I would say to go get the Master's Degree. Simply because there is a lot of ignorant bias out-there about what it means to have a 'Game' degree. There are various reasons of course (and blame goes both ways). But it comes down to the fact that a 'game' degree is being portrayed as a 'fad'. As I remember when I was in full sail (and the person currently at this school will probably agree) for each good, talented person in that school, there are 20 fools that are just there for the glamour and self importance of a 'Game' degree...(Talk about a 'big chill' scenario if there is one)
These are the kids that apply to companies and give the rest of us a bad name because they think their crappy game that crashed once or twice is worth it in the industry. I honestly think that my degree was worth it in my case because I am continuing my education via research and development and complementing with CS and MS degrees while others... well, go become salary men. acquaintances of mine call me one or twice and complain to me about still being at the bottom at the food chain at their big triple A companies they work at.
Mostly it is because they know how to fix problems but do not know how to think up better ways on how to avoid getting into trouble to begin with.
I must say, I have been laughed at by the CS people when they take my degree at face value. But after a few days showing them my work and current research they stop doing it. Some even apologize.
To help getting your feet in the ground; in retrospect, I would basically fall back on the sciences. Right now the game degrees are being corrupted by the 'fad' and practical mentalities of a trade school. But just remember: almost more than a century ago, the status quo laughed at quantum mechanics as a serious field of study.
I am also a Computer Scientist that left Mexico. I partial offense on the statements about the border, the great majority of us love our country as much as people on the center/south parts of Mexico do, the thing is, that when we look out on our window we see an American Flag and Clean Streets, everything in its rightful place and job opportunities all just a few miles away... Although I do Agree with the statement about 'washing out' the Mexican status, some of it is done by shame about their home nation, and the shame they could not do anything about it. I actually understand their psyche on that level but I would not consider them Mexicans anymore. They are Americans and there should not be anything wrong with that. If The U.S. was next door to Europe we would see the same pattern emerge.
The comment about liking corruption is not really completely accurate. It is more related to liking a 'status quo' mentality that arises thanks to the national political noise. Thanks to a broken bureaucracy and biased system of laws, social and cultural burdens, Mexicans are left to their own devices to survive.
When a corrupt cop or official approaches you it uses Mexican laws and processes to make sure you comply in giving him a bribe.
For example I recently went to a open source conference in Mexico City when I mistakenly borrowed a vehicle that had an 'illegal tag', (In Mexico City you can only drive your car in certain days to curtail pollution and a broken transit system)
anyways I was stopped by a policeman and then I was told that I would go to jail and lose my vehicle because 'that is the law in Mexico' when I refused to pay him right there, another police car came in and also said the same thing. They made me leave my vehicle and made a big scene about how I was going to spend several days in jail (because supposedly the courts/bail bonds are off on weekends) since I am a stranger to Mexico City I got really scared (hey, I watched Red Corner:P ) and was forced to pay them a large amount just to get away from there.
Just like the above post said, The main problem is not really that we like corruption; is that instead of making something about it we have more pressing priorities such as well... 'living'. Now with the fact that we have a completely different ideology next door to Mexico you can only assume that many Mexicans hate their country because of the unfair comparison between a country that reached stability over a century ago with one that has not even reached 100 years since its last civil war.
I am also one of those people that would like to make a difference in my home country. I see a place that can be so much better if people really cared and be knowledgeable about changing it, but until more people actually roll up their sleeves and realize that change is more costly and worth while than their own self interest, we will see more of the same. An in the end, the tragedy will be regarded as the 'country whose people never grew up'.
Many regards to all
The best book on this matter is 'The Labyrinth of Solitude' (El laberinto de la soledad) imho the best book ever written about Mexico. (Written by Octavio Paz, who got the Nobel price in literature for this book)
yep, any long time OpenGL developer can tell you, Microsoft attempted to stall opengl with IP nonsense designed to get a slow government response.
Open(*) should kick out microsoft or any company without a clear plan for industry wide collaboration since there is a percieved (blatant) conflict of interest.
Patriot Act threatens the private data of citizens even if they don't live in the USA (repeat: non-Americans are at risk).
Tell that to us (Mexico) a u.s. intelligence branch, illegally obtained/purchased the entire Mexican voter registration database about a year ago.... still with that many infomation floating around i think they'l look at it till 2179:P
Your mistake is in limiting your market to mexico. There is no reason to do this and act like the big guys.
first, make sure there is no "region lock" on your games. Then, pick up someone who speaks reasonable english, to do translation of your stuff (and works cheap;-)>Then publish it world-wide.
Yeap. That is what im doing my US based education assures me to think in global terms, in fact, unicode might be my friend one day...:P
The real problem is see right now is with finding real game developers here; a need for considerable investment in training is very much a necesity before actually making games that are worthwhile... And since there is no 'respectable' educational institution in Mexico that would support this new industry everything is moving slower...
still, its moving..:)
you might be better off having downloadable distribution for the US as well as physical.
cheers! were also doing this, thank goodness im not that lost:P
Well here in mexico normal game development is cheap, unfortunatelly you have the quality -> education (not experience) factor: there is no game industry here and there is no educated game development personel so as a bisnessman u are obligated to get outside international talent; and that is expensive.
Reg salary for a coder in US is about 44 grand.... now pirate games here in mexico are about 10 buks a pop... the math just doesn't work; the only way we can get a game out is getting an engine and then making it work with our game in mexico; also the problem with competing with a 10 buk a pop market is that while they release and flood the markets with millions of free copies of gta or gt4 we struggle to make our game for a year and a half and w/o serious pr investment it will be forgotten way before its released.
I hope sony is not following sega's biz footsteps of loosing tons of money in an effort to theoretically control the market...
