In general, walking the walk trumps talking the talk :) So when comparing two candidates, the one who can prove they can actually do the job is in a better position.

...but often there's not two candidates, but two hundred candidates. That's a lot of resumes to read and interviews to conducts... so companies often use shortcuts. One common shortcut is to filter by arbitrary achievements -- e.g. throwing out all candidates who didn't finish high school, and then all candidates who don't have a university degree, etc...

If it's an option, practice your skills as much as you can in your spare time, and stay in school to get those arbitrary certificates as long as you can.

If you're in a country with a public / affordable university system (e.g. not america) then I'd especially recommend getting a degree.

Besides the learning that you'll do, university teaches some life skills, and the important skill of sticking through something that you don't really want to be doing for 4 years :lol:

It can also be important if you want to work in other countries. Often, to get a "skilled worker" visa/permit, you need a tertiary degree to prove it.

Am I reading correctly that you are considering dropping out of HS? I would suggest against that if only for the math classes. But I think a HS diploma is important as well, AFAIK.

To all the proffesionals at Videogame programming :D...
So i was about to writte a reaaaaally long post, but lets make it shorter:...
Whats more important when looking for a job? experience and knowledge or a degree at some career? even without any experience.
I mean, if you are looking for someone, 2 guys apply, and the first guy says
"I have i degree at whatever you need, BUT i have never worked in a company before",
and then the second guys tells you
"Im really good at whatever you need, look some of my works *shows experience*. I also have laboral experience and so. BUT i dont have a degree at anything."
Which one would you hire? And also whats your recomendation for me? someone who wants to learn Digital Arts in general and is not sure about his life decisions. I love everything, from prgramming to drawing concept art and stuff like that. I´d also like to learn web design, photography, android programming, voice acting... well, Digital Arts.

IMO you should focus all your efforts on getting into a US university. Long story short, someone without a degree from Mexico is unemployable outside Mexico. (Don't know how it is in the country.) And if you're thinking about leaving high school, you will never work a tech job. It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done. No one will even talk to you.

If someone came to me for a job without a degree, I would point blank ask them: "Why didn't you do the degree?" If it's a challenge with money or an unusual life situation or something, that wouldn't be a major issue for me. But if the answer is that they couldn't be bothered, it felt like a waste of time, etc, I would show that candidate the door. There's no room in a professional setting for someone who won't face up to work because of general lack of interest. I'm also not interested in hiring anyone who doesn't have experience working with other people as a team.

In a broader sense... I worked in the industry for a year without a degree. But that was in the healthy job market of 2007, with three years of a degree done and a clear plan to return. Oh, and years of tinkering with game development, twin professional internships at major companies, deep technical knowledge (for my age), several working projects and open source work, and some article writing work too. Nowadays I'm not sure I could get a job in this market with the background I had then.

P.S. The above applies only to programmers. You need to understand this: artists are 100% unemployable for games without a full four year art degree. End of story. There is NO wiggle room on this one. The industry is literally drowning in talent who have done incredible work alongside their degrees, there's no reason to even entertain candidates who skipped it.