Careers

General Reading

• Portfolios and Self-Promotion
  • “Killer Portfolio or Portfolio Killer” – notes from a GDC talk on expectations, content, do’s-and-don’ts, etc.
  • GDCVault’s Free Career Seminar Videos – more GDC career seminar talks
  • “How to Make a Free Website in Less Than 10 Minutes”
  • Codecademy – offers several courses on web languages, including one specifically for creating a personal website
  • Ethan Levy’s series “Breaking into Game Design” – ostensibly for designers, but great advice for any neophyte
• Jobs and Internships
  • GameDevMap – filters studios by region, making finding studios in an area (and their websites… and career pages) ultra-easy
  • Blizzard’s Sample Internship Requirements
  • Blizzard’s Sample Entry-Level Job Requirements
  • “Using Game Job Boards the Right Way” by Brice Morrison
  • The moderately-sized Portfolio/Resume/Cover Letter/Interview/HR Navigation post
  • Game Developer Salary Survey 2012– demographics on salaries, gender and job distribution, etc.
• Current and Prospective Students
  • Check out the Software page for student versions of industry-standard software
  • Extra Credits: On Game Schools
  • “Don’t Go to Art School” (and “The $10k Ultimate Art Education”)
• Misc.
  • Do Artists Have to Move to the “Big City”?– a great article on the pros and cons of moving to kickstart your career

Career Path Overviews

• Designers
  • Game Designer
  • Level Designer
  • Narrative Designer / Writer
• Engineers / Programmers
  • Gameplay Engineer
  • Systems Engineer
  • Tools Engineer
  • Build Engineer
• Artists
  • Concept Artist
  • 2D Artist
  • Character Artist
  • Environment Artist
  • Technical Artist
  • Animator
  •  Effects Artist
  • Composer / Audio
• Producers

Sources:
Salary estimates: Game Developer Salary Survey 2013