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What Are the Advantages/Disadvantages of Game Schools?
GameCareerGuide has up an article looking at the pros and cons of going to a 'game school'. There are a number of programs in schools across the country that now focus on game development, game design, and creating game art. Are they worth it? "First, and probably most importantly, game-specific schools do not typically offer a comprehensive undergraduate education. Some game programs, as well as art schools, will actually encourage young students to go elsewhere for their undergraduate education and return to game school for more advanced training. I've literally heard that out of the mouths of art school faculty: Go get your bachelor's degree at a traditional university, then come back and apply to art school after you've learned a little more about the world. And while it's true that not everyone is cut out for a traditional education in the humanities or sciences, many many people who initially fight it find it invaluable after the fact. "
You learn how to tighten up those graphics!
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Do you want to be a game programmer? Are you fucking insane?
Long hours. Low pay. Constant threat of unemployment. Lousy managers. Corrupt company owners. Hell on Earth.
A degree from a game school is like a degree from DeVry, except with less real-world applicability.
You won't find Digipen grads running game companies. You'll find them slaving away for lousy managers and corrupt bosses. Get a business degree and hire a bunch of coders to write your game. Hell, pitch in whenever you have the chance. Whatever you do, don't waste your time trying to be a game developer.
Advantage: You prove you're an idiot without having to say a word.
Disadvantage: No one in their right mind will ever hire you.
I have nothing to say.
Game development programmes aren't really treated all that seriously by any of the developers I've worked for. It might help in addition to a degree in a related field but, real world experience will serve you a lot better.
Get a 4-year degree with a piece of paper. It really does mean something, even if you go on to do nothing with it. For example, if you want in to a game school, get a degree in CS or math or something halfway relevant and then do it.
If your sector of work ever fails, that degree shows a potential employer in another field a few things: first that you stuck something out for four years (which, in a volatile game industry, you may not have the chance to do, or may not choose to do in order to 'get ahead'). Secondly it gives you a well-rounded foundation. You learn as much in class as you do out of class in the social interactions between your classmates and the dynamics of the university, even if you live off campus.
In short, an accredited piece of paper means a lot, and not just in your field. Go for it!
FTB: I've literally heard that out of the mouths of art school faculty: Go get your bachelor's degree at a traditional university, then come back and apply to art school after you've learned a little more about the world.
It's actually surprising for me to see this and I think it puts the gaming schools in a much better light than I had put them in earlier.
I've got a near-16 year old nephew who seems to think that he can skirt around the parameters of traditional education and still come out on top working in the gaming field. I can't blame him though... I also have a brother who doesn't seem to know that there is a not-so fine line between being a genius and being a little smarter then most kids of the same age but being a lazy unmotivated slob. He's all too convinced that things will fall together when they need to. If only he knew that these things needed to start to fall together a few years ago.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
instead of 85% of your college buddies being addicted to WoW, it will be more like 99%!
sigs... don't talk to me about sigs....
Con: They're an obvious attempt to get money from that demographic distinguished by having considerably more disposable income than most.
Pro: Open your own such school to cash in on the phenomenon.
I would figure out what happens if you don't want to program games anymore. Will it help you in anything else you want to do? If you have a CS degree (as an example) and don't want to do CS related things, the CS degree still shows that you have skills in logic/math/theories/etc. and can easily be used in other places.
Pay is roughly 1/2 to 2/3rds of what it would be in an easier 'corporate' job with shorter hours.
Game degree won't help you get another type of job, while the converse isn't true for a regular degree - regular degree is just more flexible, you can do either if at some point in the future you change your mind about your life priorities (often happens, marriage, children, or just plain age...).
Not saying it's a deal breaker, just saying it's a real consideration.
is competition good, or is duplication of effort bad?
A random idea and a sack of money will get you a lot further than the people with great ideas lots of experience and no money. And I'm not saying this to be flippant, they are called executives and in large part they are running the industry.
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
Look, most people who want to code games are gamers. They're young, have little motivation to learn hard topics (by hard I mean solid, such as advanced math and sciences, not necessarily difficult). Heck, many have little motiviation to do anything but play games. They're good at them, and think they can do a better job. They are also enticed by shortcuts. I have bad news for those people:
There are no reliable shortcuts in life.
Okay, just to clairfy - dropping out of college and starting a multi-billion dollar company is possible, but not probably. You'd be better off playing the lotto - that doesn't require as much work, and gets you similar odds*. Being successful means knowing _all_ the things than nobody else takes the time to learn. Anybody can learn the fun stuff, the really successful people know the un-fun stuff and that's what gives them an edge against the fun-stuff-only people. Just in case is isn't clear yet, in this industry there are no points awarded for being able to play your video game well.
