Why should you work at a mobile game company?

A job in the video game industry can take your career in any direction, anywhere in the world. You can thrive in a range of companies, from a big-budget “triple-A” team — such as the developers of Call of Duty — to a group of friends creating the next hit indie game, to a mobile game company developing the next great mobile game.

Having so many career options is great, but it does pose a problem for job-seekers: How do you decide what kind of company you should work for?

Bigger doesn’t mean better

If you’re determined to work for the mega-company that made all your favorite games, I hope you consider expanding your options. There are hundreds of awesome game studios, some of them big, some of them small. Choosing a place to work is a big decision, so it’s in your best interest to expand your options and find game companies that best fit your career goals and lifestyle.

To help you learn more about mobile game studios, we’re talking with Jeremy Newton, a Senior Software Engineer at SciPlay, a mobile game studio with locations around the globe. Jeremy started his career making Flash-based web games back in the 2000s. Since then, he’s worked in small and large gaming studios developing puzzle, role-playing, and match-three games, in addition to SciPlay’s social casino games.

Why do you love making mobile games?

Jeremy Newton: As Mark Twain said, “Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never work a day in your life.” As a game developer, you’re building and sharing something that brings happiness to someone you may never meet.

Through my decades-long career, I’ve observed a number of critical benefits of working in various studios and on different game types, but mobile games have some definite advantages.

1. Mobile games are dynamic

Mobile games are regularly updated with fresh content and performance improvements, even more frequently than players may realize.

We’re constantly brainstorming, developing and releasing new content and features to keep players engaged with the game year after year.

2. Developing mobile games is fun, engaging, and challenging

Today’s phones are equipped with increasingly sophisticated internal hardware such as graphics and advanced processing units. As a result, mobile games are increasingly more advanced and feature-driven.

That requires developers to leverage a detailed roadmap to carefully plan the release of new updates, features and content to players — providing plenty of interesting and engaging work for studios. The meatiest challenges push the envelope on new, beautiful-looking features aplenty.

3. You’re not expected to work around the clock

Game studios can be struck by “crunch” periods. That’s when employees are expected to work longer hours to make sure a product, feature, or update is launched on time.

However, crunch can be (and has been) avoided through strong team cohesion, well-defined development strategies, and clear deployment tactics throughout a development cycle.

Many mobile companies are — and should be! — dedicated to providing employees with valuable family time, and time off to decompress. It ensures a good work-life balance.

What’s a day in the life at a mobile game company?

At SciPlay, our workday begins with team members discussing what they hope to accomplish by the end of the day. For example finishing a game feature, patching a bug, or putting the final touches on concept art.

These daily check-ins are incredibly important for a studio’s team cohesion throughout the development cycle. There is an intertwining relationship between our teams built on a level of collaborative dependency.

Our team’s goal is to understand how each person is progressing throughout a development cycle, what task roadblocks might exist, and if adjustments need to be made to meet deadlines. Some days are less task-driven, enabling our team to plan new features or brainstorm ways to improve the development cycle.

Cross-discipline collaboration is one of my favorite components of my job. As a client-side engineer, my most frequent daily touch-points are with the production, art, and quality assurance teams. During a feature sprint, it is necessary for the dialog between these disciplines to stay open and free-flowing at all times. Without this tight-knit network, teams can easily fall out of sync, increasing the chances of game bugs or possibly delaying the future implementation of features or updates.

Looking back on a year where studios have moved exclusively to a work-from-home setup, keeping in close communication with other teams proved more critical than before.

What do mobile game companies look for in a job seeker?

Our studio’s success is defined by the interconnectedness of our teams, so recruitment is a critical part of our overall growth strategy. While technical abilities are certainly key drivers, studios equally weigh how well a candidate will acclimate into the company’s social and value structure.

Teams are also evaluating how a candidate might respond to interpersonal team challenges and conflicts. And because we are a gaming studio, we’re just as interested in what games you’ve been playing during your free time as we are in your valuable coding skills.

What should a job-seeker look for in a mobile game studio?

In your own career search, you might find yourself evaluating mobile game development roles differently than those at studios building console games. But throughout my career, I’ve found significant overlap in team structure, programming stacks, and development approaches between SciPlay and other studios.

I’ve also learned the importance of balancing intriguing, challenging game content with a thoughtful work-life balance. So when you’re evaluating a studio, consider how you want to structure your day-to-day. What kind of team do you want to be a part of? What values do you want to see reflected in the company’s brand?

As you prepare for your next interview with a gaming company, define your own values. Ask yourself how you want to fill your workday, and what challenges are exciting to you as a game developer.

There’s a studio out there for you — maybe even a mobile social game studio. If you’re prepared to showcase your technical skills, as well as your interest in sharing a company’s cultural values, a career in game development is just around the corner.

Image: Screen Post/Unsplash