Careers

[Joelbanks5]

So I was originally thinking becoming an entrepreneur would be fun, but recently I've decided I would like to widen my options of what I plan on doing in the future. What are some careers that are related to or involve video games and technology? What are the college degrees required for them if any?

[ProjectBox153]

Video game design, technology engineering, make your own tech business (build and sell computers, refurb systems, tech consultation, etc.). It really depends on what you're interested in. 

[Quasarsaurus]

Depends on the career you want. If you want to be a systems administrator, network engineer, programmer you would want a degree in computer science. If you want to make video games you probably want to take computer and graphic design courses. If you want to be an entrepreneur some business background would be good too.

[Slottr]

Know two people who went through either computer science or software engineering for university. Both work their jobs developing and publishing games and apps now.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Joelbanks5 said:

So I was originally thinking becoming an entrepreneur would be fun, but recently I've decided I would like to widen my options of what I plan on doing in the future. What are some careers that are related to or involve video games and technology? What are the college degrees required for them if any?

Don't call yourself an entrepreneur.. it makes you sound like someone featured on Idubbbz's kickstarter crap.

If you're not yet in college go on codecademy and learn some programming. The Princeton Review has a list of many great colleges for Video Game design, and development.
I personally go to a highly rated school I will not mention for obvious reasons, however the programming teachers aren't very good.

If you can learn and become a good/great programmer before college, go to school for computer science maybe. Else you may go to a school for video games where my personal school has great teachers for music/sound, modelling, animation, traditional art, and business.

If you know exactly what you want to do (ie write music/program) start teaching yourself now, and go to school for that. If you're not too sure, or not super good, go to a video games school.

Going to a school exactly for what you want would be a better use of your time to be great at what you want to do. IMO at least. Your portfolio is everything in this business because it's art based. Then you just have to be fun to be around/work with. Or you could just go indie or freelance. Unity 3D, Unreal Engine are the 2 most popular 3D engines, Blender 3D is a fantastic free open source modelling and animation program, spriter is a free 2D art and animation software I haven't personally used. Maya and 3Ds Max are the 2 "industry standards" for modelling, but blender is catching on more and more. Noteflight is a free online sheet music based music writing software that sounds pretty bad  The worst sound ever but is good enough. Audacity can record sounds and is free.

Other than that I don't know what else to tell you besides maybe read some game design books, or watch Halo 1 & 2 Developer commentaries, study how games work, or watch Ego Rapter do his Sequalitus.

[Joelbanks5]

Just now, Jamiec1130 said:

Video game design, technology engineering, make your own tech business (build and sell computers, refurb systems, tech consultation, etc.). It really depends on what you're interested in. 

 

From what I've heard devs aren't treated quite so nicely by management, I remember reading a few tech news posts that related to how devs were treated.

 

I'm interested in many things, that's why I made it pretty broad in the OP. To be more specific if that helps, I like the idea of developing games (never tried my hand at it as of yet), I'm big into DIY kinda stuff, making new things is fun, I enjoy managing things, and if this helps I've recently been trying to find out what makes games enjoyable or boring for me as well as others (thought this was fun and interesting). 

 

I left more tech specific stuff out of there as I really just love everything technology related.

4 minutes ago, fpo said:

Don't call yourself an entrepreneur.. it makes you sound like someone featured on Idubbbz's Kickstarter crap.

 

How so?

 

4 minutes ago, fpo said:

If you're not yet in college go on codecademy and learn some programming. The Princeton Review has a list of many great colleges for Video Game design, and development.

If you can learn and become a good/great programmer before college, go to school for computer science maybe. Else you may go to a school for video games where my personal school has great teachers for music/sound, modelling, animation, traditional art, and business.

If you know exactly what you want to do (ie write music/program) start teaching yourself now, and go to school for that. If you're not too sure, or not super good, go to a video games school.

Your portfolio is everything in this business because it's art based. 

3

Is code academy free?

 

Where can I find a detailed in-depth description of what someone does in each job?

 

What exactly is a video games school?

 

What do you mean by art based?

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Joelbanks5 said:

How so?

Trust me.... There are better videos but just.. plz no...

4 minutes ago, Joelbanks5 said:

Is code academy free?

Yes

https://www.codecademy.com/

5 minutes ago, Joelbanks5 said:

Where can I find a detailed in-depth description of what someone does in each job?

Hmm.. I just found this link online, idk how good it is. http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles
There are the general generic Business people in larger companies. (have to manage the money somehow)

There are Designers; A designer that picks how the game generally works (is it an FPS, a racing game.. ect)

A level designer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq4bleXrdts)

Sound designer I hope this video is good. Seems like a rip off of a Fredie Wong video I saw forever ago. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPRTrrbdPewAnother type of sound thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQykP9NHJXU

Halo 3 song thing. If you can find the making of Halo 2 (from the Halo 2 limited edition bonus disk)it'd be better but here's something similar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0snVL36OypI

 

Artificial intelligence programmer

 

 

 

Game engine Engineer; they make the program that people use to make games.

