It’s getting to that time in your life when you have to start considering exactly what you’ll be doing with your career and video games look like a solid field. You’re good with numbers, you know a little programming code, or you’re a fairly decent artist.

Any of these are good reasons to consider the industry, so where do you go for video game design career information? You’ll need to be proactive, getting out there and putting forth the effort to make the most of your interest. Here’s how to start.

First off is schooling.

For any video game design career, you’ll need to get a two to four year degree in the field you’re interested in first. Devry, ITT Technical Institute, and many of the Art Institutes all offer programs that will prepare you for the video game design field as well as offering you tons of video game design career information through their programs.

There are other more traditional schools, such as The Digital Media Arts College in Florida, which offers extensive Bachelors Degree programs in video game design, as well as Collins College in Arizona. Almost anywhere in the nation though you’ll find a program that will help you get the video game design career information you need.

Know The Industry

But, just getting a degree is not necessarily enough. Many careers require some level of experience or knowledge of the industry, possibly even just a few contacts from within. Regardless, you should be familiar with the various game design companies.

Not only should you know which companies you’d like to work with when it comes time to apply for jobs, you should know what they produce, familiarizing yourself with their output.

You should know that EA has multiple studios that produce Sports games, action games, and movie license among many others. You should know that if you want to work for a Japanese publisher, you might need to know a little Japanese.

Get Out There and Network

Once you’ve familiarized yourself with the industry and are on your way to having a degree, you should look for video game design career information in the most information packed places of all, the trade shows and publications.

You can find endless amounts of information at these shows, with every major publisher out in full force. Though E3 has changed its format this year to a smaller invite only summit, other major shows such as the Tokyo Game Show (once again, Japanese helps), or the Game Developers Conference offer plenty of chances to step in and grab information or meet and greet with designers.

And if you can get invites to any industry events, either through school or press credentials or through networking with industry insiders, you can find yourself in a position to land a great job designing video games.

The real key to finding good video game design career information is to step out of the box and take real initiative. You had better have a keen eye and a willingness to get your foot in the door and meet lots of people. There are hundreds of opportunities out there if you’re willing to make the effort in exploiting them.

By: Hitoshi Jones

About the Author:

Marketing Strategies

What Is The Average Video Game Tester Salary?

Being a video game tester is one of the most enjoyable jobs in the world. Getting to play and find all the secrets to the newest and greatest games before anyone else. For someone who loves video games it is the perfect job! But can you actually make a living doing it? Fun is fun but fun doesn’t pay the bills.

Lucky for you the average video game tester salary is definitely enough to pay the bills. It can range anywhere from $20,000 per year all the up to $100,000 or more. How much you get paid is directly related to the amount of jobs you do. Most game testers are hired on a job to job basis and not a yearly salary so it is a little harder to judge.

Generally a video game company will pay out on an hourly rate. That rate is usually $10-$20 per hour to start depending on the company but as you get more experience and get your name out there more you can achieve much, much more. Sometimes as high as $100 per hour! So as you can see the pay is very reasonable, especially since you get to do it from home and get to have a lot of fun.

The biggest downside to it all is since it is job to job you may not always have a steady stream of income if you do not get selected to test games for a period of time. That is where it is important to get your name out there and let the big video game companies know who you are. But how exactly can you do that?

By: Jason T Hunt

About the Author:

Marketing Strategies

Yes you can become wildly successful as a video game tester and yes you can create a full time income from testing video games if you do it right and do the right jobs, BUT, you shouldn’t be paying someone in order to get into a job. That is where these programs become dodgy. Why should you pay to get into a job when the only way to get the job is absolutely free? I did some research on one of these companies called game tester guide, and have come up with the following results.

The truth about video game testing programs

There used to be a sponsor named Alex Lum, but after being bashed as not legit, the sponsor was quickly changed. Now there is a new sponsor named Matt Lankard! This sponsor claims to be a successful video game tester, and when he shows you the checks that he makes, it’s signed by a company called Lumco LLC. Namely, as I did some more research, I found that the checks themselves were being signed by Alex Lum to Alex Lum. With more research, I have this evidence to be reoccurring in different examples. As a quick search for Alex Lum on Google, his biographies say that he’s a “successful video game tester”. Since he’s not a company owner, than how is it that his name seems to be coming up whenever you search up Lumco LLC on Google, turns out, it comes up as squat and is only flooded with a bunch of websites saying how the company is null and inreputable. Sad to say it people, but you cannot make $80 from video game testing. The starting pay is actually close to minimum pay, which is sad, but it is true. however you can make about $15 and hour if you become a game tester/quality assurance depending on the games budget. You do not get paid in paychecks when doing testing. It gets wired into your bank account. Do you think that companies would be dumb enough to simply stick a check into your mail box? I’ve seen maybe a few companies do it, but usually they just wire it in. So then why are people getting paid in checks from the game tester guide website?

Video game testing programs are scams that shouldn’t be touched with when you can join gaming companies as a tester for free rather than paying more than $40.

By: Matthew Castro

About the Author:

business marketing strategy

I love video games and my dream job would be to be a video game journalist or reviewer. I would like to know what kind of education or experience i need to get into this career and where would i look for jobs. I would also like to know if it pays well. Having a job I love and that also pays well would just be icing on the cake. Thanks for the help!

By: Lman

About the Author:

Business Marketing