8 game dev jobs to choose from - which is right for you? unity3d? 

I've been programming for nearly 25 years, and I still get excited when the code compiles

i’ve been programming for exactly 47 years and i dont know what unity is

I am already programming for 70 years and still get excited too

I'm eda Lovelace and don't know what programming is 😂

Writing/Storytelling is a discipline that cannot stand on its own easily in Game Development. That's because of naked text is not very appealing... even for your teammates. There's one sad rule for texts: No one will read them. As a writer you have to amp up your skill set by another task you can accomplish. The discipline that suits the narrative designer the most is coding. But you don't necessarily have to write your own code. There are plenty of dialogue systems you can use without writing a single line of code, but if you want to customize those tools to fit into your project you have to know how the tool works. It sounds hard, but in fact is very quick and easy to learn. If you don't have any experience in code whatsoever, I can recommend the unity-tool ink by inkle. It's basically a simplified coding language and works a little bit like those adventure books from the eighties... and you can even write your own text based Zork-like. I started as writer/storyteller and had the same bad feelings about coding... then I wrote my own text adventure by using ink. It's super easy to understand, very intuitive and gives you a glimpse how actual C-based code works. For me it was my the gateway into coding and I like it a lot now. You get a huge chunk of independence if you learn some basic coding. Game Design is another discipline how you can compliment your writing skills. But it's more or less a pre production task to make sure that the mechanics support the story and vice versa. Coding is important as well, so you can test whether your mechanics are fun at all. For the start: Search RU-vid for interesting code tutorials and build your own mechanics out of it and THEN think of a story that fits into those mechanics. Or to be more general: Work with the tools you find before you start crafting your own unique tools. The first game I coded, was a pixel art platformer with some story narrated through dialogue... because there are plenty of tutorials for insane controllers. I used that one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MbWK8bCAU2w.html Just open unity and visual studio, watch the series and just mimic the steps he does and you have a finished and working character controller. It's really that easy. I learned how to code a platformer in a weekend, and I started with almost zero knowledge about C#. It IS a very dry task in the beginning, but if you finally understand how you do stuff, you're basically a deity in your own world. That's why I highly recommend to give code a chance. Start small, get addicted... and even if you finally find out that coding is really not your thing you at least know how to better communicate with coders. Game Art/Concept Art is another discipline that can amp up your narrative skills or better it is a work around for the fact, that no-one reads your script... just let your art tell the story. BUT if you want to work in the industry concept artist and writer are rarest jobs you can find. If you don't belong to the Top 100 in the world it's almost impossible to get a job. Those companies that can afford an artist that doesn't do anything else but concept art or a writer that just does writing, can afford the best ppl they can get. If you don't work for a big company you probably will work interdisciplinary. And to get employed by a big company you most often have to have worked on a shipped title. So as long as you don't start your own company, where you take the role of the lead writer and producer... I highly recommend to be prepared to say good bye to your "writing only" attitude. Don't hope to be the unicorn. Take into consideration that you're just a pony that has yet to become a horse. So the easiest and quickest way to become a narrative designer is to learn how to write a few lines of code. Sincerely yours, a guy that once believed to be a unicorn and now hopes to be a horse one day.

You can be a project manager producer then. Cross functional support.

This described me exactly - I’m looking into going into product design in general but the developer role is definitely a lot of pressure on all fronts

​​@@philippschmitz1787hi, good points. I think now you see alot of indie text/dialogue based games. So I don't think it's impossible. It depends on the audience and whether they like storyline or story-based games that include dialogue. I personally do like reading but I think it depends on personal preference too. Supply and demand.

There are plenty of companies who employ audio engineers or sound designers but they're often expected to be able to integrate on their own which is rarely the case, if you have a background in both audio engineering and programming, you can basically get a job anywhere you want

I love your pfp, that dude is hilarious

Glad you liked it!

I can answer some of these: 1 - Narrative design is the job title you're looking for. There are also "writers", who in large teams might be split into character/dialogue vs worldbuilding/lore. Folks I've spoken with seem to mainly build their portfolio as writers first - either in another medium (comics, board/card/tabletop games, literature), or on portfolio projects, similar to other artists. 2 - I've *heard* of a few modders getting jobs, but I'm not sure how much that factored in - seems like the mod itself has to demonstrate a lot of nuts-and-bolts work *and* be very popular in a well-known game community. 3 - Most games never get completed - even in AAA studios, you don't hear about all the ideas that never saw the light of day. I have a day job as a programmer and run my own solo dev company nights/weekends. Going solo means projects take longer to finish/show results, so you might get discouraged or distracted along the way.

