Hi everyone! Like many of you, I've loved games my whole life. I'm new to the site, but have begun to read the forums for Game Development to try to begin understanding the ins and outs of the industry. Currently I am going into my Sophomore year of college, majoring in Psychology. I've enjoyed it and do well, but am very interested in going into Game Development. I'm enrolled into an Intro to Computer Sciences course and plan to develop a background in programming (minor in computer science). My dream is to work in a company contributing to game creation as a Behavioral/Cognitive Psychologist; helping to present and explain relevant statistics, cognitive patterns in societies, and behavioral tendencies of gamers. While having a healthy knowledge in programming in order to understand key principals of game creation. As a creative and imaginative individual I would love more than anything to work at creating games like Bioshock, which has been a gaming revelation to me and something I really appreciate. I know I have the motivation to get there, but I need help getting started!!!

Unfortunately, I don't know a ton about computers, the gaming industry or generally where to begin. I've formulated a small list though, of things I was hoping you all would help me with:

• How the gaming industry works as far as getting up to date with the structural techniques individual companies are using and what companies like to see in their employees
• How to expand my knowledge of computer functioning, acronyms, and programming
• Where to seek out and learn about the steps and models of game creation
• How to stay up to date with gaming in general and gaming culture
• Where to begin connecting with people involved in Game Development (companies, individuals, etc...)

I have a fairly basic level of computer knowledge and gaming so if anyone has ANYTHING at all that could help me then I would really appreciate it. I've looked into subscribing to magazines (Game Informer), working with Python, setting up meetings with Computer Science professors, browsing for gaming news, and checking out books relevant to the subject, but I don't know what the best sources might be.

Again if anyone could help with these points or anything at all then that would be great!

Hello Nicolas.

I'm not a very experienced programmer myself, but i'm learning.

Unfortunately i haven't the answers to the most of your questions, but i can tell you one thing.

If dont don't already i can tell you there a a lot of programming languages around, so a good begin is to start

researching some of them to look which one you'll like the most. I read that you already started learning Python a bit.

I thinkt that's a really good start myself. I began a few weeks ago myself to and now i know some of the basics already.

This is the source i used: http://inventwithpython.com/chapters/ it's a free to read online book, where you will learn

the basics of Python, while making some small games. The most important thing to do is not to only read the theorie,

but you have to understand it to and maybe the most important is to practice a lot and maybe invent your own small games

with the things you learned.

I hope this helped you a bit further.

Hi Nicholas,

You've done research, which is good. However, research can only get you so far, and before you make yourself a giant list of questions and start worrying about where to go from here, just get on with the 'here.'

By that I mean choose yourself a language (Python, Java, C# are good starting places) and a gaming library for that language. It doesn't even matter which one, as eventually you're going to want to learn more than one anyway so where you start is irrelevant.

Read the documentation on installing the language and library then look for some basic tutorials on how to write a simple game. Once you get yourself a little hands on experience you'll be in a better place to decide if this truly is the career you want for yourself, and if so, you'll have gained some good knowledge that will help you decide what to do next.

Good luck to you.

I couldn't find a way to just change the topic without recreating the entire post, but I created the same post in Game Industry Job Advice. Hopefully everyone will send advice my way on that forum!

The advice everyone posted will help me ALOT. I'm glad to be able to get the ball rolling a little faster. Thanks for the help!

4. You mean from a player viewpoint (the point of view of a player)?

What I mean by staying up to date with gaming was aimed more towards company infrastructures, and methods of how different companies make their games. However, The information you provided should be helpful as well so thank you!