作者：Mantin Lu

当我在阅读来自刚刚踏进游戏产业的中国毕业生的一些报告和文章后发现，在中国和美国，人们对于游戏职业中的不同岗位的偏好也不同。

在2015年6月，麦克斯（游戏邦注：中国最专业、最全面、并具有第三方公正性的教育数据咨询公司）发布了《中国大学毕业生的就业年度报告》，并吸引了许多对游戏产业并不熟悉的大学生的注意。比起传达了游戏程序员是美国众多不同岗位中最具竞争性且最赚钱的岗位的《电子游戏岗位薪资报告》（游戏产业的职业生涯指导），麦克斯的报告数据向我们揭示了在2014年的毕业生中，成为游戏设计师能够赚取更高的薪资。

在2015年8月底，UIGAC（游品会高校俱乐部）发布了另一份有关中国游戏产业的学生调查结果。在这份报告中，大约有40%的调查对象的专业是计算机科学，软件工程，美术或动画（如图1），还有53%的研究对象曾经参加过与游戏相关的社团（如图2）。

Graph1（from Gamasutra）

Graph2（from Gamasutra）

报告揭示了超过60%对游戏产业感兴趣的学生会积极寻找加入游戏公司的机会。这些与游戏相关的社团的成员都相信，与游戏公司的互动和合作有利于社团和成员的发展。而在剩下的40%的学生中有部分人因为缺少机会而未曾主动去接触游戏公司。

阻碍学生进入游戏产业的主要原因便是他们觉得自己不具备足够的技能和知识去胜任这样的工作（如图3，超过70%的学生并未努力去寻找游戏产业的相关工作）。实际上，他们的自我怀疑是不对的。除此之外还有一个阻碍因素便是缺少有关游戏产业和相关职位的信息，所以学生们很难准确评估自己相对于这些岗位的知识与技能。实际上根据我的经验，有些初级的游戏开发工作的要求都不是特别高。

Graph3（from Gamasutra）

根据调查结果，UIGAC指出大多数学生对于游戏产业并不是特别了解。尽管他们认为这是一个有发展前途的产业，但是他们却不知道进入这个产业要干什么 。对于游戏岗位，调查对象认为“激情便是一切。”简而言之，大多数毕业生都对游戏产业报以积极的看法，并希望拥有一个自由且多样化的工作环境。

到目前为止，我们所分析的都是有关中国游戏产业的正面信息。就像我们都知道的，从收益和用户基础来看，中国的游戏产业都在快速发展着。2015年，中国游戏产业的收益已经超过了200亿，并且中国的游戏玩家数量也达到了5.34亿。所以现在便是将更多人带向中国游戏产业去创造出色作品以迎合越来越多玩家的好时机。尽管我们应该努力吸引更多新鲜血液，但我们同样也需要衡量那些想要加入的对象的质量。游戏公司应该尝试着联系一些机构而为那些对该产业感兴趣的学生们组办某些活动，如兴趣项目。同样的，由游戏公司组织的研讨会和就业指导讲座也能够提供给应聘者更多有关该产业的信息。这能够有效排除那些只是因为进入游戏产业是件很酷的事或者是大势而不是真正想成为游戏开发者的人。

让我们回到游戏设计师的高薪资的主题上，在阅读了MyCOS的报告后，许多大学生可能会想办法挤进拥有高薪资的游戏设计师岗位吧。然而UIGAC也发现，在2015年12月，来自中国的78家游戏公司共提供了1000多个开放岗位，并且其中与设计相关的岗位只占据所有开放岗位的9%，而像程序员和工程师等于技术相关岗位则占据其中的36%（如图示4）。

Graph4（from Gamasutra）

如果你只是想进入游戏产业而没有特别岗位偏好的话，那么比起游戏设计师我会建议你选择游戏程序员。根据2015年电子游戏开发者薪资研究，游戏程序员的平均薪资在任何开发岗位中是最高的。

结合最近的电子游戏工作薪资报告，我们可以发现技术类岗位在游戏产业中拥有更高的潜力。从长远角度来看，因为全世界对于技术人才的需求一直都在，所以技术类工作将是一份更稳定且更灵活的职业。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转发，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Game Career Becomes the First Choice for New Graduates in China [Reports]

by Mantin Lu

Reading a few reports and articles about new graduates in China entering the gaming industry, I noticed the preference of different positions in game career is different between US and China.

