Working for a gaming company

#1 - April 3, 2013, 7:08 a.m.

Dear Guild Wars 2 community,

First i would like to say, Sorry if i posted this in the wrong section. But there wasnt really a place to post this except for the help section.
I am struggling with a few questions, and i dont know if this is very helpfull.
But i will give it a shot!
Next year i will finish my school, and i am interested in a job at a gaming company.
Now i dont know if it is allowed to talk about other company’s, so i am not doing so.
But i have a few questions, and i hope that they could be answerd by either Arenanet or the players from the community. Thanks in advance.

I am interested in working at the customer support from a company which will suit me in the future. There are different kind of requirements. Like having a advanced level of English and being experienced in online gaming before.
When i am done with school, i want to follow a course so i can get a diploma of advanced English. Currently i am going to succeed my school with 89% of the basic English language. What else is required to work for a gaming company?
I live in Europe, the USA offers way more then Europe does. But moving to USA will cost me alot.

I know that many people out there dream to be a part of a gaming society.
But this is really a big dream of mine, and i’d like to ask around and see what the options are.

Thank you in advance.

Your Sincerly,
Timo

Jeffrey Vaughn

#11 - April 3, 2013, 10:16 a.m.

What’s your end goal? As stated by others above, Customer Support isn’t often a pathway to development. A more typical path for people interested in development is to start in Quality Assurance (testing) and demonstrate that you have solid technical skill and game knowledge. This can often get you started in basic design—usually doing low level “grunt work” that can lead to more advanced design work.

Speaking for myself, I started 20 years ago at “that other MMO company” in technical support, worked on the web site, started doing technical art and design, and eventually was made an official designer. Since then I’ve worked at multiple companies, and eventually moved to Seattle to do design work for Arena.net. So working your way up DOES work, and I don’t have a college degree, but I have been gaming for 30+ years and I’m always willing to tackle whatever tasks come up.