Video game industry is almost non-existent in where I live (Turkey). Currently I am a CS post-graduate student and I am really interested in game programming. I have a job for now but still hoping for a job as a game programmer after my graduation.

I think of myself as a good programmer. Instead of using external libraries, I always interested in lower level stuff. How things works etc. Here is a couple of projects I did.

My graduation projects, a multiplayer FPS game. Done in DirectX. Offer things like deferred shading, shadow volumes, terrain painting, md3 animation etc. It was mostly done but lacks UI, different maps, models, sounds etc

My current project, started as an attempt to learn opengl (relearn actually, learned immediate stuff in school and they forced me to hate OpenGL). It is a random terrain generating project, still in very early phases.

So do you think I have a chance in game industry? What should I do/learn before I graduate? Continue to do personal projects like this?

And after I graduate, how should I look for jobs, do people hire from different countries? I think making indie games will be easiest choice but not sure if I will be able to spare enough time for that while working on another job.

@Tom

Thanks for the answer.

I am from Istanbul. Checked gamedevmap and most of the sites in there are either unrelated to game development or they are dead. Rest are usually focused on flash games such as ones on facebook. On few of them actually makes video games.


Well I guess focusing on personal projects will be my best option for next year. Hopefully I can make something that can draw attention from companies. If not I don't think it will be very hard for me to get a job one of the companies in Turkey.