Can we, without memeing, talk about what degree one should get to successfully get a career in the video game industry?
Have you ever worked in vidya? What degree do you have? Where did you get it?
I'm thinking DigiPen but I heard it's a meme?
>>329658170
Try their games http://games.digipen.edu/
If you want to make games like these, go there. If you want to make something else, go somewhere that does what you want.
>>329658298
>go there
First gotta' get in and I heard that's not joke either.
That being said I think those games look kinda'good. Still, I'm more hoping for someone who actually got into the industry on a prominent level through their education, you know?
a career in the video games industry simply doesn't require a degree, whether you want to code, be a 2d or 3d artist, there are 10000 free resources to learn proficiency in anything you want,
Just having a decent portfolio of your own work will get you noticed.
the only thing going to a meme school might do is give you [Spoiler] some inside connections [/Spoiler]
>>329658458
Great spoilers there friendo. That being said, you really think a great portfolio is all that's needed?
I heard that most game companies won't even pick up your resume unless you have something to back it up. Like at LEAST a BS.
>>329658170
>going to nintendo's devry
>video games
>career
I took game design at an Art Institute and then worked in QA for 7 years.
I'm a level designer on a AAA shooter now (hired as QA about a year ago and leveraged my foot in the door) so I guess it worked out.
Whatever you choose, never give up and never stop learning. I've been making my own games in my spare time (and failing at it desu) and was taking programming classes after work like 2 years ago.
I know people like me that moan about not being in the industry, or being stuck in QA... But very few of them do anything past the bare minimum.
It's a tough industry.
It all depends on what you want to do. Programming/modeling & animation/music/PR?
>>329658803
Where you work?
>>329658803
What exactly does a QA person do?
>>329658170
If you want to make games, the best way to go about it is to make games. Ameteur and professional engines are given away for free so there's no reason for you not to start.
Going to a university like Digipen is like spending $40/month to use the treadmill at the gym when you can easily run around outside for free.
If you need to go to a university to please your parents or some shit, go to a public university and major in computer science or digital media art, whichever you feel more affinity for.
Source: Graduate of computer engineering at a public university. Was part of game development club and seen many acquaintances leave and get successful game dev jobs. The ones who succeeded made a lot of shit on their own time outside of their studies and it impressed the companies.
>>329658963
Not gonna say.
>>329659060
At the basic level, you test builds of the game and write up bugs in a bug database. Programmers/artists/designers/etc. use your write ups as a basis for what needs to be fixed.
As you move up you start doing things like test planning, bug estimations (which impact the game's budget) and probably end up managing testers and looking at Excel more than actually testing. QA is definitely integral, but at the entry level you're cheap and disposable.
>>329659273
Being disposable isn't the worst thing you could be though, believe it or not. In the early stages of your career the more experience you get under your belt the better. Being kicked out isn't always the end of the world in my experience.
Source: got fired from my first 2 jobs and am working on a 3rd one now.
>>329659637
Yeah, I was fired for reals once and had to go crawling back to my old job. Turned out to be for the better in the end.
>>329659829
Getting fired hurts when it's a real "YOU'RE FUCKING FIRED" moment that you didn't expect, but honestly it's all about that sweet experience.
Having "3 months of internal testing" on your resume makes all the difference in the world. Just don't bring up how you left.
I've had friends who've developed depressions over less, but maybe their industries just don't deal well with it?
DigiPen graduate here. Working in the industry. Ask me anything.
>>329660308
Was it worth it?
>>329658170
>wanting to work in the "Video game industry"
Just make game, why ride the coattails of others?
>>329660374
Hmm.. yes I think so. The best thing that I got out of it so far was a large network of friends. Those friends got me my first job, which I still have. 2 years currently.
desu its a shit job, but I think I chose a shit degree. I wanted to defend it, but I'm not so sure.
Looking back if I had the tenacity to work on solo projects, learn game engines, and learn modeling programs on my own I would *probably* be better off, but its a pretty great ride going through it making lifelong friends.