As far as an open console in concerned; that will never happen because it will destroy industry profits in the sense that now anyone can get in... the only one who would make money would be the hw vendors.
Slashdot Mirror
Im a graduate from Full Sail.
I would say to go get the Master's Degree. Simply because there is a lot of ignorant bias out-there about what it means to have a 'Game' degree. There are various reasons of course (and blame goes both ways). But it comes down to the fact that a 'game' degree is being portrayed as a 'fad'. As I remember when I was in full sail (and the person currently at this school will probably agree) for each good, talented person in that school, there are 20 fools that are just there for the glamour and self importance of a 'Game' degree...(Talk about a 'big chill' scenario if there is one)
These are the kids that apply to companies and give the rest of us a bad name because they think their crappy game that crashed once or twice is worth it in the industry. I honestly think that my degree was worth it in my case because I am continuing my education via research and development and complementing with CS and MS degrees while others... well, go become salary men. acquaintances of mine call me one or twice and complain to me about still being at the bottom at the food chain at their big triple A companies they work at.
Mostly it is because they know how to fix problems but do not know how to think up better ways on how to avoid getting into trouble to begin with.
I must say, I have been laughed at by the CS people when they take my degree at face value. But after a few days showing them my work and current research they stop doing it. Some even apologize.
To help getting your feet in the ground; in retrospect, I would basically fall back on the sciences. Right now the game degrees are being corrupted by the 'fad' and practical mentalities of a trade school. But just remember: almost more than a century ago, the status quo laughed at quantum mechanics as a serious field of study.
good luck to you.
I am also a Computer Scientist that left Mexico. I partial offense on the statements about the border, the great majority of us love our country as much as people on the center/south parts of Mexico do, the thing is, that when we look out on our window we see an American Flag and Clean Streets, everything in its rightful place and job opportunities all just a few miles away... Although I do Agree with the statement about 'washing out' the Mexican status, some of it is done by shame about their home nation, and the shame they could not do anything about it. I actually understand their psyche on that level but I would not consider them Mexicans anymore. They are Americans and there should not be anything wrong with that. If The U.S. was next door to Europe we would see the same pattern emerge. The comment about liking corruption is not really completely accurate. It is more related to liking a 'status quo' mentality that arises thanks to the national political noise. Thanks to a broken bureaucracy and biased system of laws, social and cultural burdens, Mexicans are left to their own devices to survive. When a corrupt cop or official approaches you it uses Mexican laws and processes to make sure you comply in giving him a bribe. For example I recently went to a open source conference in Mexico City when I mistakenly borrowed a vehicle that had an 'illegal tag', (In Mexico City you can only drive your car in certain days to curtail pollution and a broken transit system) anyways I was stopped by a policeman and then I was told that I would go to jail and lose my vehicle because 'that is the law in Mexico' when I refused to pay him right there, another police car came in and also said the same thing. They made me leave my vehicle and made a big scene about how I was going to spend several days in jail (because supposedly the courts/bail bonds are off on weekends) since I am a stranger to Mexico City I got really scared (hey, I watched Red Corner :P ) and was forced to pay them a large amount just to get away from there.
Just like the above post said, The main problem is not really that we like corruption; is that instead of making something about it we have more pressing priorities such as well... 'living'. Now with the fact that we have a completely different ideology next door to Mexico you can only assume that many Mexicans hate their country because of the unfair comparison between a country that reached stability over a century ago with one that has not even reached 100 years since its last civil war.
I am also one of those people that would like to make a difference in my home country. I see a place that can be so much better if people really cared and be knowledgeable about changing it, but until more people actually roll up their sleeves and realize that change is more costly and worth while than their own self interest, we will see more of the same. An in the end, the tragedy will be regarded as the 'country whose people never grew up'.
Many regards to all
The best book on this matter is 'The Labyrinth of Solitude' (El laberinto de la soledad) imho the best book ever written about Mexico. (Written by Octavio Paz, who got the Nobel price in literature for this book)
yep, any long time OpenGL developer can tell you, Microsoft attempted to stall opengl with IP nonsense designed to get a slow government response. Open(*) should kick out microsoft or any company without a clear plan for industry wide collaboration since there is a percieved (blatant) conflict of interest.
Your mistake is in limiting your market to mexico. There is no reason to do this and act like the big guys. ;-)>Then publish it world-wide.
:P
:)
:P
first, make sure there is no "region lock" on your games. Then, pick up someone who speaks reasonable english, to do translation of your stuff (and works cheap
Yeap. That is what im doing my US based education assures me to think in global terms, in fact, unicode might be my friend one day...
The real problem is see right now is with finding real game developers here; a need for considerable investment in training is very much a necesity before actually making games that are worthwhile... And since there is no 'respectable' educational institution in Mexico that would support this new industry everything is moving slower...
still, its moving..
you might be better off having downloadable distribution for the US as well as physical.
cheers! were also doing this, thank goodness im not that lost
Well here in mexico normal game development is cheap, unfortunatelly you have the quality -> education (not experience) factor: there is no game industry here and there is no educated game development personel so as a bisnessman u are obligated to get outside international talent; and that is expensive.
Reg salary for a coder in US is about 44 grand.... now pirate games here in mexico are about 10 buks a pop... the math just doesn't work; the only way we can get a game out is getting an engine and then making it work with our game in mexico; also the problem with competing with a 10 buk a pop market is that while they release and flood the markets with millions of free copies of gta or gt4 we struggle to make our game for a year and a half and w/o serious pr investment it will be forgotten way before its released.
I hope sony is not following sega's biz footsteps of loosing tons of money in an effort to theoretically control the market...
As far as an open console in concerned; that will never happen because it will destroy industry profits in the sense that now anyone can get in... the only one who would make money would be the hw vendors.