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Long story short, I feel like I'm wasting my time in undergrad college.
I've just never been a good student (straight B's), I don't even know if I like my major (animal bio) and I'm 4th year (you need grad school to get anywhere with degree).
But the one thing I was always passionate about was games. I've designed a few maps before in Counter-strike 1.6 and loved it. I'd have to explore what I want to do but I want to make decent money ($~40k)
I'm at a big crossroad right now. I hate each quarter that passes because of the f***ing tuition fees my family supports and pays for. I need to know how secure the gaming market is so that my "leap of faith" is more promising. Anyone know of what's hot and of any resources I could look at?
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Use Google.
Do whatever you love doing. Nothing is holding you back but yourself, and nothing is impossible. 
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There are about a few thousand people who designed maps and most of them will have finished their degree, so unless you have excellent references (i.e. you have designed a map that was used (semi-)competitively), forget it for now and finish college first.
The gaming job market is flooded with young people like you who dream of earning big money in this field, which means that companies actually hire really cheap unless the person can provide great references of past work.
It's nice trying to live your dream... but do it after college. Build up your references in your spare time.
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Gaming job market is terrible.
To few jobs and to manny freshly graduated students wanting to get in.
Wages are verry low unless you reach the top.
If you make your own game however,you could score big time.
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Gaming bussines is for passionate people. Having salary demands already is not a good starting position. You can find jobs in the industry, but you should pretty much be willing to work for free.
You won't find a job making CS maps for 40K.
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On June 04 2012 16:52 kamicom wrote:
Long story short, I feel like I'm wasting my time in undergrad college.
I've just never been a good student (straight B's), I don't even know if I like my major (animal bio) and I'm 4th year (you need grad school to get anywhere with degree).
But the one thing I was always passionate about was games. I've designed a few maps before in Counter-strike 1.6 and loved it. I'd have to explore what I want to do but I want to make decent money ($~40k)
I'm at a big crossroad right now. I hate each quarter that passes because of the f***ing tuition fees my family supports and pays for. I need to know how secure the gaming market is so that my "leap of faith" is more promising. Anyone know of what's hot and of any resources I could look at?
"I wonna design games" is the boy version of "I wonna be an actor".
Even with a relevant degree, its highly unlikely to happen.
Best way to go about it though:
1: Learn to program
2: Design and implement a game
3: Show game to a billion companies
4: Get hired to design their shit.
Good part about it is, you need no capital to make you game prototype. It could also end up being fun.
Just dont quit you job just yet.
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What kind of coding language do you need to know for games? C++?
I'd like to stay away from the 3D modeling/artistic departments...
But ideally, I'm shooting for Valve or Blizzard (that's like my Mecca of jobs).
What I'm going to do is finish my degree and WORK MY ASS off on my own time studying and building a repertoire for myself.
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In all seriousness, if you wanna CODE games, that's COMPLETELY different than DESIGNING games, which is COMPLETELY different than making the GRAPHICS for games...
so you have to know EXACTLY what portion you want to do before even CONSIDERING a job in the gaming market.
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I feel like you dont really know what you want to do anyways, you just want to work in the gaming industry.
I worked for the ESL for about a year as an event manager, organizing Intel Friday Night Games and so on (Cebit, Games Convention). It was one of the best years that I had in terms of fun, getting to know people, getting to know my own boundaries. It was also one of the hardest years I had. Dont expect to work less than 60h for average pay (The laws in germany prevent companies from paying too little).
From your first post, I thought you wanted to be a game designer, then you said you dont want to have anything to do with artists and say you want to code. From that, I gather that you have no coding experience. Starting to code now and trying to get into a developement business is also very hard. I am working as a Requirements Engineer now (System Analyst at a big healcare company) and I have to work with programmers a lot. They know their shit! No serious company wants a programmer that has to look up everything when they want a change. I myself can programm a little (I know Java and C++) but I would never consider myself a programmer, because I have to look up everything when I want to write something. I know where to look, but I dont "speak" it fluently. If you are new to programming, you will have a reeaally hard time to get used to the idea and syntax of programming languages. It's gonna take a few years until you speak C++ fluently, and thats just the basis. When you have to learn Java on top, or something like Ruby or Rails, you will have to learn more. And Programming isnt as fun as it seems . Programming stuff that you like for yourself is fun, programming stuff for customers or for your company that is abstract or you have no interest in is really boring.