*playing the 146M:1 powerball lotto twice a week for 5 years gets you to 280k:1 chance to win a comfy retirement (typically $10M-100M lump sum payout). There are 300M people in the US, so there would need to be over 1000 college-drop-out 8-figure CEOs that invested less than $1000 and 15 minutes a week in their business to make the lotto a worse option.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Hell, I went to public *regular* school, and I'm still trying to figure out what the advantages of *that* were.
I attend UCF, about 5 miles up the road. We're one of the biggest universities in the country, so we really dwarf Full Sail, but the proximity affords us a nice bunch of gamers to pick on for the local LAN centers. "Stick to making these things," is effective trash-talk.
If your development house of choice wouldn't hire you sans "degree" from one of these places, they're not likely to hire you with one either. Most of these places are to games what the "Guitar Institute of Technology" is to music.
You do realize displays of improper probability examples will invalidate your entire post right?
Allow me to preface this by saying that some people who are motivated can go to these schools, absorb the knowledge around, and end up doing very well. These people work hard and get the most out of the school they are paying for.
Now that that is out of the way, for everyone else, they will end up having their 'gaming college' amount to little more than time served at a school. I have attended these schools which turned into a game school while I was there (CIS/CSC for me). TFA points out some truths, but I only want to focus on something that afflicts many technology focused schools, but game design programs even more.
These kids are lazy. Your average game degree student has a basic knowledge of computing principles, may have tried coding/art, and is immersed in geek/nerd culture/lifestyle. They go to school only with an interest in games, thinking they want to do what they love. I will always support that, but you have to back up your passion for games with a passion to make games for a living and most completely lack the latter. Countless students attended class for a couple semesters and once the coding or advanced modeling classes came around, the classes were empty. These students elected to miss class to play games all the time. They have gaming machines on campus where you can play games on break. I would constantly find kids who should be in the class I was attending on these machines.
Anything of worth for these students meant little to them. They think they can go to school, learn how to draft a Game Design Doc and send that off to publishers and then wait for the call where someone offers them millions to create their game.
Color me a troll, but these students were lazy and had no ambition to actually do or learn anything. They were generally delusional about what working in the game industry entailed and the staff at the school did little to educate them.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
This is a slightly off-topic response, but relevant to the commentary I've read so far:
When I was 14, I wanted to be a game developer. This was 15 years ago during the 8-bit/16-bit era where things were much more simple. I'd written a few sprite-based proof-of-concept "games" and it was fun. I didn't bank my future on it though. I'd say that there is/was some value in what I DID learn on my own to get where I am now. I don't think that these diplomma mills who are cashing in on unwitting youths is a help, but I do not see the need of discouraging kids who want to pick up a hobby on their summer vacations and learning the basics of how coding works. All this "useless" knowledge ended up being applied in the real world. Simple boolean logic, loops, variables, etc are all good skills to possess and are pretty much a requirement in the corporate world to some degree. Take your run-of-the-mill Excel junky, any kid out there could probably write the macros and VBA behind it.
At the age of 29, any sort of desire to become a game developer has left my, but I've retained relevant skills that I learned from countless days of programming over the summer and having fun learning. Maybe that's a deviation from the norm, but when you can learn something and have fun because it's a hobby and apply it to a "real job" later in life, I don't see that as a bad thing.
Break's over, I've got to get back to tightening up the macros on Workbook 3.
Sure, there are PLENTY of kids who came to the school because they thought if they played game, they could make them and end up dropping out or unemployed. But I saw the same things when I was going for a C.S. degree at a "traditional" college, and anyone who's been to any type of college will tell you there are people who join that major who have the wrong expectations and should not be there.
Im not going to defend all "game schools", but I think it's unfair to put a blanket dismissal to all of them. If you find a good one (make sure they aren't just taking your money) and take it seriously, you can learn skills that will apply directly to getting a job. I have many friends with C.S. and other degrees from nice universities and state schools that have no real-world applicable knowledge.
In short, I have my degree from a "game school" and currently my major, "Visual & Game Programming", has a 100% hire rate among graduates - all employed at film (Pixar, ILM) or game companies (ArenaNet, Perpetual)
I have just finished a BA(Hons) in what is essentially game art development at a UK university. The games industry hires people based on portfolios, not qualifications, even programmers (I know very little about the programming side apart from a CS grad friend of mine who's going for gaming jobs) need demos quite often. Most game jobs apart from programming are art orientated, ie rigging, animating, modeling, texturing, environment /level design, audio. Artists are not hired because they have degrees, they are hired because they have great portfolios. My opinion is that game degrees really should be broken down into 3 categories: Game Design, Game Art, and Game Programming. Obviously some courses specialise more within these areas, ie graphics programming or animation but those are the 3 overall types you're likely to find listed.
