Can i become a professional gamedeveloper learning at home?

Games Career Development Business

Started by Assassinbeast October 15, 2012 10:04 AM

26 comments, last by dakota.potts 11 years, 6 months ago

271

Author

October 15, 2012 10:04 AM

Hey folks.
I just want to know if it is kinda possible to become a professional gamedeveloper learning at home.

Im currently learning win32 in c++ from Michael Morrisons book "Beginning Game Programmng" and i aim to learn directx afterwards.
There are many good books out there that teaches directx.. so i kinda think its possible to become a professional without a school, but im not that sure.

The reason why i dont wanna choose to go learn game programming through the school (which is much more safe way), is because then i have to go to college first which takes 2 years. And in those 2 years i will get tortured with homework and have to learn all kinds of subjects which i dont even need(only math, but i can take single courses with it).

So after the college i can go to a university in computer science... but i dont even know if they are teaching c++ which i chose and im pretty happy with it. Also i dont know if they will teach directx because thats what i aimed for since im learning win32 at this moment, so it will be a giant waste of time if i find out in the university that they teach java or c#.

Right now im just learning at home and i have a job besides me, so im not doing anything than that. Im 20 years old by the way.

If i choose to learn it through the school... then i start in 2013 after summer. So i have like 8 months from now on to learn it at home (without any homework/school interruption) before i get tortured in the college in two years. (and if i find out in my future university that they teach c# or java... then... thats like losing $1 million in poker)

I live in Denmark, so there are not that many opportunities.

Hope you can help me out
Thanks

Ashaman73

13,718

October 15, 2012 10:16 AM

I just want to know if it is kinda possible to become a professional gamedeveloper learning at home.

Yes, sure....

But the real question is, what is necessary to get a job in the game industry.

When you are a rookie you need some references and a degree is a good reference (demos too), so going to school, getting a degree will increase your chances a lot. Without a degree it is likely that many companies will stop reading at your missing degree, giving you never a chance to demonstrate your skills.

Ashaman

Gnoblins: Website - Facebook - Twitter - Youtube - Steam Greenlit - IndieDB - Gamedev Log

SimonForsman

7,644

October 15, 2012 10:18 AM

Yes, you can become a professional after learning at home, getting your first job without a degree will be significantly harder than getting it with a degree though.

The hard part when applying for the first job is always to get to an interview (if you know what you're doing and manage to get to an interview it is fairly easy, most people suck even though they have a degree). Applying at smaller companies or getting connections in the industry will help you get past the initial screening (Which is where a degree matters most)

You shouldn't choose university based on what languages they are using, Few CS educations use C++ since it is a shitty language to use in education, most CS and SE concepts are far easier to teach (and learn) using other, more specialized languages, (Normally they don't teach languages at all, they might use a language to demonstrate concepts though), at my first year in uni we had to use Java(OOP), StandardML(functional programming), C(Systems programming) and Prolog(logic) and in some classes(Datastructures and algorithms for example) we could choose between Java, C and C++ for our assignments. (We never had a class that required C++ though), we were expected to pick new languages up as we went along. (For the systems programming class we got a 2 hour introduction to C and then it was all about pipes, processes, semaphores, etc and it was up to us to figure the language out)

Also, you shouldn't restrict yourself to a single language, you will become a far better programmer if you pick up a few different ones. (Personally i wouldn't hire a programmer who only knew C++ even if it was the only language we used in production)

[size="1"]I don't suffer from insanity, I'm enjoying every minute of it.
The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!

Florent 974

134

October 15, 2012 10:31 AM

Hi, of course it's possible, I did it myself, (well I learned a bit of C++ at school, but it was anecdotic...).
Nowadays there are a lot of useful resources, books, internet ...

If I were you I would try to team up with a like-minded guy or two. Developing alone can become frustrating in the long run (I've done that).

Is there a specific branch you're more interested in ( rendering, sound, physic, gameplay ... ) ? The sad reality is, it's good to know a bit of everything, but at the same time if you want to be strong on a particular branch you'll have to focus on it.

