If the game industry is for you or not I think only you is capable of answering to this question, but if I have a take away message from all of this I would say the game industry, as any other, has definitely its good, bad and ugly sides, ask people, get information, analyze pros & cons and go ahead.
At the end of the day, doing something you love and suffering for it is better than doing something you hate and suffering for it as well.
Actually, many studios already realized great gamers don’t translate necessarily into great employees, so memorizing recently released titles won’t be enough to get a position on a job interview.
Hilarious, but accurate. If passion was all it took finding a job wouldn't be that hard.
Once the production ends and the game is finally released, the company has to cut costs until the next production starts and so the laid offs occur.
Going back to the "disposable workforce" idea.
To be at the safe side always ask your interviewer if you are being hired for a specific project, if yes, when does the project finish and which plans do the company have for you after the project ends.
This is a great tip, I never really thought about a situation like this.
In general, they outsource game dev companies to have their games produced partially or totally externally, this practice is called External Development.
A common business practice in general, not just in video game industry.
If you are considering a position in a game company, but you would only work on titles that you current play, you are maybe limiting yourself to the point of never really entering the game industry in depth, because you are restricting yourself to a few positions
Because a lot of people in the industry are treated as disposable, this could pose quite a problem. If you won't do it, someone else will.
But we shouldn’t romanticize, people are not hired to play games on working hours and not always they’ll produce their next favorite title.
Sadly. Unless you're a QA tester.
I always have the impression people are forgetting that there is something uniting every single enterprise on earth, profit.
They do. The video game industry is just like any other business, the only difference is that it's designed to be a people pleaser rather than a money powerhouse.
Furthermore, game studios are expanding their activities towards mobile and social games allowing people to play from mobile and tablet devices.
Boundless opportunities for work!
However studios usually opt to hire an experienced workforce, as it takes a lot of effort of the team to train people internally, especially in middle of a production phase.
With growing technological advances, it becomes harder and harder for industries to find people with desired experience AND sufficient knowledge of the newest game technologies.