I started my career on an annualized sports title so it took me about a year to get my first game out. Due to layoffs and industry instability, it took me significantly longer to get my second game released - multiple years and two separate additional employers.

Working on projects that are significantly far away from release is tougher for new devs because you're far from seeing the results of your work and the entire project is usually in a much more precarious position for success unless it's part of an enormous franchise. Long dev time projects exist at the whims of both executives and economic headwinds - any change in either could easily see the dreaded "cost cutting" measures that mean I need to look for a new job. In good economic times, there's lots of new projects spinning up looking for people to help make them a reality. In the bad times, I join the rest of the masses looking for a place to call home.

I think the best kind of job for a junior dev is actually on a live service game that puts up regular content updates. The game is usually sustainable, which removes much of the risk of economic headwind driven cost cutting. You get to work in an established, mature environment and workflow, you have reasonable scope and short dev cycles with minimal crunch, and you can see your work go live in short order and see the real responses from players to it.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

Got a burning question you want answered?

• Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter
• Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on BlueSky
• Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr
• Frequent Questions: The FAQ