I am more leaning towards concept art as i have been doing fanart with Sonic characters for awhile.

The number of concept artist positions in the industry as a whole is miniscule. You may need a dedicated concept artist, you will need lots of content creation artists.

So, as a good rule of thumb, if you are not so successful in another medium that a game company is licensing your IP or your name/fan-base, you will need to be a successful production artist before you can get a job as a concept artist.

I happen to have a degree in marketing, along with 6 years of experience in the field before I switched to gamedev. Theoretical marketing (also known as a marketing degree) is actually a cheap shit. No matter how good the school that gave you the diploma is, there are just millions of people with this degree already. What counts is the actual experience.

In the game industry, marketing experience can help you land a job in sales or marketing. Marketing combined with art degree could help you out much more, for example in DTP, Art Direction, Webdesign - although these jobs are usually more like 90% art, 10% marketing as there is a separate marketing person anyway and what's mostly expected of you is art.

I just asked 4 of our producers if a marketing degree can help to land a job in game production. One said "no", two just gave me pitiful looks, not thinking the question is even worth answering and one ridiculed the concept for at least 5 minutes. The same question about marketing skills met answers ranging from "maybe" to "not really".

I guess it just all comes down to what you want to do in the industry. If a path of sales/marketing employee --> marketing/sales manager --> sales executive appeals to you then marketing can be a good bet. However, if you wanna go more into actual development, marketing won't be that helpful.

Also, avoid fan-art like a plague. When I see fan art, I think "great, this kid can copy what they see." It doesn't show skill to copy a design and if you can't show skill, then you won't get hired. When you're drawing fan-art in their original style, what does that really show potential employers? Only that you aren't creative enough to come up with your own ideas. Sure, once you get to be more recognized, you can draw your take on others characters and show them off, but if I were you, I would definitely avoid drawing in other peoples style.

Also, avoid fan-art like a plague. When I see fan art, I think "great, this kid can copy what they see." It doesn't show skill to copy a design and if you can't show skill, then you won't get hired. When you're drawing fan-art in their original style, what does that really show potential employers? Only that you aren't creative enough to come up with your own ideas. Sure, once you get to be more recognized, you can draw your take on others characters and show them off, but if I were you, I would definitely avoid drawing in other peoples style.

I agree. All you can achieve in drawing in someone's style is make a perfect copy or get criticized for making worse copies of someone's stuff. But if you take someone's character and draw it in your own style (like this guy for example: http://j-scott-campbell.deviantart.com ) you are producing an added value, showing your interpretation of characters. And it's still fanart, just a better one.

On the other hand, you would be surprised how often concept artists are required to draw something "exactly like..." There are gaming companies that would hire someone that can skillfully copy someone's style.

Also, avoid fan-art like a plague. When I see fan art, I think "great, this kid can copy what they see." It doesn't show skill to copy a design and if you can't show skill, then you won't get hired. When you're drawing fan-art in their original style, what does that really show potential employers? Only that you aren't creative enough to come up with your own ideas. Sure, once you get to be more recognized, you can draw your take on others characters and show them off, but if I were you, I would definitely avoid drawing in other peoples style.

I agree. All you can achieve in drawing in someone's style is make a perfect copy or get criticized for making worse copies of someone's stuff. But if you take someone's character and draw it in your own style (like this guy for example: http://j-scott-campbell.deviantart.com ) you are producing an added value, showing your interpretation of characters. And it's still fanart, just a better one.

On the other hand, you would be surprised how often concept artists are required to draw something "exactly like..." There are gaming companies that would hire someone that can skillfully copy someone's style.

Hmmm... Judging from the posts here, it seems like marketing may not be one of those " practical "majors at all.

again that goes back to what you consider by "practical"....if you're just looking for a "backup career" then marketing might not be a bad choice...I'm a hobby game developer (having been a professional non-game developer in the past) and professionally I now manage a team of Product Managers. My peers in Product Marketing do hire college grads with marketing degrees and honestly someone with an art background would get a leg up (and moreso in our UXD team). And then you can look at the statistics that say the majority of CEOs in the world have a marketing background, etc, etc.... so yes marketing can be a very PRATICAL career path....

BUT I don't think from what I've read here that marketing enterprise software is something you want to go do. Nor does it sound like going down (up) the management path is really what you are after right now either.

My advice...just follow whatever your real passion is right now...give it a go and put all you can into it. As a college age "kid" the impacts of failure are smaller (I assume you're not married and supporting six kids :)) And the upside...(landing a carear you love) is worth it....

(on a side note you also mentioned a general business degree...IMO not a lot of value there, generally if someone is looking to hire a BA they want a MBA, not a BBA...I think it would be better to pick a specialization [marketing, operations, etc] unless you are thinking about going into sales)

(on a side note you also mentioned a general business degree...IMO not a lot of value there, generally if someone is looking to hire a BA they want a MBA, not a BBA...I think it would be better to pick a specialization [marketing, operations, etc] unless you are thinking about going into sales)

This one.

Marketing is absolutely a practical major, especially if you are an outgoing social individual who loves talking with strangers, creating presentations, and making cold calls.

Business administration is absolutely a practical major, especially if you are an outgoing individual who loves working with schedules, planning, and understand terms like RP, DAU, and ARPPU, sell-through and sell-in, and such.

Art is absolutely a practical major, especially for those who enjoy creating and critiquing their own art, and who have invested countless hours developing their own talents at creating compelling images.

But an artistic/marketing/business administrator .... meh, not so much.

In my personal opinion, it's a terrible policy to pick a career path based solely on whether or not you can get a job in that field.

Yes, employability is a factor, but it's hardly everything. As frob hinted at, actually wanting to do the job is worth far more than just the prospects of landing the job.

You can get a job as a marketer. You can even get a job in the games industry as a marketer. So what? You can get a job as a janitor for a game studio, too.

What do you want to do in the games industry? If you want to make games, marketing is an utter waste of your time and educational investment. If you just want to be physically proximal to people who make games, consider that being a janitor in the building is just as effective and requires a lot less money to earn a degree. If, as a third possibility, you want to market games, then this should be a no-brainer.

Sorry, going to disagree employability is an extremely important factor times have changed drastically especially for college graduates.