Start Game Development Off RIGHT (The ONE Tip You Need)

there's a million ways to start making games as a career whether you're working for AAA or you start your own game Studio but there is one thing there is one thing that you need to do start it off right and it might surprise you what that is I had an incredible conversation with Jason Wyman who is a triple a developer and I'm an indie game developer and we both agreed on this one thing there are very few professions out there where connections aren't the best way to to get in if you already know somebody who works at AAA studio and you're applying for it talk to those people have those people put in a good word for you have them to say it to their manager hey just talk to this person at least you know give them an interview it's not necessarily that it's going to get you the job but it'll help you kind of get your foot in the door um and be able to be seen in front of people outside of that if you don't have any connections at all having some experience on your resume is going to be better than just qualify like certifications or qualifications or

schooling having some projects that you've actually completed on your own and put out there even if they weren't big AAA or even big Indie projects just being able to show that you were able to get things done and get that finishes good but I think the the best thing if you don't know anybody there and you can't get in try to get in through the QA department or the customer service department or any of those other ones because if you do that and you actually talk to people you'll make those connections really quickly and end up getting promoted or getting into the positions I know a lot just emailing customer service with your no go get a job as a customer service rep oh okay go go get a job there and ideally like in their QA department or maybe like their platform Management Department a lot of companies the bigger ones they'll have these smaller teams that kind of do the the grunt work that other people don't really want to do there's not that much demand for those jobs people don't apply for them heavily if you get in there

you'll learn who the people are meet the right people and a lot of people that are you know directors CEOs and other things that started off in QA they started off like no experience no idea what they were doing no qualifications they got in they just started talking to people making friends learning the job and uh leveled up really quickly like that my first Game Dev job was in QA you know really lasted like three weeks and then I got hired as a programmer well I was I was gonna disagree with you about the connections are relevant for every job because I was at first I was like with indie game development all you got to do is for me it was like build your own audience and and make great games and and and that audience will Propel your project to to go viral on Steam which is kind of My Method but then I realized as you were talking it was only because I had a ton of connections that these projects were even possible and I didn't get these can like for example like connections with Publishers for example you know Armor Games funded pinstripe my first game

um if I hadn't known armor games or the CEO I probably wouldn't have ever been able to do the project right um but but you know I don't know where you you recommend finding connections um but for the indie game sphere um I found all my connections by just asking for advice um well most of them right so like just emailing people and saying hey can I chat with you for like an hour um and just I just want to learn from you and suddenly that builds a friendship with these people who are a little bit higher up on the ladder so I'm curious if you've experienced that where you just asked for mentorship or just kind of befriended somebody at a at a I don't know an event or conference or something without a doubt yeah especially at events but so the first place is at work so one of the biggest benefits I just want to call this out of AAA Studios is that you're working with and you're

going into an office with dozens or hundreds of people who are in the industry a lot of them have been in the industry for a long time have worked on games that you've played you know they've made your favorite game or been a part of that and it's going to be people from like hundreds of different games that are also leaving and going to hundreds of different companies and if you're going out to lunch with them talking with them and making friends with them you're going to make connections faster than just about anything of course if you you know stay at your desk and Herm it up then that won't happen but if you just take the opportunity to be friendly with co-workers and make a huge huge difference but the other one if you're not already in there is the meetups and these they kind of changed with all the the coveted crap but it seems like it's kind of come back and meetups are starting to reappear but in-person meetups hack and events even if it's just like a talk somebody's giving and everybody's hanging out there and hanging out for an hour before and after chatting a great way to meet lots of people and make lots of connections actually um I met one of the guys from Odin at a