>>329660535
What was your degree focus in? Doesn't Digipen only offer game design with emphasis in comp sci/digital media art, etc?
>>329660308
>>329660535
BAGD btw. If I was to do it all again, I'dve bucked up and went BSGD. PRogrammers are so much more useful. If you go BAGD, you better beef up your level design hardcore unless you want to go into testing on graduating.
I got semi lucky and got a design/producer job, but a t a mobile company for low pay.
go for programming and you're fucking set. Artists I dunno. I think thats a tough market too.
>>329658298
>checking out the list
>Narbacular Drop
So the Portal devs went to DigiPen.
...I don't know if that makes it more or less of a meme.
>>329660374
What'd you specialize in?
>>329660697
bagd, meaning bachelor of arts in game design.
they offer:
BFA - fine arts
RTIS - real time interactive strategy (hardcore programming - robots - machines)
BAGD - half game design, half art. Mostly GD
BSGD - basically half programming half game design. Mostly programming
Maybe more? I think they were adding some music or something I dont know.
I hate to use Undertale as an example but it's a fine example of why you don't need any bullshit degrees. That and FNaF. Both Toby and Scott made those games as a hobby and had no degrees,
Literally anyone can make a videogame.
Work hard, try your best to make something popular and then you'll have a good enough of a portfolio to go work for big companies.
But imagine too, you could spend all that time in a big time vidya company making some shitty rehash or you could try to make the next meme game on your own or in a small team and make it big.
Something to think about, anyway.
>>329660902
>fine arts
Rephrase. What does this mean?
>>329660878
at dp I was bagd, make a shitload of projects and some 3D maps.
They really force you to make a shitload of paper, electronic, all sorts of "games" both solo and in groups in a number of editors, in-house engines, and learn basic scripting.
To get ahead, you need to be self motivated and spend many nights, all night figuring shit out on your own. the teachers are all from the industry, which is good and bad - good because fresh knowledge, bad because they dont know how to teach necessarily.
>>329660902
>Was at Digipen when the Game Design side was being created
>Thought it would be a good idea to be part of the forefront
>Didn't have the Art/programming split
>Had to take art classes with the BFA guys and teachers that didn't know I had 0 art background
That was hell.
>>329658803
>7 years
Shit son, CS with shit grades and I got into vidya dev before even graduating.
>>329661006
its the hardcore art track - so if yo uwant to paint, digital model, 2D textures, enviro, pre-vis, etc thats for you.
you'll be drawing 50 pages a week in your sketchbook - this is no joke, and learn to traditionally animate disney style, likely from disney vets.
>>329661043
yep. I was in the very second semester, Ithink that the track even existed. Had to take a SHIT. LOAD. of hardcore art. That was... 6? 7? years ago now and I guess its changed - might not need all that fuckin art anymore.
I really wish I just learned programming..... bagd gave me a BUNCH of gen knowledge that no one in the industry wants - they want people with deep knoeledge in one area.
>>329661264
There are too many people on Earth. No one needs broad-skills, everyone needs to be a specialist.
>>329661264
Shit, we might have passed each other in the halls.
I was there around the same time.
Nothing hurt more for me than being tasked to draw a birdhouse for one of those 50 pages a week things, and finally drawing one that I was proud of after hours, only to go to class and see some art student with his buddies talking about hashing out a "shitty" drawing 20 minutes before and looking like the god damn Mona Lisa compared to mine.
Eventually I managed to draw a pink rubber duck.
And it was really fucking good.
>>329658170
I work for a game development company. We make games not for pc or consoles but for the casino gaming industry. We make both hardware and software. (It's pretty much the same hardware as a PS4 though).
I accidentally into psychology, but after I finished off that degree I finished off my second degree in computer science like a year and a half later because of cross credit.
I had to spend about a year afterwards being unemployed but then I got a job as a tester. That job was shit because the company was shit. Plus it was boring as fuck. Then as I was about to get fired because I had a problem with how much work load managment was putting on the testers, I applied for a job with a relatively small start up software/hardware company and got it two weeks later.
