Steph
24 Apr 05, 17:30
I'll tell you exactly what i've done so far; i really think i've been extremely lucky the way i've got into the games industry. I've heard that not many people are able to get straight in; it can take months or years before you even get published.
I started by writing a review for Jet Set Radio Future because i really enjoyed it, and i noticed that Official Xbox Magazine printed reader reviews so i emailed my review to them and a couple of months later it was printed as a star review. I sent in another one (Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer) shortly after that and that was published too.
A few months later, on OXM's website, there was a competition posted up called something like "win the best job in the world", which was to go and work as their new staff writer as their old one was about to leave. It was a sort of work experience week where 6 people got to work with the journalists at OXM and learn about writing reviews and articles. To win a place i had to write a review for Blinx: The Time Sweeper. The great thing about the competition was being able to work for two different magazines (Xbox Gamer is in the same room) and seeing the different styles that they use, being able to play games before they were released, like Soul Calibur 2; being paid for it was certainly a perk. I didn't win the postition overall, but the person who did, was really good and deserved it.
I went back to sending in reader reviews and had another 2 published in OXM; Burnout 2 and Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding. Then another competition appeared in OXM, which was to be a games tester on Sudeki. RPG's are my favourite genre and i was really interested in Sudeki so i wrote a review on Amped 2 and an essay on why i wanted to be a games tester, and i was off to Portsmouth for a week to work for Climax (Vanessa from OXM told me it was a complete coincidence that i won again because it was actually Climax who chose the winner). I played the demo that they were going to put on OXM's demo disc and saw all the FMV sequences for the game by the end of my second day there. I did some games design and animation over the next couple of days and spend a lot of time playing the full game, looking for bugs and glitches. I got taken out to lunch by the PR manager for Microsoft Game Studios, who wanted to know how i was getting on, and taken out to dinner by a lot of people who worked on Sudeki. I was interviewed by Ben Talbot for OXM, issue 30 (i was friends with him by that point) and played pool with him and James Brace (Climax Management).
I'm just finishing my first year at uni, studying Journalism and Internet and Multimedia Computing, and back to writing reviews in my spare time for OXM and for psphome.com.
The advice that i have is just to keep writing. Find out which magazines print reader reviews, read their mags for a couple of months to get an idea of their style, then write a review for them to get your name in print. Then move on to doing proper freelance journalism, so that you're being paid for your work and experiencing some of the perks of video games journalsim.
Keep your eye out for competitions and if you manage to win any where you work with journalists and other members of the gaming industry, get their business card and keep in contact with them. While working for OXM, Xbox Gamer and Climax i met a lot of people and got quite a few contacts. These will come in useful to your career later. Also, if you can, try and get to a trade fair and conference because there will be a lot of journalists, developers and other members of the indusrty there for you to meet and exchange business cards.
Creating a website and putting your reviews and articles up is a good idea; it can help you get noticed for your writing talents. You could also get a job working for places like GAME, Gamestation, HMV or other places that sell games because you'll notice what games are more popluar with the public and you'll stay up to date on release dates on games, not to mention a discount so you can review them for a little bit cheaper.
And lastly, after doing a few of those things, try and get some real experience by working for a magazine or a deveolper, depending on what part of the industry you want to get into. You'll gain a lot of experience and hopefully become more widely known in the industry to be able to move on to exactly what you want to do.
Sorry this post is really long guys, but i hope it's useful to you and hopefully some of you can add more information or your own experiences in getting into the games industry. :)
I started by writing a review for Jet Set Radio Future because i really enjoyed it, and i noticed that Official Xbox Magazine printed reader reviews so i emailed my review to them and a couple of months later it was printed as a star review. I sent in another one (Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer) shortly after that and that was published too.
A few months later, on OXM's website, there was a competition posted up called something like "win the best job in the world", which was to go and work as their new staff writer as their old one was about to leave. It was a sort of work experience week where 6 people got to work with the journalists at OXM and learn about writing reviews and articles. To win a place i had to write a review for Blinx: The Time Sweeper. The great thing about the competition was being able to work for two different magazines (Xbox Gamer is in the same room) and seeing the different styles that they use, being able to play games before they were released, like Soul Calibur 2; being paid for it was certainly a perk. I didn't win the postition overall, but the person who did, was really good and deserved it.
I went back to sending in reader reviews and had another 2 published in OXM; Burnout 2 and Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding. Then another competition appeared in OXM, which was to be a games tester on Sudeki. RPG's are my favourite genre and i was really interested in Sudeki so i wrote a review on Amped 2 and an essay on why i wanted to be a games tester, and i was off to Portsmouth for a week to work for Climax (Vanessa from OXM told me it was a complete coincidence that i won again because it was actually Climax who chose the winner). I played the demo that they were going to put on OXM's demo disc and saw all the FMV sequences for the game by the end of my second day there. I did some games design and animation over the next couple of days and spend a lot of time playing the full game, looking for bugs and glitches. I got taken out to lunch by the PR manager for Microsoft Game Studios, who wanted to know how i was getting on, and taken out to dinner by a lot of people who worked on Sudeki. I was interviewed by Ben Talbot for OXM, issue 30 (i was friends with him by that point) and played pool with him and James Brace (Climax Management).
I'm just finishing my first year at uni, studying Journalism and Internet and Multimedia Computing, and back to writing reviews in my spare time for OXM and for psphome.com.
The advice that i have is just to keep writing. Find out which magazines print reader reviews, read their mags for a couple of months to get an idea of their style, then write a review for them to get your name in print. Then move on to doing proper freelance journalism, so that you're being paid for your work and experiencing some of the perks of video games journalsim.
Keep your eye out for competitions and if you manage to win any where you work with journalists and other members of the gaming industry, get their business card and keep in contact with them. While working for OXM, Xbox Gamer and Climax i met a lot of people and got quite a few contacts. These will come in useful to your career later. Also, if you can, try and get to a trade fair and conference because there will be a lot of journalists, developers and other members of the indusrty there for you to meet and exchange business cards.
Creating a website and putting your reviews and articles up is a good idea; it can help you get noticed for your writing talents. You could also get a job working for places like GAME, Gamestation, HMV or other places that sell games because you'll notice what games are more popluar with the public and you'll stay up to date on release dates on games, not to mention a discount so you can review them for a little bit cheaper.
And lastly, after doing a few of those things, try and get some real experience by working for a magazine or a deveolper, depending on what part of the industry you want to get into. You'll gain a lot of experience and hopefully become more widely known in the industry to be able to move on to exactly what you want to do.
Sorry this post is really long guys, but i hope it's useful to you and hopefully some of you can add more information or your own experiences in getting into the games industry. :)