Games Industry Resources

We get a lot of requests for information on careers in the games industry so we’ve decided to publish this list of resources. It’s not exhaustive, by any means, but hopefully it’s a good starting point for people who want to find out more about working in the games industry. If you have suggestions for additional resources to include, feel free to email hello@simteractive.com.

Careers

If you want to know what it’s really like to be a game designer, Elaine from Simteractive wrote a guest blog post on The Girl Who Games.

If you want to find out how to get started in games, The Guardian asked 15 game developers how they got their start.

If you want to understand what kind of work is involved in different games industry roles, read “The Door Problem”.

If you want a website with loads of information on careers in the games industry, check out GameCareerGuide.

If you want to know more about being a game designer, take a look at Sloperama.

If you think working in video games would be the best thing ever with no downsides that you can think of, get a humorous reality check with this video.

If you want to find out more about STEM careers in general, visit SmartFutures.

Games Industry News

If you want a US-centric site that covers a wide range of news, blog posts, job openings and much more, check out gamasutra.

If you want to find out about the latest news in the games industry in general, check out gamesindustry.biz

If you want to find out the latest mobile game news, check out PocketGamer.biz.

Game Development Skills

If you are trying to decide what game to make, Ryan Clark (creator of Crypt of the NecroDancer) wrote a great article here.

If you want to access free talks from some of the world’s leading game developers, check out the GDC Vault.

If you want to access free videos on all aspects of casual game development, take a look at Casual Connect’s YouTube channel.

Gamasutra is listed under news but it’s also got lots of resources in the form of blog posts, postmortems etc.

If you want to find out more about the technical side of game development, check out GameDev.net.

If you want a huge list of game design resources, visit PixelProspector.com.

If you want to find out about game balancing techniques, check out Ian Schreiber’s blog.

If you want to learn how to code and you’re between 7 and 17, check out CoderDojo.

If you want to learn how to code and you’re an adult in Ireland looking for an inclusive, supportive environment, look into Coding Grace.

If you want free access to an industry-standard, cross platform engine, consider Unity.

Irish Game Development

If you’re a game developer in Ireland, get involved with Imirt, a group representing game developers in Ireland.

If you want to get involved with the community of Irish game developers, join the IrishGameDev Facebook group (you’ll need to get an existing member to send you an invite).

If you want to get people to play your game or to play what other people are working on (or to meet members of the IrishGameDev Facebook group so you can get an invite), come along to DubLudo.

If you want to find out about what game development is going on in Ireland and what job vacancies there are, visit gamedevelopers.ie.

If you want to stay up to date with Irish game development on Twitter, look for the #IrishGameDev hashtag.

If you want to get involved in game jams in Ireland, look at Global GameCraft.

If you want to attend an annual event with talks from Irish game developers and game demos, check out State of Play.

Other Resources

The Analytics tool GameAnalytics have put together a list of 21 Free Learning Resources for Game Developers. Check it out here.