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Getting into the Video Game PR Industry?
girlziplocked
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So my little brother is about to graduate from college with a major in Public Relations/Communications and a minor in technical writing. He currently works what is mostly a dead-end job at GameStop, but he's really, really good at his job and ridiculously responsible.
The problem is he's very defeated by the location where we grew up (rural Pennsylvania) having little to no job opportunities for him. I go to school in Cambridge, MA which is obviously a mecca for the gaming industry, but I honestly don't know anything about the PR side of things. I'd love for him to come move out here with me if it means him getting a job, even if it doesn't pay super well. It'd be a really big learning experience for him, I think, to get out of our hillbilly hometown.
I'd really like to know what steps he can do to get a job as a PR person. Clearly, he has no experience in the industry outside of his ridiculously high gamer score and his experience at GameStop, but that's not to say he hasn't got experience in PR.
What would you advise a young man such as he as he approaches graduation in the next two months?
Thank you!!
The problem is he's very defeated by the location where we grew up (rural Pennsylvania) having little to no job opportunities for him. I go to school in Cambridge, MA which is obviously a mecca for the gaming industry, but I honestly don't know anything about the PR side of things. I'd love for him to come move out here with me if it means him getting a job, even if it doesn't pay super well. It'd be a really big learning experience for him, I think, to get out of our hillbilly hometown.
I'd really like to know what steps he can do to get a job as a PR person. Clearly, he has no experience in the industry outside of his ridiculously high gamer score and his experience at GameStop, but that's not to say he hasn't got experience in PR.
What would you advise a young man such as he as he approaches graduation in the next two months?
Thank you!!
girlziplocked on
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Work as much overtime as he reasonably can, save his money and prepare to move to a city with companies that can make use of his master's degree after he graduates.
Currently painting: Slowly [flickr]
Cambridge, MA isn't exactly what I would call a gaming mecca.
It's decent, but if he is looking for places with the highest concentrations of gaming jobs, Seattle, SF, LA, or Austin are better.
I'm not sure how to break into PR, really, although getting inside a company in ANY capacity makes it easier to transition. One suggestion might be to get him a position as an entry level forum moderator or GM. Any big company needs those. They don't pay astonishingly well, but it's definitely a way in.
I am in the game industry, but not in a capacity even close to PR, but getting in the front door is a huge step forward.
This.
If he wants to work in PR, it shouldn't matter too much what he's selling. He might find selling perfume or products to teenage girls more difficult, but otherwise PR is PR. The same goes for pretty much all the ancillary jobs to the process of actually creating a game. You're not a games journalist; you're a journalist who writes about games.
PR firms are also set up to train newcomers, games companies won't have that structure.
I would expect that PR is the sort of job you'll want to head to NYC for, so is presumably brutally competitive. If your brother is happy/not driven enough to work at GameStop in Nowheresville, it sounds like he has a hard road in front of him, and you can't be the one to constantly push him. He'll resent you for it.
Someone mentioned that starting with a company makes a nice transition.
Lets put these two together. You know what? Emails are pretty powerful I think. People don't complain enough or try to contact people that way and it goes overlooked.
Have him email someone higher up. Even better. Have him call them. Have him show how dedicated he's been and maybe they can find someone for him.
Unlikely sure, but he's invested a lot into Gamestop and maybe they'll do the same if he shows some initiative.
Any job that can get his foot in the door is great for building a network of people that can help you move around in the industry. Shoot for jobs in the game industry, but don't limit him exclusively to it.
Well, not plenty. There are some jobs, though.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Not necessarily true. I know someone that went directly from either journalism or IT (I cannot remember what his previous position was, I just know it wasn't PR at all) to being cdv's main PR guy.
Generally, I would say that's good advice. But it's not true that every PR person in the video game industry has had years of experience first, and even if I didn't somehow luck into the knowledge anyway, that's a rather wide claim to make.
OP (note: I use "you" but I know we're talking about your brother here. I'm using the plural/general "you"):
Honestly, in this kind of field, I'd wager it's more about who you know and how well you can sell and spin facts than experience. I mean...that's what PR is. It's selling and mangling truth so it looks good to (a) advertisers, (b) journalists, (c) consumers, and (d) publishers (depending on who you work for). Experience will be a plus, of course, but if you can demonstrate an ability to network well and communicate well, you are probably good to go.