MyCOS (China Occupational Skills) published Chinese College Graduates’ Employment Annual Report (1), which drew a lot of attention from the undergraduate students who were not familiar with gaming industry, in June 2015. Compared to the Video Game Jobs Salary Report (Game Industry Career Guide) indicating that Game Programmer is a more competitive money-maker position among different production functions in US (2), the statistics in the MyCOS report reveals that in China, however, Game Designer job ranks highest in salary of the employed 2014 graduates.

Later in August 2015, UIGAC (United Institute of Game Appreciation Club) released another student survey result regarding the China gaming industry (3). In this report, approximately 40% of the survey takers majored in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Art, or Animation (Graph 1); 53% of the survey takers once joined gaming-related clubs (Graph 2).

Graph 1: Majors of the Graduates (Source: UIGAC)

Graph 2: Graduates Joined Gaming-Related Clubs (Source: UIGAC)

The report reveals remarkable facts that more than 60% of the students who were interested in the gaming industry would actively seek for the opportunity to engage with the game companies. The members in those gaming-related clubs believed that the interaction and cooperation with game companies would promote the development of the club and members. Part of the remaining 40% of the student did not inquire the game companies actively due to the lack of access.

The main fact that drew the students back from entering the gaming industry is that more than 70% of the students actually didn’t even try to apply for a job in the industry as they don’t feel like they are qualified with adequate skill and knowledge for the jobs (Graph 3). In fact, their self-doubt might not be true. Since another obstacle is the lack of open access to the information regarding the gaming industry and game career (3), the students cannot accurately evaluate their knowledge and skills to judge their qualification. As a matter of fact, some entry-level game development jobs has relatively low entry requirements based on my experiences.

Graph 3: Obstacle Stops Graduates Joining the Game Career (Source: UIGAC)

Studying the survey result, UIGAC pointed out that most of the students had only superficial knowledge of the gaming industry. While they generally believe it is the most promising industry, they actually have no idea what working in the gaming industry is about. As for the game career, the survey takers believed that “passion is everything.” In a word, the majority of the graduates held a positive attitude towards the gaming industry, and expecting a free and diversified environment in the work place.

So far, all those are good news to the gaming industry in China. As we all known that the gaming industry in China is blooming in terms of both revenue and user base. The 2015 revenue of China gaming industry reached more than 20 billion, and the population of gamer in China expanded to 534 million (4). It is time to bring more people into the China gaming industry for creating awesome products to the growing gamers population. While it’s good to attract more fresh graduates, we should improve the quality of those wanted to join us. Game companies should try to touch base with those institutions to start up some light activities, such as hobby projects, for students who are interested for the industry. Also seminars or career talk held by the companies would be helpful to provide the potential candidates with transparent information about the industry. This can eliminate those new entries only feel like working in the gaming industry is a cool thing or a trendy thing but not really engaged to what it really means to be a game developer.

Back to the topic of high salary of Game Designer, undergraduate students might all try to work their way to get into that sexy and highest salary Game Designer positions after reading the report published by MyCOS. However, UIGAC studied approximately 1,000 opening positions from 78 China game companies in 2015 December reveals that design-related position occupies only 9% of the total openings while technical-related positions, such as programmer and engineer, dominating the game career fair with 36% (5)(Graph 4).

Graph 4: China Game Companies Opening Positions in 2016 (Source: UIGAC)

If you want to get into the gaming industry without a strong preference of what function you would like to get into, I would say instead of becoming a Game Designer, a Game Programmer is a better bet. According to the Video Game Developer Salary Survey 2015, Game Programmers have, on average, the highest salaries of any development job in the game industry (Game Industry Career Guide).

Combined with the most recent Video Game Jobs Salary Report, it is obvious that the technical jobs have highest potential in the gaming industry. Technical jobs, in the long term, build a stable and flexible career since the demand for technical talents exists all over the world.（source：Gamasutra）