 

 

before I lose more of what I wrote somehow... I'll post this and write more.

[Guest]

(I had more videos but I lost them all writing the other post somehow. So this post will only be a fraction as good explanation as what I was writing.)

3D modellers: they make models.

3d animators bring motion to the models

 

technical artists sometimes rig characters. It makes it easy for the animators to make the models have motion.

technical artists also do plenty of other things but none off the top of my head

 

concept artists. They kinda lead the art direction of the game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rY-KjtwOSs

 

there are many types of programmers. Some make different systems like different versions of this plugin for Maya http://www.animationstudios.com.au/advanced-skeleton

 

people write music, or scripts (like a movie script. That's where the story comes from) others do storyboards.

A storyboard is like a comic book version of the script written for the game. It gives a visual representation of what's supposed to happen and how it should look.

 

Quality Assurance. These people kinda play video games for money. They make sure the game doesn't crash or do weird stuff, often times doing the same game task over and over and over again trying to break it, and then writing a report or something on how/why it broke, what you did so on.. But often times you can see with Open betas and what not this may or may not be phased out.

 

There are all the traditional business jobs because in the end it's a business that has to make money.

 

That's all I can remember but there are many different jobs and things you can do.

 

I think that watching the Halo 2 making of really gives you an idea of what it's like in a big company and the movie indie gamer shows you what it's like being independent.

 

This is a great video on what it's ACTUALLY like being independent not the lucky few in the Indie Gamer movie. There were some "losses" for the people in the indie gamer movie, but it's usually the end for many indie devs instead of how everything worked out for the devs starring in the movie.

 

My favorite line though is from the Halo Combat Evolved Developer commentary because at one point an animator in charge of all the cut scene work says this "Game development is all about trying to fake it the best." And it really is. He was talking about limitations of rendering animations in real time on the original X-Box. He could either play an animation or run a scripted movement. He had turned the camera away any time he would change animations, or change from moving to an animation so no one would notice marines disappearing.

[Joelbanks5]

27 minutes ago, fpo said:

(I had more videos but I lost them all writing the other post somehow. So this post will only be a fraction as good explanation as what I was writing.)

3D modellers: they make models.

3d animators bring motion to the models

 

technical artists sometimes rig characters. It makes it easy for the animators to make the models have motion.

technical artists also do plenty of other things but none off the top of my head

 

concept artists. They kinda lead the art direction of the game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rY-KjtwOSs

 

there are many types of programmers. Some make different systems like different versions of this plugin for Maya http://www.animationstudios.com.au/advanced-skeleton

 

people write music, or scripts (like a movie script. That's where the story comes from) others do storyboards.

A storyboard is like a comic book version of the script written for the game. It gives a visual representation of what's supposed to happen and how it should look.

 

Quality Assurance. These people kinda play video games for money. They make sure the game doesn't crash or do weird stuff, often times doing the same game task over and over and over again trying to break it, and then writing a report or something on how/why it broke, what you did so on.. But often times you can see with Open betas and what not this may or may not be phased out.

 

There are all the traditional business jobs because in the end it's a business that has to make money.

 

That's all I can remember but there are many different jobs and things you can do.

 

I think that watching the Halo 2 making of really gives you an idea of what it's like in a big company and the movie indie gamer shows you what it's like being independent.

 

This is a great video on what it's ACTUALLY like being independent not the lucky few in the Indie Gamer movie. There were some "losses" for the people in the indie gamer movie, but it's usually the end for many indie devs instead of how everything worked out for the devs starring in the movie.

 

My favorite line though is from the Halo Combat Evolved Developer commentary because at one point an animator in charge of all the cut scene work says this "Game development is all about trying to fake it the best." And it really is. He was talking about limitations of rendering animations in real time on the original X-Box. He could either play an animation or run a scripted movement. He had turned the camera away any time he would change animations, or change from moving to an animation so no one would notice marines disappearing.

 

 

What exactly is a video games school?

 

What do you mean by art based on a portfolio 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Joelbanks5 said:

What exactly is a video games school?

 

What do you mean by art based?

A video games school is a school that has a major in Video game design or development. That's what I mean by that. Like a school of nursing is a school you'd go for nursing.

 

Art based as in ... well it's art.

 

(http://polycount.com/discussion/183039/announcing-the-winners-of-the-handplane-baker-contest-new-handplane-build)

Someone spent a lot of time making it. If you're hiring, and that guy doesn't have a degree, and then this guy with a masters shows you this:

 

 

 

well... you're not going to hire the guy with the degree are you?

 

People want to see that you've done things, and created things. A degree in computer Science (If you nag Nuluvius, they have a thread somewhere talking about why CS is a bad degree) doesn't automatically mean you know how to program. I personally met someone that used to do corporate Hiring and said he pitifully threw out an application from an individual with a Masters degree because he didn't have any proof he could make anything. When hiring you want to see a game they made and finished. One reason is to see that they can finish things. No one believes your words, only what you can prove you've done. Work speaks for itself.