Tips for Work and Travel in Europe
So, I turned 30 years old! And I need some tips
for life.
But first, boring context explanation below:
I began to
think that I did not really live and started to have ideas. Have you ever felt
this in your life?
I'm basically a hobbyist but I've done some freelancing with game art for the
local market, and I've received positive feedback, maybe I have some talent. I
work in another area, something that is not a career but is stable and pays
well. But as I said, I started to get ideas ...
I've been thinking about traveling. Destiny? ITALY, land of my ancestors. But I
would like to get to know it well, not a 10 day rush trip where you barely get
to see and learn about anything. I was thinking of staying a year 
, living
side by side with the Italians, learning the language and the history.
But for this I would need to work and earn in euro, my country's currency is
very weak and I would go bankrupt fast without seeing everything I want. So I
thought about the possibility of working with art for games in Europe.
And that's where you come in. 
- Do you think that someone with no experience and just a
little bit of certified training (and kind of old) would be able to fit into
some European studio? -
In a junior position would be great already. I'm open to
doing an improvement course and everything.
Obs. It could be in any country of the European Union, I already have citizenship and passport
Thanks, André.
Replies
Because i'll tell you straight away that Italy is a good country for a holiday but not to live in until you are old, at least in my opinion.
Sorry, i missed that part in your original post.
Regarding the game industry here in Italy there are only a couple of medium sized companies and a lot of indies but with "indies" i don't mean like Cloud Imperium Games...i mean from 2 to 5 members for every company and they make mostly mobile games or VR stuff.
The most famous companies here are: Milestone ( MXGP series and MotoGP series ), 34BigThings ( Redout, quite famous on Steam ), Forge Reply ( Joe Dever's Lone Wolf ).
There is also Ubisoft Italy in Milan.
Aside from the companies that i mentioned early there are a lot of indies but as i said they are very small so it's hard to get a job there especially if you don't know italian.
Ahah, nope it's mostly because a lot of things like public transportations, services in general works really bad and the salaries are low compared to the cost of living.
With that said, let's talk for a moment about the cost of living.
Italy unlike other countries like USA or Japan, has a lot of small city and very few big ones and even in the big ones you won't find skyscrapers or similar stuff.
The cost of living is high, very high compared to the average salary and unfortunately is more or less the same in all the country but it becomes a bit more expensive in Milan, Turin, Naples and Rome ( the big ones ).
The average salary in Italy is 1200 € per month after taxes.
The money that you will spend every month to sustain yourself in a medium sized city ( ex. Modena or Bologna ) are more or less:
- Rent: 450 € is the minum for a 40 mq apartment
- Bills ( water, gas and electricity ): 100-200 € per month, electricity is expensive here because Italy produces only the 30 % of the total electricity, the remaining 70 % is bought from other countries
- Food: 200 € per month
- Internet: 20-30 € per month
- Public transportations: 40 € per month ( depends on the city )
- If you work you will probably eat lunch in a restaurant or fast food so: 20 € for a restaurant or 10 € for a fast food
Total per month: 1000-1100 €
And this is the reason why i say that the cost of living is too damn high and the real problem is that unless you work in a medical, laws or government field you will still earn the average salary of 1200 € even if you have a bachelor in IT or engineering.
I don't want to make a wall of text so i'll give you some reasons to live in Italy and some to not to live here.
Reasons to live in Italy:
- Food, if you want to stay healthy and eat well Italy is the country for you
- Art and culture, Italy has the highest number of cultural sites recognized by UNESCO World Heritage
- Weather, quite balanced, summer is not too hot and winter is not too cold but unfortunately this trend is changing because the global warming has raised the temperatures
- Free health care for everyone
Reasons to not to live in Italy:
- Unemployment, the unemployment rate is over 12 % and the youth unemployment rate is 40 %
- High cost of living and low salaries
- No meritocracy, if you know someone you will have a bright career and you will get the job but if you don't know anybody...well you know how it works. There is a reason if the majority of researchers, engineers, artists and other top talents leave the country and go abroad
- Italy is technologically backward compared to other developed countries
- Public services are poorly managed and public transportations are old and often late and you will probably need a car anyway because if you don't live in one of the big cities like Milan or Rome there will probably be only a couple of bus and maybe a couple of trains in a day.
- Corruption and criminality, corruption is spread across the country and there are a lot of robbery and other crimes every day even in school
- Racism, a lot of people in the small and medium cities are quite racist especially towards black people or eastern european people
Hope it helped
Hey, Sacboi. Thanks for answering. I have selected some studios, but it seems that I do not have many options unfortunately. I have some plan Bs and Cs. The best option would be to get out of here halfway with a job i guess.
Owa Andreicus!! Great summary, thank you very much. I'll take it with much consideration.
Now unemployment is kind of scary, especially since I would like to leave unskilled jobs for young people: D. And as far as I know, starting a business in Italy is not easy either.
I will send my resume to these studios. It might work: D
What about taking a GC course in Europe? Would that open up more possibilities perhaps?
Also the government will take the 50 % of all your yearly incomes.
Unskilled jobs like waiter, bartender and so on, is not really an option in your case unless you have already all the money to sustain yourself for the time that you will be staying in Italy and you want a job only to recover some money, that's because you will probably earn from 450 € that is the minimum wage to 800 € per month.
If you have a degree in some field like IT and you also have at least 3-4 years of experience and you manage to get a job in a company you will probably earn around 1400 € per month, as i said the salaries are low.
They usually go to the US but some of them also go to Germany and Holland.
I don't know about the situation in Germany but the unemployment rate is very low around 3,6 % and i heard that the average salary is 1500-1600 €.
Depends, if you are planning to visit the entire country from north to south i wouldn't count on them but if you want to visit only the major cities like Milan, Rome, Venice etc. than you will be ok.
I don't work in the game industry so i don't know about the salary of an artist here in Italy but he will probably earn as much as an IT programmer so 1400 € more or less.
Sorry but what do you mean with "GC" course ? Game Creator ?
If I was going to up and move somewhere different just for the hell of it, I'd look further east where cost of living makes more sense. I think for a clever entrepreneur there is limitless possibilities in emerging countries like India and Southeast Asia.
BIGTIMEMASTER wrote:
I think for a clever entrepreneur there is limitless possibilities in emerging countries like India and Southeast Asia.
Yeah, no argument there. The region going forward will come to dominate with increasing coherence especially in terms of economic influence well into the remainder of this century and beyond, I should think. Also for the budding capitalist it's worth keeping in mind a linguistic fluency counts for much when 'doing' business and/or requisite cultural norms, which we're acquainted with here in Australasia.
hey did you do it ? @Avlaus