My 14-year-old nephew has decided he wants to become a game developer. He LOVES games (iOS, various web-based games, various game systems) and would like to be involved in creating them for a living.
I know he’s not alone in this dream, but he seems serious about finding out what he needs to do to fulfill this, possibly with information security as a sideline.
So, fellow Dopers: suggestions on things he should do, resources we should consult, camps, college programs, internships, clubs, other things I haven’t thought of?
Tell him to start learning programming ASAP. I recommend Python to start with, it’s a good language to learn on, and then possibly Java and of course C++. Books, books, classes in high school, and lots of practice.
Surprisingly, Game Maker is a fun, easy to use program that actually does include its own programming language as well and you can make pretty much as complex a game as you want with it.
I’m not a real programmer but I do enjoy making games here and there. It’s a LOT of work but it can be fun!
Years ago I hired a couple of interns from here: https://www.digipen.edu Very tough program - they had to be invited to come back each year.
(They had a strong background in game development - but they had a rigorous background in general CS as well. One ended up security, one is a game developer)
Actually, is he programming anything already? Most professional programmers started writing at least simple things far earlier than that.
Also, “game developer” really isn’t a single job, except for the smallest of small indie titles. Most games will have a number of programmers, of course, but also various sorts of artists, level designers (which in a sense are just another kind of artist), musicians and other sounds folks, writers (both of the overall story, and of small dialog snippets), voice actors, and on and on. There are a lot of things involved in game development that don’t involve any programming knowledge or skill at all.
Here’s the Game Development program at Durham College. It’s a three-year program. There are many specialties, which include several different kind of artist: level designer, gameplay designer, graphics artist, animator, programmer… These days, large-scale game development has a lot in common with moviemaking, and large game-development teams have about the same number of people as well. Including actors, videographers, writers, animators… It’s an expensive program as well.
I just graduated in December from The Art Institute of San Francisco’s Visual and Game Programming department. AI’s got campuses all over the states, although not all of them have degrees in game development and programming. So far, from my graduating class, two thirds of us have found jobs in the game industry already.
(By which I mean, of the three VGP students who graduated in the Winter of 2012, I’m the only one who’s still unemployed.) Overall, I found it to be a pretty good program, and would recommend it to anyone who was interested in gaming as a career. I learned a hell of a lot there, and I was going into the school with zero knowledge of programming.
I can’t recall any specific names, but if you browse the “parents who think way too much about college admissions” message boards, there are some extremely prestigious summer camps out there, and they are often no-cost. It is definitely worth looking in to. I agree that he should also be doing some hands on work right now.
To be soul-crushingly realistic, as you provide advice, keep in mind that games are today’s movies, and the work breaks down pretty similar. There are a lot of grunt work technical positions, and relatively few of the exciting creative positions. If he wants a grunt work position, he should start work ASAP to get technical skills, intern, and work in relevant capacities from as a young an age as possible. He can’t wait until he finishes his bachelor’s to get started. If he wants an exciting creative position, he either needs to go to a great school and work like mad to build his networks (because a lot is about who you know), or he needs to find a more marketable (most likely IT) skill and pursue it as a hobby indie developer. It’s also worth factoring in the effects of outsourcing. We are talking about an extremely saturated, “professional rock star” type of field here.
Of course, the time for this realism isn’t now. This is a time to help him explore, encourage him, and build his interests. The one thing I would do is steer him hard away from the “Learn to design todays hot games!” ads on TV, which are for for-profit schools that won’t give him anything valuable. I would also encourage him to choose a broader major in college. There is nothing you can do with a game design major that you can’t do with a broader major, and a broader major will give him a lot more options in life.
Lots of good-looking girls like watching movies and would like to make them. That doesn’t mean they’ll make good actresses. And even the ones that have the right look, talent, and acting skill STILL need an enormous amount of networking and luck to achieve that dream.
Analogously, any teenage boy can get good at playing games. That doesn’t mean he’s going to be worth a damn at *creating *games. There’s also the networking/luck factor. He’s going to have to learn how to program, starting yesterday, and get into a very prestigious school if he wants to make this happen. If he dedicates himself to becoming a rockstar programmer within the next 2 years, makes straight As in everything, gets amazing SAT/ACT scores, and is admitted into/can pay for a huge-name school? That’s a decent start, but still no guarantee. If he’s lacking in any of these departments, it’s a pipe dream.
