Top 5 Entry-Level Video Game Jobs

Getting a job in the video game industry seems like a great theme to gamers: you get paid to help produce or perfect the very product that you love to play. And while it does take several work, a job in the video game industry can be very rewarding; but, how do you get your foot in the door and embark on down the path of creating these entertaining precious stones? You, my friend, need to get an entry-level position with a gaming company.

First, let's discuss what exactly an "entry-level" position is: it is something on the ground level that usually does not have the years of prior experience required of other positions; even so, there are usually some requirements, like having a High School diploma, GED, or College Degree. Let's face the facts: video games are a highly technical field, and you are not going to get anywhere if you are not educated.


With that being said, here are the Top 5 entry-Level Video Game Jobs:

Public Beta Tester - While not technically a paid position, by properly beta testing products you are able to help yourself stand out in your field. Now, I'm not talking about play testing - where you get to play around with a nearly complete product. No, I'm talking about true beta testing - where bugs need to be documented properly and recreated in a reliable way. Even if this does not directly lead to a job, it is able to help with the necessary experience required for a real technical position.

Internal Game Testing - This position is slowly being outsourced to other companies that specialize in the field of testing products, so if you choose this route be well knowledgeable that you may never in reality get to work in a gaming company, but a company that works with gaming companies.

The job is pretty simple: play a game, find bugs, report those bugs; but, the job is pretty tedious as well: you need to play one section of a game over and over in a designed fashion so that every possible action the player could take is covered and doesn't cause an undesired outcome (i.e. the game crashes). Sure, it is not glamorous, but it is a decent paying job and you get to sit on your butt and stare at a computer screen all day.

Technical Documentation - if writing programs or beta testing isn't your cup of tea, or if you really excel at writing, then maybe the area of technical documentation would be right up your alley: you will be writing most of the internal documentation covering a variety of topics from how to use a chunk of code to how to properly restart a game during beta testing so that no data is lost.

Jr. Programmer - If you dream of algorithms and fixing bugs, then the Jr. Programming position might just be for you. Granted, you are not going to be writing the most complex pieces of code in the world, but you'll be double-checking the work of Sr. Programmers and writing smaller chunks of code as a blistering pace. While you will not generally get to spend a lot of time in reality playing the games, you will get to help produce the backbone of the game.

Production Assistant - This position you might look at to be the "holy grail" of the gamer: you do not need to muck with code, or test games until your thumbs fall off, and you nonetheless get to take part in the development of the game. The only problem, surely, is that you will be an assistant to a producer: organizing schedules, meetings, conferences, calls, and doing all of the mundane tasks that your boss does not prefer to do.

Those are, what I would look at to be, the Top 5 Entry-Level Video Game Jobs. No, they are not glamorous in the least, but at least they will help you get your foot in the door. Plus, they'll help you decide if the Video Game industry is right for you.