Interesting article over at GameCareerGuide.com today called “Student Illusions about being a Game Designer”. Basically, the writer of this article wants to crush any possible illusion a game student might have with regards to what the game industry is really like. While reading through the article, I felt like the illusions he wrote about are really not for students but are more for the ill-informed public, or the clueless gamer who thinks game design is an easy career path of playing video games for the rest of their lives. As if that’s all game designers do. Then they find out the hard way, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. It takes a special type of person to succeed in such a competitive environment.
If you’re currently a student of Game Art & Design and you don’t know some of these things mentioned in the article, then you’re attending the wrong school. Take what you can from the experience, cancel that tuition check and get the hell out of dodge. The instructors and your school need to be telling you exactly what Dr. Lewis Pulsipher of Fayetteville Technical Community College in North Carolina has neatly laid out in this GameCareerGuide article. But I want to make a point real quick, you shouldn’t have to hear it from him, (unless of course you’re in his class) nor should you be hearing about it only on the internet. You need to be hearing this from your school. Yes, the school you’re paying thousands and thousands of dollars to attend, they should be giving this information to you on day one. (Preferably when you tour the school campus and before you give them your deposit) No misconceptions, no misrepresentation… they need to tell you the truth and this article lays it out quite nicely. Some of it seems like it should be common sense if you’ve gone as far as looking into possible schools to attend and some of his points are brutally honest. Which I always appreciate.
Let’s take a look at a few key points real quick:
They’ll play games all day on the job. It matters that they’re expert game players.
“Even game magazine editors cannot play all day. Playing games is important, but that’s not something you’ll do much on the job. Game playing expertise is virtually irrelevant.” –GCG.com
Exactly correct. I can tell you since I’ve started my journey into this industry, my video game playing time has dropped dramatically. But it’s fine with me because I also enjoy modeling just as much as playing a game. Sometimes even more so.
Getting a degree is going to get them a job.
“They can do just what’s in the curriculum, and without any additional effort, they will have 100% of what it takes to succeed. A degree differentiates you from the thousands who want to work in the industry but haven’t taken the time to do much about it.”“Still, students have to show what they can do, the degree alone doesn’t count for much yet. That means students need to be as fanatical about preparing themselves for a game industry job as they’re fanatical about playing video games. There are dozens of times as many industry wannabes as there are jobs available. Only those who prepare themselves fully will get the jobs.”-GCG.com
I have heard this repeated many times during my time at VanArts. Yes, a degree is definitely something you should strive for in life as it can only benefit you. However, it is not the be all end all requirement to get hired at a game studio. What matters most is your demo reel and portfolio. If you’re the best animator or artist a studio has ever seen but you don’t have a degree, chances are you will still get hired due to your quality of work, and the amout of effort and creativity put into it. Again, a degree is nice, but not required to get your foot in the door.
Testing is only about playing games.
“Testing is serious work; you have to write up results, contribute to bug databases, etc. If you test one game long enough, you’ll come to dislike the game no matter how good it is.”“Given the increasing budgets for AAA titles, the majority of people working on games are not working on AAA games. The studios working on AAA games have few entry-level positions. Why risk a lot of money on inexperienced people? Do the math.”-GCG.com
I had one extremely short game testing experience that I can definitely admit saying, it is in no way shape or form… fun. I worked for a gaming company that made and tested games for cell phones. Let’s just say I only lasted 3 days. OK, so it was only 2 1/2 days but who is counting? (I was) During that brief period of time though, I learned a lot. Mostly, I learned that I did not like cell phones. I mean, I really.. really do not like cell phones. The 3pm-12am shift did not make it any easier for me to stay on board either. It’s definitely not like the movie Grandma’s Boy. I assume my experience would have been more positive had I been testing games on the 360 or PS3, but don’t even think for one moment that testing games in general, is all fun and games. Pun intended.
The Gamer Report 