|
I am also in the industry and have been making game levels for almost 20 years now. This is an excellent reply:ehnus posted:I've been a programmer and engineering manager in the games industry for 15 years now. But this is my favorite reply so far: Confusion posted:Is he sure he wants to be a programmer ? A lot of game development actually has little to do with programming and is done by graphical artists and animators. Programmers mostly work on the infrastructure behind the game and not the stuff you actually see. Make sure he finds out what he actually likes because they are vastly different career trajectories. This reply is so good because it addresses the fact that most people think "game programmers make games", which is far from accurate.  What, specifically, does your son want to do? What does "I want to make games" mean? Does he like the idea of making decisions about game mechanics and progression and figuring out what the actual game play will involve (game design/scripting)? Or does he like the idea of making game levels and what the world will look like as you progress through it (environment art)? Or perhaps he just thinks game weapons are cool, or characters, or enemy/monster design (game art/modelling/animation)? Or does he actually, truly, want to write game code (game programming, which could potentially involve UI, rendering, AI, physics, sound, networking, or a host of other specialties)? All of these choices lead to different careers. While all of these people might work together in the same building, they all got where they are through different paths. As others have said, if he really, really wants to do this, and is turned on by the idea and enjoys the work, there's not necessarily a need for formal education for many of these jobs--you can build a portfolio on your own which, if it's good enough, will get you hired regardless of education (it's what I did--I have two psych degrees  ). If he does, for sure, want to do the actual programming bit of game development, then that will probably require an actual degree, only because "teach yourself programming" is, IMO, much more of a challenge than, say, art or level design.And yeah, if he goes for an actual programming degree, it's wiser to get it from a non-game-specialized school. Many of the specialized schools are godawful, and even the good ones are often overpriced and won't really give you anything game-specific that you couldn't pick up on your own easily enough.
|
#
¿
Jun 6, 2017 19:29
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 09:10 |
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:Isn't what you described as design a fast track to thinking of yourself as "The Idea Guy"? Again, no experience in the game industry, but I would think someone wanting to do that should have a solid background in one of the other aspects. I would say the programming to disabuse them of the "just a couple of lines of code" idea, but I'm sure artists and animators would have counterarguments. Heh. I can see how it could be interpreted that way, so thanks for the push to clarify. Yes, all our "idea guys (and gals)" have at least a solid background in level design or some variety of scripting language, or both. In other words, the gameplay/game mechanics job I had in mind in my post is not about giving your ideas to someone else, but making your ideas into reality via your own skills (and dealing with playtests, criticism, and pushback from both above and below, which painfully morphs your original creation into something that hopefully ends up shipping).If someone ends up being that stereotypical "Idea Guy" who dictates what to do, that's usually the result of a hell of a lot of years of hard work and a fair dose of luck, and the good ones are in there elbow-deep every day even though they don't have to be.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 7, 2017 05:13
|
|
|
jre posted:That's not what ideas guy means. Edit: Actually never mind. I'm not going to derail the thread arguing semantics. No one gives a poo poo. Either contribute advice for the OP or gently caress off. aas Bandit fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Jun 8, 2017 |
|
#
¿
Jun 8, 2017 03:42
|
|