I've worked for over five years in both the general computer software industry and in the games industry as a programmer.
I don't think the general computer software industry ever went through anything like this. This industry originated at universities and research institutions. The requirements are generally more detailed from the beginning and the planning is much more thorough and the management is better so there is less/no crunch time. Also, if a project is behind schedule, either more people are brought in (and used efficiently) or more time is added to the schedule.
I think the games industry will go through a phase where it will slow down and companies such as EA will begin to really study how to make the process of making games more efficient and look at how the rest of the software industry manages software projects. Games are becoming more and more expensive to create. So making a game which gets canceled or flops is very expensive and game companies are going to want to find a way to minimize these. Flops and cancellations will still happen though, that's just part of the industry.
Also, the pace of innovative games will slow down. We've already seen this in the industry. Most games are now sequels instead of new titles/genres.
What about Richard Garriott (a.k.a. Lord British) and the early Ultima series? Those had to have been some of the best RPGs of their time and gave birth to RPGs on the PC.
And I know Elite had a great impact on me, "An Apple 2 can do this?!?"
It's hard to get into because there are so many bad programmers out there. As a console programmer who used to work as a programmer outside of the games industry, I've seen that the video game companies do tend to screen harder for competent programmers. This doesn't mean that there aren't any bad games programmers, just fewer on average.
My recommendation would be to first keep up with game development web-sites, like gamasutra and flipcode (two of my favorites). Also, you should be able to demonstrate your interest in doing video games by having done some of your own at home.
Making video games comprises of several fields of expertise from a programmer's standpoint. Graphics, physics/collision, AI, tools, etc. You should know a little about each one and perhaps know alot about one of them.
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I've worked for over five years in both the general computer software industry and in the games industry as a programmer.
I don't think the general computer software industry ever went through anything like this. This industry originated at universities and research institutions. The requirements are generally more detailed from the beginning and the planning is much more thorough and the management is better so there is less/no crunch time. Also, if a project is behind schedule, either more people are brought in (and used efficiently) or more time is added to the schedule.
I think the games industry will go through a phase where it will slow down and companies such as EA will begin to really study how to make the process of making games more efficient and look at how the rest of the software industry manages software projects. Games are becoming more and more expensive to create. So making a game which gets canceled or flops is very expensive and game companies are going to want to find a way to minimize these. Flops and cancellations will still happen though, that's just part of the industry.
Also, the pace of innovative games will slow down. We've already seen this in the industry. Most games are now sequels instead of new titles/genres.
What about Richard Garriott (a.k.a. Lord British) and the early Ultima series? Those had to have been some of the best RPGs of their time and gave birth to RPGs on the PC.
And I know Elite had a great impact on me, "An Apple 2 can do this?!?"
It's hard to get into because there are so many bad programmers out there. As a console programmer who used to work as a programmer outside of the games industry, I've seen that the video game companies do tend to screen harder for competent programmers. This doesn't mean that there aren't any bad games programmers, just fewer on average.
My recommendation would be to first keep up with game development web-sites, like gamasutra and flipcode (two of my favorites). Also, you should be able to demonstrate your interest in doing video games by having done some of your own at home.
Making video games comprises of several fields of expertise from a programmer's standpoint. Graphics, physics/collision, AI, tools, etc. You should know a little about each one and perhaps know alot about one of them.