Try to imagine programming a functionality for a game. Every day, you get a new test feedback. Every day you make changes to the same functionality. Not for 2 days, more like: For 2 months! And in the end, the functionality gets stripped from the game or you have to rewrite it completely 5 times. Imagine the Blizz-guys that worked on the PVP system for D3. Ripped. Or the Rune-System. Completely rewritten about 6-7 times.
This is not fun. Its work. Hard work.
Since I've been in the industry, I would recommend you not to go there. Learn something you like. If its programming, really get into it. Make yourself a small company (a limited) and gather local customers for small stuff (like a website, small programming jobs etc). Then you can learn the ways of programming in the real world. If you have some knowledge, you can apply for jobs at software companies.
But really... I wouldnt recommend it. There are so many "programmers" out there. Some have written a vb script to move their pr0ndownloads and call themselves programmer. Some are really good at what they do because they've been doing it for years.
tl;dr: Dont work in gaming, it's long hours, small pay, really hard work, lot of competition and you have to know your shit really well.
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Liking video games isn't a marketable skill. Take a little while to learn about what things actually are required skills in the gaming industry and see if you are actually passionate about those things.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/careers/posting.html?id=120001K
Here is a job posting from Blizzard for senior software engineer for sc2. Look at requirements. Notice how "passion for games" is listed in dead last. They are hiring a programmer who just happens to like games. Not someone who likes games who just happens to be a programmer. Also take a look at this:
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/careers/directory.html#region=Americas
Almost every job there requires skills that aren't in any way specific to the gaming industry. There is nothing magical about the industry in which you work. Unless you happen to be one of the like 100 people in the world who actually are game designers for major video game companies, your job isn't "making games" your job is programming, marketing, sales, technical support, quality assurance, or whatever other job that has an equivalent in hundreds of other industries.
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On June 04 2012 17:04 Klesky wrote:
The game development industry works like this. If you don't like your job, get out, because there's thousands of other people ready to take your job. So you end up hearing all the horror stories of people working like 80+ hours/week, hilariously low pay (and I mean hilarious), sleeping in the office, no overtime pay (illegal... still happens) and etc.
I don't want to scare you; I was considering going into that industry myself, but those stories scared the hell out of me so now I write business software. lol.
If you still really want to go into it, you need to decide what you want to do (there's a lot of work that goes into a game, so lots of people with lots of different skills), and be really good at that, something that makes you valuable over the hordes of masses that want your job.
also, from your signature, "I ragequit if my split fails." Game development is not for you :/
edit:
fuckin zerglings how do they work.
This is only true for a few jobs.
Production art is the way to go IMO, if you enjoy painting or sculpting anyway. Just about every company (Valve, Arena Net, Blizzard) hires fantastic painters and sculptors just about anytime a good one comes across. I remember Valve even saying that if a really, really good artist applies for a position there they'll actually add a new job position just to grab them up. There are so few people that can actually design and paint something really well, so if you're really good, you don't need any connections at all and companies are willing to give you a good job straight up. Look at Cole Eastburn. He lived out of his car as a homeless man but had a laptop and posted his work online. Blizzard saw the art. They hired him within a week and even gave him a free house (Sam Wise's previous one). You're basically guaranteed a really high paying job doing art if you're really good at it.
The catch is....art is one of the hardest things in the world to become proficient at. It requires a ridiculous amount of study (I'm willing to compare it to getting a medical degree and even then the learning never stops). The 10,000 hour rule is probably true. It takes about 8-12 hours of dedicated study a day for a few years for an average person to understand fundamentals of the visual world. Advanced perspective is a bitch.
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On June 04 2012 16:52 kamicom wrote:
Long story short, I feel like I'm wasting my time in undergrad college.
I've just never been a good student (straight B's), I don't even know if I like my major (animal bio) and I'm 4th year (you need grad school to get anywhere with degree).
