I want to work with games. Now what?

Hm. Maybe a mere two years ago I would have told you it was only by becoming a YouTuber, streamer or e-athlete

But today the reality is quite different even from those mere two years ago. Think that for these individuals: streamers, YouTubers, e-athletes, there is a whole entourage of professionals needed to provide support.

And this is where things start to get interesting.

Understand that working with games, to begin with, requires that you know a lot about at least the game you’re covering.

But that’s the basics. Whoever knows more, knows the history, was here when all this was still wilderness and has the callus of an old controller that never left the hand is far more valued by the industry.

Because they’re more reliable. Because they can draw parallels with references that are evident to those who know the source of inspiration for a given piece of content

The games industry – largely because of the gamers themselves – is possibly one of the industries with the most demanding requirements of prior knowledge of the medium’s history that exists. You need to know consoles but not only consoles. PC but not only PC. Know the basics of 8, 16, 32/64 and 128 bits and, on top of all that, know the references of at least the mainstream games of each of these platforms and generation leaps.

Having the knowledge that today is reserved only for the dumb old consumer dinosaurs can be tremendously lucrative.

That said, not yet within Brazil. Professional requirements in Brazil are quite high and financial compensation doesn’t reflect the international reality.

But from the moment you have a language other than Portuguese, Portuguese itself can be a key qualification to apply for a job, since countless companies want a foothold in the Brazilian games market, which has only grown over the last decades. Brazilians are crazy about games and the market has realized it.

Note that at no point did I mention game development. Yes, the market keeps expanding and exploding with people coming in from every side, but developing the game is not the only way to work with games.

Talking to the community is working with games.

Providing support to the community is working with games.

Doing market research is working with games.

Quite possibly there is a field you are working in or have worked in that can be carried out within the games industry.

The difference is that your knowledge of games may be the key to getting you into the industry.

For now this is a reflection on the subject. I’ll talk more soon.