The degree I was on was run by ex-games industry staff, all with years of experience and shipped titles, and plenty of firsthand knowledge of the way the game industry works and what game development is like. The problem is with game degrees is they simply are not going to be respected among non gaming employers (and among many gaming ones too) as a traditional academic degree in something like maths, business, CS etc. It'd be nice to think my games degree (I got a first)looked on paper as good as someone with a normal one, but im not kidding myself here.
As we know, not all degrees are created equal, and this is especially so with the current state of game degrees. Firstly, "game design" degrees are almost completely worthless(some many be more game art or game programming but use the "game design" tag mind you), most of them are run by academics with no industry experience or those with only a vauge sense of the realities of game development. The job "game designer" basically does not exist in a lot of companies, where the whole team either makes contributions to design or the leads of various departments take this job. Many companies have a lead designer, this is a postition you can apply for after maybe 4-5 years experience in some other part of development, probably more than 5 years though, or maybe an amazing career in QA. Either way, companies do not spend $5 million developing a game only to hand over the major design aspects of it to a graduate with a "game design" degree from a university whos lecturers haven't been near a game company.
Although I did a game degree myself, I expect it to count for nothing more than any other degree and probably a bit less in fact than if i'd have done a "proper" degree when looking for jobs at game companies. The adundance of shitty game degrees run by academics is still making a lot of developers suspicious of game degree grads despite the fact they're starting to hire quite a bit from the good courses out there.
Only do a game degree if you are 100% certain it's the only thing you're going to want to do and you have the willpower to make yourself employable in what is a very competetive industry. If you want to be a programmer, get a CS degree and try and specialise as much as possible in your modules/work in gaming orientated subjects ie pyhsics, gui, graphics etc. My uni has another game degree, a programming one, as I described earlier its run by academics with no games experience and is total shite - apparently they only learn C++ in the final year and its all java up till then (stop crying, now). Also, just because it's a good uni may not mean the course itself is any good. The quality of degrees varies massively within universities themselves, find out as much about the degree, what you'll learn, and who will be teaching you as you possibly can. Try and find graduates from the degree on forums / using some decent googling to see if any of them ended up actually working in the game industry.
Don't bother with game design degrees at all, no one hires game designers without experience, and most certainly no one hires game designers because they have "game design" degrees. If they did, it's be
I went to DigiPen and came out a pretty damn good programmer if I must say so. :) Most of the people I went to school with and whom graduated are all at least "good" programmers, and most of them have jobs in the games industry. The ones that don't have jobs in the games industry have jobs at Microsoft or other non-game programming positions, mostly because they pay so much better. (Microsoft pays about $85k entry level for non-game positions, whereas typical game programmer pay in Seattle starts around $40k) Personally I'd rather be doing what I like, and once you ship your first game title you generally get a nice pay raise.
Schools other than DigiPen are probably good to, I work with a guy who helps out at Fullsail and he seems to like those guys. At DigiPen we always had a rivalry for Fullsail because of their crappy advertising and for how much they push game DESIGN, rather than DEVELOPMENT. DigiPen has very little in the ways of design, and I would actually recommend against any 'gamer' school if you want to be a designer. You'll probably be better off getting a regular bachelors in something like literature or maybe an art degree, in my opinion.
-Bill
*sigh* I hate when these threads show up. It always means I need to write long-winded rebuttals to people who don't understand that there are real gaming schools out there other than "Tighten Up The Graphics On Level 3" University.
I went to Full Sail for Game Development (programming), graduated with my bachelor's in 21 months. I'm currently working as a programmer for Volition, Inc. We also have grads from Digipen and Guild Hall working here.
The biggest thing to remember about a game school is this: a school doesn't teach you anything, it allows you to learn. If you don't put in the effort, you'll get nothing out of it. The people that got the most out of a game school, like myself, were working on side projects throughout their time at school. If you aren't motivated while in school to work on games, and don't take time to learn outside of school, then a game school isn't for you. Period.
Is it harder to get a job outside of games with a game degree? That depends. I went for programming, and I know that I am significantly more qualified for a non-game programming job now than I was before I went. That being said, there are still a lot of people out there who think all game schools are a joke, because they've only met the game school failures, or think all game schools are like the fly-by-night universities they see advertised on TV.
