Is the game industry bloated with developers?

kasigawa

I feel the industry is bloated with developers in the United States. By bloated I mean the possibility that there is a lot of competition among those trying to enter the industry and perhaps those in senior positions. Is this a possibility?

If this is true, then I would like to next ask how is it they make money when not employed? 
Furthermore I hope no one is bothered by the questions. Thank you. 

EarthQuake

There is a lot of competition in the industry, especially for entry level positions as a lot of people trying to get in simply do not have what it takes to produce industry level work. The reasons for this are many, but the most common are unrealistic explications of what the game industry is and schools that pump out grossly unprepared graduates.

Does this mean the industry is bloated? No, I wouldn't say the industry is bloated. Bloated to me would mean there are a lot of useless people filling up space at studios, which hasn't been the case in my experience.

If you've come to the conclusion that the industry is bloated, I can only assume you're trying to find some external source to blame for difficulty getting into the industry, when what you should really be doing is a critical self assessment.

Now, as to your second question, similar to drinking sand to quench your thirst, making money without a job is indeed quite difficult.

kasigawa

Thanks for the response. I was reluctant to post the question because I had the thought someone might take it that way regarding using it as an excuse. Nonetheless, I found your answer very useful. If that's the case then how dose a person know their work is good enough? I also find it very unfortunate that people who graduate with a degree in game design expecting to grow their skills within the industry when the industry doesn't seem to operate in a way entry level developers expect. I would like to say perhaps this is what I understood about what you mean by unrealistic expectations. 

Jonas Ronnegard

I think the correct word to be used is this industry have very high standard for a entry level position, if you can't reach that level you will not be useful to the company. "Normal" companies usually have all kinds of jobs someone with little skill can do which is why they are able to hire people they think will be good at the job in the future, while game developers usually need to be able to create the same quality art as the people that have already worked for many years.

just getting licenses and a computer etc is an investment, so they need to know you can do real work from the start, in other industries they might only have to give you a memo book and a pencil.

EarthQuake

There are a few ways to know if your work is good enough. The most obvious is: Is someone paying you to make it? Then it's good enough.

But there are other ways as well. A good exercise is to take screenshots from a game you like, or better yet, find an art dump from some of the artists who worked on it (there has a been a bunch of stuff recently from The Division for instance). Once you have a target, compare your work to that. If you can't do work as good or better than that, you're probably not ready.

You could also simply post your portfolio on Polycount and ask for feedback, that should give you a pretty good idea of where you stand.

The expectations thing. It's not really all on the school. At some point, they should tell students that knowing which buttons to press in 3DS Max or doing a few Unreal tutorials is not enough to get a job, but at the same time, it's the responsibility of the individual to be able to critically assess their abilities. You could get a degree in english, but that doesn't make you a writer, it just means you have the basic level of knowledge to do the job. What separates english majors working at starbucks and novelists who sell enough books to make a living is generally the same thing that separates your average game art course student from an industry pro, a degree of skill and talent, but more importantly a relentless drive and dedication to the craft.

kasigawa

Thank you Jonas for the reply. I'm glad you gave me a clear-cut summery. I also agree, it makes sense. Even hiring a person, more-less someone in an entry level position, is a risk and an investment. I assume most developers that enter the industry for the first time don't even look into the proper communication skills needed for effective teamwork. Perhaps just as Earthquake stated, graduates are grossly unprepared.
I still question how one would know if they are qualified for a position in the industry, however.  

EarthQuake

Being able to self-critique is a skill that takes time to learn. I think there are various stages in learning to do artwork of any sort, and they sort of go something like:

1. Yay doing art is fun!
2. Yay this looks better than my old crappy stuff!
3. Wow this almost looks cool!
4. Fuck, this is still way worse than what people who are good can do.
5. Crippling depression
6. Years of hard work
7. Hmm, I think I might be good enough now, but I'm still not sure
8. Get a job
9. Imposter syndrome sets in, you still never quite feel like your work is good enough, especially when surrounded by the tallented sort of folks who work in the industry, however, you are sometimes, generally for a short period of time, proud of what you work on
10. You die I guess, I haven't gotten this far yet

