How to work in the game industry abroad?

I will contribute some information about the United States. In general, it is not easy for Chinese people to enter the American game industry. There are not many jobs. They are mainly in the free casual game circle. Competition for local talents is fierce. The United States is very competitive. Foreign talents also have restrictions and must have excellent professional skills. This is the same wherever you are looking for a job. The more fierce the competition, the higher the requirements. Language skills are also required. Even if you don’t work, you need to have fun in a country. Language skills are so specific for yourself. When you work in the United States, you will directly face the issue of a work visa. As an international talent, even if you sign a job, you still need to apply for a work visa. The company needs to pay for a lawyer. The procedure is very troublesome, and many small companies are unwilling to apply for it.

If the company is willing to apply, there is only one opportunity to apply every year. The lottery will determine whether you pass. In 2013, the lottery rate was about 1/2, and in 2014, it was 1/3. Only after you have passed the lottery can you work legally. This just makes you There are visas that allow you to work, if you have the idea of ??staying in the United States (work visas longer than 6 years will not work, you need a green card or citizenship), there are more troublesome policies, which are not discussed in the topic. What do these visas mean? : International talents can only find large companies that can afford to support foreigners, or small companies that are willing to take the trouble for you. This has an impact on young people who want to make games in the United States: The game industry in the United States is now flourishing, with many emerging studios and independent developers. Readers, art games are refreshing, but if you are not an American, it is difficult to get involved. Many independent developers are small teams of less than 5 people, and they do not recruit people at all. There are more than ten or twenty people in the new industry, and they are all exhausted. In game production, large companies that can afford to support foreigners are generally not willing to add a bunch of trivial tasks to a new employee. Nowadays, the main types of jobs are as follows: 1. Mobile games, casual games, such as Zynga, Gameloft, Kabam, Kongregate2. Traditional major manufacturers switch to mobile games, such as EA, Disney, 2K3. The core game manufacturers, such as SCE, EA, Activision, Blizzard, Riot and many developers such as NaughtyDog, Bungie, Infinity Wards, Treyarch, Bethesda, Gearbox, Crystal Dynamics (these had open positions a while ago). Most Chinese who want to come to the United States to work on games may come for 3, but now mobile games are relatively more popular, and there are relatively few core game-oriented positions.

Finding 1 and 2 is the same as finding a normal job. You can apply on the official website or on recruitment websites, such as LinkedIn, Gamasutra, Glassdoor, Monster, Indeed. Let’s focus on 3. The core orientation The application process for game companies is actually similar. You also apply on the official website or recruitment website, but it is much more difficult to get in because there are few positions and a large number of local Americans want to join. Even programmers, a profession that is occupied by Chinese Indians in ordinary software companies, are in the game industry. The company is dominated by white people. Some people have been doing mods, writing engines, drawing fanfics since they were young, and dreaming of entering their favorite studio independently. However, the old people (as old as Atari) are still changing jobs in the industry, so they want to enter this industry. , the professional ability must be extremely strong, experience in the console industry is almost a must, and then enthusiasm, you must like to play the works of that studio, and you must also be enthusiastic about the entire industry. This will be required in the interview and Cover Letter (Cover Letter) - American companies usually need to submit a Cover Letter (Cover Letter) when applying. Some companies or industries can get by without reading the general template carefully. Game companies usually read it carefully. You need to write a short Show your enthusiasm for the company in a short essay. This directly means that you can’t invest overseas, you can only choose a few companies you really want to go to. I only have experience as a programmer during the interview. To put it simply, it is more difficult for first-line studios than for large companies in the software industry. Most of the interview questions at software companies are standardized programming questions. You can find many interview experience online, such as.

Game companies will also take these questions, but in addition they will also take questions related to the game (images, mathematics, physics, network, system architecture), as well as questions about the technology used by the company (OpenGL, DX, Unity, Unreal , Web), or write a small game on the spot. Some interviewers (also programmers) will even ask them about the difficult problems they encountered at work recently (encountered by someone interviewing Bungie), so they still have to answer the questions, but You also need to prepare a lot of dry stuff. You can do homework in advance, such as what technology is best to use in the target studio. Prepare it early. You have been carefully preparing for a long time. After the submission, there is probably no news. Maybe your materials were scanned and you did not read them carefully. , there may be better candidates, but the skills may not match the open positions. This situation is very common, especially if there are not many companies to invest in, you can only wait for new positions to come up and continue to apply, so don’t apply all-in, you need to work or study at the same time, and it is best not to apply for too many positions in the same company at the same time. , some companies (such as Blizzard) will think that this is a sign of not understanding the industry/doing what these positions are doing, or not knowing what they want to do and having unclear career goals.