1. The industry is cyclical - it goes through waves of extreme investment, then doom and gloom. At the moment it''s at a lower point.

2. New generations of gaming hardware don''t help - there isn''t enough of a user base to make money, at the same time people are scared of investing too much time/money on any dying platforms.

3. There are also funding issues - team sizes are getting bigger therefore costlier, the risks are staying the same for the publishers, the sales levels for games are staying the same - there is talk of alternative funding methods, ways of reducing costs etc.

4. Many publishers (and some developers) pulled in money from the stock market by starting "online gaming" and "mobile gaming" divisions after people started investing heavily in the "dot com" business... After many of the dot-coms fell apart, investors got jumpy - quite a few layoffs have been related pretty directly to that.

5. If making games/entertainment software is what you want to do, then it''s still a good fun business to be in, but only if you really want to. If you''re looking for a way to get rich, look elsewhere (commercial consultancy etc). The days of programmers with Ferraris are dissapearing - you can make a comfortable living, but getting rich is less likely.

6. There are shoddy companies about who''ll mess you around just as with any business - be wary if the management of the company doesn''t seem to have any clue about the industry (or business for that matter).

7. Crunch time at the end of a project can be very testing of your personality and resolve - but the rest of the time is more fun than other parts of the IT industry I''ve worked in.

It''s nice to hear some positive postings about careers in games, very encouraging
Ok so what should an entry-level programmer be able to DO? Is that a good enough Q or is it too vague?

"I envy you, who has seen it all"
"And I, young sir, envy you, who have yet to see it for the first time..."
- Daniel Glenfield
1st October 2001