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forming a career in the gaming industry

computational_linguistcomputational_linguist Registered User regular
edited September 2009 in Help / Advice Forum
I am a graduate student at Brandeis University near Boston. I want to take my lifelong passion and knowledge of video games and forge a career in gaming journalism and/or natural language processing for video game marketing or cutting edge gaming technology.

Tips? Thanks for any suggestions!

computational_linguist on

Posts

  • ImprovoloneImprovolone Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Are you writing anything now and submitting it to blogs?

    Improvolone on
    Voice actor for hire. My time is free if your project is!
  • DarkewolfeDarkewolfe Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Improvolone wrote: »
    Are you writing anything now?

    Darkewolfe on
    What is this I don't even.
  • admanbadmanb unionize your workplace Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited September 2009
    Write something now, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, etc etc. Put it online. If you can find a site with readers that is looking for contributers, contribute. Do this to attract the attention/build a portfolio to get on bigger and bigger sites and publications. Eventually, if you're lucky, someone will start paying you for it.

    admanb on
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  • computational_linguistcomputational_linguist Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    thanks for the tips. How and who's blogs do I submit to? Is it a matter of hoping enough people pass your information around until someone notices you?

    I was hoping to just do some freelance to cover PAX unpaid.

    computational_linguist on
  • DogDog Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
    edited September 2009
    joystiq, kotaku, massively, etc. etc. etc.

    Unknown User on
  • ImprovoloneImprovolone Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    computational_linguist wrote: »
    thanks for the tips. How and who's blogs do I submit to? Is it a matter of hoping enough people pass your information around until someone notices you?

    I was hoping to just do some freelance to cover PAX unpaid.

    Most blogs and other publications have information on their website on how to submit articles.
    So go ahead and cover PAX (isn't it too late?), submit it, and even if no one uses it you have it for your portfolio.

    Improvolone on
    Voice actor for hire. My time is free if your project is!
  • CrystalMethodistCrystalMethodist Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    computational_linguist wrote: »
    I am a graduate student at Brandeis University near Boston. I want to take my lifelong passion and knowledge of video games and forge a career in gaming journalism and/or natural language processing for video game marketing or cutting edge gaming technology.

    Tips? Thanks for any suggestions!

    Wait, what?

    Gaming journalism and/or NLP?

    One is writing your opinion about video games, the other one is using statistical models to infer linguistic structure in text documents. I can't see any way in which video game reviews and computational linguistics are similar, much less how you could combine them into a single discipline.

    I also don't have any idea how NLP relates to video game marketing. I guess sentiment mining for good/bad reviews?

    I'm so confused.

    CrystalMethodist on
  • CelestialBadgerCelestialBadger Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    What do you mean by natural language processing? Because if it means you can program, have you thought of being a games programmer? They get paid better than writers, and are much more in demand.

    CelestialBadger on
  • nevilleneville The Worst Gay (Seriously. The Worst!)Registered User regular
    edited September 2009
    CelestialBadger wrote: »
    What do you mean by natural language processing? Because if it means you can program, have you thought of being a games programmer? They get paid better than writers, and are much more in demand.

    Yes, although it isn't an easy field to just break into.
    Typically games programmers, more than traditional programming jobs, want experience on a game or shipped title(s). They also typically want specialized skills: your normal CS graduate won't have experience programming shaders, which most entry level games jobs in graphics would want.

    Going to a school specializing in it, such as DigiPen, making independent games (even something in Flash), demos of sub-systems showing your expertise, etc all can be useful.

    neville on
    nevillexmassig1.png
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