If I had the energy to be extra clever right now I would translate this, but the same sort of thing basically applies in learning how to do game art:

kasigawa

Earthquake, you had a most agreeable list. I expect my self-critique to also be like this. Being that I believe myself to also be a slow learner, it will take me twice the time. It is most unfortunate. My initial thoughts for getting into the industry were to graduate college and work at TimeGate Studio (makers of Fear and Section8) because I knew people there. Unfortunately, by the time I got my game artist certificate from a community college, the company had filed a section 11 bankruptcy (this was in 2012 I think). I felt very inspired to join TimeGate Studio because they constantly had developers who were former students of the community college visit the classroom. I remember then telling the class how they joined and how the studio at one point looked for developers at the community colleges. 

lefix

On the bright side, there are more and more games being made, with more studios and larger teams behind them. And you don't neccessarily need to break into the industry at Blizzard/Valve. There are many different types of games with different art styles, with some being "easier" to make compared to some AAA games. Maybe your first job will be working on a Farmville clone. It can still be a fun place to work.

slipsius

lefix said:

... you don't neccessarily need to break into the industry at Blizzard/Valve. 

This. Too many people have such high expectations for their first job. They go after that dream job right from the get go, but really, your dream job tends to be the one that comes later on in your career. You work towards it. Not to say people don't get their dream job right from the get go, but you have to be realistic about how good you actually are, and put in the incredible amount of time it takes to get that good. 

Segreto

Too many young people trying to get in without having the skills necessary to make it. It's been like this for quite a while. The game industry is fairly unique in the tech world in that it comparatively employs a fairly small number of people for the size of the industry. The minus to all this, is that you don't get too many opportunities for new graduates or folks that are just learning. Studios don't want to do on the job training or mentoring. You have to be able to hit the ground running. 

Honestly though, I think it's getting better. With an expanding indy scene, and the mobile and VR market blowing up there's a lot of opportunities out there.  There's also a lot of jobs doing 3D that aren't specifically in games that I think a lot of new people pass by because it doesn't have the Blizzard/Valve name on them. I'm in Idaho, and the jobs here are really slim pickings. It took me a while to get into games professionally with my freelancing. Before I did, I worked in graphic design and at other multimedia shops. Hell, right now along with my games work, I'm doing freelance 3D work for HP. It has nothing to do with games at all, but the skills I'm using are nearly parallel. New people have to understand that there's a career path in games, but you don't start with the dream job right away. Work up to it by opening yourself to other industries first if you have to. 

Amsterdam Hilton Hotel

I think "bloated" implies that there are too many workers for the number of projects going around. That's not really the case because the number of projects isn't fixed. Internet distribution and mobile have dropped the cost of entry and created way more job prospects.

Are AAA studios bloated? Maybe, for example there's only so many high-fidelity character artist jobs out there. Not many "seniors" in those roles are even out of their 30s and 40s yet, so they aren't aging out. But they aren't really bloating it up either because there are also prospects outside of the AAA world.

The other thing is that turnover and churn are high at most game companies. Jobs are always moving around, not occupied by the same people for decades. If you can get to a high enough skill level there will be openings somewhere.

kasigawa

 dustinbrown said:

Is the industry bloated with developers? No, I don't get the impression that it is. Is the number of graduates schools churn out every year bloated in comparison to the number of available entry level jobs? Oh yeah, big time. But that's on schools for being irresponsible and focusing entirely on their own profits instead of the welfare of their grads. It's also on kids and parents for naively entering into those schools without first researching the employment realities of this industry.

Where I feel this industry is really failing young people is that entry level positions and mentoring have sort of inadvertently been shunted to the indie development space. There is little-to-no room for people to come in young and green, receive mentorship, and level up over time. You're expected to be able to hit the ground running, and I think that's really unfortunate and callous from an industry culture perspective. It has a real "snake eating it's own tail" vibe to me. If we aren't proactive as an industry at grooming the next generation of developers, that ultimately diminishes us in the future.

