There's an alternative way to look at both this topic and schooling more generally. While, yes, it is true that having a degree is often a good way (in some industries, the only way) to get a foot in the door in any industry, that's not the whole story. A university education, be it at Harvard, a local State University, or a trade school, is there to give you the skills and knowledge to be of value to a business that will then pay you for that value.

In more established industries that have been around for decades if not centuries, there tends to be a better grasp on what a new worker in that industry should know, should be able to do, etc. A engineering degree from MIT is valuable because MIT has a proven track record of turning out graduates who can not only do jobs, but excel in them. Having that degree is kind of a shortcut to being able to prove your ability.

The games industry is young enough that there is no history of "proof" that a graduate with a degree in game design is much better at doing a job than someone without one. In fact, the industry is in a state where many of the biggest success stories are those of people who taught themselves. Thus, an employer looking to hire someone is much less willing to take it "on faith" that a candidate with a degree is necessarily better for the job than one without one.

Now, I am not at all saying that such a degree is worthless. Quite the contrary, I believe such degrees are very valuable, its just that, in this industry, the value lies in what you learn in the course of getting that degree. Unlike the MIT engineering degree, the diploma itself doesn't neccesarilly impress anyone, but on the other hand, you did a lot of work to get your degree and presumably you learned a lot in the process. That piece of paper isn't the shortcut to a job that it is in other industries, you are left in the same situation as the guy without the degree (ie, you have to prove your abilities as an individual).

But that said... I would say that the guy with the degree will generally be much better able to demonstrate those abilities than the guy without one.

I'm going to have to stand behind what I've already posted.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RobertWalker/20110213/88888/Computer_Science_Vs_Game_Development_or_Which_Degree_Should_I_Get.php

I agree with dudeman21 but I am not able to up vote him due to some technical issue with your website.

Lock yourself in your bedroom and figure it out.

I guess I'm not very experienced, but I would question the credibility of a "game development" degree from anything but a proper four year university. Considering most advertised game development degrees are from for-profit universities like Full Sail and cookie-cutter laughing stock trade schools, I highly doubt a degree saying you know how to make games will hold any water with an industry. From what I know, most developers want a computer science or a computer engineering degree because it represents the ability to learn, problem solve, and code semi-competently, but not necessarily because it means they can code games. Employers care more about your portfolio and your experience, I would imagine. The last nail in the coffin for me is that very few self-respecting four-year institutions want to touch game development with a thirty-foot pole.

How do you make a degree for an industry that is constantly changing? A game is a joint effort between programmers, artists, musicians, and the creative nuts who don't fit in anywhere else. Games are influenced by all of these people. There is no magic formula or special degree that can teach the creativity and ingenuity that extends from placing a hundred completely different people in the room together and telling them to come up with an awesome game.

I don't know if I would say the industry itself is constantly changing. Sure the tools are changing and the quality of the models and textures improve as the hardware gets better, but under the hood everything has stayed fairly constant. Coding has been in C/C++ with Assembler for possible speed gains (mostly in consoles and portable devices). Artists still do concept art and make textures. All the jobs are basically constant with only changing minutely as tools and hardware makes it possible to have more detailed models, textures, better sound quality, etc.

I think the problem with degrees is that they would have to be set around a certain set of tools and if the tools are constantly changing then it makes a degree a little harder to be useful. When I did my BS degree in game and simulation programming at DeVry University, we learned to use Torque and its tools, but right after I graduated I found that they switched from Torque to UDK then heard they changed to Unity. Guess that is why so many other degrees are considered more viable because not everything else is fairly standard.

I have to wholeheartedly agree with the original author. You don't know where life will bring you, and limiting yourself to one particular profession in one very specific industry, no matter how much you want to work in it, sounds a little short-sighted in my opinion. Personally as much as I like making games I don't feel like I need to lock myself up in that industry to be competent, and as a programmer I find it a little empowering to have options beside one single industry. For example, I don't mind longer work days in general (most of the time anyway) but if one day I become father I might prefer a more typical 9-5/no friday job, and I doubt I'd ever get that in the gaming industry. I feel that having a generalist software engineer degree makes it easier for me to opt-out of the game industry if I wanted to. (Although I'm sure that a programmer who has worked on games for 15 years has picked a lot of skills about generalist programming.)

A generalist degree also made me realize that on top of making games I also have a lot of fun with very low-level programming, like "kernel" programming, driver I/O, robotics, or programming directly on a chip. I wouldn't have discovered that field of interest if my degree was focused on gaming, gaming, gaming and more gaming. Also, when I was in college pretty much all the boys in programming class 101 wanted to be a game programmer, but by the time the degrees were handled the majority found interests in other industries. (Mostly Web tech for my "batch" since we graduated in 2004.)

I don't think you're screwed whether you picked a game-specialist or a generalist grade, but my 2 cents would be to recommend taking generalist programming/softengi classes and then specializing in gaming/multimedia/interactive systems. I find it just more enriching for the intellectually curious.

What do you think about this university? HTW Berlin: http://gd-bachelor.htw-berlin.de/en/

This is a complex question and I believe it reaches outside the scope of a comments field, so for this reason all I will say about the subject is I think it's good you're playing the devils advocate to give young people more perspective and a better chance at making an informed decision about their future.

The main reason I choose to leave a comment is your use of the word "gaming". Reading the title I fully expected this article to be about professional players and e-sport. If you are looking for a career making games, you are not looking for a career in "gaming". You're looking for a career in "game development" or possibly just "games", but not "gaming". I also believe changing the words used would make the title even more interesting and confrontational.

Either way thanks for sharing.

