Which job in the gaming industry?

If you don't know what to get into, I would suggest at least being in the field and work while you're still deciding. For someone that has no experience, this means quality assurance. This also means that you'll likely be doing massive amounts of overtime (pretty much living there) for shit pay and no benefits. You can expect your fellow co-workers to be a mix of immature drop-outs and highly-skilled individuals packing an assortment of BAs and master degrees in unrelated fields. Much of the atmosphere will feel like something out of high school, and your superiors won't even really acknowledge you until you've been there going on a third term. Reason being, the turnover rates are incredibly high. Everyone wants to be in the gaming industry, and the vast majority of people that apply are inexperienced, and uninformed as to what QA is really all about. Getting paid to play games is a completely inaccurate picture, but one encouraged by the industry because it's conducive to cheap labor.

But without a clear goal and prior work experience to back it up, QA is still the best way to go. You'll gain actual insight into what goes on behind the scenes, and what making a game is all about. If you're serious enough and actually land a job in QA, stick around for a year or two. Then, apply to different jobs from within if you like the company. Hardly anyone stays in QA forever, and determined individuals use it as a stepping stone to somewhere else.

If you go this route, I would suggest not missing a day, ever-- and volunteering for everything. Take all the overtime you can get and look over the creative process of big bugs in the past so you have an idea on how to replicate it for future builds. It's a tough job. From my own experience at Electronic Arts years back I remember feeling like a second-class citizen compared to every other department, co-workers would gossip or talk trash about new arrivals, and the higher ups won't make the attempt to get to know you bc chances are you'll be gone in the next few weeks. But if you can hang in there and focus on everything else besides the BS, it'll get your foot in the door.

Good luck.

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