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Haven’t you ever played a game, and thought that it would be the most amazing job to make that game? The other day I ran into a good friend from high school. He was working at a local GameStop and we began talking. We talked about what we were doing since high school, and we got on the topic of jobs. He told me he always wanted to work with video games because he loved them. However, his hopes and aspirations of working with video games was limited to working at GameStop as a clerk.

He called me lucky that I had a job that allowed me to work with games. I thought to myself that there has to be more job opportunities waiting for people, they just don’t know where/how to look. Last time I checked, career day was full of doctors, laywers, accountants, cops, engineers, musicians, software developers… but not once did I have a guy who worked with video games. Thats when I decided that information for working within the video gaming community was not common knowledge, and I knew many of our viewers would benefit from this knowledge.

I contacted Kathy Gehrig at Valve Software, the makers of games like Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Steam, etc. She was more than happy to answer a few questions for us that would hopefully help out future game developers, or just someone who would like a more traditional job inside the gaming industry.

We’d like to thank Kathy for taking time out of her super busy schedule to talk with us!

Justin: Kathy, could you give us little background on you, your job, and how you came to be at your position at Valve?

Kathy: My path here doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense. I have a BA in Music. I worked in the IT department at a law firm for a number of years – nothing in my background translates well to the industry. A collegue of mine (he’s actually the rhythm guitarist in my band) left the firm we were working for and a couple of weeks later I had an interview. Valve’s philosophy is that you create an environment of smart, talented, creative people and give them the tools to make amazing products. Pretty simple really.

Justin: What different type of jobs and careers are available at Valve and in the gaming industry in general? Is there a large variety of careers available or are they all very similar?

Kathy: Yes, even at a relatively small company like Valve (we have 143 people working here presently), there is a good cross section of careers represented – animators, artists, programmers, level designers, support techs, IT, marketing, web design, UI design, UX design – etc. And, each of those disciplines has different areas for people to specialize.

Justin: Are there any high demands for specific skills and talents in the gaming industry? Is there a growth of demand for people with needed skill sets?

Kathy: Like any industry, you will always see ebb and flow regarding skill sets. With regards to Valve in particular, our employees tend to be generalists – broad skill sets with world class skills in one or two different areas – and even more valuable are the people who have combined skill sets – for instance, an artist who can write code or an engineer who can animate.

Justin: What jobs do you think are available in the gaming industry that many people don’t realize exist?

Kathy: Jobs like mine. You don’t have to be a hard core gamer to work for a game company. If you think the industry is awesome and you are an amazing accountant. You’ll be highly valued.

Justin: Are there many opportunities in the gaming industry for more standard jobs (i.e. accounting, marketing, sales, operations)?

Kathy: Absolutely – you can make the coolest game in the world, but if no one knows it exists and no one knows how to get it out to the public and no one gets paid – no one’s going to be very happy.

Justin: What type of qualifications do you look for in prospective employees?

Kathy: Smart people doing cool stuff – creating and solving interesting problems. We also tend to gravitate towards more senior people. We don’t have managers here – our structure is very flat. So, no one will be there to tell you what to do. You have to be able to be completely self managed and succeed.

Justin: What type of education is needed or available for people who are wishing to work for game development company such as Valve?

Kathy: It really depends on what part of the industry interests you. There are great schools that center around gaming – like Digipen and Guildhall – but mostly you just want to get a great education and continually practice which piece interests you. Also, learn how to work with OTHER PEOPLE. This is key – A LOT of different factors, ideas, talent, etc go in to making even the smallest part of a game. Being able to accept other’s ideas and champion your own, AND do it all with tact, is absolutely essential. There is no “I” in TEAM – but there is an “M” and an “E” – hmmmm – kidding of course.

Justin: Almost all of the jobs listed on Valve’s website state a need for 3+ years of experience. What types of experience does Valve look for? How and where can future employees find and get this experience?

Kathy: Again, working on a Mod is a great way to do that – the experience of taking a product from its inception through to shipping speaks volumes. If you can say “I crunched with a team in the zero hour to get this software out the door”, then you instantly have the base level of respect that game developers share with one another

The Source SDK gives you the tools that we use to make our games (http://developer.valvesoftware.com). You can program new monsters, weapons, faces, or design your own levels. Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat started out using the original Half-Life SDK. They were both created by people just like you who wanted to show what they could do with cutting-edge technology. There’s no better way to learn how to do a job than by actually doing it, and a mod gives you exactly that opportunity

Justin: What advice would you give to a high school student who wants to work for a game developer company as a career?

Kathy: If you really like playing games, think about why. What makes them fun? Hone your analytical skills. As a mental exercise, break down anything around your in life into its base elements. Try to figure out “If this were a game, what would the goal be? What would be my resources?”. You can break anything down into meaningful quanta. School, marriage, cars, getting a job…anything could be turned into a game. It’s very important for a game designer to know how and why. You be the game designer, and you decide.

Don’t ignore board games. Some video gamers don’t pay attention to the lessons they teach. Most if not all of the classic, archetypical game mechanisms can be found in games such as Monopoly, Life, Scrabble, etc. Not only that, but you can actually play these with your friends that DON’T game – watch what they like about it – observe what makes them want to play again.

Coming up with cool ideas is not the hard part. Everyone has them, they get you excited, but you’re not going to get rich or famous just because you have an idea for a game. People are going to listen to you and give you money only when you can actually make the game. So lower your head, keep those ideas alive, but work, work, work to prove you can make those pie-in-the-sky dreams actually happen. Remember that 99.9% of people who work in video games are going to spend their whole career making someone else’s idea come to life. If you’re not going to be happy with that fact, you may not want to make games.

Justin: Would you like to add anything or give any extra advice to our readers, and even maybe a future employee of Valve who is reading this?

Kathy: Invest in a good chair – and commit to a workout regimen – you’ll need them both!

Justin: Thank you for your time Kathy, and thank the troops at Valve for the awesome games!

Well, I got the good chair, now I just gotta get my workout regimen back in order… curse these desk jobs!

Please feel free to leave any comments or questions and we’ll see if we can’t get Kathy to squeeze out a few more minutes for us!

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 8th, 2007 at 5:32 pm and is filed under CEVO Featured Articles, Gaming Jobs, VALVe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.