I did a computer games programming degree. However my degree was pretty much programming for everything with very little in the way of "fluffy" game design topics such as story telling.

Even though my degree had "Games" in the title I found it very easy to make the transition into what I do now which is writing large scale financial trading and stockbroking software when the UK games industry was decimated in 2008 - 2009.

Also the university I went to had very good ties to games companies with every student doing a year in industry before graduation. It was all but guaranteed that everybody had some king of games job to go to after they finished.

Of course this isn't always the case and there are some degrees that are almost worthless. The only way to tell if a degree is right for you is to investigate it by yourself and find out what previous graduates are now doing.

I agree with the main point of the article, even as a guy who has a gaming degree (DigiPen), I'd push my own kids to a more general CS degree. (And I actually had no difficulty moving to non-games)

That said, some nits:

Guy with gaming degree gets pushed to associate: Uh, every new hire with a CS or other degree is pushed to associate. I don't know of anyone who comes in to a company with a 4 year college degree going straight to senior. Maybe someone with some amazing projects to show off could get hired as a standard developer instead of junior, but at that point its much more about individual ability combined with the ability to interview well.

I've spent some time reading the article and the comments...only to find that I'm more confused --contradict opinions fly from all over the world, and I have no idea whether they fit my current situation here in Beijing, China.

Being a sophomore of CS, I definitely disliked the major now and found it not too helpful for game designing. Homework and group work keep me busy from making my own games...

It would be hard to change my major now, (my university offers "Digital Media Art" major instead of a game design major)...and I'm trying my best to learn game making on my own.

My words before going to lunch:

I found my passion and won't give up. I hope everyone identify their passion and devote their life to it -- no matter what kind difficulties may turn up. (That's what I can offer for a "positive, constructive comment", since I don't really have much experiences on this issue)

I'm a Business Information Systems major and not only got my first taste of C++ last semester, but found I am learning it quickly and loving it. Now, before that I have tried getting a number of other degrees for a semester or two and found this one to be the best one for me. That being said, I've always wanted video games in my life and only just recently (after 23 of life) realized making them is what I want to do. But I am glad that I didn't go with a more specific degree because if game development doesn't work out I know I have options and that takes a lot of stress off of my shoulder especially since it seems like you don't need a degree to learn these engines and at least Unity offers an opportunity to get certified in it for development.

My main thought about it though, is that even if you want to get your major in something with game in the title, consider minoring in something else that interests you that is more broad just in case something happens that keeps you from helping to develop games.

On 3/24/2016 at 6:42 AM, HuToday said:

Being a sophomore of CS, I definitely disliked the major now and found it not too helpful for game designing. Homework and group work keep me busy from making my own games...

Did you study linear algebra? 100% of transformation in 2D and 3D space works on it.

Did you study analitical geometry? 100% of collision detection works on it.

Did you study computational geometry? 100% of visualisation works on it.

Did you study finite differences method on mathematical analize course? Anything that moving ,  flowing, heats up / cools in game world works on it.

Did you study Newton method for systems of equations?  100% of Inverse Kinematics works on it.

Did you study Relational Databases Theory? Any data storage works on it.

Did you study authomatic control theory? 100% of game object automation including aiming and navpoint processing works on it.

Finally, did you study C++?

And so on. University is  not a "cources of .... " . It is a "literaly class" that have to give basic mathematical background and analitical skills, enougt to analize any task field that can be described mathematicaly and determine wich mathematical methods can be utilized to solve task. Serious gamedev is leader by number of task fields and mathematical  methods, that have to work together into realtime simulation on very very slow hardware. So gamedev require not only to find solution, but simplify it to be realtime calculation, while keep it numerical stability and accuracy that allow to make illusion of modeled process. It many times complexe task than just scientific digit-mill that computes same process with better accuracy but on supercomputer and without realtime requrements.

So university just can not cover all task fields that required for serious gamedev, just becouse most of it is not related to computer science.

By my own expirience i can say that Applicative Mathematic and Computer Science Engeneer deegre - is minimal entry requirements to start learning fields that needed for next-gen gaming engine development. Really i has start to develop game engine 3 years ago with 15+ years expirience as Software Engeener including FA field expirience.  Architecture, infrasructure, rendering, importing from CAD, free-space autopilots, projectiles, guided and unguided missiles, and   etc. has been done from scratch in couple weeks.  But than development has stoped due i just has no ideas how to implement other features. And it for free-space approach where no air resistance and other thingth. So i has start to learn task fields. Last 3 years i every day 12-16 hours per day goggling and reading math from different fields - theoretical mechanics, air and hidrodynamics, outer and terminal ballistics, strength of matherials, advanced analitical geometry e.t.c.  For this 3 years i has learn for example theoretical mechanic dipper than my parents, that both Machinery Building Technology Engeneers with 40+ years expirience. But i dont exactly know how to build next-gen game engine yet. Only that i can say exactly - Theoretical Airdynamic is science that has mathematicaly prove that planes ability to flight comes from black magic. And it is not a joke. It is becouse airdynamic using a air resistance approaches builded totally on "magic" numbers. And those magic numbers can be found by only way - from airdynamic tube tests. So anything that pretend to look physicaly realistic on air resistance conditions have to be processed tru the virtual airdynamic tube to find approximately coefficients polar functions. Same situation with bullets and shells. Commonly used in real world outer ballistic models, using a black magic too, but coefficients determined on real shooting only. So it just not available for game simulation. So to make even aproxymately realistic model it is require to use common airdynamic approach. Is Digital Media Art study how to implement virtual airdynamic tube or study a mathematical background enought to learn it from special literature? Thanks to AM&CS department of Azov State Technical University where i am has received required mathematical background.