Here is the deal, I hate my job and I am trying to get a computer science degree to hopefully work in the video game industry. By no means is this my dream and if that is where I stop I will feel very unfulfilled in my life. I really want to work for myself and I feel this is the only way I will ever be happy. Right now school and work take up most of my time and I can't seem to find time to program anymore. I've been programming since I was 7 which makes it almost 16 years now. Every time I almost finish a project I raise the bar further and consequently I've never finished anything. I have a great idea for a simple game which I know I can finish within the next year but school has been taking up all of my free time. To get a computer science degree I will likely be in school for the next 6 years since I am currently attending a community college for computer programming and most of the credits probably won't transfer. 6 years is a long time to wait to be in a position where I am only moderately satisfied with my career. It also eats me alive not having time to work on my ideas.

The best compromise I can come up with would be to get a Microsoft certification and just work while I develop games in my spare time. I actually think I would be much happier over all. What do you guys thing?

You apparently have a problem completing things. Learn to complete things, that is your path to success.

6 years ago, there was no Facebook or Twitter. The term "social game" didn't exist. Playfish, Club Penguin and similar didn't exist either and were not worth billions, possibly more than EA. EA did not fire 1500 people to purchase social game company with a few dozen people. There was no iPhone, no iPad, no mobile, no AppStore.

What will world look like in 6 years?


What exactly is your dream?

I just want to make games or applications by my self and I don't care if I make a lot of money but I want enough so that I don't have to work.

Of course you'll have to work. Maybe not work for someone else, but work all the same. As for the certification, I don't think anybody in the game industry cares. So don't do that.

Of course you'll have to work. Maybe not work for someone else, but work all the same. As for the certification, I don't think anybody in the game industry cares. So don't do that.

Not a certification to work in the game industry but one to work in software development. Basically to work in a job I'm at least OK with while I try to make video games to sell.

I just want to make games or applications by my self and I don't care if I make a lot of money but I want enough so that I don't have to work.

Everyone works. There is no escaping it. The trick is that you need to enjoy your work enough that it won't feel like work to you. Don't make the mistake of splitting your life into work and play or you will be miserable. Work is play and play is play. I like the way Paul Graham puts it: You have to like what you do enough that the concept of free time seems mistaken. If you're always concerned about getting free time from your job so you can go do the things you enjoy, then you're in the wrong business. Personally, I'd leave any job that I don't like even if it means struggling to survive. (I've been there many times) If you really know what you want, your determination and enthusiasm will help you overcome most obstacles--that's why it's important that you do something that is meaningful to you or you won't have the drive to see it through.

[quote name='SteveDeFacto' timestamp='1322162920' post='4887358']
I just want to make games or applications by my self and I don't care if I make a lot of money but I want enough so that I don't have to work.

Everyone works. There is no escaping it. The trick is that you need to enjoy your work enough that it won't feel like work to you. Don't make the mistake of splitting your life into work and play or you will be miserable. Work is play and play is play. I like the way Paul Graham puts it: You have to like what you do enough that the concept of free time seems mistaken. If you're always concerned about getting free time from your job so you can go do the things you enjoy, then you're in the wrong business. Personally, I'd leave any job that I don't like even if it means struggling to survive. (I've been there many times) If you really know what you want, your determination and enthusiasm will help you overcome most obstacles--that's why it's important that you do something that is meaningful to you or you won't have the drive to see it through.
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It's not that I want to have fun. I put a lot of work in to my game engine which I had plans to make a really awesome game with but now it seems all of my work is going down the toilet because I have no time to finish it anymore. My wonderful ideas are eating me alive and I can't stand the thought of not seeing them through.

Doing two things full time at the same time is of course going to cut into hobby time, especially a hobby that is challenging and requires time and significant mental effort. If you don't have time to pursue all three at once, then you'll have to cut back on something. So as I see it, you can scale back some combination of activities and accept a slower pace at all three, or plan out a longer term schedule that includes all three but non-simultaneously.

A couple of possibilities that come to my mind are:

Why not cut back on school now? If you're certain that a lot of your credits aren't going to transfer, then are you really getting much value out of the investment of time, energy, and money you are expending to earn them? I can think of situations where they still might be worth taking, but I can think of far more in which they would not be. If you can be reasonably sure that they will transfer, then the credits are likely worth getting, but if not then you will have little tangible rewards to show for your efforts, especially if earning them gets in the way of other work you'd like to do.

Cutting back on hours at work might be an option, though of course it may not be in your case. If you can work a bit less, cutting out 5-10 hours per week, then you'd gain a non-trivial amount of time to get some of your school or programming stuff done. You could also switch jobs, but if you're time constrained more than anything else I don't know that that would be an improvement on your current situation (unless you hate the new job less, which is hard to predict well). That sounds like your MS certification idea, but a 40 hr/week job is still going to take up 40 hrs/week.

You could also accept a longer timetable for completing your programming projects (it sounds like this is where you've landed now). If you can't eke more time out of your school and work schedules, and can't get it anywhere else, then you truly don't have time to program right now. I'd bet that if you really set a schedule with 2-4 hours per week devoted to coding you could generally fit it in, but it would be strenuous and your games wouldn't advance very quickly.

There are other ways that you can adjust the demands on your time to allow you to focus on whichever things you find most important, but I don't think that having it all right now is necessarily feasible, evidenced by the trouble you're already having. You might find that splitting yourself three ways for an extended period of time leaves you with subpar results in any or all of them, and I doubt that you would be more pleased with that outcome than your current situation.

And for what it's worth, I get the impression that you have other relevant factors than just time to your situation. But my guessing about that kind of thing probably won't be very helpful, so I'll just say that a lack of time may not be your biggest operative obstacle, and if it isn't then some new options may become apparent.