Another advice: if you're aiming for rendering, I would STRONGLY suggest that you begin by studying ray-tracing (more precisely path-tracing), the rendering equation, BRDF and things like that. Keep in mind that actual DirectX / OpenGL games (rasterization) are mainly dirty hacks above dirty hacks, to approximate the "rendering equation".

Moreover I think path tracing is the (not so far) future, see raytracey blog ...

When that is done, it would not be useless to try to implement a small old-school software rasterizer, it will help you understand how 3D cards work internally.

Then and only then you should have a look at directX11, also, try to get familiar with CUDA/DirectCompute it's becoming very important.

Don't hesitate to ask me questions, I can also give you some advices on books and lectures.
( I strongly suggest you buy the "Game Engine Architecture" book by Jason Gregory )

Anddos

588

October 15, 2012 11:02 AM

yes you can, look at all those indie devs now on steam making money from self teaching them self, its an awsome prospect imo

Bregma

9,461

October 15, 2012 11:17 AM

I dunno, if you're afraid get getting a formal education because it requires that you work hard and spend a lot of time on things that are not of immediate personal interest to you, how do you think you're going to get on in the professional world where you have to work at least as hard and spend even more time doing things that are not of immediate personal interest to you, and the only help that's generally available is help moving on to another job?

Turns out there may be more to an education than teaching. Much more.

Stephen M. Webb
Professional Free Software Developer

Ashaman73

13,718

October 15, 2012 11:20 AM

look at all those indie devs now on steam making money from self teaching them self

Do they ? You would be surprised how large some of these indie teams are, what budgets they got, what education they have and that many successful indie teams have their roots in the dependent industry.

Ashaman

Gnoblins: Website - Facebook - Twitter - Youtube - Steam Greenlit - IndieDB - Gamedev Log

menyo

979

October 15, 2012 11:49 AM

You can do anything you want with enough dedication and effort. Having that said it wont be easy, you need a lot of skills. Yes a degree counts but i am convinced if you teach yourself enough and publish a good solid game you are already one step ahead of someone without a degree. Both a degree and a finished project show off determination to finish your goals but a solid finished product will get a lot more attention and perhaps some money rolling in.

The problem is, you will need a lot of skills to get a solid product on the market. Graphics, programming, music, sound, design, marketing, etc should all be good enough to get that attention. If you lack one of these skills you have to invest money prior to getting anything out of it, and perhaps you wont get anything out of it. It takes a long time till you are ready to start a good project on your own and finishing such a project generally takes even more time. There is just a lot involved in a project of your own so if you want to be professional getting a degree is the fastest way, you can work on your personal skills and projects in your spare time while still learning and gaining experience at your job.

jbadams

26,386

October 15, 2012 12:03 PM

Yes, it is possible to get a job in the games industry if you are self taught. However, you will find it much more difficult to get an interview, as degrees are now expected for the majority of positions. Independent development of course requires no particular formal education requirements. Formal education isn't just about learning the material -- it's about showing dedication and the ability to follow through with tasks that aren't necessarily interesting, and about teaching you to be self-sufficient.

it will be a giant waste of time if i find out in the university that they teach java or c#

No offence, but that's a terrible attitude to have. If you're working on your own professional projects or aiming to be a self-employed indie developer you can use whatever language you wish, but if you're not willing to even consider other languages you're disallowing yourself from a large number of professional development jobs using languages such as C#, Objective-C, Java, Lua, Python and others. Whilst C++ is generally the go-to language for AAA development there are plenty of other languages used professionally, both for games themselves and for the creation of tools. Other languages are also perfectly fine -- and possibly even superior to C++ -- for teaching programming concepts to beginners. It's fine to have a preferred language, and to use whatever you like for your own projects, but you should be willing to use other languages as well.

If you want a job in the industry, you should get the best formal education possible. Otherwise do whatever you feel most comfortable with.

You can get a job without formal education, but it'll be much more difficult.

Hope that's helpful!

- Jason Astle-Adams

Assassinbeast

271

Author

October 15, 2012 12:13 PM

Damn... still dunno what to do... so many pros and cons