Best Education Path To Learn Video Game Programming?

Proudrooster writes "Fellow Slashdotters, I have transitioned to teaching and my students have asked me what is the best path to take to work in the video game programming industry. Which would be of more benefit: pursing a Computer Science degree or taking an accelerated program like those at FullSail? I have a CS degree, and suspect that the CS degree would be of more benefit in the long run, but I would like anyone in the industry to share their wisdom and experience with my students trying to follow in your footsteps. If you could recommend some programs in your replies it would be appreciated." A couple other questions that might help those students: what non-academic methods would you recommend to students looking for a career in the games industry? What projects and tools are good starting points for learning the ropes?

Comments

The first thing you need...

[sgbett]

...is a degree in living on bread and water from what I hear!

Lie to them

[IICV]

Seriously, lie to the little suckers. If they're asking about what the best way to become a video game programmer is, they probably haven't actually done anything besides play video games. Lie to them and tell them that a full CS degree is the only way to go, because if nothing else it gets their ass in college at which point hopefully the cluebat will strike and they'll figure out what they really want to do.

The ones who are actually going to become good game devs are already making maps, mods, skins or even full-on games with their pirated version of Creative Suite 5.7.whatever, so you don't need to worry about them.

Re:Oh boy

[zwei2stein]

In fact, if you really like developing games, you ought to take 8/5 corporate soul-crushing job (that will crush your soul much, much less) and just make games in your spare time (or at work during downtime) for fun.

Being full-time game devs is not any more glorious than producing yet another client address screen. It is easy to get excited by stuff like playing throught HL2 episodes with commentary on or by reading blog of some lead dev/indie dev/wanabee-dev-smartass, but kids should realize that they are not going to be the ones making interesting decidions and artfully crafting game but peons building someone elses vision under incredible time constraint. Each company only needs few people who say "At this point, we will add x to enforce dramatic tension.". Becoming one of them is unlikely.