I didn't have an overly impressive portfolio but I have a trait where I am able to learn pretty fast and I was told that is why they hired me.
I sit next to our art director and let me tell you brother, you should get into gaming via art, cause he does jack shit for most of his day and still gets paid probably more than me.
>>329661407
birdhouse, hmm, yeah for me it was teapots. something like 50 pages, front and back, 10 teapots per page. all had to be unique.
it was kill me tier. especially for a non-artist such as myself.
>>329661407
what was your degree
>>329660826
Also: Tag, the power of Paint!
Which were the Portal 2 Devs.
>>329661772
RTIS into BSGD.
The design program came along in my 2nd year there and I jumped on board with a pretty fun group of friends.
>>329661481
Is that you Gloves John?
I'm an engineer on a mobile game, previously a quest designer on an MMO.
Game Design degrees are useless. Seriously.
If you want to be a designer you need to have a portfolio of games you actually worked on. That means either learn to code games, learn production and become a good manager, or get really into the tabletop/board game scene. I mean REALLY into it. Like becoming buddies with famous designers, following blogs, playing games at a competitive level, etc.
QA is not a way to get into the industry without relying on nepotism. Go to school, learn code or animation, team up with someone who knows the other, and build a game.
If you want cheat codes to get in to a rich company, studyStatistics,Graphics programming, andbusiness managementas those are rare skills in very high demand.
If that seems daunting, learn programming and as much math as you can. Crank out as many games as you can. Most can be bad, as long as you demonstrate you can teach yourself stuff and are proficient in a wide variety of languages and concepts (serialization, networking, AI, graphics, user experience).
>>329661931
Uhh no.
Gloves? That's a stupid name.
>>329662115
Nickname to a guy at dit, He did magic tricks with white gloves in the cafeteria.(Back when it was the 2nd floor of nintendo)
He went into Casino game design, and I know around 1/2 half of all the alumns from the last 10 years of so, so I run into them on the dit threads occasionally.
Make an indie game, get it on greenlight.
>>329662209
>All those people who would do nothing but play Magic in the cafeteria
I swear they didn't have classes or even go to the school.
>>329662071
>previously a quest designer on an MMO
Why do quests in MMOs suck so much? Why do you have waste so much time writing up text for every single one, then spam so many quests towards the player at once that they couldn't possibly give a fuck about what you wrote?
>>329662553
You probably knew me then. I was one of them.
Finished then went to MS
currently I do some game engine programming for MS and do recruiting, so I spend some time at dit anyways.
>>329662553
>>329662845
Also, not all of us went to the school, some were alumni already and just had access.
>>329662845
Oh neat.I had personal complications, went insane for a bit, and am now a NEET.
I just always found it funny that no matter the time of day or anything as I slaved away on code every time I walk by the cafeteria there were a group of people playing Magic.
Start making games or stuff for games until you're good enough to get paid for it.
That's it. However you decide to go about doing that is entirely up to you. If you have an easier time learning in a college environment, you can go with that; Just be sure not to fall into any feminists' giant, dried up, sandy vaginas while you're on campus.
>>329662692
In my case it was for a few reasons.
1. Design mandates. Players needed to earn N amount of XP for a quest line, but we're not allowed to change how much XP the quest gives, so we have to bump up kill quantities.
2. I joined the project late and wound up fixing zones that someone else designed. To be fair, one of the ones I worked on, the oldest, turned out really, Really good. Unfortunately what made it good (open, lots of stuff to find, a unique zone-wide mechanic) was ignored in the other zones.
3. Stupid writing rules like "Change euphemisms to refer to our fictional animals instead of real animals" and "No referring to landmarks, cardinal directions, or quantities of creatures/items in case it gets changed later". Changing any text was also a massive hassle because it had to get re-translated, and one of the designated writers needed to approve any alterations.
4. Wankery from the writers who need to ensure that all of their plot and setting points get pushed as hard as possible. Every line that gets written was touched by a writer, in some cases completely replacing it to make it more generic.
>>329663003
there were like 20 of us, so we had shifts.
