Work as a support guy but want to program video games

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2 comments, last by Gian-Reto 8 years ago

I work as a support guy and I know programming. Should working as a front or back end developer or even script developer help me in game development? or should I keep my support job and start developing my video games when I'm out of office? There are not much game developer jobs here. So don't know if keep pushing to become any other kind of developer or simply keep my support job and just start developing video games as a hobby.

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Big decision. A decision grid should help narrow down the choice between all those options. http://www.sloperama.com/advice/m70.htm

-- Tom Sloper -- sloperama.com

Big decision. A decision grid should help narrow down the choice between all those options. http://www.sloperama.com/advice/m70.htm

Thanks for your quick response. That looks interesting.

If you have the time and energy to work on such a time consuming hobby in your free time, you really have nothing to loose to try it out first as a hobby.

Worst case you find out game development is not for you, and just saved yourself a lot of time trying to find the right job or education, or even spending money on education or switching jobs.

Maybe you find out it is for you, and you like it enough to keep working on it as a hobby... which is groovy, as long as you keep a good work-hobbydev-life balance.

Even if you eventually want to become a professional, its not the worst way to get the needed expierience to either a) be successfull later as an Indie developer or b) aquire the skills, and put together the portfolio needed to find employment in a game studio.

At least you can follow your passion without looming deadlines or financial worries for now. Which poses other problems (like somehow finding the energy to finish projects even though you don't have to, stuff like that)...

As you already noted, the amount of open positions outside of game development hubs is limited, so trying to enter the industry as an employee is a hard task to achieve anyway. Even if you are ready to relocate, you will have to prepare for it (unless you already worked on your own games for years, and have a relevant degree)... a degree in CS (if you want to find work as a programmer), prior expierience programming games and a good portfolio of your own work seems to be the common wisdom if you want to have a good chance to be applicable for open positions.

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