Meetup just happened to it I was like oh that's a dude promote and somebody was like oh oh let's go talk to him go talk to him he made friends Brian he's a great dude it just happened to be at an event and we started talking um and it's I've met a lot of my friends just at these events you know talking to them and also gone through tons of opportunities and they've presented plenty of opportunities that I've passed on to other friends so I highly recommend going to meet up stuff like that it's true and it's uh you know my style with with the indie game side of this question um you know because the the real topic here is like which is easier like when it comes to like networking for example like if we apply this to the title of this video when it comes to networking which one is harder to do AAA networking or Indy networking because for me when I think about Indie like the Indie side of networking it's meeting Publishers so these aren't AAA Studios these are just you know small Studios with money right who can Market your game meeting

publishers it really happens not at like I don't think I I don't know exactly where where these happen but for me they happened at like Pax um game developer conference but also just putting my work out there online my portfolio like I put out free games and so I highly recommend anybody listening release crappy games on hio just do it and make them free and uh see see who reaches out to you even and says hey we saw your game we might want to publish it make it bigger because that's happened to me multiple times but I think the big question here is like is Triple A networking accessible so what I mean is like do you have to already know somebody to go to a networking event or can you just find them online and go to the city and go to these events that's the so I I think that it depends a lot on where you are and I've got a weird like I'm personally in a bubble being like an

hour out of La where there's meetups all the time that are hosted by AAA companies or by people that work at AAA companies and attended by them um and it's a relatively regular thing I could probably find a couple each month that are just within a 20 30 minute drive but for regular people it's probably much much more difficult I think you actually have to put in some effort and probably start also attending so like so you said some of those bigger events going to Pax going to GDC in-person unite events things like that where you can actually get around and talk to people it was one of those few opportunities but if you happen to be in an area that has AAA Studios I would start looking to look on meetup.com is a great place to just find game developer meetups there's probably some other ones out there but that's the main one I've used there are also some online ones I know I've hosted an online Game Dev meetups they're not necessarily AAA but some of the people who attended them or

regularly are AAA developers you could also probably start your own but that might feel a little bit harder I guess but yeah it depends where you are probably exactly yeah I have the benefit of being in Southern California right right and for those of you who are curious where I'm at I'm on the complete opposite side of America I'm in South Carolina so it's like the last place you want to be to to you know join the AAA industry so it's an interesting discussion because you know for you Jason getting into AAA made sense right because the industry is basically shrouding you for me I said I didn't I didn't live here when I got into it I moved the second I got an opportunity I got an opportunity for a job working on QA and a triple A game that I wanted to work on I said all right let's go we're moving we moved straight down here it was uh crazy and and wild my wife is super supportive though um yeah I I just figured hey worst case

it falls apart and I can move back like you can always feel like would you move back somewhere Washington State so there was not not any game development at all where I was um Seattle right kind of but not real it was still really far and there's very limited there were like you know three game studios up there yeah and they were well you know that that makes me like think about the path that I took and why I took it you know I always wanted to make games but I've been in South Carolina my whole life I love it here uh and I can't I can't get myself to leave just because the quality of life here is really good prices are low um but that I think that's part of the reason why I did indie game development because I was like I'm gonna do this regardless of of what company I work for like I'm gonna make games no matter what I don't care where I live and fortunately like it's getting easier and easier to do that um for from my perspective if if you

guys listening instead of doing AAA you want to start your own game studio and you want to make connections the way that I recommend people do it is just make really really good demos for like your portfolio because when I get emails from people who want to like you know get advice from me or they want to maybe work with me do contract work if I don't see a portfolio I won't frankly I won't even consider the email um because it's like look you didn't even send me anything um so I don't I don't really have the time to go back and forth to try and figure out what you have to offer um so a great portfolio will get you those connections and it's just through email right so all of my connections well ninety percent of my indie game connections for my career have been through email including this one right um so I don't know if that's similar to AAA but email is is a huge aspect of it

yeah email has been not as big for me I think just because probably the people with those email boxes don't care they don't read stuff that comes from outside the company hey guys thanks for watching or listening be sure to leave a like subscribe and leave a review that would mean the world to me and hey if you're on YouTube click that video right there you're gonna love it I'll see you later cheers