Full Sail's Game Development program not only has gaming-centric classes like Game Design Fundamentals, where you learn to write a design doc, and DirectX, but also calculus, linear algebra, and a mythology class. You learn what you would at a normal school, but what makes them great classes is that they're tailored towards games. In linear algebra, the focus is on matrices and matrix math. In our psychology class, some time is devoted to color theory and how different cultures perceive the meaning of colors.
Really, the bottom line is that if you are 100% sure you want to go into games, and you have the motivation to put in 80 hour weeks for months in school between side projects, classes, and school projects, a game school *may* be a good choice for you. Don't discount a good school just because its emphasis is on games.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
Basically for 2 big reasons:
First and formost, what is computer graphics? Hell, what is any programming? Right. Math. Applied math, but what it boils down to is simply that. Trignometry, matrix calculation, theory. I've actually taken a look at DigiPen, someone I know went there and is now slaving aw... I mean, working at a game company. What did he learn? Basically the same I did. Plus tons of physics and game design, which I lack. Granted. Should I want my way into the game world (so far I managed to retain some sanity), I think it should be trivial to get what's missing from a course or two at our university. Yes, without credits, but most likely they'll want to see some kind of work from me anyway. I.e. sitting down and writing something.
And second, imagine you find out that making games isn't even a percent as much fun as playing them (I did. I write games in my spare time). What then? No "serious" computer company will take your degree serious. Yes, game programming is amongst the most difficult tasks in the IT biz, you're working on the cutting edge of technology. Constantly. Learning new additions to HLSL, DX and OGL daily. Because you must, there ain't no such thing as a good game with technology from 5 years ago. You can get by with that in application development, but not in game dev. But still, it's seen as some kind of hobbyist programming amongst managers. HR managers, no less. But game development is a very special department in IT, and the skills you get there won't be easily applicable to other areas.
A normal bac or master in CS will give you approximately the same preparation for a job in game dev, plus it gives you an exit window if you should find out that working 12+ hours a day ain't what you're looking for.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"There are no reliable shortcuts in life."
Sorry, but this statement taken as universal "wisdom" for how to live LIFE in general is wrong. There are plenty of shortcuts for those with the means or cleverness to find them. Though this may not apply to educating oneself in something as complex as gamedesign, there are many shortcuts in life people frequently don't choose are are not aware of.
For instance: Live with your parents longer then your peers gives, and having the goal of dating during your 20's saves you enormous amounts of money.
I can't tell you how much money I've saved by rejecting "independence" culture, while others went out to get their own apartments and homes I was saving and investing that money. I'd like to see how well those that "love their independence" will do financially when they are 60+ years old. I'll be retiring well before 60 with what I've got going now.
As with any college, one plus of going to one is that recruiters visit them first. Right out of college you can't expect to placed in a high position, but when you are hired by a direct recruiter, it is generally at a better starting position than applying to the company directly. This is also due in part to ties between teachers and the companies. It is also fact that recruiters go to colleges first before making jog openings public. The next step is that recruiters go to places that provide the skills they need. I had recruiters from IBM and such come to my college. Game companies go to these game colleges. Lastly, I agree that a game college should be an extension of a regular education.
I've worked for two gaming companies now: one you never heard of and one you definitely have. Unfortunately I'm not in HR or a manager, so take what I say with a side of salt. Knowing people inside the game companies is your best bet, and sometimes gamer qualifications will enable this. In choosing your school, enquire about any affiliations with gaming companies, open days, etc. If long-term career safety is your thing, a traditional CS/IT degree is a better course, and ppl with those do get hired too. But if you do this, chose subjects that have potential application in gaming.
I tend to do interviews a lot at my company (a very large game company) for engineers, and here's some things I look at:
*Experience - The more the better. Someone who made a game at home I can look at before the interview and see how they code. Game experience is of course a plus and will get you more cred than the guy without it, but if you don't have any then you going out and working on a hobby game is a step above the other guy who has "likes games and dressing up like Final Fantasy" on his resume.
*Ability - You're going to do problems on the board. I like those better than just quizzing people on skills. Often its a design problem, because if you can code really well but someone else can't understand what the hell you did and has to debug it, that isn't so great. I'm interviewing more general programmer types though, so I'd imagine you'd get a more indepth interview on something like graphics.
*Education - Generally which piece of paper you have hanging on your wall at home isn't going to write code for me. Experience and ability are going to show me more than what diploma you have. Of course, we all have biases, so if your degree says MIT vs. some other guy who went to Joe Shmoe's School o' Gamin', I'm going for the MIT grad. That is, if you're both equal in the rest of the interview. I've hired from both backgrounds and found that its all down to the person. We've had guys from game schools blow away guys from top name schools, so its up to what you do once your foot is in the door.
