Final blog summary

For all my avid usual readers I'm sure you all know that the primary reason for this blog was to keep a frequently updated summary of my experiences in searching for a career. 

Sadly this will be my last post as today's entry is to be a summary that will future the experiences of the successes and failures of obtaining a job, meaning it is the ending post for this blog to finally complete this project. 

Now don’t go all sadface, I will return most likely from a different blogging source, however just for university purposes, especially since the teachers have to mark this. Unfortunately this post will remain stapled to the front page and there will be no longer any updates from this blog site.

Every aspect in this post will be in relation to the university assignment, factors such as attending gaming events reading up on magazines the use of various websites basically everything that I've pretty much touched upon and follows the criteria of this coursework. 

Each area that will be covered will be categorised into different sections to help encourage a clearer and understandable approach in reading this post, so let’s begin!

Introduction: O_O

Back in October I began my voyage on embarking new ground in finding a job in the video-games industry. Honestly at the very beginning I felt slightly sceptical in regards to creating a blog. I hardly update my twitter account, so to keep frequent updates for my career path I felt that it could be quite troublesome.

 

Regardless I am very open to new things to the creation of this blog was quite early, and with continuous attendances to lectures at University and a special thank you to the teachers I began to understand the variety of sources that were open to aid. 

Moreover I didn't know it would be quite fun, especially being given the chance to open yourself to the world in relation to the gaming side of my life.

Self-Promotion:

Everything in this post is going to be taking snippets from the list of various entries from the previous months, which I’m sure you can all review at a later point, at the end of this post for evidence and in-depth information, since these factors will only be briefly explained under this summary.

We'll begin with me and my friends who headed to 'HMV' during the summer holidays in 2010, when we met the designer of my favourite gaming franchise metal gear solid, Hideo Kojima. He was doing a game signing for the latest game in the series. 'MGS: Peace Walker' and I’m sure all you long term readers have seen the images of my signed copy.

'Eurogamer' was another major event; I’ve been to every event since 2008. Playing the latest gaming titles, participating in press conferences and attending the careers fair that was hosted by 'Gamesindustry.biz', where I’ve met many people from the gaming industry.

Last year in 2010 at Eurogamer I applied to volunteer to help out at 'Eurogamer' and this was successful as the event coordinators from this event were happy to take me aboard due to my keen interest and passion for video games.

Furthermore, weeks later  there was an opening to help Bethesda and Splash-Damage, to help these companies out at their booths. So I contacted Eurogamer once again to apply, and unfortunately ‘at first’ I wasn’t given the job since all places had already been taken, it was very limited!

This could be stated as a failure for one point, however since the event lasted for three days. And I was helping on the last day leaving me with two days to experience the gaming event, I spoke with Splash-Damage and Bethesda myself to ask for permission if I could help them out, and they were very eager to have me.

So regardless if I failed once I tried again by asking those in person and it worked and then I got given the chance to contribute by aiding the two firms and it also lead to me to obtain their business cards for further contact.

Additionally I was also asked if I could help out other leading companies such as Microsoft, with Epic games latest in chainsaw tearing action ‘Gears of War 3.’ Due to my flexible and very helpful attitude I was praised by the Eurogamer team, I was very enthusiastic to help.  

In terms of other job searches, I did look online using various websites such as Gamesindustry.Biz, Linked-in and my own personal research on different games companies such as rare or play-fish. For any job entries where I did apply and am awaiting for any reply from these companies. 

Unfortunately I haven’t had great luck in terms of job hunting since there isn’t any company currently who has stated that they are interested in me.

However in the time of writing this, I received an e-mail from Gamesindustry.biz highlighting a game-testing job for 3 months in South-East England. So I have provided the company with my CV and hoping for any contact in return. So this was one highlight of the weekend, to hear about this job entry.

Keepin in relation with finding a career, late 2010 I was asked to come to a role-play of an interview with the games company 'Rebbelion'  I had spoken about this earlier in my blog and outlined details from my experience, it was very good and I feel i gained good experience.

Potential Markets:

I have promoted 'Lionheads' mobile phone game on different occasions on my blog, named ‘KingMaker’ and have been contributing towards this game as well as provoking many friends to download this title.

Additionally looking into other aspects in technology such as the 'Samsung Galaxy tablet' and 'Apple's Ipad

Casual gaming was also stated, indicating 'Microsoft’s Kinect' with the use of its hands-free motion controls enabling players to do much more without the requirement of using a controller.

My future plans:

Overall I’ve enjoyed everything in the on-going process of further developing this blog, from promoting new gaming titles, travelling to different events and promoting aspects of the games industry, such as casual and mobile gaming.

Many factors have been met and I have applied for various titles In different companies, and I’ll try to be short since I’m pretty sure I’ve gone a bit over my recommended number count ha! So I’ll finish off by stating my future plans.

Personally I want to work in the industry as a lead games designer, however before I reach that goal, I will be applying as a programmer because it is possibly the fastest route into the games industry because from experiences and research from websites such as 'gamesindustry.biz' there has always been entries for this particular role. And from speaking to the people from the careers fair I’d been told to choose one area and 

not a mixture.

My plan is to work for a company for at least a good number of years to gain experience and feel far more confident in the development processes in creating a game. However personally I want to open my own business as a games designer.

It will be very hard, however one of my teachers ‘Dave’ mentioned a company named ‘Tiga’ who help and are for the games industry and people who are looking to open their own firm to develop video games.

So I will be getting some advice from them and looking into deeper research in creating my own business in the near future.

I already have quite a few talented people who are eager to join me in my firm that I am aching to create so once the time is right, gained the experience and hold enough funding,  I will be putting my foot down to begin my prospect of becoming a director of a video games firm and forming the name of my business to become a global hit in the games industry.

Alright I’ll conclude with that, sorry if all you teachers felt this summary was quite informal in some cases, however as it is a post for my blog, I felt to keep the language and the style of writing to be casual for all the usual readers of my blog.

Take care all of you and thank you for sharing this experience with me and I really appreciate this. I think I will return again in another blogging website so the markers can be happy and do as they please with this one.

Bye everyone =]