I am dead serious. at any time 4-6 would be there, and we had a "Go work when the next player arrives mentality"
Basically when a 7th appeared, the someone would go out to code.
>>329663115
I designed levels and quests for a game once, and had full freedom. Shit was fun. One of the zones was a desert, but we didn't have many art assets for it yet, so I just used all the forest animals, with "Sand" prepended to their names.
>Sand bears! To arms!
>Look out! Sand wolves!
Bandits leapt down from cliffs with carefully timed choreography too. People loved it, too bad the game flopped.
>>329663547
What game, Amigo? Let's comiserate.
>>329663628
Studio's too small, I shouldn't say.
>>329662209
Never knew his nickname was gloves. Those twin brothers were a riot.
>>329663703
But if it flopped why worry?
>>329663769
Cause the studio still exists. Allow me my paranoia anon.
>>329663970
K. I feel you, brother.Orange County?
>>329664054
Nope, BC. There are actually a fair number of game devs in and around Vancouver and Victoria. Pay isn't stellar, but the people are really nice and I like living here.
Currently a student at a very small school in Seattle called The Academy of Interactive Entertainment. With a few friends from digipen and as well as sitting in to hear industry professionals give a small talk every Wednesday. I can definitely agree with what these posts are saying. Which if I were to outline in summary would be this.
1. Unlike traditional fields or employment, having a nice degree does not guarantee employment. Nor does having no degree guarantee being jobless.
2. Experience is king baby. In response to the previous point, especially if you are focusing in the art aspects. It is very impressive to be able to present something similar to what the studio is currently working on or has already finished. Proving that not only can you do the work they need but that you should be able to come into the company with ease.
3. One of these posts put it great, "Going to a university like Digipen is like spending $40/month to use the treadmill at the gym when you can easily run around outside for free." For myself I see my education as a more streamlined version of learning on my own. I totally could google every issue or tool I wanted to figure out how to use in order to become a successful artist. However being in class is like having someone else do all the googling for you and providing you a much easier to understand and useful version of some random Maya/3ds Max/Zbrush forum post from 2010.
4. Failure of your project is not a net loss. What I've garnered from a majority or our speakers as well as my instructors, supplemented by a few posts on here, is that just because your game may not even be published for a myriad of reasons. You still have work you can put in your portfolio which leads back to one of the previous points. Experience reigns supreme.
>>329658458 >>329661028
>>329658803 >>329661481
>>329662071 >>329659141
>>329659637
>>329659995
>>329660535
>>329664135
This post touches on something I don't hear too many people talk about, but that everyone notices. Some people will work almost for peanuts as long as the people they work with are awesome to be around with. Likewise the opposite is very true as well. After some rather heated examples of this in class, you probably couldn't pay people enough to work with others they hate. We had a speaker come in and honestly it sounded like they got a producer job at Bungie simply because they were a team player, and most importantly they were absolute an pleasure to be around.
So be nice, and try to fit in to your work environment. One of the best ways I can think to try to improve this, artisticly, is being able to take criticism very objectively. From my experience talking with a student from Digipen, they seem to drive at least this core skill into their brains very well.
Another DP student here, currently a senior BAGD. glad I'll be out soon because it genuinely seems like our program is getting worse.
Pros:
>BSGD/RTIS program (code classes are very good)
>has a pretty good reputation
>all the students share the same general interests
>lots of good opportunities to meet devs (keyword is "opportunities")
Cons:
>overpriced as shit, almost seems like the teachers are encouraged to fail you to keep you extra semesters. also, no transferable credits if you ever decide to leave
>BAGD isn't that good, partially because the classes suck and partially because 70% of the students enrolled in it think their opinion matters more than anything in the world. The other students hate the fuck out of us, and rightfully so
If you want to get in design specifically, I'd say put your money to better use. Learn to code (you don't need to be perfect if you want to do design primarily but it helps a lot to know), design and especially finish projects, find other people to work with on projects (preferably not over the internet), meet and befriend as many people as possible who have even faint connections to the industry, go to conventions (especially dev conventions like GDC) and meet developers there, and finally read stuff on Gamasutra or watch talks on the GDC portal. Sometimes you'll have to filter out the shit, but there are some useful talks on there. Find your specialty and get amazing at it.
