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advocacy games design games industry

How to Become a Game Designer (2014)

Step 1: Do not buy the book with this title.

Writing a book is tough, and I respect the time and effort that goes into it. But I don’t rate a book highly simply because it was hard to write: it has to fulfil it’s purpose, and help the reader. Some books are so poor they actively hinder the reader.

This one is being marketed to bloggers to promote it (for cash) without reading it. This (no review copies) might be a beginner’s mistake. I hope so; the alternative is horribly cynical.

For bonus points, the email was sent from a bouncing email address. If you want a job in the games industry, you probably don’t want to be advised by someone so careless/clueless they send out emails from broken email accounts.

That annoyed me enough to look through the marketing materials for this book, and it seems weak.

The author does not appear to have been a recruiter, nor a hiring manager, and apparently has never run a studio. If you read a book on this topic – make sure the author has spent years recruiting, hiring, and managing people in the industry. That’s the core expertise you want from the author – if they don’t have it, they need a really good excuse.

Further, the title seems deliberately misleading – linkbait for readers. It’s titled “become a game designer” but the content appears to be “get a job, somehow, doing something – anything you can scrape-by on – in the games industry”. Core topics are missing from those listed – e.g. how to advance your skills as a game-designer (key to getting hired!), etc.

…but I haven’t read the book, so I can only give vague suggestions and guesses at what it contains.

TL;DR

Personally I’d steer clear of all such books, and spend the time entering Game Jams instead. Every jam you enter will teach you more, and give you more experience that’s directly exciting to hiring managers, than reading books like this one.

I have classes of teenagers making their own games with little or no help; if they can do it, why can’t you?