Get in the Game 2020 – A Record Breaking Year!
Our Get in the Game careers talks are done for 2020 and it has been a record breaking year!
Due to the ongoing global pandemic our regular tour around Europe to visit universities delivering careers talks was replaced by a new online webinar series.
In a year where many of the routine industry visits and presentations were set to be cancelled or postponed, we felt it was important to continue to deliver the advice that students need to get a job in the games industry, alongside some incredible speakers from our partner studios, including d3t, Sumo Digital, nDreams, DPS Games, Deep Silver Dambuster Studios, Frontier Developments & Mediatonic.
In just 8 weeks we delivered 20 webinars, speaking to 4500 students from 142 different institutions based in 64 different countries.
To all the lecturers, course leaders, careers advisors and tutors around the world who promoted our events to so many of your students, we say a massive thank you!
This year we offered three different types of webinar each with a specific focus, the largest up take being programming, with 42% of students we spoke to pursuing a career as a programmer in the games industry.
Based on this statistic, 44% of the students we spoke to will be graduating in 2021 and will likely be pursuing that move into the games industry very soon!
We also took the opportunity to expand our international reach this year, speaking to students from 64 different countries around the world! Leading to 31% of students being based outside of the UK.
That is 4500 students who want to secure a graduate role in the games industry, all of which were treated to some amazing presentations and Q&A sessions with our industry speakers:
- Louise Andrew, Phil Owen, Talib Kadham & Ted O’Reilly of d3t
- Greg Wisniewski of Sumo Digital
- Aaron Miller of nDreams
- Rachel Senior, Greg Booker & Kat Unsworth of DPS Games
- Bradley Redfern & Robin McFarland of Deep Silver Dambuster Studios
- Luke Maskell & Tom Morledge of Frontier Developments
- Alex McKinney-Raphelt & Nate Lane of Mediatonic Games
These speakers talked about their own journeys into the industry, passed on key tips and advice on how to build a portfolio and gave a crucial insight in to what working in the games industry is really like! Without their input and incredible presentations we would not have been able to inspire so many students to pursue a career in the games industry so from the whole Grads in Games team we say a huge thank you!
Hosted by either Andy Driver, Rebecca Wright or Dan Dudley our speakers also fielded questions from the audience, some would say this proved to be the most valuable part of the webinar! Over 20 webinars we averaged over 34 questions per session with one webinar featuring Greg Wisniewski and Andy Driver fielding 90 questions! Thank you so much to all the students who attended this year, you were certainly thirsty for knowledge.
11 years ago we began challenging the games industry perception that graduates “weren’t good enough”. Turns out we were right 🙄, and over time a large portion of the industry has shifted over to our way of thinking.
Now, Grads In Games works directly with studios across the UK & Europe to help and advise students on just how to stand out in such an increasingly competitive industry. We help to forge new links between games studios, universities and students, improving graduate employability and enabling studios to meet some of the best of the next generation of games developers.
Through the Get In The Game careers talks each year, we’re able to give students the direct guidance, support and tools they need to get their portfolio (and themselves) prepared for their first job in games
