Getting work experience

We get a lot of enquiries from school children, students and graduates looking for work experience. It’s really flattering that people want to get their first rung on the games industry ladder at Neon Play.

In the past, we have been great fans of giving people work experience - indeed about 10 full time employees started off doing work experience.

But at the moment, we’re sorry to say that there is no room at the inn and we just don’t have the time or capacity currently for work experience placements.

However, that is not to say that you should give up. To the contrary, now is the time to give yourself the best chance of a job either at Neon Play or the games industry. And that is by teaching yourself and practising your skills to give you a greater chance in the future.

People generally fall into two categories when looking to start out - either they are more artistic or more technical. (We know there are many other roles in the industry, such as QA, production, etc, but let’s keep it simple).

If you’re artistic, you may want to be a concept artist, UI artist or 3D artist. In that case, all we would want to see is a portfolio of your work as essentially that is the proof of the pudding. Be brilliant, practice your art, get better and better and put together a stunning portfolio of your best work. Not all of your work, but your very best work. If you’re not proud of it, don’t put it in.

If you’re technical, then we generally recommend downloading Unity (it’s free) and going through the tutorials online (loads on YouTube) and start to make small 3D games to show your programming skills and to improve and learn. It’s honestly the best way. Put together some demos and make some games and then upload videos so we can see your work. Or even better, get your game on the App Store so we can download and play it.

Getting a break in the games industry is NOT easy as it’s such a popular career. So in order to give yourself the best chance, showing that you are really passionate and talented is the best way. And therefore demonstrating this passion with real work gives you a greater chance of getting that break.

Once you do have something really worth showing, please email jobs@neonplay.com with your portfolio and CV. Good luck!