3 ways a Java developer can work with games

When you'd think about game development what languages come to mind? C++? Maybe C#? But what if you only know Java and want to work in the gaming industry? Is there a way? Will you have to learn another language?

Yes, there is a way, but it may come out as a surprise: you don't have to work with games to work with games.

Wait, what?

It's exactly what you read. The gaming industry is more than just game development itself. A game, just like any other software, needs some support to be made and delivered.

For example, you may know how a backend is often used by an app to process data, well, the app could very well be a highly-played mobile game instead of regular boring enterprise software.

Did you get the idea? You don't have to develop the game itself to work in a game development environment. You could work with several other things, and some of them, you may already be awesome at.

Let me give you some examples

I already mentioned the backend. Games, just like other software, often use a separate backend to process some things, maybe access a database to retrieve some data and deliver it back to whoever requested it. Sure, a game can have some characteristics or limitations that differentiate it from 'regular' software, but for you, the backend developer, the basic idea is the same.

Another opportunity is the website. It could be used for the whole company, just for one game, or even be a landing page for a new game or expansion, either way, it's all web development. Imagine the landing page of an upcoming hyped new game. How many thousand users would see it daily? Did you picture that? Now try to picture yourself reaching all those people. How awesome would that be?

Do you know what else is often used? E-commerce. It could be used for the players to buy in-game items such as premium subscriptions, expansions, and cosmetic items or maybe it could be used to sell other products from the company, like mugs, shirts, keychains, and that sort of stuff. Either way, if you have worked with e-commerce in the past, then you can work with it again, but in a gaming environment. Think about how many transactions are completed every single day. It could be dozens of thousands, and you could very well be part of it, being valuable to all those people daily.

And now what?

This is not just guessing, I went to game development companies' websites and took a look at some of the published Java openings, and I encourage you to do the same. You can find jobs like the ones I've mentioned even in huge companies like Riot Games or Codemasters.

So why don't you take a look? Chances are you are a lot closer to working with games than you think.