Your answer has surprised me. Perhaps this was the true answer I was looking for. I agree, I think this may as well be the issue. I believe I fell into this scheme. If I did my research before I graduated, I wonder what I would have done differently. I suppose I would have chosen a college or university that truly focuses on the industry, the current industry's needs, and checks to see if there's the possibility or connections to get a foot inside the industry after I graduate. knowing this and how many people I graduated with, it seems we are all in the same boat. Entry level, perhaps years of personal experience, but maybe not entirely studio-production material. I find this very unfortunate. Perhaps a decent solution to getting a foot in the industry is using the not-so-current or entry level resources one has acquired and moving to a country with a booming game development scene, in my case like Brazil. 

kasigawa

Thank you everyone for the replies, I find the information unimaginable useful. 

beefaroni

In terms of the competition of getting into the industry, I think a lot of the problems come down to people not working as effectively and efficiently as they need to while in school. As a recent (last year) graduate myself, I've been approached by a few people asking for critiques on their portfolio and advice of how to get into the industry. When I look at their portfolio, I see too much of everything. They have some animation, some rigging, some modelling, some game design/programming, etc. Their portfolio doesn't show anything above a basic understanding of any position in the industry. At the end of the day, you're not as hireable because at most studios you're not doing props, characters, weapons, animation, rigging, lighting, game design, and programming all at once. Maybe this is where the indie studios come into play, as it seems like you are responsible for a larger number of roles there, but I do not have any experience with that. 

@Dustin - I don't think it's unreasonable for a studio to not want to mentor someone with that kind of portfolio (mentioned above). At the end of the day, they have no idea if the person will be able to quickly learn the intermediate/expert parts of the pipeline. Imagine hiring someone who you had to mentor on how to efficiently use UV space, how to bake normal maps, how to properly extract information from photos for PBR texturing. All of this info is readily available online. With the surge of full asset tutorials on Gumroad I believe that the only thing that holds people from entry-level studio positions (other than character art) is the drive and determination to really finish small high quality assets. 

I believe that mentorship at a studio shouldn't consist of teaching the basic technical parts that can be learned online, but rather the artistic decisions that follow. 

Darth Tomi

The film industry went through this about 20 years ago. Everyone wanted to go to film school. Any school with a film program was flooded with applications. At some schools the acceptance ration was like 100 to 1. 

Kwramm

@dustinbrown
I totally agree. However, I think this is also due to the preference of people. Many seem to aim for their first job to be at a "brand name" studio, often somewhere where there is an established art community, where the competition is going to be fierce just because of that. That's where I would say "the bloat" is. Try running a studio in some more remote locations and you'll realize that it can actually be quite hard to attract talent, even though your studio is great and the location is great. But it just ain't the everyone-goes-there-game-dev-hub-du-jour, so people ignore it.

I keep recommending people to try for "no-name" studios and more exotic locations, as long as the studio offers an opportunity for professional growth, to get your foot into the industry. Getting your second job is so, so much easier with some experience on your resume - it doesn't really matter where your first job was as long as you got something good to show.
edit: spelling...Firefox's spellchecker is totally butchering my posts..or is it polycount?

beefaroni

dustinbrown said:

Yeah I'm not suggesting that studios should take on people who haven't done things to prove that they have a real interest and aptitude for the work involved. But there is an ocean of difference between that extreme scenario and the one we have now where you can't even get your foot in the door unless your work is already industry quality. I think that puts too much pressure on young people, and weeds out anyone who isn't privileged enough to be able to work all day on their artistic development.

Fair enough. I suppose I should have used a more middle-of-the-ground example.

Although I really believe that with the recent surge of quality of tutorials on Gumroad, almost any individual working a 9-5 job has the ability to land an industry job as long as they have a decent computer and are willing to temporarily sacrifice their social life/gaming/whatever else. I do empathize for anyone working longer than that though, as 10-12+ hour days can really tire you out mentally. On a side note, that's  part of the reason I don't recommend going the QA route, as the hours are less predictable. 

kasigawa

dustinbrown said:

Yeah I'm not suggesting that studios should take on people who haven't done things to prove that they have a real interest and aptitude for the work involved. But there is an ocean of difference between that extreme scenario and the one we have now where you can't even get your foot in the door unless your work is already industry quality. I think that puts too much pressure on young people, and weeds out anyone who isn't privileged enough to be able to work all day on their artistic development.

Once again. I sadly agree. Perhaps the only way in is by volunteering or interning, but even that runs the risk of only getting in people's way as they have to stop development to mentor, help, or teach you. 

beefaroni

Once again. I sadly agree. Perhaps the only way in is by volunteering or interning, but even that runs the risk of only getting in people's way as they have to stop development to mentor, help, or teach you. 