I won't say DigiPen's useless, even for the BAGD class. It helped me a lot, though part of the reason for that is because I've spent most of my life creating and playing games already, so I already had a bit of perspective and was able to seek out the best opportunities for me. 90% of the people who come in as BAGDs will take everything the professors say at face value, which isn't always good to do for something like game design, and it's most of the reason they also teach you a bit of coding so you're not guaranteed to be useless once you're out.
>>329659141
Pretty much nails it. Though if you're a programmer you can easily pay off your loans in a few years. Anything else? 100k for a degree at digipen is absolutely insane.
>If you need to go to a university to please your parents or some shitI go to digipen and graduate in april.Funny part is that majority of the 'designers' and artists that go to digipen are those people.
I don't regret my decision of learning from digipen. I regret going to digipen for everything else. I'm absolutely disgusted on how the school attracts the biggest weirdos, sjw, and PC people.
>2012 a dozen people wearing pony shit, only one of them still goes and still wears his disgusting pony sweater
>trench coats on the rare sunny days
>dog collars
>cat tails
>cross dressers thinking they're actually women with a 5 oclock shadow
Generally speaking you should not go for a career in game development. The hours are shit, the pay is below-average, the benefits are worse and you can generally expect there to be a lot more drama or problems at work.
That said if you're willing to temper your expectations and know that you're likely never going to be the Big and Famous Designer Guy then you can go for a career. Me, I'm a Software Developer looking for my break into the industry because I'm much more interested in how software preservation works in video games compared to other industries. No one cares or remembers that shitty website you worked on, or how well you managed a database.
Games good or bad are released as-is (unless it's SaaS) and never really replaced. It's super hard to break into the industry though because very few companies are looking for junior engineers these days and there's a lot of junior engineers out there.
>>329660909
While these are good examples of small indie projects rising to great success. I think you would have to either be very good at predicting what the game-o-sphere wants to play and executing on it, or simply lucky. There are so many other projects that don't receive nearly as much attention even though in some cases they may be a better game than both FNAF or Undertale. I'd rather not perpetrate /v/ maymays, however this once I think it would be fair to call the success of those games a meme. Although what you've said about "literally anyone can make a game" still totally holds true though. I'm just trying to say that anyone looking to jump into the game industry should lower their bar of expectations.
Also how you explained your rise from indie studio, to triple AAA, back down to indie because of creative differences, is very similar to how a lot of our speakers explain they careers so far.
>>329665558
>>trench coats on the rare sunny days
>>cross dressers thinking they're actually women with a 5 oclock shadow
these especially
>>only one of them still goes and still wears his disgusting pony sweater
Pretty sure I know exactly who you're talking about. I've had maybe 2 interactions with him and he's just unbearable to be around. I hear he's got thousands of dollars worth of pony shit
That diversity club though.
>>329665447
>bagd
why
>>329666016
Man if I'm gonna be honest with youI'm a fucking terrible student and I probably would've failed out of any other program
Also because it seemed like the right choice at the time.
>>329660535
>networking
>>329666112
>I'm a fucking terrible
That's my opinion of most designers unfortunately
>bad studentme, I feel like shit in comparison to everyone else.
>>329666117
Networking does fucking wonders dude. I'm eternally glad to be an extrovert. You could be complete dogshit at whatever you do, but if you know enough people you could pull some ridiculous maneuvers.
>>329666117
I know some people hate it, but holy fuck I would have no idea how people would get a job without networking a little here and there. Also I one of the biggest stigmas surrounding it I feel is this perception of "going out of your way to be chummy." When in my experience its been "just go and talk to that dude who is working on that cool thing that interests you, and make sure to not to ask if he wants sum fuk." Just say hey to dudes to do cool shit, and that you can almost kinda to cool stuff too and that together you can do even more cooler shit.
