All of the job opportunity out there for Game Development require you have two years experience or more while being entry level position. For example I've did a quick search for EA games for an entry position as a Level Designer. Most of the qualification I would be good with except for the fact they also require "Work Experience in the gaming industry". As I get closer to graduating college and soon applying for work, how could I get job experience if they require someone with job experience in such positions? Seems like an impossible cycle...

All of the job opportunity out there for Game Development require you have two years experience or more while being entry level position.[/quote]

It's pretty simple. Don't aim for EA or the other top companies.

Or have a very very outstanding portfolio that can counterweight the lack of work experience.

AFAIK at smaller companies the work experience is not strictly a requirement but a plus.

Catch-22 is hard to beat...

My first job was asking for "3 years experience or 3 shipped titles" (a pretty steep ask for an entry-level job!!), but I got the job despite having no commercial experience. Instead of experience, I showed them all the game mods and hobby projects I'd been building during university.

Catch-22 is hard to beat...

My first job was asking for "3 years experience or 3 shipped titles" (a pretty steep ask for an entry-level job!!), but I got the job despite having no commercial experience. Instead of experience, I showed them all the game mods and hobby projects I'd been building during university.

To what extend where these game mods or hobby projects... I am currently working on a text-based rpg console application during my past time. I find it enjoyable but its not "fancy" or anything...

To be honest, a text based rpg (at least that term implies) is rather weak.

Anyway, read the "Breaking In" FAQ:s.

To what extend where these game mods

http://www.moddb.com/mods/move-in

To be honest, a text based rpg (at least that term implies) is rather weak.

Anyway, read the "Breaking In" FAQ:s.

It really depends on exactly what was done with the text based RPG, how complex it is, and what unique problems were solved with it.

For one class back in university I produced a 3D shooter that included a whole host of 'advanced' features. I did this in about a week or two, and 90% of the code was a copy-paste job from demonstrations of each of those features. Most of my time went into producing nice looking art assets to show things off. Visually it was impressive, but as far as coding skill? There was next to nothing there.

For one of my own random summer projects I produced what was basically a text RPG. Content was procedurally generated, and included a complex story generation system. It had far more technical points of interest than the shooter.

Basically it doesn't matter what the project is, but rather what/how it does. Some things appear more interesting on the surface, others require you to guide someone through to all the cool points.

Most of those questions are answered in the Breaking In forum FAQ.


When it comes to job postings, a job posting shows what they want. They want an ideal candidate. They collect a bunch of job applicants and choose among those. Few of them are exact matches for their ideal candidate. Look for jobs that you believe you can do and apply to them.

You specifically mentioned entry level work for a college grad. There is rarely a need to search for entry level programmers at a game studio. There is a constant flow of unsolicited applicants; additionally it is easy to ask around internally for prospective workers and generate a list of direct referrals. A few entries in the Breaking In forum FAQ deal with sending in unsolicited applications at the entry level, and with networking to help you get the first job within the industry.

All of the job opportunity out there for Game Development require you have two years experience or more while being entry level position.

No they don't. Only advertised jobs need previous experience and they aren't actually entry level roles. Developers don't advertise entry level position because they get so many unsolicited applications. Finding experienced staff is difficult so they have to advertise (and even then they may not get someone - in which case an inexperienced person may get a chance).

The game jobs posted on Gamatura or other trade journals are looking for very experienced developers. Those are not usually entry level positions. Since Gamatura probably charges for job postings like most other sites, the companies does a cost analysis and it's not worth posting a listing for a entry level tester on Gamatrua.. You can find those jobs directly from their site or from contacts inside the company, sometimes those jobs are not even published as they are filled by internal procurement..

How do you get experience? It's not so hard, just do it. Most of the people who work at game companies are self starters, many start from personal projects and grow out from there. I don't know how other industry work, but in games, people tend to view self motivation and passion as a positive. You'll get those rare brilliant persons who get hired, even with no experience. But that's pretty rare.. even then they usually have an impressive body of self work, which qualifies in place of experience for most people.

Focus on your core competency , that will be the quickest route into the industry. If your interest is physics, make physics demos and study the state of the art. The thing about games is they are completive and always looking to get a completive edge. If you can come up with a better physics model or novel physics algorithms which gives them that edge, people are always interested..Even without that, a good understanding of the state of the art and actually demonstrable demos of such will get you an interview at least.

Good Luck!

-ddn