Bottom line: What gets you hired is who you are and what you've done, not what school you went to.
..so I know from experience that with networking they can be good. My friends' classes consisted mainly of learning how to use software for modeling, drawing, etc. and relatively few were related to actual design or industry practices. It wasn't until senior year that any of them actually worked on a project as they would at a job.
The people who are successful are those who would do a lot outside of school no matter what they were studying in school. I made basic Quake mods in 6th grade with a friend, and can hold conversations with these students about tools and techniques just because I've been interested in games over the years.
Do I think my friends will do well in the game industry? Not all of them. The ones I believe in have a deep interest in, and knowledge of, games. But they still don't know the first damn thing about technology (e.g. shorting your motherboard is bad, how a URL works).
Over the course of several years, I've been in and out of the game development industry several times. I've had a chance to work for some of the best teams in the industry, the sort of teams that everyone wants to join and nobody wants to leave. And more importantly, I've spent a while talking to the people who actually make the hiring decisions for these teams. Sorry to post anonymously, but there's a bit of NDA stuff here.
It doesn't come down to "DigiPen is an instant hire" or "we roundfile all FullSail resumes". There's no easy in, but a "game school" isn't an automatic out either.
For artists (and I should preface this by saying that I don't have personal experience in this area) it's a plus. This is particularly true of modelers. Artists from game schools are likely to have actual, useful experience on industry-standard tools, and that's a major plus. Four-year universities often have the blind leading the blind in this area.
For programmers it's a definite minus. Digipen and FullSail grads that one development lead had interviewed consistently lacked the breadth of expertise that he was looking for. They were strong on some areas of graphics and some areas of AI, and weak nearly everywhere else. Given that the majority of programmers on a given team are not graphics programmers, the graphics-heavy education one gets from one of these places turns out to be limited preparation for the real world. If you have a degree from one of these places and are applying for a programming job, you'd better stress your breadth of personal experience in CS or you probably won't get an interview, at least at these places.
For designers.... heh. One thing I will say, is that a surprising number of the designers I know who started out doing design stuff, came from FullSail. For the upper echelon of design, though, pretty much everyone I know started out in different areas and transitioned to design. It's a tricky career to work your way up in, more who you know than what you know.
And that has what exactly to do with becoming a game designer?
It all depends on what your goals are, you can't just compare everything across the board. Success means very different things to different people.
Obviously, your goal is to retire as early as possible, and you've found short cuts that work for you to meet that end. Other people might have a similar goal, but put a higher weight on getting there independently.
Other people might just want to write games.
There are millions of goals out there. Don't treat everyone like they should only live for your goals.
No Comment.
I teach game design at different schools all over the world, and at different kinds of programs from MIT to DeVry to Full Sail. I've also written a book about getting a job in the game industry, although as it came out in 2003, it's a bit out of date now.
There is a LOT to know about game development and the more you know, the more employable you will be. (To get hired also requires some talent and a portfolio, however.) There's no question that game development is a legitimate BA or BS or MA subject these days. Game programs are a good thing and the industry needs them, or it'll have to teach people on the job, which is costly and wasteful. Bedroom coding isn't enough experience when you're working on a team of 50 with $10 million on the line.
The real question is, what else can you bring to the table? There are zillions of young coders who have been hardcore gamers all their lives, but have nothing else to make an employer sit up and take notice. As an employer I want somebody with interests that go beyond games, because the industry desperately needs new ideas and well-educated people. The reason so many games are derivative trash is that we're all ripping each other off instead of thinking up new ideas.
I strongly recommend that prospective game developers get a full, four-year degree (three-year in Europe), and study history, literature, art, music, film, geography, anthropology, architecture, industrial design, ergonomics, physics, theater, dance, costume design, and probably half a dozen other subjects that I can't think of at the moment, in addition to the core game development curriculum. Will Wright got some of the ideas for The Sims from the book A Pattern Language, about domestic architecture. It's all grist for the mill.
Dedicated game schools that can't offer their students this kind of diversity of education are doing them a disservice.
I piss off bigots.
If not, I doubt you will succeed in that industry.
The pay usually sucks, the deadlines are fierce, and there is no real job security.
Great game programmers seem to be drawn to the industry - there is no option (to them) of ever working in anything else, regardless of how well they would do outside the industry.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Yup, I wanted to be a game developer. Yup, plenty of people consider me to be at least partly insane, though that was the case long before I got the idea to be a game developer. In any event, insane beats stupid and reactionary.