But the one thing I was always passionate about was games. I've designed a few maps before in Counter-strike 1.6 and loved it. I'd have to explore what I want to do but I want to make decent money ($~40k)
I'm at a big crossroad right now. I hate each quarter that passes because of the f***ing tuition fees my family supports and pays for. I need to know how secure the gaming market is so that my "leap of faith" is more promising. Anyone know of what's hot and of any resources I could look at?
You know what they call a doctor who graduated med school with C/C+ average? A doctor. That is what my professor at UNB told me, obviously it's more prestigious to be the top of your class, but at the end of the day passing is passing and it's all that matters.
Straight B's are extremely good also, and 40k is not "decent money" it's I mean, ok money, but you can do much better (60-80)
Following your question, from a strictly data based prediction, the gaming market is exploding in all aspects. Not only eSports, but Gaming companies are releasing more games every year, to a bigger audience. This means they need more everything, programmers, writers, producers, artists, concept artists, marketing teams, managers. Again, this is not even on the eSports side. Now for eSports, it has been holding onto a steady boom also, and so far with the inclusion of KESPA and other major games like LoL coming into the fold recently the market looks to move forward, what does this mean? Each event will get bigger, require more staff, everything will require more to grow. (spend money to make money analogy)
SOOO, on a strictly data perspective, you aren't making a bad move to go into the gaming community... But impressions matter the most, because it's massively social. You wanna come in with a strong personality or be prepared to leave quickly.
Finally, at least you aren't majoring in some useless arts credit (not basic arts, but like a major that will get you working at mcdicks)
goodluck
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On June 04 2012 19:21 NeMeSiS3 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2012 16:52 kamicom wrote:
Long story short, I feel like I'm wasting my time in undergrad college.
I've just never been a good student (straight B's), I don't even know if I like my major (animal bio) and I'm 4th year (you need grad school to get anywhere with degree).
But the one thing I was always passionate about was games. I've designed a few maps before in Counter-strike 1.6 and loved it. I'd have to explore what I want to do but I want to make decent money ($~40k)
I'm at a big crossroad right now. I hate each quarter that passes because of the f***ing tuition fees my family supports and pays for. I need to know how secure the gaming market is so that my "leap of faith" is more promising. Anyone know of what's hot and of any resources I could look at? You know what they call a doctor who graduated med school with C/C+ average? A doctor. That is what my professor at UNB told me, obviously it's more prestigious to be the top of your class, but at the end of the day passing is passing and it's all that matters. Straight B's are extremely good also, and 40k is not "decent money" it's I mean, ok money, but you can do much better (60-80) Following your question, from a strictly data based prediction, the gaming market is exploding in all aspects. Not only eSports, but Gaming companies are releasing more games every year, to a bigger audience. This means they need more everything, programmers, writers, producers, artists, concept artists, marketing teams, managers. Again, this is not even on the eSports side. Now for eSports, it has been holding onto a steady boom also, and so far with the inclusion of KESPA and other major games like LoL coming into the fold recently the market looks to move forward, what does this mean? Each event will get bigger, require more staff, everything will require more to grow. (spend money to make money analogy) SOOO, on a strictly data perspective, you aren't making a bad move to go into the gaming community... But impressions matter the most, because it's massively social. You wanna come in with a strong personality or be prepared to leave quickly. Finally, at least you aren't majoring in some useless arts credit (not basic arts, but like a major that will get you working at mcdicks) goodluck
This is a good thing to note. Public universities generally have very bad art programs and even if you want to do art in the game industry or illustration industry, I think it's better to just major in something that will help your design like culture studies.
On the other hand, if you can afford school or you're good enough to get a strong scholarship, getting arts credits are faaaaaaaaaaar from useless. If you can get into a school like Art Center or RISD and you can afford it (esp Art Center), your art classes will be immensely useful. There is a lot to be learned and if you end up any good you'll have a good job doing something interesting.
On another note, the "98% of people who graduate with art majors working at MickeyD's" is probably true. Most people don't have the work ethic and/or talent to be proficient in art.