Before having a defeatist attitude like that why not post your portfolio? Do you work a 9-5 job? Do you live at home? Do you have 3 hours a day after work and 8 hours a day on weekends (sat+sun) to work on your portfolio?

As I said in a previous post, there are TONS of gumroad tutorials. @ZacD  even made a awesome spreadsheet of all of them for easy access. Pretty much everything you would need to know can be accomplished by learning on your own.

kasigawa

beefaroni said:

dustinbrown said:

Yeah I'm not suggesting that studios should take on people who haven't done things to prove that they have a real interest and aptitude for the work involved. But there is an ocean of difference between that extreme scenario and the one we have now where you can't even get your foot in the door unless your work is already industry quality. I think that puts too much pressure on young people, and weeds out anyone who isn't privileged enough to be able to work all day on their artistic development.

Fair enough. I suppose I should have used a more middle-of-the-ground example.

Although I really believe that with the recent surge of quality of tutorials on Gumroad, almost any individual working a 9-5 job has the ability to land an industry job as long as they have a decent computer and are willing to temporarily sacrifice their social life/gaming/whatever else. I do empathize for anyone working longer than that though, as 10-12+ hour days can really tire you out mentally. On a side note, that's  part of the reason I don't recommend going the QA route, as the hours are less predictable. 

I recently graduated and updated my portfolio to specialize in environment art. I typically spend six to eight hours everyday working on art. Literally everyday. I do it because I find the piece of art I'm working on (or tutorials) to be something I look forward to working on everyday. Unfortunately my job history sucks at the moment. It would be nice to have a decent job to go and come back from. It's been two months since I put out a tsunami of resumes for game companies in cities around where I live as well as hundreds of applications (with follow up letters) to local minimum wage jobs around me. So far no bite, but I do have a file cabinet with too-many-to-count rejection letters from game studios. I do odd jobs to get by while living with good' ol parents. Where I live even minimum wage jobs are extremely competitive. But that'll change because I've decided to move to Brazil to try my luck there. I know there's no guarantees, but with a dual citizenship I can't go wrong if I find nothing there either and decide to come back. Finding sustainable income is rough in today's world it seems; especially, since I'm trying to find the time and balance to improve the quality of my current artist skill. No worries, all in good time I suppose. Just got to keep at it and make art because I enjoy it. A job in the industry would be nice, but I'm beginning to look into the indie dev scene a whole lot more. Especially now that I have online resources like Indieteamup.com, teamups.net, and indiecg.com. 

beefaroni

If you are working that many hours a day, I would really suggest installing procrastitraker or rescue time. They are invaluable for making sure that you're doing quality work while you sit down. 

http://strlen.com/procrastitracker/

https://www.rescuetime.com/

kasigawa

beefaroni said:

Once again. I sadly agree. Perhaps the only way in is by volunteering or interning, but even that runs the risk of only getting in people's way as they have to stop development to mentor, help, or teach you. 

Before having a defeatist attitude like that why not post your portfolio? Do you work a 9-5 job? Do you live at home? Do you have 3 hours a day after work and 8 hours a day on weekends (sat+sun) to work on your portfolio?

As I said in a previous post, there are TONS of gumroad tutorials. @ZacD  even made a awesome spreadsheet of all of them for easy access. Pretty much everything you would need to know can be accomplished by learning on your own.

Most agreed. To get into the industry it seems logical to invest time and effort in oneself and raise one's effectiveness to produce quality art as well as improving one's efficiency in their work flow and time management. Perhaps it's agreeable that all this can be seen in one's portfolio. 
This is my portfolio: http://ivan-kazuya.wix.com/home
I don't have full confidence over the quality of work I can produce compared to production quality, but I'm really good at popping out what I believe is decent usable game models within 48 hours. Furthermore, I'm looking to maybe making a new portfolio in the future. I need to update my resume first. 

MagicSugar

WIX !!!

Joopson

So, the site looks good visually, but wix is notoriously slow loading and bloated. I'd highly highly suggest using some other site, like weebly, or something.

Your site took more than a second to load, which is more than it ought to take, really. And most of the time, I won't even click a website with "wix" in the name.