If you want to make games, you can generally count on long hours, especially if you end up in a smaller company. You do overrate the threat of unemployment however. As for lousy managers and corrupt owners, do you really think things are that much better in other fields? Anyway, while things are improving with respect to Death March hours, there is still quite a way to go. And even then, I doubt Crunch will ever completely go away. This is not a job you will want to stay in if you cannot handle crunch time at all.
As I see it, if your inclined to be a game programmer, your probably not inclined to get a business degree for any reason anyway. As for the thought that you will not find Digipen Grad's running companies, That is not entirely accurate. I know of at least one that someone is trying to get off the ground. But this is not the early to mid 1990's any more. Starting a successful game company up is a damn hard thing to do regardless of education.
A game specific school will manage to do two things for you.
First, it will make you reasonably employable in the game industry. It will not guarantee employment, but it can get you in the door. You will learn how to write code, and you will learn about things typically important to game development, such as 3d math. What it will not do is cover things that are not directly applicable, like compiler theory. I probably would have benefited from learning about things like shell programming. Your employability after outside of game development. As for the rest of it, well, I graduated in 1999 from the last 2 year program in Vancouver. Things will have changed in the curriculum since then.
The second thing it will do is it will leave you with a bunch of classmates who are also in the game industry. This does not help when finding your first job, but it does help when you want to find your second job.
A traditional university education is still very much worth having, and in many instances will serve you better than a narrowly defined one. If I were considering my education options for game development today, I would probably take a University degree specific to game programming over a game specific school. While both make you employable, I think that the university degree will make it much easier if you need to obtain a work visa for a job.
END COMMUNICATION
I'm am working through a Video Game Design Professional Certification, through the High Technology Continuing Education Department at Austin Community College. The same dept that provides MCSE, Cisco and other professional and serious certifications. I also work as an IT guy at ACC, in a different dept, and I have a full bachelors in Studio Art from a serious 4 year university. I think video game design schools, programs and degrees are becoming more and more important. The industry is growing up and there needs to be some academicalization of the theories, practices and methods.
.....)(I am a damn fast learner and times, other PAs with full RTF degrees got fired befor I did, but i'm sure they were hired more often than I) So there are good and bad to each metods.
Like in Film and TV production, there is a big difference in going to a film school and/or getting and RTF degree and learning on the job. I did some film production, a few years back, just because I met the right producer at the right time, compared to the other PAs who were fresh out of RTF school, I had to do a lot of catching up and fast learning of commonly used terms and practices. Often other crew members, producers and directors were annoyed that they had to explain a simple concept to me(like what and Apple Box was
I think this is true in video game design too. There are a lot of studio directors/producers and execs that are demanding for a standardization of common and basic skills and knowledge. The Game Design Program at ACC, has nearly all the major players in the Austin Game Industry on the Board of Directors. All the teachers are local professionals, so the information they provide is straight from the industry, not from some poorly written book. I looked around at many different schools, including digipen, A&M vislab, Guildhall and Art Institute and besides already living in Austin, the ACC program looked the most promising,(cheaper, especially with employee class vouchers....)
Game Design Schools and Programs are important. But, you get what you put into it and a degree/piece of paper is not guarantee for employment, it just helps your chances. Helps you get into a specific design "mindset" for gaming and really, its just all about contacts. The people/teachers/professionals/students I have met is much more valuable that what I have learned, although it is nice to actually understand the mechanics and requirements that are needed, in order to seriously make a game. It's no longer 3 potheads in a garage, that can make a game, it takes a f-in army of people who understand their part and the whole process as well.
http://www.austincc.edu/techcert/Video_Games.html
-Twitchings
He said in ** LIFE ** there were no shortcuts. Which is total bullshit. There are plenty, the poster made it clear what statement he was focusing on.
"You either spend a huge amount of developing your craft or you don't."
Yup, and we hate it when people don't respect that fact.
Does anyone have any experience with the Guildhall? It's a game school / computer science-ish program at SMU, a reputable university in Dallas.
http://guildhall.smu.edu/about/program.htm
Maybe that would be a good solution to your dilemma, although the tuition bill looks a little hefty.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
I think having an accredited degree in CS or CompEng with a focus on game development (or graphics, or a double major in Literature, etc) cannot possibly be a bad thing. We're not really talking about that, though. We're talking about someone who is unable for some reason to succeed in a 4 year degree program in a small college or university setting. I think any trade school (ITT Tech, etc) is very limiting, and doesn't have much credibility in the marketplace.
