As far as applying for jobs, how beneficial is it to have a long list of personal, playable projects? Should I be aiming to make a large collection of projects that demonstrate a wide range of different genres, styles and mechanics?

Thanks a lot for any help :)

Companies generally won't care unless those personal project games are big and/or profitable. They will overlook it if you do not have experience.

Source: 6+ years in the game/software engineering field. YMMV of course.

Shogun.

The details of what you have done impact your options differently, in part based on your location on the globe.

Having a portfolio of completed project is generally essential if you don't have a college degree. Generally if you have the degree then it becomes less essential, but still serves as evidence that you can do the job as well as evidence of passion toward the field.

Also, you don't compete in a vacuum. Your job application is compared against others at the same company. If you seem to have the skills needed for the job and are the best of the applicants, you are likely to get the job. Even if you have the skills you may not have interviewed as well, or may not have had as good of a presentation, or perhaps anther person had some social connections or relationships that you didn't.

As for the content, I prefer complete games showing you can survive the full process over small tech demos that are not complete games, but both of them compare favorably to not having anything at all. Both demonstrate interest and passion. How you present it to me matters as well. Where you choose to direct my attention and how you choose to discuss obvious flaws are important details about you as a person, and they are unique to you.

Having the collection of personal projects can be a great help, but may not get you the job. Remember nothing guarantees you the job you want.

Remember nothing guarantees you the job you want.

Not even credentials, interestingly enough. I would say that your portfolio is fairly important. I've come across plenty of job postings that not only require a degree but also a portfolio that manifests your demonstrable skills. Nothing says that you can do mobile development better than a published app on Google Play, right? Actions do speak louder than words at times.

A resume says that you can do the job. A portfolio shows that you have done the job.

A resume says that you can do the job. A portfolio shows that you have done the job.

I'd say the opposite for programmers. The resume is the actual work history, a portfolio is typically hobby work rather than professional.

Game programmer portfolios tend to only exist at the entry level, after that a list of completed game credits is far more impressive than a hobby demo.

And sometimes a portfolio demonstrates that a person cannot do the job being filled. I've seen too many of those. I can thank them for showing me their work, it makes it easier to reduce the applicant pool.

I'm sorry if it came across that way, it was not my intent.

I've looked at a lot of portfolios over the years. Some are quite excellent. Most are a collection of badly broken student work that mostly works okay if you use it exactly correct.

When sitting on the employer side of the interview desk, the process is one of rapid elimination and reducing the pile. If we're advertising for an entry level worker -- which we don't do often -- the first pass is usually a few seconds to glance at all the applications. These jobs are surprisingly popular among applicants. I'll spend seconds looking for clues to location (address and phone number and recent job history), evidence they can hold a job, evidence they know their stuff (usually a degree) and evidence they are really interested in games (hobby projects).

Usually within about 5 minutes I can prune a stack of 50-100 pages down to about 10 pages of applicants. It is not that any of the others are bad, but those ten generally are local, have a degree, and have links to a portfolio web site. Among those I will spend about five minutes each on their web site if they list one, making a quick determination if their work is excellent (usually there will be one or two), mediocre (usually about 3-5, passable for their background), and half are garbage (their homework assignments dressed up, or sometimes just a link to their githib homework source). Typically this results in about 2-5 candidates I bother to interview. I'll increase the numbers and relax requirements a little if we have multiple entry-level jobs we're filling, but that is rare.

Beyond the entry level jobs, for programmers (and a lesser extent for other disciplines) having a demo portfolio don't really matter. If I can see you've been working professionally for several years in the industry on a set of games, I can search for the games directly and look at your description of what you did on the game. I have no expectation that a professional programmer also has an inspiring personal project, I anticipate that most professional programmers have other things they want to do in their hobby time.

I'm trying not to be harsh about it. Personal projects are not the first thing reviewed. Personal projects can be considered if the rest of the resume or application looks good, and they contribute to a junior programmer's resume, but they're several items down the list on importance.

Don't tag a solo completed project as hobby and then belittle it, that's unfair. Or maybe you are saying the challenges of a solo project can't match that done within a company - well I think that's an illusion.

If someone A completes a project and says that was his project as with an indie company, you tag it with professional and rate it high - he gets the nod

If someone B completes exactly a similar project but says he worked on it at home, you tag it with hobby and that's it - he's junior, he probably can't do the job.

... which is why i think it's an illusion

I can agree with this.

A resume says that you can do the job. A portfolio shows that you have done the job.

I'd say the opposite for programmers. The resume is the actual work history, a portfolio is typically hobby work rather than professional.

Game programmer portfolios tend to only exist at the entry level, after that a list of completed game credits is far more impressive than a hobby demo.

And sometimes a portfolio demonstrates that a person cannot do the job being filled. I've seen too many of those. I can thank them for showing me their work, it makes it easier to reduce the applicant pool.

When you work on a project at a company, the results do not accurately display your own ability because you were part of a team frob. Everyone contributed. Having a portfolio is a means of isolating your own abilities and showing your own work, not the work of your teammates as a manifestation or extension of your own. I feel that your logic is unsound in your evaluation of potential candidates.

In any case, a resume will always be a resume. It's a document with words that say you can do or have done something. It doesn't have to be true, and we have all seen examples of individuals who are not truthful in their accomplishments. That is the main reason why many companies now require the candidate to write an algorithm, submit a code sample, or something of the like during the interview. On the other hand, I have seen examples of individuals who have even a Masters degree but cannot perform on the same level as someone who has years of practical experience.

Actions will always speak louder than words. That is not my opinion, but a fact. I can tell you that I built a castle, or I can show you a castle that I have built.

Focusing solely on words is a somewhat dated methodology of selecting the best candidate. This portion is indeed my opinion.

For the castle analogy, I'd prefer the reverse.

Give me a resume that shows a long list of castles they helped design. I can use my own knowledge to decide the quality of that work. If they list being in charge of high-profile castles that have survived many raids, or helped design the emperor's fortress, I can consider that. If they list several castles and I know they were all repeatedly captured and difficult to defend, I can consider that as well.

I much prefer that over a bunch of pictures showing small work of unknown quality that have never been explored in depth. A portfolio showcasing a castle-maker's skills may show me a beautiful throne room or a remote structure that has never seen conflict, but I would wonder how the castle would survive an onslaught of siege engines, battering rams, and scaling ladders.

Of course I would prefer both, but if I am only shown one or the other, I'll take the documented history of successes over the portfolio showcasing eye candy that may not stand up well to the real world brutalities.