Introduction Excerpt from How Games Get Made
Below is an excerpt from my book, How Games Get Made: The Stories of the People Who Make and Play the Games We Love, publishing December 7, 2020. This excerpt is part of an article series I am writing to raise awareness for my book and get you excited to read it! For more information, check out the end of this article.
It’s just another one of those days. Your mom is badgering you about becoming a lawyer or a doctor. “Or maybe sticking with finance is the way to go”, she says. Your dad warns you about the grades for your calculus class where you’re dangerously close to falling past a C minus. You know, the usual. Giving lifeless nods and noncommittal answers in response, you wander back to your bedroom.
Ah, your bedroom. Your safe haven. Your small paradise within the grueling desert of daily life. Your gaming console of choice rests under the TV your parents got for you after several years of begging, and your headset that promises professional-quality sound rests in its charging stand. You grab the controller, put on your headset, and pick up the bag of snacks you were eating before you headed downstairs for dinner. You select your favorite game, and check the time. Sweet. It’s 8:00p.m. on a Friday, and the weekend’s ahead of you. After five weekdays of pure work, it’s going to be nice to relax with some games for a change.
You might enjoy playing games. In fact, you might spend more time gaming than doing “actual” work. But what if your actual work was working within the gaming industry itself? It wasn’t until I took my first video game development course in college, at age twenty, that this thought even occurred to me. Despite the ridiculous number of hours I’d spent playing and watching games, I didn’t realize that I could make the stuff.
I originally went to college to study biology and astronomy. Before the end of my first semester, that became photography, another hobby of mine. However, finding that too restrictive of a medium to express what I wanted, video game development became my salvation, after two years of unrelated classes.
Video games constitute a large class of software. From Candy Crush (2012), the mobile smash hit, to Counter Strike: Global Offensive (2012), one of the most popular online multiplayer games, to Nancy Drew: Interactive Mysteries (1998), a kids’ education game, when I discuss video game development, I mean it as an all-encompassing term.
Maybe you picked up this book because you like playing video games, you’ve never considered “making games” as a professional career path, or maybe because you want to work in the game industry but are nervous on how to do so. Or maybe you already work in the industry and wanted to hear some other perspectives. Perhaps you even considered becoming a Twitch streamer to play games in front of an audience, but have no idea where to start.
I’m here to share with you the ins and outs of the gaming industry and answer questions like:
- How, exactly, do people get into the gaming industry?
- What does “working in the industry” even mean?
- What is the industry like?
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be sharing excerpts from my book, How Games Get Made: The Stories of the People Who Make and Play the Games We Love, as well as thought pieces and deep dives in the format of an article series. How Games Get Made launches on December 7, 2020 on Amazon (link coming soon)! If you want to connect, you can reach me via Twitter: @emschaale!