Your work shows a strong understanding of the 3D software, but not so much advanced modelling skill, and very little experience texturing. But it also shows you're well on your way. So keep up the good work, but on weebly or something.

kasigawa

Joopson said:

So, the site looks good visually, but wix is notoriously slow loading and bloated. I'd highly highly suggest using some other site, like weebly, or something.

Your site took more than a second to load, which is more than it ought to take, really. And most of the time, I won't even click a website with "wix" in the name.

Your work shows a strong understanding of the 3D software, but not so much advanced modelling skill, and very little experience texturing. But it also shows you're well on your way. So keep up the good work, but on weebly or something.

Yeah, I can do that. Weebly it is. 
I admit to my skills not being that great in texturing and perhaps modeling, I'll definitely have to work on that. I know Arrimus 3D on Youtube has great tutorials, I'll have to take the time and watch him sometime. I'm also moving into learning Substance Painter and Substance Designer. I'm sure with enough practice, I can move forwards from my current 3D skills. Nonetheless, thanks for the critique. 

pior

Is the job market saturated ? I don't know, but what I do know is that as soon as you show that you can create game art pieces that are as good if not better than the current standards (for instance something looking like it would fit right into a big game release from this year), you'll get job offers, either for in-house or freelance.

It sure is competitive but it is also much more predictable and rewarding than many if not all other jobs out there, because one's body of works does all the talking. It's a very simple formula.

beefaroni

pior said:

Is the job market saturated ? I don't know, but what I do know is that as soon as you show that you can create game art pieces that are as good if not better than the current standards (for instance something looking like it would fit right into a big game release from this year), you'll get job offers, either for in-house or freelance.

It sure is competitive but it is also much more predictable and rewarding than many if not all other jobs out there, because one's body of works does all the talking. It's a very simple formula.

Yea I think you phrased my feelings in a much more clear and concise way. It's not like business or other similar fields where you have to play the resume game or know someone. High quality art goes a long way, which can be very rewarding. 

Kwramm

dustinbrown said:

That's a fair point. I don't doubt that there are some who target name brand studios because of the fan factor, but I suspect that just as many choose studios in hub towns because they're in hub towns. That's just a matter of pragmatism. The ramp cycle is no secret, so you can't really blame people for trying to avoid a situation where they're having to relocate long distances from gig to gig. I know I've tried to avoid it. The idea that to work in games is to embrace a life where you're moving every couple years seems wack to me, and I'll rail against it every chance I get. I would really like to see more studios embrace remote employment for this very reason. It would free people up to live anywhere they choose, and still work for the studios they're interested in. Now you might say "yeah, it's called freelancing" but that's not nearly as nice a situation as having all the perks of FT employment while working remotely. I know plenty of people in other areas of tech that work this way. Game dev isn't a special snowflake. There just needs to be an industry wide will to make such a job landscape work.

I think the moving just comes wit the job, same all the other peculiarities of the industry (crunch, art tests, please train yourself before we hire you, etc.). Is it ideal? Hell no. I'd love to be able to work from home for a studio (no, not freelance : ) ). But moving isn't the problem I think. Many people move in many industries  for jobs. The problem is stability - that you have to move often.

Regarding hubs (yes, it's anecdotal : I've only ever been to London, and it was very competitive and very expensive, being London. I've never seen so many unemployed artists. I felt there was much less demand than there were artists. Living from gig to gig / hire-fire cycle and being on the mercy of some pointy-haired-boss's ramp up plan sounds not fun. And the guys who get the jobs weren't college grads in any case (unless you count "runner" as a CG job). There were always seniors on the market. Hard to break in imho. That's why I don't get "hubs". And on a buyer's market, there's no need for anyone to offer training. Why train when you can just wait for better candidates? Why invest in a person that's essentially just temporary?

Better pick up a mid sized company that doesn't take on hire-fire monster projects. Those studios usually keep their staff around, because they aren't in a position, brand or location wise, to buy artists a dozen, like the big companies in the hubs can. They have to invest in their staff. However, they have other problems: like higher risk, because they rely on a single game, with little chance to mitigate.

And of course Game dev is a special snowflake - ask any parent or any manager and they'll tell you how special their business and their industry is. And the games induistry especially thinks very highly of its kids I'd be surprised to see change within my work lifetime. Heck, we still advertise open offices as "innovative" and "cool" and that "free fruit" is the king of all perks.