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Work · May 11, 2011

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I emailed video game companies about breaking into the industry

A few years ago, I emailed a few prominent video game companies (Valve, Bethesda, Infinity Ward, and another I have lost the name to). I asked about how one gets a job in the video game industry. Although I'm no longer on that path, I figured the emails might be useful for anyone interested. Cheers: ----- Thanks for your interest and support of Valve. What does it take to get in to the gaming industry? I can’t give you a concrete answer, but, after speaking with several of employees, I can offer up these suggestions: 1. Hone your analytical skills. As a mental exercise, break down anything…

I emailed video game companies about breaking into the industry launched on May 11, 2011 with 28 votes, #26 of 217 launches that month and more than 75% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 15 years on.

Visit developer.valvesoftware.com ↗Alternativestop 12% of May 2011

In plain words

This is a collection of email responses from major video game companies (Valve, Bethesda, and Infinity Ward) offering advice on breaking into the gaming industry. The creator compiled these genuine responses after reaching out to ask about career paths, including suggestions on developing analytical skills and understanding game design fundamentals. It is useful for anyone considering a career in video game development looking for guidance directly from industry professionals.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

You are seeing this because the administrator of this website has set up Anubis to protect the server against the scourge of AI companies aggressively scraping websites. This can and does cause downtime for the websites, which makes their resources inaccessible for everyone. Anubis is a compromise. Anubis uses a Proof-of-Work scheme in the vein of Hashcash, a proposed proof-of-work scheme for reducing email spam. The idea is that at individual scales the additional load is ignorable, but at mass scraper levels it adds up and makes scraping much more expensive. Ultimately, this is a placeholder solution so that more time can be spent on fingerprinting and identifying headless browsers (EG:…from developer.valvesoftware.com

In the maker’s words, at launch

A few years ago, I emailed a few prominent video game companies (Valve, Bethesda, Infinity Ward, and another I have lost the name to). I asked about how one gets a job in the video game industry. Although I'm no longer on that path, I figured the emails might be useful for anyone interested. Cheers: ----- Thanks for…

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