http://game-engineering.blogspot.com/2008/08/difference-between-pros-and-amateurs.html
Do you need a college degree to get into the games industry?
No. But...
Is it helpful? Hmm. It might be helpful but definitely not required. I know a number of good programmers that don't have college degrees -- one is a programmer in the financial industry. Most dropped out, one left after a clerical error meant he had to take a year off. He spent that year working at a studio headed by one of the most-recognized names in game design.
Do you really want to work in the games industry anyway? It means long hours, with no creative input, and no job stability -- in exchange for working on games. Work is still work; you still have to show up every day and put in hours debugging someone else's code and working with poorly documented 3rd-party libraries.
I've left the games industry to be an indie developer, in my spare time. I have a day job in the normal tech industry, which pays much better, has more job stability, and requires fewer hours. No all-nighters, no all-weekenders, no six months of crunch time.
Greg Costikyan's article Death to the Games Industry brings up some important points about the iniquities in the industry -- as he does also on his blog. Hmm, in fact, his GDC rant is described as "on the iniquities of the game industry".
In short, the business of the games industry is set up so that the vast majority of the profit goes to publishers and company owners, and a vanishingly small amount goes to the line programmers, artists, designers, musicians, and writers. You'll never get rich by joining the game industry proper, nor are you likely to achieve much in the way of critical acclaim. The one-man shops from a decade or two ago have gone on to become famous studio heads, but except for the indie and mobile markets one person can't build a game by themselves. Even then you really want to contract out bits like art.
Getting into the industry requires either real job experience (doing something other than java crap for some defunct web startup) or an awesome portfolio. I recommend getting both. Get a non-games job in your field of interest and work on indie projects on the side. Indie distribution is growing, so it's becoming easier for someone to carve out a profitable and self-sustaining niche.
And that brings me to my point: get a college degree not because it will help you get your first job in the games industry, but because you probably don't want to spend your life as a nameless cog at a faceless international entertainment conglomerate. Maybe you'll do games for a few years and then want out. Or maybe you want to pursue this indie, spare-time route. If you're young and have free time that you'd otherwise give (for free) to a game company, spend it on your own pet project. You'll own it, it'll be a great resume addition when you do decide to move into the games industry, and hopefully the industry will grow to support indie games.
If you really do want to get a job in the games industry, then definitely prepare a serious demo. I talked about the big difference between pros and amateurs in a previous post; if you act like a pro when you're not yet in the industry, your application will be much more impressive.
College is not for preparing yourself to work in industry. Computer science is something academics and researchers do; programmers are more like engineers or craftsmen, not scientists. Go to college for the beer, being well-rounded, joining a fraternity, and meeting babes. For all that, it's definitely worth it.
Showing posts with label getting into the game industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label getting into the game industry. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
The Difference Between Pros and Amateurs
I always thought I was a good programmer because, you know, Dunning-Kruger. When I got my first programming job we were using a language of which I only had academic knowledge, and I knew I was out of my depth. I spent many weekends reading and studying and trying stuff out on my own in order to get up to speed and learn everything I could about this "Object Oriented" stuff.
A few years later, I got into the games industry. At the time, I had been following John Carmack's .plan updates, reading books and forums, and trying out computer graphics stuff at home. I had demos and knowledge, but even then, I knew that I was "the new kid" in a company filled with industry amateurs. Whatever I already knew about C++ and assembly and computer graphics, I was working with people that had already been in the games industry for years.
Same thing when I got into C# and Web Services, and then with ASP.NET, etc etc.
The difference between pros and amateurs is that pros do it 40 hours a week.
When I was in the games industry proper, I was typically involved in the interviewing process. Many of the candidates that I spoke to had no prior industry experience, but had taken some classes at school, or done some stuff on the side.
The difference between a year working for a game company and a year taking a class is astronomical. A class is three hours a week of instruction, and maybe that again on a project or homework -- and that's just to learn the basics. And you get the summer off, and a few weeks for Winter break, and so on. A year working for a game company is 60 hours a week working on games -- whether that's art or code or design. Plus whatever books you read on the side (for me, easily more than I ever spent reading textbooks in school). Plus the side projects you work on when you're home. Plus meals and recreation time with other industry insiders.
