Ideal Jobs for Video Gamers

So your mom won’t stop pestering you about shutting down your system, taking a shower, and getting a real job but you don’t want to slave for peanuts at the local sweatshop doing something you hate while dreaming about your poor abandoned box back home.  Don’t worry, we’ve all been there—heck, I’m still there, and I’m 30 years old and married!  You need cash but can’t bear the thought of losing your gamer cred so what can you possibly do?  Never fear!  I’ve compiled a list of the six best jobs for gamers and if you can’t find something that works for you on this list . . . keep looking.


1) Flip Burgers

Don’t knock it!  Fast food service equipment has come a long way since the seventies.  Nowadays, if you work at McD’s you get to wear a cool headset all day and shout into the microphone just like you do on Xbox live.  To top it off, some of the drink machines are automated and all you have to do is push buttons and watch the cups roll around on a mechanized track!  Wow, and your mom said all those hours of dropping tangos with your buddies in Rainbow Six was a waste of time!  Who knows, maybe the president will roll up to the drive through and ask you to suit up if the country goes to Def Con 2.  He knows you’ve got the skills because big brother’s been watching your gamertag.





2) Valet

Yeah those are the dorky dudes in the nasty red jackets that park people’s cars at fancy restaurants and the like.  Sounds boring right?  Dude, somebody just hands you the keys to their car, their expensive car, and leaves you alone with their pride and joy.  Tony had to break out the can of whoopass and kick people in the teeth to get their cars!  Sure you’re only driving from the entrance to the parking garage/lot but that should be okay—those years of gaming should have eaten away your long term memory and attention span by now.  Just remember real world cops are a whole lot smarter and less tolerant than there Liberty City compatriots.



3) Crime Scene Technician

You’ve honed your skills investigating every nook and cranny in dozens of “action adventure” games and really know how to get “the good stuff” by applying just the right amount of verbal pressure on a “perp” thanks to having tested every branch of every dialogue tree ever made from Indigo Prophecy to Mass Effect.  You’d be a shoe in for a crime scene investigator and you wouldn’t even need any of that fancy gear (well maybe the flashlight that makes everything luminesce.)  But hone your pistol skills because you know eventually every mystery—no matter how mundane and innocuous—ends in a chase/verbal altercation/gunfight/fistfight and finally an ambiguous death to ensure the “bad guy” can come back for the sequel.





4) Mayor/President/Emperor

Yeah it’s been a while since you built Sim City from the ground up but you’ve kept your political skills, budgetary prowess, and diplomatic wits sharp with the Civilization series, and the Total War games.  You definitely know what it takes to grease the wheels of progress and know that the world would be a much better place if only we’d all place our trust in you.  In no time, I’m sure you have every country in the world united to end pollution, solve the hunger problem, and wipe infectious disease from the face of the Earth.  If not, you’re defiantly a capable general and could easily amass an army of unprecedented proportions (although all the units look disturbingly similar) and vanquishing your foes.


5) Race Car Driver

You’ve honed your skills on the track and taken your heat to the street.  There’s not another driver around that can keep up with your style points and as long as you have slo-mo you don’t crash too many times so what’s stopping you?  I’m sure you could easily make some big bank on the international circuit or, if you wanted to, even take some pinks!  And of course you’ll soon be rolling in so much cash – and hot, booty short-clad girls – that you’ll have a garage fully of exotics with names like McLaren, Lamborghini, and Ferrari.  No more begging pops for the keys to the station wagon to take your girl to the Dairy Queen this Friday night!  Of course the time you switched from a standard controller to a race wheel you wrapped your machine so far around a digital billboard that you went off the map but that was the controller, right?





6) Urban Survival Guide

So you’ve spent the best years of your life scurrying around the seedy underbellies of some of the worlds nastiest digital cities and exterminating the various mutants, zombies, aliens, all-around bad dudes that inhabit such places.  Think there’s not much calling for your particular skill set?  Think again!  Who are the people going to come flocking to when the aliens land, the zombies rise up, or the mutants multiply?  You my friend.  Only you can fend off hordes of the undead with cooking utensils, outsmart aliens by spotting conveniently placed and poorly hidden passageways, and put an end to the mutant uprising by injecting yourself with blue goo and becoming an unstoppable super-soldier!  Yeah so maybe I made that one up.






So there you have it, the six best career choices for you, the average gamer.  You can’t make any cash playing games, and you’ll probably never get drafted onto a pro-gaming team (but might if they could just see your skills) but there are plenty of options for you to fall back on.  Just take a look at the list above and daydream.


*List is for entertainment purposes only and I don’t condone or illicit any criminal activities.