in a more serious post, ive watched my friend who has been at EA for 3 years now. when he first started, he was beyond excited. *HE* was part of a major game that millions of people would play. but as defend mentioned, its a ROUGH industry to be in. you have managers who start caring less about quaility and only care about it being done. madden is a perfect example. with no competition out there, its turned from 'what cool feature can we get into it next' to 'get the damn game done please'.
i know EA is a bad example of what the game industry is like (based on its ethical track record), but its a really hard industry to get into. game development as a hobby isa lot more soothing because you are doing it for fun. you are doing it because thats what you enjoy doing. you arent doing it because its a job and you better do it or you arent getting paid.
game programming career
Quote:
you have managers who start caring less about quaility and only care about it being done.
Certainly a trait not solely held by the gaming industry...
Author
I'm going to finish school of course, its just that i wanted to know what i needed to do. I told my mother that i didn't need to go to college to be a game programmer, but she keeps saying i need to go. But yes, i will follow the advice you gave me. :)
Congratulations! Your post here shows that you have a initiative.
On top of the advice already given: you're young, so you have plenty of time to develop your skills. Learn at a steady pace, focus on what interests you most, and when it gets tough remember why you're passionate about game development.
Also, since you're young, be open things other than game development. You may find something you like better. You may not.
Finally, there is some great advice on these forums, but remember to take all of it, including mine, with a grain of salt. Don't take any one piece of advice as absolute truth.
On top of the advice already given: you're young, so you have plenty of time to develop your skills. Learn at a steady pace, focus on what interests you most, and when it gets tough remember why you're passionate about game development.
Also, since you're young, be open things other than game development. You may find something you like better. You may not.
Finally, there is some great advice on these forums, but remember to take all of it, including mine, with a grain of salt. Don't take any one piece of advice as absolute truth.
Quote:Original post by Avont29
I'm going to finish school of course, its just that i wanted to know what i needed to do. I told my mother that i didn't need to go to college to be a game programmer, but she keeps saying i need to go.
You should listen to your mother. I have an Associates degree from DigiPen in Real-Time Interactive Simulation, which is the name of their game development program, and even with that credential and my self-studied background in programming some places still won't look at my application because I don't have a bachelor's degree. I did get more than enough responses, just not from some places I knew full well I was more than qualified for. Moral of this story being: Get a Bachelors or higher, its also advisable to focus on one of the following areas with your electives: math, physics, or software engineering. A minor in any of these areas will set you above 90% of all other applicants.
[EDIT] I would like to add that I did have 3 promising job leads at the time I accepted one of the positions, I had interviewed with all 3 before accepting an offer from one. I ended up taking a non-games position-- kinda wierd, it almost fell in my lap. They called at about 7pm Tuesday and I left their office with an offer at noon the following day. Let me tell ya, in my experience an entry level game dev position pays only about 70% of what an entry level non-games dev position does. Not that money is everything, but alot of people think the games industry is the path to great riches, you can make a good living, no doubt, but only a select few ever get rich doing it.
I thought I'd reply to this, I even registered to reply, just because I've been here before. I don't know what age group grade 10 indicates, but I'm in the UK, in my last year of school (so I'm 17). A few years back I was interested in getting into the game industry, however over time I have changed my mind. All I am really any good at is programming, so I am going to study computer science at university. However, I am now much more interested in exploring different fields of the industry, rather than just game development. I also want to explore the world a bit more and get a better world knowledge. I would ideally like to move over to america a few years after obtaining my degree to possibly study further in order to get myself in the best position possible.
What I am trying to say is that your young and that as times change there is a pretty good chance you will want to move into something else. So, if you want to get into the games industry now, the best advice I can give is try to get experience in all aspects of programming with as many of the industry standard languages as possible, atleast then you will have a broader knowledge of the subject, just incase you decide to do something else later on in life.
Cheers
Jonny
What I am trying to say is that your young and that as times change there is a pretty good chance you will want to move into something else. So, if you want to get into the games industry now, the best advice I can give is try to get experience in all aspects of programming with as many of the industry standard languages as possible, atleast then you will have a broader knowledge of the subject, just incase you decide to do something else later on in life.
Cheers
Jonny
Author
I have tried other things. I've done animation, music production, and game programming. My heart is at game programming. Can you get a degree in computer science at westwood? That's the college i would liike to go to it.
Westwood is useless. They have no reputation in the games industry and their gamedev program is brand new. Even on their own site where they talk about what positions they expect to be preparing you for, "game development" is not one they list. The instead list things like tester, technical documentation and game support, whatever that is, among other equally non-development positions. Now, of course you can't expect to move straight into development fresh out of school unless you're really talented, but they don't even seem to list the types of entry level positions that people who do eventually become developers would expect. No scripting, no tools developer... I would at least expect them to list something at that level.
Personally I don't think their degree would be worth the paper its written on, and they just want to take your money. You'd be much better of getting a real degree from a real university. Take this with a grain of salt perhaps, I've never experienced Westwood firsthand, but I AM a DigiPen graduate, which, as far as game development degrees go is THE SCHOOL to go to. Even at that I would like to have a University degree to back it up with. Some games employers don't even take a Digipen degree seriously (few, luckily) but if they don't take DP seriously, this Westwood place doesn't stand a chance.
Personally I don't think their degree would be worth the paper its written on, and they just want to take your money. You'd be much better of getting a real degree from a real university. Take this with a grain of salt perhaps, I've never experienced Westwood firsthand, but I AM a DigiPen graduate, which, as far as game development degrees go is THE SCHOOL to go to. Even at that I would like to have a University degree to back it up with. Some games employers don't even take a Digipen degree seriously (few, luckily) but if they don't take DP seriously, this Westwood place doesn't stand a chance.
Quote:Original post by Ravyne
Some games employers don't even take a Digipen degree seriously (few, luckily) but if they don't take DP seriously, this Westwood place doesn't stand a chance.
The same can be said of Full Sail. I myself am a graduate of Full Sail who landed in the industry. I recived an Assoicated Degree and a Bachelors Degree from there. Full Sail gets more flack because they accelerate their curriclume from four years to just under two years, another reason is that the school can 'flood' the industry with people looking for jobs. The school sends out ~20-30 graduates every month, but not all of them will go seek out jobs in the industry. Out of my Graduation class 9 of the 11 of us have jobs in the industry. Though thats through the course of one year, not everyone gets hired straight out of college.
Some form of college degree is a must from most employers. IMO Full Sail is great, but you have to decide what you want to do. nef's post is a very good an informative post on where to get started.
Seeing the Westwood commericals on TV make me cringe..
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