What's the general experience working at a game studio like? Stressful? Exciting? It's something I've always wanted to try out and I'm considering joining one -- anyone have any advice tips on what it's like and where I could consider working?
Don’t.
Different companies are different, even in gaming. Especially in gaming.
Is there any game company that isn’t a madhouse though?
Yes I am at one currently. I do my 40-45 hour weeks and go home, mostly.
Game industry is a complete shit show. Unprofessionalism across the board and a desire to reinvent the wheel repeatedly to earn a promotion. At least at Riot, company wide reorgs take priority over actually shipping stuff and leadership is more of a friend's club than a collection of individuals who have earned their spot through merit. I'm never working in games again and am out as soon as my project ships.
My experience in a few studios in AAA: -Pay sucks compared to tech, but I still make six figures. YMMV depending on what exactly you do. -There is some crunch but it hasn’t been excessively bad for me, again YMMV. I find content creation jobs get it way worse than design jobs. -Working in games tends to be fun if you like games. By no means do you play games all day, or even much at all, but the satisfaction of making a product that you’re truly excited about is huge. -I haven’t worked in tech, but I have a lot of friends who do. The interpersonal work bullshit they talk about sounds unbearable. I have run into very little if any conflict at work. Most of the people I work with have been pleasant and easygoing.
I’ve experienced more interpersonal drama here than I did at a tech company
I have experienced a lot more interpersonal or political bullshit at unity than Amazon for example - specially when you normalize by the company size. I think it boils down to the gaming industry mindset of building software from scratch to ship in a box which makes people territorial as opposed to building services on top of open source software which makes people more collaborative
Working in the games industry is exciting and rewarding! Obviously, with all SE jobs, you can have a bad manager/team/etc, this is true with FANG as well. Crunch happens, but it’s not the end of the world. If you have a passion for games it won’t kill you. You can start off at gaming companies that make slot games like Zynga, SG, Aristocrat; the WLB at these companies is really nice, and you get most of the perks that you would at AAA. After that you’ll know if you wanna be in AAA or FANG.
Stressful. Exciting. Political at times. Hopefully you are experienced and confident enough in your craft to negotiate well, otherwise you'll be one of those complaining about pay. Work Life Balance is what you make of it, don't get lost by playing games just because you can. Be willing to walk away at any time, just keeping that in mind will help you avoid the entitled trapped victim mentality.
I am curious on any tips anyone would have on entering the video game industry? Can you get promoted internally much?
Do you love games? Consider it worth applying. It's because working in games is genuinely one of the hardest things out there. It's a combination of so many difficult things: design, engineering, art, business, narrative.
You will save money on rent by sleeping in the office for six months a year during crunch
Many studios don't have crunch any more. Like Riot for instance.
Run.
Underpaid and over-worked. Crunch time literally never ends and vacation blackouts most of the year so you'll be miserable. That's at least in smaller indie studios but I've heard the same from friends in AAA
If you really wanna work in game industry, try getting into outsourcing companies. Some of them have really good WLB and you get to dabble in a few different projects instead of being stuck in one.