probably at San Francisco, Chicago or Washington DC. Aaah, love turns you so stupid!

Anyway I'll definitely try to go to Gstar and KGC.

And I'll make 1 or 2 mobile game demos.

Ive worked with foreigners in projects (not game design) and it sometimes can be a hurdle with communication issues. I ended up being good friends with 2 of them though, and after a couple years they were just as good at english as everyone else. (Partly from us helping them out with pronunciations etc, I even learned a few words in their language).

I'm in Australia, so may not be exactly relevant, but:
I'd estimate that about two-thirds of the development-side of the company I'm currently in would be foreigners (Looking around at the moment - Indian, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Brazilian, Dutch, British, Italian, Russian...).

Occasionally strong accents can be an issue, but then you can always use email ;)