I'd recommend going to some public conventions, getting to know people, and going from there. Maybe take a volunteer video game review position on a website and try to muscle into some conventions and eventually E3. If you get on an E3 or similar mailing list, you will NEVER stop getting email from PR reps. Ever. I haven't been to E3 since 2006 and I still get a ton of email from PR reps. I haven't written reviews in years.
Writing and speaking skills are mandatory. You need both. An ability to network is a must. If you can't generate interest, you will not make a good PR rep. I'd wager it might be easier for someone to become a video game PR rep than otherwise considering how many companies there are and how many public avenues there are to getting contacts. Getting contacts is easy, and it's really the first step. I mean, all you have to do is make the acquaintance of a few PR reps and maybe casually one day ask how they got the position or if they have any advice. In that kind of industry, people change jobs quite often. I'm sure many journalists are former PR reps and many PR reps are former journalists, and so on and so forth. Once you've built up a network and a rapport with one or more, there's nothing wrong with making a personal but professionally-slanted inquiry.
I think the OP's brother needs to be realistic and take what he can get in the PR world, rather than try to find a proverbial needle in a haystack like a games industry job. There will always be time to look for those opportunities, and waiting for one to come along is just hurting his prospects.
First of all, I'm unliming what you've limed because it's factually untrue. It may be true in many cases, but it's not a fact, and it's too wide a claim to make. Plus I know at least one example of it not being true.
Second, I don't agree with you at all. "It shouldn't matter too much what he's selling." That's kind of silly. I don't want to be in a sales-type position anyway, but it's simply untrue that sales-minded people would be just as happy selling one thing as anything else. There are plenty of people that would NEVER EVER want to sell certain things and wouldn't at all mind selling other things. I mean, small business owners generally open up a small business for one of two reasons: Marketability given a certain location ("oh, gee, not enough book stores in this area, let's open one!") or because they are interested in selling that object or object type ("I love books! Let's open a bookstore here!!!! It's been my dream!")
Third, a game journalist is a game journalist if that's all they want to write about.
Finally, a lot of video game companies outsource their PR. I'd say most probably do. However, many PR firms cater specifically to game companies. So this point doesn't really make sense.
While NYC is a decent area, for gaming-based PR, I would recommend the west coast first. I don't think it matters though. They fly those fuckers all over the place if need be. Moving to a specific area is probably the last thing anyone should think about, until a job offer is made AND that job offer says "you need to move here."
The kid works retail and is graduating in two months. I won't make any assumptions as to his home life or any financial predicaments he may or may not find himself in immediately after graduation, but what is "realistic" or not depends solely on that situation. If he needs to get a well-paying job immediately, then I wouldn't even recommend PR. I'd recommend a civic job despite whatever the hell the OP wants, because those are the most stable. But that's not really the point of this thread.
Games industry jobs are put on some kind of pedestal around here, but it's a giant industry and has as many openings as any other. It's not special. Someone mentioned perfume. That's a good example. I know women that want to do cosmetic sales. Nothing wrong with that. They know cosmetics and they want to sell cosmetics. Cosmetics is a giant industry as well. Many companies and many opportunities. It's just as easy to get into the cosmetics industry as gaming. I wholly reject the idea that sales = sales, journalism = journalism, and PR = PR. Maybe your skillset, once you've graduated, will cover all of those, but there is absolutely no reason someone needs to piss in the breeze to that degree. In fact, a lack of focus (especially for someone interested in PR) would almost assuredly work against them.
We'll have to disagree then. I fundamentally do not believe in "games jobs". Games jobs do not exist, unless you are a game designer. The domain is secondary to the job you perform. You are an artist, a programmer, maybe you're a back-end guy, a community outreach person or whatever. The skills you have transfer to all sorts of domains. There's a reason a lot of game companies are full of young people: older people don't enjoy the work ethic and they go off to big IT companies instead so they can be with their family.
It's easier to a job in a domain you are passionate in, but at the end of the day, the job is the job. If you can't face the idea of doing PR for anything but games, you shouldn't be in PR. Same for any other "game job."
I'm not claiming that gaming jobs are any rarer than anything else, but trying to focus one segment of a huge field like PR and ignoring everything else is a waste of your time. The more experience gathered, the better position you are in when you finally get a call back from the gaming company like you want. This is the same concept as completing interships during college; any experience is going to better your prospects, and doing nothing during your search just looks bad.
This is absurdly stupid and offensive to anyone who works in a specialized field. Do you know how vast the field of "programming" is? There's application development, there's automation, there's data mining, interface design, network development. Artist? There's painting, there's writing, there's musician, and so on.