If you want to get into the games industry, don't read blogs for hours every night and think you're learning. The agile manifesto applies here as well: you learn more by doing than by thinking. Thinking through stuff is great, researching is fine, but there's no substitute for getting your hands dirty.
I remember Dave Sim (of Cerebus fame) saying something along the lines of "every artist has 3000 bad pages in him before he'll draw any good pages." Pretty much everything is like that. Sure, you play Guitar Hero on the weekends, but are you a guitarist? Hah, no-one really thinks that. It takes a couple years of practice before anyone would be willing to pay to hear you play. Art is the same way -- remember those art geeks back in high school? Some of them were pretty good. Not, like, professional good, but pretty damn good for high school students. It takes a lot of effort to get good at something. Games are, of course, the same as everything else!
I'm working on a few WinForms apps on the side, and building them has taught me far better than books. Books are great; they're a leg up. They point you in the right direction. But when you need to do something, having experience under your belt is a much better resource than a book. Some books are better than others in this regard. The Wrox ASP.NET 2.0 Problem - Design - Solution book is great, because you do something useful by following the examples. Reading it is ok, but actually building the samples yourself is much better.
And again, compare that you building your own app. Consider what the professional developer is doing -- he has to get something working. He's on a deadline. He's got a boss looking over his shoulder. He's got a client to impress. He's spending forty hours a week getting his hands dirty.
Are you?
If you want to get into the games industry, then take it seriously. Make it your hobby. Build games, code tools, craft models, paint textures, construct levels. And not just on the weekends, and not after spending the day surfing the web, doing "research."
A few years later, I got into the games industry. At the time, I had been following John Carmack's .plan updates, reading books and forums, and trying out computer graphics stuff at home. I had demos and knowledge, but even then, I knew that I was "the new kid" in a company filled with industry amateurs. Whatever I already knew about C++ and assembly and computer graphics, I was working with people that had already been in the games industry for years.
Same thing when I got into C# and Web Services, and then with ASP.NET, etc etc.
The difference between pros and amateurs is that pros do it 40 hours a week.
When I was in the games industry proper, I was typically involved in the interviewing process. Many of the candidates that I spoke to had no prior industry experience, but had taken some classes at school, or done some stuff on the side.
The difference between a year working for a game company and a year taking a class is astronomical. A class is three hours a week of instruction, and maybe that again on a project or homework -- and that's just to learn the basics. And you get the summer off, and a few weeks for Winter break, and so on. A year working for a game company is 60 hours a week working on games -- whether that's art or code or design. Plus whatever books you read on the side (for me, easily more than I ever spent reading textbooks in school). Plus the side projects you work on when you're home. Plus meals and recreation time with other industry insiders.
If you want to get into the games industry, don't read blogs for hours every night and think you're learning. The agile manifesto applies here as well: you learn more by doing than by thinking. Thinking through stuff is great, researching is fine, but there's no substitute for getting your hands dirty.
I remember Dave Sim (of Cerebus fame) saying something along the lines of "every artist has 3000 bad pages in him before he'll draw any good pages." Pretty much everything is like that. Sure, you play Guitar Hero on the weekends, but are you a guitarist? Hah, no-one really thinks that. It takes a couple years of practice before anyone would be willing to pay to hear you play. Art is the same way -- remember those art geeks back in high school? Some of them were pretty good. Not, like, professional good, but pretty damn good for high school students. It takes a lot of effort to get good at something. Games are, of course, the same as everything else!
I'm working on a few WinForms apps on the side, and building them has taught me far better than books. Books are great; they're a leg up. They point you in the right direction. But when you need to do something, having experience under your belt is a much better resource than a book. Some books are better than others in this regard. The Wrox ASP.NET 2.0 Problem - Design - Solution book is great, because you do something useful by following the examples. Reading it is ok, but actually building the samples yourself is much better.
And again, compare that you building your own app. Consider what the professional developer is doing -- he has to get something working. He's on a deadline. He's got a boss looking over his shoulder. He's got a client to impress. He's spending forty hours a week getting his hands dirty.
Are you?
If you want to get into the games industry, then take it seriously. Make it your hobby. Build games, code tools, craft models, paint textures, construct levels. And not just on the weekends, and not after spending the day surfing the web, doing "research."
Friday, May 30, 2008
Working in the Games Industry
The lunch theme this week has been "so what was it like working in the games industry?"
Good and bad. Unstable. Underpaid.