Biggest problem with solo dev IMO is that you can't be great at all the necessary ingredients. First task is to identify your own strengths and then figure out what you're gonna do about the rest - whether that's finding a partner, using paid/free assets, or choosing a genre & engine that lets you leverage what you're good at (like a writer making a visual novel with Ren'Py). Once you have a good idea of what you can & can't do yourself, it's a lot easier to focus on the parts that you personally find fun, which helps a lot with the motivation aspect.

Databases would either be part of tools, systems, or IT, depending on whether you're designing the software to build/use the database, or the one maintaining it.

Do you work at a company now??

@@shieru01 No. I finish Uni this year. Then I will hopefully

Yeah, he totally forgot game audio / sound design / sound engineering. That's a viable field in and of itself.

Working on doing that more in New videos

@Owen Cooper did you end up moving into a development position?

I've been in programming (Mainly gameplay) for 10 years, never been in a QA role but always been tempted to swap to QA as it seemed like less of a headache though I've heard a lot of bad stories about QA and I know it would be a pay decrease

Good idea!

Yes !

Ye dud ikr, i got the same issue. I am in my final year of school and have no idea whats next...

Good question! I would like to know as well!

likewise, lol :)

Glad you enjoyed it!

Hope it was better the 2nd time! :)

You can do it! Learn the basics or focus on becoming the BEST artist ever

Music is usually outsourced. In-house composers are pretty much non-existant not just in gamedev but in movie industry and other industries as well. There are composers who specialize in game music and have repeated gigs with some studios but they are usually contracted for a specific job. Voice-over stuff is same. Freelance contractors. Most of audio work is done by sort of jack-of-all-trades sound designers. They source/record/edit/synthesize sfx and may fill in the role of audio engineer, foley artist and implement/script the audio events using the engine or middleware (FMOD, Wwise or some in-house tool). Audio programming jobs are rarer as most teams use off the shelf engines/middleware that cover the basic audio needs. Audio programmers only appear to be in larger teams which roll out their own engines. In large audio is treated as an afterthought. Nobody notices it if it's good, but if it's bad oh boy...

@@user-ky9qn4pg3w ^^ THIS. Confirmed by all the game audio folks I've met or who've given talks. Used to do some sound design as a TV production student. They at least have more appreciation ($$) for the work in TV & movies, so it is definitely worth seeking contracts there as well.

Content

he said, enviormental artist & level builder

It's possible but only in small indie studios. If you want to work for a big game studio you have to specialize in one of these subfields.

Any tips on that?

just apply anyways, what companies put for these things are just wish lists

Bruh. I have almost 4 years of personal Unity experience and only made and published 1 mobile game. Got any tips because you're obviously way above my progress. :( I've been learning a lot of other tech specializations like Web dev instead. (because they kinda pay better after all)

That's quite demotivating to hear... I've started studding Game Development about a year ago and I need to find a job asap. Do you apply for a lot of jobs?

Right now it's hard for anyone entry-level, b/c there are a lot of experienced folks seeking work. But my observation of the game-dev market in general seems to be that they want to know what games you've worked on / teams you've worked with. If you only have personal projects, try making a RU-vid reel of your games, and add that to your LinkedIn and personal site. And bring your game on a laptop or tablet/phone to any interviews - doing that is how I got my current non-game programming job. My would-be boss could literally see a finished app/game that I coded, rather than just scanning over a page of code samples.

start building a few 3d games, get used to the pipeline and tooling around the 3d side of the engine. you can be SR without doing 3d.. as a sr 2d game dev, but you'd really want to broaden your skillset a bit, try 3d, networked, and more a bit too

@@Unity3dCollege Thanks! I'll try to make something simple in 3D. But I've never released a game on my own. On which platform is it better to release a 3D game? I've always created games for the Android / iOS stores.

@@plexoid You could always release on itch.io for free your 3D games. It's what I have done, although my 3D games are not very good lol

Website development & maintenance falls under IT, assuming they don't just contract someone for the initial setup and then use a CMS.