Given your position here, "journalist" doesn't exist. Neither does "writer." A journalist is a specialized writer. And a writer is a specialist artist. Hell, even "artist" doesn't exist. Every single job in existence can be conflated to "producer."
Beyond that, it doesn't matter if your skill set can transfer to other domains. What you want to do is as important as what you can do. The domain is as important as the skills needed to function in that domain. And frankly, nobody cares what you choose to believe in.
Also, reading back I just realized, the skillsets for various industries you are conflating don't even match. I can write, but I can't paint. So there is not just "artist." Also, I can whip up a program to do some data mining pretty easily, but I'd be lost at developing a user interface.
edit: So let's say someone wants to sell cars, for instance, but balks at the idea of selling newspaper, or puppies, or commodities, you are saying he shouldn't be in sales? lol.
We can't really advise you (or him) thoroughly. Is it possible he can get a PR gig in the video game industry? Yes. Is it likely? I don't know. There is a path for him to take, but it will take work. I don't know his financial situation, his family situation, if he has a girlfriend, or what...and you're talking about trying to push him to pick up and transplant somewhere else. I don't feel comfortable advising you (or him) with so little data.
All I can say is that it is possible. I don't think any of us can quantify how possible.
Marketers sell. PR people manage product/company image and the knowledge required to do this is fairly basic at the entry level.
I sit right next to the PR team, literally, at my company. Yes, the senior ones do have a pretty decent knowledge of the industry from the perspective of a consumer, but the younger one of them does not really. Entry level PR, from what I have gained from hearing the conversations for the last 10 months, is mostly about managing the press, vocal customer complaints (like a negative article, blog post, etc), and dealing with promotions/events. All of this can be done with just basic clerical skills. I doubt it is much different for the game industry.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Yes, I am well aware of the concept of specialization. Guess what? All those Computer Scientists have a decent grounding in programming. Transferable skills.
Taking a statement to ridiculous extremes to make some point is sort of like lying. But yes, a journalist is the same as any other writer. You can talk to Steven King, who writes some really great Entertainment Weekly columns. Or the hundreds of journalists who write the Great American Novel or biographies.
You seem to care. But if you're only interested in working in one, highly competitive domain, and not interested in any of the other jobs that use that skill set, that would pay well and train you, then you shouldn't be doing that job. It's madness to suggest otherwise.
But selling cars isn't a small, highly competitive domain with questionable entry routes, is it? Many salesman don't care what they sell, the process of selling is the same. I worked for a company who did Oracle database consultancy. The salesman there knew nothing about Oracle, and didn't care. It didn't matter, he sold and kept enough contracts to keep the company New Zealand's biggest Oracle vendor. He was a salesman. What he sold wasn't that relevant to his abilities.
If you want to have a debate on transferrable skills, take it to D&D. If you want to help this guy get a job, stop being a silly goose and recommending he should just aim to do some job that's highly competitive. It's like saying (hey, I can do this ridiculous extreme thing too!) that if you want to be a Hollywood star, but don't want to work on TV or stage, you shouldn't have to.
Yes, I am well aware of the concept of specialization. Guess what? All those Computer Scientists have a decent grounding in programming. Transferable skills.
Taking a statement to ridiculous extremes to make some point is sort of like lying. But yes, a journalist is the same as any other writer, just in a different format. You can talk to Steven King, who writes some really great Entertainment Weekly columns. Or the hundreds of journalists who write the Great American Novel or biographies. Any good writer should be able to understand the house style of a newspaper or magazine simply by reading a few articles, and then produce similar works, if he/she wishes. Preferring to work one specialization is fine, but I'm guessing that most book writers aren't going to be working shitty jobs at Borders when someone is offering them a decent wage as a newspaper journalist.
You seem to care. But if you're only interested in working in one, highly competitive domain, and not interested in any of the other jobs that use that skill set, that would pay well and train you, then you shouldn't be doing that job. It's madness to suggest otherwise.
But selling cars isn't a small, highly competitive domain with questionable entry routes, is it? Many salesman don't care what they sell, the process of selling is the same. I worked for a company who did Oracle database consultancy. The salesman there knew nothing about Oracle, and didn't care. It didn't matter, he sold and kept enough contracts to keep the company New Zealand's biggest Oracle vendor. He was a salesman. What he sold wasn't that relevant to his abilities.
If you want to have a debate on transferrable skills, take it to D&D. If you want to help this guy get a job, stop being a silly goose and recommending he should just aim to do some job that's highly competitive. It's like saying (hey, I can do this ridiculous extreme thing too!) that if you want to be a Hollywood star, but don't want to work on TV or stage, you shouldn't have to.