Good and Bad
It's easy to guess the good parts: at the end of a day, you can point to a sprite, or a combat screen, or some AI, or a really cool-looking model and say "I did that!" It's great. But there's a lot of other great benefits, too. The office graffiti is professionally done. There's a Robotron machine in the breakroom. Your boss won't yell at you for having an action figure on your monitor. Or, heck, an army of action figures around your desk. In fact, he's got that 5000-piece Lego Star Destroyer taking up his.
Every job is a job. Some jobs have fun bits, but if it's all fun, they're probably not paying you. Sometimes you just don't feel like going to work, or working on something annoying, or having to do something embarrassing. There's going to be bad parts to any job. Some bosses suck, some coworkers are crazy, sometimes the deadlines will eat your soul.
Unstable
In Hollywood, everyone knows that they're out of a job when the project wraps. In the games industry, sometimes you know and sometimes you don't. Game development is very clearly project-based, but yet employment is mostly full-time. Sometimes your boss tells you that they'll keep things going but then he changes his mind and you're off looking for a new work when the publisher decides not to renew a contract. It's tough to predict that stuff, even on the inside.
Underpaid
There's a ton of people that want in the games industry. A good number of them are willing to put in the effort to get hired, too. And then, once in the industry, they get paid slave wages. Profit structures are generally set up that unless a game wildly exceeds expectations, there's no royalties to hand out. You're not going to get a bonus. At Microsoft, the secretaries became millionaires when the company went big. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have a feeling that most of the grunts at Blizzard got nice bonuses and a salary bump when WoW shipped, but I don't think they're all millionaires.
Game companies want young, single people that are willing to work 80 hours a week. You'll be on salary, of course, and exempt from overtime.
The Good, Part II
Making games is hella fun. It's full of intriguing puzzles. As long as you're not stuck churning out shovelware for some marketing tie-in, chances are you're developing a brand-new game from scratch. The "real world" pays a lot better, but money can't buy happiness. I have a much easier time getting out of bed on the weekends because I know I'll be working on my game project. Plus, I know that I will keep the profits if it does well. I'm working for myself and happy as a pre-colony-collapse-disorder bee.
Good and bad. Unstable. Underpaid.
Good and Bad
It's easy to guess the good parts: at the end of a day, you can point to a sprite, or a combat screen, or some AI, or a really cool-looking model and say "I did that!" It's great. But there's a lot of other great benefits, too. The office graffiti is professionally done. There's a Robotron machine in the breakroom. Your boss won't yell at you for having an action figure on your monitor. Or, heck, an army of action figures around your desk. In fact, he's got that 5000-piece Lego Star Destroyer taking up his.
Every job is a job. Some jobs have fun bits, but if it's all fun, they're probably not paying you. Sometimes you just don't feel like going to work, or working on something annoying, or having to do something embarrassing. There's going to be bad parts to any job. Some bosses suck, some coworkers are crazy, sometimes the deadlines will eat your soul.
Unstable
In Hollywood, everyone knows that they're out of a job when the project wraps. In the games industry, sometimes you know and sometimes you don't. Game development is very clearly project-based, but yet employment is mostly full-time. Sometimes your boss tells you that they'll keep things going but then he changes his mind and you're off looking for a new work when the publisher decides not to renew a contract. It's tough to predict that stuff, even on the inside.
Underpaid
There's a ton of people that want in the games industry. A good number of them are willing to put in the effort to get hired, too. And then, once in the industry, they get paid slave wages. Profit structures are generally set up that unless a game wildly exceeds expectations, there's no royalties to hand out. You're not going to get a bonus. At Microsoft, the secretaries became millionaires when the company went big. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have a feeling that most of the grunts at Blizzard got nice bonuses and a salary bump when WoW shipped, but I don't think they're all millionaires.
Game companies want young, single people that are willing to work 80 hours a week. You'll be on salary, of course, and exempt from overtime.
The Good, Part II
Making games is hella fun. It's full of intriguing puzzles. As long as you're not stuck churning out shovelware for some marketing tie-in, chances are you're developing a brand-new game from scratch. The "real world" pays a lot better, but money can't buy happiness. I have a much easier time getting out of bed on the weekends because I know I'll be working on my game project. Plus, I know that I will keep the profits if it does well. I'm working for myself and happy as a pre-colony-collapse-disorder bee.
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