Jobs in the Game Industry that Don’t Require Coding or Scripting Experience

There are a lot of people who love video games; they love the industry, and they’d love to be involved. Who wouldn’t, really? Video games are one of the fastest growing industries in the world and are already a multi-billion-dollar-a-year market. But some people are intimidated from working in this field because of the required understanding of computers, coding and scripting. Some people have already picked their majors or even finished college, and never once considered learning C++ or any other coding language, much less delved into database querying and SQL.

This doesn’t mean that one should give up hope for working in the game industry however. There are even positions open for those that simply don’t want to learn these potentially frustrating and difficult to grasp languages. This is fine, of course, because not every part of working on video games involves actually developing content or putting in scripts.

Don’t worry ; that doesn’t mean that you need to be a good artist either.

The game industry, in fact, is a lot like the movie industry. They need all sorts of talents involved in their companies, not just the raw game design. They need marketers, they need public relations specialists, they need party planners, they need video crews, they need people who can whip up commercials, they need voice actors, they need models – they need everything you could think of, and probably a little bit more.

Here are some examples.

You’ve always loved working on YouTube – you like to use the program Fraps to capture images from your favorite MMO or from Battlefield 2 and, applying some music and some interesting effects, you create a very believable, movie looking trailer, or an internet sensation that takes off like a wildfire. You find yourself doing this a lot, compiling videos, editing them, making enjoyable little movies.

Guess where – there’s a job for you in the game industry. Viral advertising is becoming an important aspect of game marketing, including making small YouTube style videos that can be embedded into websites, video game cutscenes, trailers, or even just promo videos to be shown at E3. They need someone who can capture all the glory and excitement of their game and put it out for everyone to see through that distinct and possibly unique camera view that you have.

These little videos can often mean the difference between acclaim and ignorance of the title. This is a job usually assigned to the marketing department, so even if you do not want to have to do this forever, there are many career opportunities to grow into.

Do you like message boards? Do you like being a message board moderator? Most video games have official message boards nowadays – ranging from Valve games like Half-Life 2 to World of WarCraft, there will be message boards hosted by the company. In terms of MMOs, these are often places where game designers will come and post to interact with players, and the forum has to be maintained.

That’s where some of the Public Relations people will come in. In addition to maintaining the website, you will usually be responsible for making sure that the message board is kept clean, content is constantly updated to it, and you act as a general “moderator”, in addition to your other duties.

Do you just like being a manager type? Do you like overseeing things without having to get your hands dirty on the technical know how? That’s where the producer job comes in. Usually, the producer is the “final arbiter” in terms of a project. The proverbial Darth Vader, the image of Producers are those from V for Vendetta who all disappear into the large, black office to speak with Chancellor Sutler. No one else goes into this room – and no one really knows what the Producers are saying, as they report directly to higher up management, and have what appears to be absolute say over their titles.

This is a position that doesn’t require a lot of technical knowledge, but requires a lot of managerial skills and punctuality. This is kind of a “team leader” whose job it is to unite the various departments.

As one can see, there are a number of potential career opportunities in the game industry, even if you don’t like the coding and scripting, you can still excel in this fast growing market through many other means.

And most important, you’ll still have your name in the credits.