A quote from the career pages of Dave Perry's old website, an archive of which can be found here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20061023170616/gamesanimal.com/career.php

QUOTE (from http://web.archive.org/web/20061023170616/gamesanimal.com/career.php ):

My Career Model

The most important single area, when beginning any attack on a career plan, is getting your head in shape.
I have long since lost count of the number of whinging university graduates I have worked with who seemed to believe that the world owed them a living, and after a year in the job couldn't understand why they weren't running the company and banking a big league salary every month.
If this sounds like you, then stop now. Save someone the trouble of firing your ass, and save yourself months and months of hanging around pubs and web forums moaning and bitching about how everyone else has got it wrong, and just can't see it.
You know the kind of people I mean.

If you want to get a career really worth having then you've got to be prepared to go that bit further than everyone else in order to get it. Great jobs don't just pop up at the end of the street.
For my first two jobs in publishing I turned up ready to work with my life's possessions crammed into the back of my mini clubman and a sleeping bag. I lived in digs in London for two years earning £7,000 a year and living on soup and beans (not glamorous I assure you). But I had to do it to get the grounding I needed.
Experience is essential, but more often than not it is up to you to go out and get it.

I have always looked at a career as being like a car.
To get it moving you need the following:

* An Engine - Your Work Ethic

* A Driver - Your Skills and Training

* And Fuel - Your Ambition

It's a very simple model to picture, but if you try to imagine any two of these three elements on their own then the vehicle/career simply won't go anywhere.
You must have all three if you are going to achieve anything in life, and must be honest with your self-appraisal. Because if you can see a weakness, you can be damn sure your boss will!

Ideas don't work unless you do. Read the advice contained on the next few pages in this section, and if you still think you have what it takes to forge out a career in videogames, then commit to it 100% and go get the career you've always dreamed of.

Personally, I wouldn't change my time spent within videogames for any other industry in the world.