Climbing the Ladder, Quick Tips to Move Up in the Video Game Industry

Getting a job in the video game industry is sometimes the easy part. With today's technological advancements, there are oodles of opportunities to land a job in video games. The fun part is what comes next.

So what do you do once you've landed the job? You work your tail off. It will pay off, trust me. There are very talented people in the game industry and you need to know that you can do it and become a valued member on a team with a developer. But…it takes time.

How much time? Well, that depends on how motivated you are to advance your career. There are several things you can do as an artist or a game designer to help things along. These are simple things that once applied can move you leaps and bounds up the industry ladder.

Learn from others. One of the most important things you can do is to associate with highly talented people in your company. Be willing to learn from them. Watch and observe what they do, and be willing to put your time into this phase. Share ideas with each other and learn. You'll find that this helps more than anything in your growth as a designer and artist. You will be able to see your art develop and your techniques grow faster than if you just tried to do everything yourself. I can't express how important this is. Don't just sit at your desk and try to do things on your own. Meet senior artists and learn from them.

If you are just starting out, there will be times when you are going to be confused with the company's process or ways they go about hitting milestones. You need to ask people when you have a question. Don't just try and figure things out for yourself or you may get burned. Ask, then do.

Lastly, be active in the meetings at work. Don't just sit back and watch. Get involved. Be willing to share your ideas. However, being the noobie, don't think your idea is always right and be pushy with it. This will get you blackwalled quickly and people will shut your career down quickly if you are the new guy who thinks he knows something.

These simple steps will have you moving up the industry ladder quickly. You'll see yourself in an established role and a highly regarded member of the team in no time at all, just by doing some of these simple steps.