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/vr/ - Retro Games

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3891753 No.3891753 [Reply] [Original]

How did people like Kojima, Suda51, Miyamoto, etc get to work on the video game industry? They studied careers completely unrelated to game design, then dropped out, and all info I can find is they "just joined" gamedev teams. How would one go about doing that at the time?

>"Hello, yes - Konami? Okay, listen, I got a reeeally hot idea for a game, but I don't know how to program, nor make graphics, nor make music"
>"Yeah you're hired"

????

>> No.3891760

>>3842052

>> No.3891763

Kenji Eno told a story about how he got his first games industry job pretty much by just finding a random studio in the classifieds, doing a bunch of shit, and eventually becoming an ideas guy. So, you're sortof on the right track.

>> No.3891764

Charisma goes an extremely long way in the real world.

>> No.3891842

>>3891764
This. Worked as a chemist for the state for a while. I have a BA in philosophy.

>> No.3891971

>MUH IDEAS

You think they would give people easy jobs right at the beginning? You need to prove yourself and earn their trust.

>> No.3891991

>>3891753
Do I have to read the Wikipedia for you?
Kojima decided to make games when still in the uni and was simply persistent about it. Initially he wasn't accepted anywhere, but then he was hired in Konami in MSX division (when he actually wanted NES or arcade). His first game was Penguin Adventure. It was a long shot from having the direction he wanted; he even considered leaving the company at some point. Imagine working all these years with little to no recognition, on MSX where most of his games weren't terribly popular.
Suda51:
>Suda … wished to design video games from an early age.[3] Among his early jobs were working at Sega as a graphics designer for their brochures. … Seeing an advert from Human Entertainment, then famous for the Fire Pro Wrestling series, and feeling his knowledge of wrestling would aid him he applied for a job as game designer.[4][5]
>Suda's first job at Human was as scenario writer for Super Fire Pro Wrestling III, which earned him praise from the company due to the quality of his work.
Miyamoto:
>Miyamoto graduated from Kanazawa Municipal College of Industrial Arts with a degree in industrial design[6] but no job lined up.
>Through a mutual friend, Miyamoto's father arranged an interview with Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi. After showing some of his toy creations, Miyamoto was hired in 1977 as an apprentice in the planning department.[6]

>> No.3892442

>>3891760
Basically desu above and >>3891764
and connections>>3891991

These a days it's all sweatshops and outsourcing to korea or vietnam.

>> No.3892506

Back in the day you could pretty much just be an indie dev, make a good game, then have jobs thrown at you to be a professional idea guy.

>> No.3892687

>>3891753
They applied their outside knowledge to an unrelated field and created something interesting out of it.

>> No.3892718

>>3891753
Video games weren't 80$ million focus grouped blockbusters in the 1980s, the form was fresh and things were moving fast, there probably were not too many Video Game related degrees outside of hardware and software engineers.

>> No.3895058

>>3891991
>he even considered leaving the company at some point
imagine if he actually went thru with that at some point

>> No.3895067

>>3891753
Because design isn't something that can be studied.

>> No.3895080

>>3891753
They were usually coders or artists that could apply their skills in a then blooming and rapidly expanding industry. That and Japan believes in hiring up from within the company instead of hiring out to business school graduates

>> No.3895104

Bumping, is let us cling together good for a srpg pleb?

>> No.3895114

>>3895104
Hardly, you might want to try Vandal Hearts instead if you're a pleb.

>> No.3895539

>>3895104
It's a good game, but if you're really a 100% srpg pleb you gotta play Final Fantasy Tactics: War of The Lions. It's made by a lot of the same people but it's a better game in a lot of ways.

>> No.3895550
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3895550

Goemon's great adventure has a mini-game where you can learn how to get hired at a video game company.

>> No.3895554

>>3895539
except for the horrible load times awful translation and complete lack of any improvements to the game mechanics

just a lot of content, all of it bad

oh wait no the animes are kinda cool

>> No.3895669
File: 61 KB, 376x222, popeye tells it like it is.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3895669

>>3895554
>tfw I felt WORSE for Delita than I already did thanks to the WotL version
He did a few things wrong, but he was mostly right.
It's just a shame that everything went down like it did.

>> No.3895749

In the early days, you could often get a job in the game industry by having a degree of some kind, and telling them that you didn't mind the 100-hour work weeks needed to deliver games.