I recommend having him make Flash games. You can learn how to make simple games quick and it will really give you a good indication of his desire. I’ve made some simple Flash games, and found, while it seems like a cool thing to do, it’s a lot of boring work.
I can’t imagine all the time it takes to make these really complex game.
You seem to have this bizarre idea that games programmers are intellectual superheroes who jizz quantum physics. I don’t know where you’re getting this stuff.
While it is certainly a lot of hard work (as preparing for any potential career is) there is no requirement that you be a straight-A student or get into “huge-name school” in order to work in the video game industry. Being from a prestigious school can help, of course, as it can in any career. There are non-degree vocational programs for higher-level design that are getting better and better. For the hard stuff, (game engines and such) more computer science knowledge is needed, and you’d be better off with a baccalaureate program in CS or even physics.
My little brother is a video game developer. He’s self taught (went back to community college for an AA later).
It pays pretty crappy. He works as an independent contractor, which seems to be the norms on even big name games. He might get paid a few thousand for a project. Apparently, getting paid at all is sometimes an iffy proposition.
No benefits, no insurance, he might clear $15K a year in a good year.
Not what I’d choose to do with my life, but he seems ok wit h it.
I’ve been making games for… jeez, 17 years now. I’ve got four employees- all of whom went to a game design college. They’ve also all got crushing student loan debt.
Honestly, we don’t really look at degrees. The only thing we care about is a portfolio. The single best way to get a job in the game industry is to make a game. Tell your nephew to get his hands on a decent editor- UnrealEd, Crytek, whatever- and just make stuff. After he’s done that for a while, he should put together a resume, post his demo/reel/samples on a website, and then start hitting up the studios for jobs. It won’t be easy. Headhunters help tremendously, but most won’t be interested in him until he’s got a game release or two under his belt.
The game industry can be really fun. It’s also very iffy- companies fold all the time. If he gets in, he should get used to the idea of lots of overtime and sudden layoffs. And unless he lives in one of the big game hubs- Austin, LA, Seattle- he will have to move for a job.
I love working in games. But it’s not for everyone.
Yes, being a game developer (in the broad sense covering everything from QA tester to “designer”) isn’t on par with being a Hollywood Actress. It’s like saying that you want to “work in movies.” That’s a pretty easy goal – there’s lots of companies and lots of movies and lots of positions that need filling. You could be a tools developer, a cameraman, a microphone holder, a set decorator, an animator and so on.
Now being a Game Designer, specifically, takes a lot of luck – and that’s assuming you don’t drop out of the industry out of frustration after being a QA tester for years hoping to hit the big leagues (there’s a reason studios go through QA testers like water: low pay, high frustration, high expectations, low mobility – on the plus side it doesn’t take much skill). Being a Game Programmer is a pretty messy ordeal too, since the programming for a game engine is somewhat different than the programming paradigms most CS and Software Engineering degrees are going to teach – but you’re not going to be the one relied upon for writing an air-tight optimized rendering pipeline for your first gig either.
When you said “game developer” my first thought wasn’t even computer games. It was board games and card games. Is he interested in that avenue? Because there’s a real market for creative people in that field.
So does my nephew. He’s a freshman at George Mason in Fairfax, Va. Before school last summer he declared he wanted to be a doctor; his parents promised him a new BMW if he became a doctor and that was his motivation. However, this past Christmas he announced he’s changed his mind and now wants to be a game developer. :smack:
To be fair, if your motivation for a career is getting a BMW, that may be a sign that the inner motivation wasn’t very strong to begin with… (Backed up by the fact that the parents were eager enough for him to be a doctor to promise a BMW in the first place; I wouldn’t be surprised if he said he wanted to be one initially just to please his parents.)
FWIW, I have two friends that work in EA’s Orlando studio (it used to be called Tiburon), one of whom is a lead level designer (the other is a sort of buyer who contracts with other developers to perform specific work). Both of them love it.