Effective talk: Staying up to date in the gaming industry
Year of Talk: 2024
Even though you might already have a job there are parts of development that you aren't interacting daily. Working on it outside of normal work time will allow you to bolster your portfolio when looking for new jobs.
Three tiers of keeping up to date and learning; Easy, Medium, and Hard.
Easy: When you watch different videos to keep up to date or work on game jams. These are normally activities that won't take more than a weekend to work on and allow you to easily test and learn new smaller things.
Medium: Reading through a book to better understand concepts more holistically and how they affect other areas. These are things that can take some extra time and are meant to help people learn more about other areas. Will help with learning more about the work that other people on the team or company are doing so that you have an easier time communicating.
Hard: This can be any type of class that you can take throughout the year. This helps you learn a new discipline or a lot of smaller skills that have been grouped into a helpful set of classes. It is also usually taught and made by professionals.
It is also important to keep tabs on how other studios are working and who is being hired. This gives you a better idea of how the industry is going and what jobs might be more in demand right now. This means that if it's your position that is in high demand then you can easily get a raise or a new job.
Teaching: Another way to stay sharp is teaching at universities/schools. This will allow you to get paid some more money and you get to show new things to people that want to learn. Another similar option is mentorship programs which help people who might have recently joined the industry and are looking for someone with more experience to help them grow. Mentorship can happen either in the company, through an online website, or organization that sets them up.
Reputation: Something else to work on outside of your normal work hours is networking and meeting new people. This can be done through social media posts, going to after-hour events, or speaking at events. By doing so more people will know your name and they might turn to you if they want to ask more questions. You can also start representing the company in different external events.
At the same time trying to make friends in the industry will allow you to create a support group that has a similar experience to you and work in the same industry. Everyone can have a better understanding of the problems that can be occurring.
Trying out other games, especially if they aren't the type of games you normally play allows for a larger base of knowledge when it comes to what games are succeeding. It also helps when trying to become inspired as you can see how different games were made and the type of mechanics people enjoy but you might not have thought about.
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