PathSource - MARKET ANALYST: I Pretended I Played The Popular Games A Lot

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MARKET ANALYST: I Pretended I Played The Popular Games A Lot

About this video

Patrick, a market analyst, is responsible for performing quantitative analysis on video game release timing in order to help game studios make more money on their games. Originally a clinical psychology Ph.D. candidate, he decided to leave academia for the business world when he discovered that the field was not right for him. He got his first job in video games as a quality assurance tester by telling them that he played all the latest games all the time, and has been working in video games every since.

Job Title: Market Analyst

Job Summary: Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists

Job Description

Market research analysts study market conditions in local, regional, or national areas to examine potential sales of a product or service. They help companies understand what products people want, who will buy them, and at what price. Market research analysts work in nearly every industry. They may work with the public to gather information and data, but they generally work at a computer, collecting and analyzing marketing data and preparing reports.

On-the-Job Training

short-term on-the-job training

Certification Requirement

Recommended by the Professional Researcher Certification (PRC).

Quick Facts

Average salary

National Statistic Change Location

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$35,000 - $115,000

Projected Job Growth

35 to 45 percent

Typical schedule

Full-time

Typical workplace

Office, Travel, Indoor

Personal Qualities

Detail oriented, Problem solving skills, Analytical skills, Written communication skills, Verbal communication skills, Organizational skills

Educational Path

Education Requirement

Bachelor's degree

Recommended Education Degree

Bachelor's degree

Recommended Majors

Marketing
Statistics
Sales and Marketing
Business Administration and Management
Business
Communication
Liberal Arts
Journalism
Economics
Business and Management
Finance
Public Relations
Political Science
Entrepreneurial
Psychology
Social Sciences

Related Careers

Advertising
Promotions
and Marketing Managers
Cost Estimators
Economists
Operations Research Analysts
Public Relations Managers and Specialists
Statisticians
Survey Researchers.

View Detailed Career Data

P3.instances[0].transcript.parse_transcript_data({"transcript":"My current job is a market analyst at a third-party research company in the video game industry. So we do sales forecasting, we do quantitative analysis on release timing-- basically companies come to us and we run data to try to help them make more money with their games. My typical day involves getting a project and having a lot of meetings to figure out how I want to answer the question that the company has. For instance, maybe a company needs to know how many units of a game they're going to sell. I have to figure out how I'm going to analyze that project and then I have to collect the data. So a typical day is spent at a desk using computer software such as Excel and Word to write the projects for those clients. My career path was all over the place. I started out as a clinical psychologist. I did that for about half of my way through a Ph.D. program-- thought that I was going to be a professor. I picked up all the data analysis skills doing that and then realized that I wanted to be in the business world, not the academic world. So I left academia and I fell into the business world and I fell into the video game world just as happenstance. I needed a job, I knew someone who was at Sony, and they were a quality assurance game tester, and they got me a job there. That job only lasted for about four months, but it was my avenue into the game industry and I've never left. Well, it's funny. What I know now about this industry is everything about that business side of it that I didn't know before. When I first started, I had been a gamer back in the day when I was younger, but I had not been a gamer for a long time. So I got my first quality assurance job by basically asking my friends what some of the popular games were, and pretending like I played them a lot. Since then, working with lots of different companies and lots of different projects, I have learned an awful lot about the business of making money with video games. Over the last two years I've really specialized in mobile games and free-to-play mobile games on iOS-- Apple and Android. So that's been a whole new experience and then a lot more learning. It's been like learning the industry on a fire hose over the past four years. Lots and lots and lots of information and lots and lots and lots of business knowledge. ","file":{"id":380897,"video_id":"3397479528001","name":"2396-Patrick-MarketAnalystGamingIndustry ","duration":139483,"thumbnail_url":null}});