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On June 04 2012 19:31 Deadlyhazard wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2012 19:21 NeMeSiS3 wrote:On June 04 2012 16:52 kamicom wrote:
Long story short, I feel like I'm wasting my time in undergrad college.
I've just never been a good student (straight B's), I don't even know if I like my major (animal bio) and I'm 4th year (you need grad school to get anywhere with degree).
But the one thing I was always passionate about was games. I've designed a few maps before in Counter-strike 1.6 and loved it. I'd have to explore what I want to do but I want to make decent money ($~40k)
I'm at a big crossroad right now. I hate each quarter that passes because of the f***ing tuition fees my family supports and pays for. I need to know how secure the gaming market is so that my "leap of faith" is more promising. Anyone know of what's hot and of any resources I could look at? You know what they call a doctor who graduated med school with C/C+ average? A doctor. That is what my professor at UNB told me, obviously it's more prestigious to be the top of your class, but at the end of the day passing is passing and it's all that matters. Straight B's are extremely good also, and 40k is not "decent money" it's I mean, ok money, but you can do much better (60-80) Following your question, from a strictly data based prediction, the gaming market is exploding in all aspects. Not only eSports, but Gaming companies are releasing more games every year, to a bigger audience. This means they need more everything, programmers, writers, producers, artists, concept artists, marketing teams, managers. Again, this is not even on the eSports side. Now for eSports, it has been holding onto a steady boom also, and so far with the inclusion of KESPA and other major games like LoL coming into the fold recently the market looks to move forward, what does this mean? Each event will get bigger, require more staff, everything will require more to grow. (spend money to make money analogy) SOOO, on a strictly data perspective, you aren't making a bad move to go into the gaming community... But impressions matter the most, because it's massively social. You wanna come in with a strong personality or be prepared to leave quickly. Finally, at least you aren't majoring in some useless arts credit (not basic arts, but like a major that will get you working at mcdicks) goodluck This is a good thing to note. Public universities generally have very bad art programs and even if you want to do art in the game industry or illustration industry, I think it's better to just major in something that will help your design like culture studies. On the other hand, if you can afford school or you're good enough to get a strong scholarship, getting arts credits are faaaaaaaaaaar from useless. If you can get into a school like Art Center or RISD and you can afford it (esp Art Center), your art classes will be immensely useful. There is a lot to be learned and if you end up any good you'll have a good job doing something interesting. On another note, the "98% of people who graduate with art majors working at MickeyD's" is probably true. Most people don't have the work ethic and/or talent to be proficient in art.
Just thought i'd note, art doesn't mean artistic(pictures/colouring/painting) it also means many different fields. I mean't arts like ancient literature.
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On June 04 2012 19:52 NeMeSiS3 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 04 2012 19:31 Deadlyhazard wrote:On June 04 2012 19:21 NeMeSiS3 wrote:On June 04 2012 16:52 kamicom wrote:
Long story short, I feel like I'm wasting my time in undergrad college.
I've just never been a good student (straight B's), I don't even know if I like my major (animal bio) and I'm 4th year (you need grad school to get anywhere with degree).
