Few days after my first post I already got a letter from a reader in India. He was asking for advice on what to do with his career. He currently works as a Unity developer and said that in India there aren’t many opportunities in this area yet. Only a few small startup companies are currently working with Unity and he was thinking about shifting for a C# .NET job.  I wrote him a letter and thought it would be nice to share my thoughts about it with you all.

My Letter

India must be in the same situation Brazil was when I started in the game industry. In this case you can expect several startup companies to fail and close in the next few years, while some others will rise and shine. The thing is, you can’t predict which ones are going to succeed. And that can be very frustrating. Maybe you already have some game companies in India that you know and would like to work at, maybe you don’t or they’re far from your home city. Either way, getting a job in the game industry now could be very risky. But if you do, in the next few years you could become an expert in the area with good job offers.

For reference, Brazil is still growing, but it’s been 10 years and we still don’t have giants here yet, no companies here make AAA games. You can’t even think about comparing them to IBM, Accenture and others you mentioned. But there are already good paying job opportunities around the country. I’m looking for them right now and some look really promising. I’ll have to move though, there’s nothing close to where I live. Only big cities like São Paulo, Porto Alegre and Curitiba.

My advice would be this. If you’re not sure, get a job in C# .NET but continue to develop some things in Unity during your free time. Make your own games, start building up your portfolio. There’s much more into game development than just coding, and that will help you learn about it. If you’re an experienced C# programmer (.NET or not) and also have a portfolio with released games, then you’re as fit as anyone to apply for a game developer job. Even as a Senior in some cases. This way, when you find it’s the right time (maybe you’re getting bored from your job), start applying for game jobs and see what you can get.

Care though. If you want to build a portfolio, you HAVE TO RELEASE the games you work on. Prototypes, codes snippets and game ideas aren’t as good as released games. So, when you’re planning your personal projects, think small, start small, because things will get dirty before you know it. And you have to see it through. Don’t think about monetization for your first project. Just focus on making a complete game, from start to finish. Then add something else to your second game. And maybe start monetizing on your third release. If you’re not good with art but a good programmer, think about it and focus on game ideas that can make your skills shine. Don’t make it harder on yourself.

I hope this was helpful. I would love to hear from you in the future. It’s really exciting to imagine all the possibilities that could be waiting for you. I hope India grows its game development industry too. Different cultures always bring new and interesting ideas to the table (as Brazil have been doing).

Cheers,
Lex.

He told me then that he decided to continue as a Unity developer in the company he is currently working on. This way he can continue to build up his portfolio and practice his .NET skills while he continues looking for better opportunities. This way he may be able to grab his dream job in the future.

The fact is, Indian or not, if you want to have opportunities in the game industry you better start doing something right now, experience matters the most. Take the safest route if you will, but if you postpone a lot… then when your dream job shows up you might not be eligible for it.

Indian Game Companies

Later on I decided to do some research on Indian Game Companies, just for the sake of this post, and found out that India might be in a more advanced stage than I though. There are already some promising game companies there, and some game titles with really good looking visuals. And I’m not even considering outsourcing yet, which is an area where India seems to have been doing very well lately. They don’t necessarily work with Unity, but I’m pretty sure there might be some very good opportunities for Unity developers too.

So that’s it for today. Do you have any thoughts and advises for Unity developers out there? Please comment bellow and let me hear about it.