Let's Talk About: Breaking into the Video Game Industry

So, as you all should know my eventual goal is to have a job in the video game industry, be it running a youtube account, running this blog, working for a game design company, anything would be fine by me really. However I just wanted to take this weeks entry of "Let's Talk About:" and really get into what breaking into this industry means on a larger scale.

First, I would say that anyone looking to get in has to have passion. You have to love video games. In fact, I would go as far to say that if you can see yourself doing anything else for a living, go do that. You'll make more money in the long term. Breaking into this industry takes time. It takes effort. You have to have an understanding of how the industry works, and you have to be okay with the fact that you won't be making bank. You have to be willing to work for free for a long time, and especially at first you have to be willing to have your dreams crushed. For example, when I first started this blog I was posting almost every day, I had a schedule that I was following, and I had looked into the basics of marketing and traffic generation. I was offered a writing position at a video game website, but the guy never got back to me about it. I was so happy when he offered me the position (even if it was an unpaid one) because it meant that I was moving up. When he never responded to my email where I said that I would take it, I was crushed. I took a break from writing in gerenal because "what was the point." Looking back, that was a mistake on my part, I should have just carried on with this blog. Besides a few posts here and there, I'm just now getting back into it, months later. I lost 2 months worth of potential progress and audience building because I let one little thing get to me.

The next thing I would say is to start small. You do not want to overload yourself right away. Right now, I have two things that I'm trying to do weekly, this, and "What's New". Any other posts are just random stuff that I want to talk about on top of that. This leads into something else as well, if your trying to do the whole "be your own boss" thing, you can not pull income from one source. For example, in January I am getting a better computer, when that happens I am going to expand onto Youtube, and potentially Twitch sometime after that. My goal is to eventually just stream on Twitch whenever I'm gaming period, and to run a weekly show on youtube similar to this article series. If I tried to take all of that on at once I would probably give up one or two days in, that is why I am taking baby steps until eventually I am there.

Now, I am no expert on this subject, but these are the tips I've picked up from listening to people that are already in the industry talk about it. These are the steps I'm following, and if I helped even one person, I'm happy I helped you.