Actually, PR people do "sell shit." In fact, that is exactly what they sell. Bullshit.
What do you think "managing image" even means? It means selling an image to people, be it a forum community, a publisher, shareholders, or whatever.
lol. I'm not going to get wrapped up in trading insults, or engaging you in your meta-moddery. You're the one that wants to debate, not I. As I said, I'm not interested in your perspective, I'm only interested in answering the OP's question, which I have done, in my way.
"Managing image" is largely about appeasement and also distributing free product to media outlets to drive sales. So in a 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon way, it is "selling", except you aren't doing any selling, you're just calling people up, writing down what size dress they wear, and printing a Fedex label. Someone complains? Throw money at them (or usually, product/free service, etc). It has nothing to do with "selling" anyone on anything. No catch phrases, no graphics, nothing is produced. It's a passive endeavor with the exception of certain types of press releases which are an adjunct of event management.
You have marketing confused with PR. PR is a mouthpiece for the marketing engine.
PR also has nothing to do with shareholders, I think it's funny that you think that. Do you really think an investment banker gives a shit if someone pickets your store? They care that the number at the bottom line is black and has some trailing 0's. Investors deal with boards of directors, who then deal with whoever runs the PR team, and so on. If an investor has a concern, they don't go to Sarah in PR, they go to someone with a C in front of their title.
Now, you could be thinking of something like a publicist for an actor or celebrity, in which case, yes, that's a different thing. But. THAT'S A DIFFERENT THING. But it still has much to do with damage control.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Not true.
The gaming industry is MUCH smaller than the software industry in general.
In fact, it is kept small because people tend to opt for people they know for positions first, rather than rely on a newcomer who may not be as good. I.e. The devil you know vs the devil you don't.
This isn't opinion, it is simply how the games industry works. If you still doubt me, go read job requirements for virtually any company. "At least 1 AAA shipped title" is extremely common and that is for entry-level gigs.
If the OP's brother wants to just break in immediately, he made be SOL. Going into PR in general may be a route, but it'll take him further from the industry he wants. If he does low level forum moderation/etc for a company, at least he's inside. And he works at Game Stop right now, so I wouldn't really call that a step down anyhow; a side-step, perhaps, but at least towards the goal he wants.
This is why questions here are a mixed bag, since people like this guy are bound to chime in with 0% knowledge of what they are talking about.
Game development is extremely specialized. Just because you can write algorithms DOES NOT MEAN you will immediately be able to make games. A lot of the technology used is extremely specialized. A graphics programmer position is not something anyone can simply jump into without prior knowledge, especially since other candidates are going to have years of experience with the technology (DirectX, OpenGL, etc) AND presumably shipped titles under their belt.
This is H/A. If you don't know what you are talking about, you can also NOT ANSWER a thread. There are people here who are in the field and can answer.
Re: Austin, be aware that many gaming companies just have their customer service centers here - not their legal/PR centers. There are a few exceptions, though.
Come to think of it, clawing up the ranks at a gaming customer service center might be an interesting way to get into the gaming PR world. I know that the Blizzard customer service center for World of Warcraft is in the city, and from what I've heard it's not especially hard to claw up the ladder, so long as you're willing to put in insane amounts of overtime and very demanding work. A senior-level customer service manager coupled with a PR degree would look pretty spiffy to a company looking for gaming company's PR branch.
It's also not particularly difficult to get a job as a CS rep for a gaming company, as I believe they have a rather high turnover rate.
Simply untrue. I never claimed that you could make games by some sort of amazing divine knowledge that you get in Computer Science 101. What I claimed was that if you think being a games programmer is nothing like programming in any other domain and you have no interest in any other domain you shouldn't be doing it.
Let's play a game:
AI - Skills easily transferred to simulations (know a guy from a Rockstar office -> Lockheed for training simulations)
Animator - All sorts of places, including movies, TV work
Sound producer - Movies, TV work (see Michael Giacchino)
Graphics Programmer - Pretty much anywhere of the above
Backend ops guys - Any IT company, and many large enterprise companies, require backend ops teams
Lawyer - Technical lawyers are great in any IT setting, patents and such are the same problem whether you make games or word processors
I could do this for a long time.
The point is: If you don't like the job in any other setting, you don't like the job. Pinning your hopes on an industry, that before you said I didn't know anything about it, is very small, it's a fools game.