Sorry, I didn't know that was essential detail but I am twenty-four years old. I currently work for Pit Stop, I am a supervisor there. It is a chain of car washes and I basically make sure all the machines are working and replace anything that isn't. Well my planned pathway was to go to school get my education, dedicate myself to learning as much as I could to get a great porfolio and get an entry level postion in one of the gaming studios here in Las Vegas. From there move my way on up I know I won't get a top notch position in a game studio when I start. I know that I will have to work for it and it will take some time to reach where I want to be at. I don't mind the hard work I just want to make sure that I take the best route that is available to me.
Let's think this through just a little bit in the forum, since the FAQs apparently aren't working.
Do you want to go through the programmer track? Is your preferred job to spend around 8 hours daily writing code? You will need to have some ability and cultivate talents in logical reasoning, mathematics, and computer processing. Do you want to work in algorithms and data structures all day, every day, for the next twenty years? That is the programmer track. Based on your replies, I'm guessing this is a bad fit.
Do you want to go through the modeler/artist track? Is your preferred job to spend around 8 hours daily manipulating models and creating textures? You will need to have some ability and cultivate talents in seeing details and actually creating good-looking art. Do you want to work drawing textures of wood grains, rock surfaces, and making models of doors and crates and rocks and other objects all day, every day, for the next twenty years? That is the moder track. Based on your replies, I'm guessing that is a bad fit.
Do you want to go through the animator track? Is your preferred job to spend around 8 hours daily manipulating control curves in a 3D program? You will need to have some natural ability and cultivate talents in seeing the world as motion. Do you want to work making doors slide in and out, make a cow chew grass, look around, or chew cud, or make ten variations of a creature falling down, or make fifty variations of 'swing a sword with different emotions', all day, every day, for the next twenty years? This is the animator track. Based on your replies, I'm guessing that is a bad fit.
Do you want to go through the QA track? Is your preferred job to spend around 8 hours daily doing mind-numbing tests? You will need some background in games to know what players expect, but otherwise there is a very low bar for entry. Can you go through the entire level bumping into every wall, then do it again sliding into every wall, then do it again sliding backwards against every wall, then do it again running backwards into every wall, making notes of very wall that you could see through, and then repeat the process every few days? Or put on every combination of several hundred hats, shirts, armors, and other clothing, looking over every single model for individual pixels that clip through the model, and repeating the process, all day, every day, for the next few years? This is the QA track. I'm guessing that is a bad fit.
Based on what I have read from your posts, you might enjoy jobs in production or design. Most "game design" schools are really art schools or programming schools that misuse the word "design".
Jobs in design generally are filled by people who are already in the games industry. Your chances of getting hired as an outsider are slim, you will have better luck with the slots in Vegas. Read the FAQs on that field for some ideas to break in. The odds are not in your favor. Even if you really want the job and the stars are aligned for you and you have contracts in the industry , you still probably won't land the job as an outsider.
Jobs in production are extremely rare, but they don't require a strong background in any particular field. What matters is that you are able to communicate well with others, manage schedules, and coordinate different teams to working together. Again, read the FAQs on that field if it interests you. Getting this job is mostly about timing. An individual studio might hire one associate producer once every few years. You need to know the right people and get the job before it is advertised.