It all really comes down to the following:
1. Your training gives you a foundation of knowledge to categorize and utilize new skills and tools.
2. The program that you complete has credibility in identifying and graduating successful candidates capable of learning and utilizing that foundation.
It's like what the USGA recently said when professional golfers complained about the difficulty of the US. Open tournament golf course. "We are not trying to frustrate the best golfers in the world. We are trying to identify them."
Advantages:
It's a game school! You are submersing yourself entirely into a video game development culture. You are nearly assured to be surrounding yourself with like-minded peers, and you'll probably have a lot of fun and creative output regardless of the quality of the teaching.
Disadvantages:
You gotta pay for it, in both time and money.
If you are really into video games and really want to become a designer, consider these two options. Option one, you attend a video game school and enjoy the above advantages. If you don't learn everything you want to know, there will be other ways to do so. Option two, you get a traditional education with what you think is going to make yourself the most money. You may very well end up hanging out with a bunch of people who don't even like video games, let alone want to create them, and before you know it you too begin to lose interest, and ultimately, you lose your motivation.
You don't have to attend a silly game school to make games, but I'm a big believer in pursuing your interests thoroughly lest they fade away. If your way of doing this is going to a game school, go for it. As a game publisher, who would you hire? A non-gaming corporate code monkey who just happens to have the necessary skills, or someone who has immersed themselves in game design culture and taken the initiative to educate themselves about it?
I am in charge of hiring at a video game developer and am a little suspicious of the game schools for anybody other than artists. For programmers I'd rather see a CS degree; the most valuable programmers I have seen have strong math backgrounds and I never suspect that a top math education is going to come out of a gaming school. Possibly I am wrong, but looking at a math degree from a state school means something specific, whereas for a game degree I always wonder what they really studied that whole time. For artists, all I really care about is their portfolio and reel and I don't care if they went to school at all. (Of course, the school might be necessary to master Max or Maya so that the reel can look great in the first place.) Sound guys and musicians, same comment applies as to artists. Designer resumes I distrust completely no matter where you went to school. Be a programmer who shifts over to being a designer if you insist on suffering for your art. Producers ... hmm ... unfortunately most associate producer (AP) candidates are lead testers so they have a lot of knowledge about games and how to test them, but nothing about project management. An undergrad degree doesn't teach anything about project management, either. So, good luck on that one.
I'm currently attending a liberal arts college, but with a major in Computer Science. The general requirements are balanced, but I still take lots of CS courses. Would a master's at a game school (say DigiPen for example) be a good choice after college? or would it be a waste of time and money for a piece of paper? Can anyone in a similar type of situation comment on this?
One thing worth pointing out is that a university degree does carry more weight under most work visa programs. This may not matter if you have no intention of working over seas. But if your not an American, getting into the US is much easier if you have a proper university degree. Last time I checked, it was something like University + 3 years work experience vs 12 years work experience without University.
END COMMUNICATION
This is EXACTLY the case. You get people who don't know anything about gaming teaching how to make games. You get no solid foundation in any aspect of creating a game, just generalizations. The only advantage to game schools is the cash they bring in for the phonies operating them. I've known people who have gone to these schools and nothing great has come out of it for them. They end up going back to the hard stuff and the basics. (math, CS, strict 3D modeling/art) And if they were so great, why all the ads? Those are just there to convince you to spend your money there in the first place. Everyone who knows anything about videogames or wants to make them seriously would do a little bit of research on their own I imagine.
This rather famous drop out warns against game schools.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Look, most people who want to code games are gamers. They're young, have little motivation to learn hard topics (by hard I mean solid, such as advanced math and sciences, not necessarily difficult). Heck, many have little motivation to do anything but play games.
I don't know about that correlation. 100% of the CS who graduated with me were medium to hardcore gamers. Myself included. Almost the entirety of the last 2 generations are gamers of some form so you correlation is very poor.
Gamers tend to have obsessive focus on things that interests them. They make ideal workers if they can find a field they are interested in. When I code something interesting the time passes just as if I was playing warcraft 3. It helps to have that ability to focus.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
You've mixed up the correlation. I didn't say that most gamers want to code games, I said most people drawn to code games are gamers. When you're young and don't have to pay bills you want to do what yo udo for fun. I'm saying that many gamers don't realize that the reality is more than being good at games.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
There are no reliable shortcuts.
