Exploring New Media and Web Careers

My goal in searching for a career is to apply experience I've already accumulated with my Mass Communication degree from Shepherd University. I feel that these two overlap very well.

Before coming to college, I've had quite an extensive amount of experience in the video game and web design industries. Here is the short list:

• Created well over a dozen separate websites over a six year period (and ran them as Webmaster). Most are related to the video game industry.
• Designed over forty websites over six years
• Developed a variety of movies (mostly game related)
• Written over thirty video game reviews (nearly all of them I have received the game from the publisher for)
• Operated a blog for three years with over one hundred blog posts.
  
• Professional web designed for three years, and co-own a small business that specializes in photography and design services.
• Created two maps for Counter-Strike Source, learning the in-and-outs of the complex "Hammer Editor" (that all Valve / Source games use as an SDK).
• Played video games professionally, having competed in dozens of online tournaments, as well as a few respectable LAN events, and earned my name as a top team leader.

Okay, so not exactly a short list. But I entirely plan to use all this past experience as the base to my career.

There is three main careers I am pursuing:

Community Manager
A community manager would be my ideal job. I've worked with gaming communities extensively, and would love to work on video games communities in the future. Community managers can be in charge of promotion, viral marketing, web design decisions, videos, screen shots, wallpapers, art, and more. They're also in charge of the core maintenance of the community - assigning moderators, keeping the site up to date, and generally communication with the game's fans and followers through the web, print, and more.

I've met a few different community managers, and they have a wide variety of skills and I feel I align well with the job they perform. They know enough about game design to know what is happening, but not be consumed by game or art design. The focus on the community interaction.

This would pull from nearly all of my skills (if in the game's industry), as well as use my Mass Communication degree very well. It's all about communication between a product and its consumers in the most efficient ways possible, and the focus of the job is all around New Media.

Games Journalist
Having already been an amateur games journalist, I really enjoyed doing this. Most video games are described on varying levels of "fun." As a games journalist, it requires you to break down many different levels of describing just what is the "fun" of that game, or the lack there of.

It is an exciting, challenging, but not very well-paying career path. But it's more about remaining within the games industry in a way that I already have extensive experience in, as well as in a way that I enjoy.

Web Designer
This is the most likely career path. I've designed and developed countless websites, and managed many projects. I current am a co-owner of a small business, FPSPhoto, were I currently web design. It's not a well paying job yet, but it's only part-time work while I finish my degree. I'm well versed in Web 2.0 design and development, and am learning PHP and Javascript. I've already proficient in Adobe Photoshop, CSS, and XHTML.

Matt Richards
COMM 203