>>329666314
Also this is very common
>>329666117
You are never, and I repeat NEVER going to get a job in the Software industries without networking. Part of the problem is that there's no good metric for figuring out if someone is a good developer or not and the other part is that 99% of hiring is handled by shitty resume-crawlers that trash resumes for the smallest things and HR people that have no clue what to ask about.
Networking allows you skip past all of that and get to the actual interview stage. Once you're there if you know your shit you will get hired.
Few students in here, thought I'd ask since I'm in the same boat.
What has been your experience interning at places? Also what are some mistakes you would warn others about not committing, as well as some pointers you would give someone knowing what you know now?
>>329666587
Pretty much this.
Networking isn't as hard as it seems though. If you don't have connections start as a tester and express interest, that's what I did.
>>329666603
I interned as a game content creator (twice), and as a web developer. Every time I was asked to stay longer. Honestly, just be a person people want to work with. Get shit done, be friendly. There really isn't much else to having a good internship.
As for getting one, have personal projects you can talk about. They don't even need to work as long as you have something to say about them. Anyone can list their course projects because everyone does them. People who do something else really stand out.
Just don't do data entry, it's shit and gives you no cred for other jobs.
>>329666450
>Also I one of the biggest stigmas surrounding it I feel is this perception of "going out of your way to be chummy." When in my experience its been "just go and talk to that dude who is working on that cool thing that interests you, and make sure to not to ask if he wants sum fuk." Just say hey to dudes to do cool shit, and that you can almost kinda to cool stuff too and that together you can do even more cooler shit.
This so much. You honestly don't even need to be that good at it, the industry is so full of introverts that they'll be interested in talking to you simply because you bothered to approach them.
Be memorable and be genuine. You don't even need to talk about game development. When you go to places like GDC or developer parties, most of the people are there looking to make friends and meet new people.
>>329666689
The hardest part of networking is actually living close to said events I find. Then again, I graduated from WWU and there's shit all for networking events in town.
>>329666603
I am the guy in this post >>329659141
I take my dog to a dog park nearly everyday. I started talking to this guy who came often and I eventually told him about the shit I did at school. Coincidentally he was looking to open an internship position in his department and asked if I was interested. After I gave him my resume, he invited me to his office, I talked with the site manager (which was basically my interview) then they sent me an acceptance letter a few days later.
I came back again as an intern the year after that, and the year I graduated they offered me a full time position.
Moral of the story, network. You never know the random encounters you will find.
As for tips at succeeding in an internship, always look for things you can be doing and don't screw around. Also make sure the internship positions you are applying for are right for you. Ask lots of questions when talking to people, it shows you are interested.
Hope that was more or less what you were looking for
>>329666603
Don't be afraid to ask questions or ask for help, but don't constantly pester people for advice or permission for everything. You need to strike a balance between independence and learning. After a few weeks or months you'll understand more about this and how your workplace interacts.
Get things done on time, communicate whether you are having problems or things are going well, be nice to others. If you have the time, stand up and talk to people you work with. In my experience, no one really works much in the mornings so this was the time to talk with my coworkers and look like we were doing something busy.
>>329658440
Places like digipen are better for meeting people in the industry and making connections more than anything else, the students have made good games and it sounded cool when I took a tour there, but its more for making connections than becoming a top tier programmer or artist. If you want to focus on those go to a school especially for that
>go to some art college
>they have 3D modeling/animation classes so i decide to visit
>everyone there is a fucking genius
are you even supposed to go there if you havent been practicing at home
>>329668458
Why shouldn't you already know how to do some of that? In a lot of fields like that the people who succeed are the ones who didn't learn the majority of their skills from school. The school was a polishing of their skills along with getting to study under "masters"
>>329668791
i was just under the impression that school is for learning stuff, not honing your skills
>>329668865
Depends on the major. That's not to say you can't have success from starting to learn a subject in school, but in creative fields typically the people have been doing this for years.
Don't give up hope.
>>329668865
game development is too competitive to just go to school and then get a job
you need to be either a good networker, talented or lucky
