Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has handed across his advice to those hoping to make it as developers in the videogame industry, opining that the best entry-level route is through experience with mod building.

In an interview conducted by Shiny founder David Perry, Newell said that the best practice for aspiring game developers is to start making content using the Mod tools. “Whether you use Civilization or Warcraft III or Hammer doesn't matter as much as that you are building and shipping stuff to customers, getting their feedback, and then iterating your work.”

In comparison to the conventional methods of internships and work experience, Newell said that Mod development “is better in a lot of ways of both honing your skills and demonstrating your talent to a potential employer than work experience.” He added that mod development carries “fewer institutional barriers and creative constraints [which can] limit the work you do.”

Newell also spoke of the changing climate of videogame academia in the US, claiming that educational programs like Digipen can be “very valuable for the students who make it through.” (Go here for David Braben’s contrasting assessment of UK game academia.)

The excellent interview in its entirety can be found at David Perry’s own website, where Newell also touches on some of his own personal tales: “My mom was actually the first programmer in the family. She told me that I should be a ‘system analyst’ which is, in retrospect, an odd thing to say to a 9-year-old.”