But the one thing I was always passionate about was games. I've designed a few maps before in Counter-strike 1.6 and loved it. I'd have to explore what I want to do but I want to make decent money ($~40k)
I'm at a big crossroad right now. I hate each quarter that passes because of the f***ing tuition fees my family supports and pays for. I need to know how secure the gaming market is so that my "leap of faith" is more promising. Anyone know of what's hot and of any resources I could look at? You know what they call a doctor who graduated med school with C/C+ average? A doctor. That is what my professor at UNB told me, obviously it's more prestigious to be the top of your class, but at the end of the day passing is passing and it's all that matters. Straight B's are extremely good also, and 40k is not "decent money" it's I mean, ok money, but you can do much better (60-80) Following your question, from a strictly data based prediction, the gaming market is exploding in all aspects. Not only eSports, but Gaming companies are releasing more games every year, to a bigger audience. This means they need more everything, programmers, writers, producers, artists, concept artists, marketing teams, managers. Again, this is not even on the eSports side. Now for eSports, it has been holding onto a steady boom also, and so far with the inclusion of KESPA and other major games like LoL coming into the fold recently the market looks to move forward, what does this mean? Each event will get bigger, require more staff, everything will require more to grow. (spend money to make money analogy) SOOO, on a strictly data perspective, you aren't making a bad move to go into the gaming community... But impressions matter the most, because it's massively social. You wanna come in with a strong personality or be prepared to leave quickly. Finally, at least you aren't majoring in some useless arts credit (not basic arts, but like a major that will get you working at mcdicks) goodluck This is a good thing to note. Public universities generally have very bad art programs and even if you want to do art in the game industry or illustration industry, I think it's better to just major in something that will help your design like culture studies. On the other hand, if you can afford school or you're good enough to get a strong scholarship, getting arts credits are faaaaaaaaaaar from useless. If you can get into a school like Art Center or RISD and you can afford it (esp Art Center), your art classes will be immensely useful. There is a lot to be learned and if you end up any good you'll have a good job doing something interesting. On another note, the "98% of people who graduate with art majors working at MickeyD's" is probably true. Most people don't have the work ethic and/or talent to be proficient in art. Just thought i'd note, art doesn't mean artistic(pictures/colouring/painting) it also means many different fields. I mean't arts like ancient literature.
Yeah I thought so, I should've specified art as in painting/sculpture.
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I'm currently getting a Masters in Networking and Security and I have done many courses in which my peers are studying Gaming and Design. The general consensus is, none of them get jobs in gaming, and end up getting jobs in other IT areas whether that be call centres or business management positions.
However, I do know one person who has done well, but he is a star pupil. He can read binary fluently, he makes programs in which I could not comprehend the code, and he's also surprisingly charismatic and street smart.
It takes an incredibly special person to get into the games market, and to be honest with your portfolio, I would coinsider it very unlikely you getting a job.
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Don't jump into the gaming market. Entry level positions are shit, probably one of the worst jobs available. You'd probably be fired or lose all will to live before ever even getting the chance to be promoted.
Find out what part of game design you like (programming, art, designing, sound), and then pursue that degree. Once done, get a job doing something else (for the meantime) and try and get on or start your own small game project. Make a few small games (it doesn't matter if they're even sold to people, just have them made for a portfolio) and then once you have a few games under your belt apply for a higher level position inside of the gaming company of your choice. That's your best chance.
I too want to get into game development, so I decided to become a programmer. Made my own little game using XNA for a class (it's shit, but showed me how complex even simple games are), and i'll probably try and make another once I have a solid idea on it.
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It depends on where you want to go in the gaming industry.
I'm going into my third year working in the gaming industry (social gaming and previously MMORPG publishing). My current title is a "community manager", which basically is a forum moderator with some marketing knowledge. I've been laid off 1.5 times (the .5 because my team got dissolved and I was basically re-purposed). Pay was terrible at the start, but it's slowly getting better. I'm also fairly inexperienced and young, so I assume that also factors into my salary.
Just know that if you work in the gaming industry, you will fail and you will get laid off. The industry changes very quickly (at least in my sector, console may be a little bit more "stable").
Going to Valve and Blizzard will be difficult. You'd probably need at least 5+ years experience plus a few shipped games under your belt. Preferably, AAA game titles.
Also, if you want to go to Blizzard, you better bleed Blizzard. From what I've heard, they won't hire you if you don't know all you can know about Blizzard. I can't confirm this since I don't have any super close connections there, so this is all educated speculation on my part.
If you have no desire to learn how the gaming industry works, PLEASE DO NOT JOIN IT. If you don't have the passion or drive, PLEASE GET ANOTHER TYPE OF JOB!! Don't join the gaming industry because you like the idea of playing games, join because you actually want to develop games and study them. The last thing the gaming industry needs is a bunch of people coming in with 0 desire to learn gaming. Unfortunately, a lot of those people slip through the cracks just because it's a little bit easier to get an entry-level position at some no-name gaming start-up.
My best advice is know gaming, love gaming and study gaming. Know the industry and your market. Don't be an elitist -- you need to be very open in this industry. Being too close minded and too tied to your ideas makes for shitty games, but be aware that you need to do whats best for your title.
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EPT
