I'm an experienced C++ developer - how can I enter the gaming industry?

Question

I've been working in C++ in embedded environments for a number of years, developing navigation applications. There is a gaming company in my hometown that I like the look of, but I don't have game development experience. You could consider a navigation app as a type of game, depending on who you are running from.

My question is, what steps should I take to enter the industry? Is it a bad idea to enter the industry at this stage (I'm 30)?

Answer 1

Being 30 doesn't really matter, you can enter the games industry at any age assuming you have the drive and ability.

• Start reading about gaming topics, and game development websites (gamedev, gamasutra etc.)
• Start writing games. Clones of games you like, your own original ideas, tech demos, anything that you can point to and say "I wrote that, and along the way I learned these things, and solved these problems."
• If there is a specific area of interest to you, AI, Rendering, Frontend, Tools & Pipelines, Audio, focus on building game/demo/sample projects that challenge you in that area. "Yeah, I've done that" sounds a lot better in an interview than "yeah I've heard of that".
• Get to know people in the industry if you can, through online forums, friends of friends, etc... One good contact can do more for your chances than weeks of demo coding or months of sending resumes out. Game companies may have open houses or job fairs.
• The "entry level" jobs in game development are likely to be Frontend or Tools. If you've done navigation apps, sounds like that might be a decent fit for you. If that has included more low level work and optimization on embedded platforms, you might also look at Systems roles.

Answer 2

I'd suggest you start trying to write some games in your spare time. Having some demos is always a good start when you go to an interview and it'll give you some insights into what your job is going to be.

Gamedev.net has an excellent set of tutorials to work through to get a grip of a lot of game-coding concepts.

Do they have any job offerings? If so, look at what they ask for in the CV and start educating yourself in those concepts / technologies.

Contacting them and asking if they have any jobs for an excellent software engineer can't hurt either :)

Answer 3

I see you already accepted an answer, but I'll throw in my two cents:

If the company does console (e.g. Xbox360, PS3) or handheld (e.g. DS, iPhone) games, you should definitely emphasize the embedded aspect of your resume. A few anecdotes about how you optimized the memory layout of a class, or sped up some code by taking advantage of an obscure feature of the chipset will show that you can think like a console programmer. Also, if you did any sort of AI for the navigation apps (e.g. A*, Djikstra), it's good to mention that.

A few people recommended writing games - that's not a bad long term plan if you know you want to get into the industry, but I don't think you should let that stop you from applying to this particular company in the meantime. However you should definitely pick up a copy of one of their recent games, play it for a few hours over the weekend, and be able to say what you liked about it.

As for websites, I second the Gamasutra recommendation, along with Kotaku.

Good luck!