There are reliable ways to _delay_ success. The fact that many people manage to follow some or all of the delayed paths does not make the direct route a shortcut. Reading all of Azimov's books instead of going to college is not going to make you a robotics engineer any faster, no matter how well you know the three laws. Dropping out of college to start your own business with an idea that will take over the software industry probably _isn't_ going to work, and you'll end up 30, in debt, with no base skills. Sure, you might be the next Bill Gates, but my money is on "broke and living in Mom's basement."
Oddly enough, the best "short cut" is to find something that is _both_ enjoyable (or at least tolerable) and relatively lucrative, live frugally, and learn to invest your savings wisely. None of which will get you your dream job making 7 figures for as long as you chose to work, but will get you to financial independence sooner. Then you can pursue your first love with no fear of putting food on the table.
In this case, if you really want to code games, go to the best "in the trenches" CS program you can find, be accepted into, and afford. Take art classes on the side. Program for "fun" as your personal hobby. Get a summer internship wherever you can be close to the game production environment - work for free if you have to. Don't do your job - do your job _right the first time_ and use the resources available at your job to learn every damned little thing you can. Make sure you know the technical stuff cold, and pick up marketing, personnel, management on the side. If you have two hours free at you job, don't surf - learn something new, or go back and do you last assignment better. Double check your work - every time - no spelling errors, no bugs. Learn a faster/better way than you did it the first time. Network - go to the bar, play golf, do the company stuff. All this will shave a couple of years off of the "normal" path, but only because you'll be doing all the work in a shorter time frame. Focus is a hard thing, but it's the only way to get to the end better.
Once you learn that it takes a certain amount of work to get to a point, you can decide how long it will take to get there given 24 hours in a day. Just don't leave any steps out - that usually leads to failure. Then again, you could just go buy that lottery ticket. It's a lot easier, and somebody's going to win it, right?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Look, most people who want to code games are gamers. They're young, have little motivation to learn hard topics (by hard I mean solid, such as advanced math and sciences, not necessarily difficult). Heck, many have little motivation to do anything but play games.
The correlation you implied was that gamers are lazy. Not that lazy people game but that gamers want to code games and they are lazy. My rebuttal was that the entire graduating class and 2 entire generation are gamers so it's difficult to say we're all lazy.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Just get a pure computing or maths degree. Don't waste your time on shoddy art schools - there's little chance of meeting a successful developer that way. Instead, form an ad-hoc company with some fellow like-minded students while getting your degree and start developing. Join the local industry association to meet developers and entrepreneurs, while focusing on your core skills at university. Use your university time to read all the old SIGGRAPH journals, or whichever topic in the game sphere takes your fancy. The tools for game design are identical to other software, it's all in the application of those concepts.
After having employed a programmer coming from a two year specialized game education I have the following experience:
The person knew a lot of special game-development related tricks and how to write vertex shaders, but was seriously lacking in basic programming knowledge. Turned out they had been working a lot in small groups making small computer games and demos under deadline to try out the techniques they were taught in the classes, indirectly encouraging sloppy coding and dirty hacks since their code never was reviewed by the teachers!
The result was very frustrating, although we were developing games we could never use the person for anything more complex than isolated tasks and often the result was a lot of goey code with a defective design, leading to all kinds of bugs. At the same time the person did not understand our needs and felt that he didn't get to do any fun development or use any of his fantastic tricks.
This might have been an isolated incident, but I've heard a few things from around the industry echoing the same problem, they learn fancy game-specific tricks and techniques but don't get enough of the basics.
I'm not a gamer, but am still a rabid programmer (though programming is just a puzzle game too ;)). I'm guessing there could be some correlation here. Game programmers aren't paid very well compared to other programmers, especially considering the work hours and conditions. So you may need to be pretty obsessive about gaming to put up with that for a long time.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Advantage: You get to meet people working in the industry and other people passionate about making games.
:)
Disadvantage: Most of the people in your class will be gamers who just want to play games and don't want to do any actual work.
I went to a game programming school and all the students who took their studies seriously now all have jobs related to games. Not all became programmers, some became level designers, and I work in QA. But the ones who actually tried did get good jobs
This shit cracks me up. I hardly doubt a degree at a game school in any way compares to a real CS or CSE degree. It may just be as worthless as majoring in Philosophy. At least if you major in Philosophy you'll run into some cute girls.
Sounds about as much fun as a LAN party sponsored by Taco Bell: A Smelly dude fest. I mean are these schools actually accredited? C'mon now, don't be a chump. Do yourself a favor get a real degree and check out nehe.gamedev.net.
I piss off bigots.
Thing is, you don't really fit the mold - you went to college. The OP wants to shortcut around college.
That said, it looks like there's a mod out there who disagrees with me, too, having modded down all three comments. Sore loser, I suspect.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?