Game Developer's Market Guide (Game Development)

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Summary: Review of Game Developer's Market Guide
Review: Game Developer's Market Guide answers this difficult question: "How do I get a job in game development?" It provides students with a clear and complete resource for understanding and breaking into the game industry. Most importantly, this book helps an aspiring developer figure out what their goals really are, and how to achieve them.

The book is organized into three coherent segments. The first portion is a series of articles describing various aspects of the game industry, including the business, the freelance lifestyle, agents and recruiters, legal issues, game design, and explanations of the various components and jobs involved in both the production and management of a game.

The second portion of this book is a compendium of publishers, developers, contractors, distributors, game recruiters, schools, and industry events. Each entry listed in this section provides a full description of the company, contact information, a brief history, and its function in the industry.

The third portion of the book is a list of important organizations and websites with which any serious developer should be familiar.

This is an enjoyable, well-structured, and well-formatted book containing a wealth of useful information. It succeeds in providing a solid foundation in the fundamentals of the game industry. The articles in this book present concrete examples and crucial information from some of the industry's top developers that empower readers to competently formulate an approach to entering the game industry.

In addition to the articles, the company list is an invaluable resource to student developers. One of the most difficult aspects of job application strategies for any student is gathering a list of prospective employers. This book provides a comprehensive list of companies that enables a reader to quickly track down contact information as well as identify companies that they might have otherwise overlooked.

The final section of the book provides links and information about popular game development organizations and websites. It provides an important foundation for students to understand and get involved with the community.

Regardless of whether you are an artist, programmer, designer, producer, tester, veteran, or novice, I highly recommend this book as an essential resource for understanding and existing within the game industry. Bates has fluidly organized the most important aspects of the game industry into a single comprehensive and easy to read reference guide. Each chapter is filled with information and tips that are crucial to the success of any game developer.

Rating:
Summary: Decent, but surprisingly incomplete
Review: I purchased this book with my eye on one section in particular... the one that purports to have a list of publishers and their contact information. When I received the book, I was excited to flip it open and find, indeed, a list of information for many publishers in the industry. What I soon found out, however, that what seems to be a large amount of information really isn't.

First, there are a striking number of major publishers that are simply missing from the book. For example, the publisher that historically works the most with outside studios, Take Two (and their subsidiaries, Gathering of Developers, Rockstar, etc.) have no listing whatsoever. There is some solace in seeing companies like Microsoft Games... but they state firmly in their entry that they do not accept unsolicited submissions - which is exactly what a reader of this book would be doing. What's more, many of the entries in this section were obviously lifted straight from forms filled out by the companies themselves... complete with spelling errors, grammatical hash and useless statements.

The lists of developers and contractors seems to be a bit more of a help - particular for those that are looking for employment or for specialized contract labor to help them augment their own skills. However, this is something that is available through other outlet such as the perennial favorite, Gamasutra.com.

The other sections of this book hold some value, depending on your knowledge and exposure to the industry. There are some decent articles in Section 1 by some good names in the business. They provide an array of education, advice, encouragement and caution to those who may be looking at getting into the industry.

The last section of recommended reading, URLs, etc. is material you could find on your own. It is only really valuable if you are completely incapable of performing the most basic of searches via your engine of choice. Of course, if you couldn't Google with a reasonable level of skill, you probably wouldn't be the type of person that would be looking for this book in the first place.

All in all, it is nice to have this information between a pair of covers... but don't expect an all-encompassing tome of who's who and who wants you. On the other hand, for the price they are charging, it may be worth it to just pick it up so you don't have to burn the calories acquiring the information on your own.