That's a broad question. Having worked in the games industry on and off since the mid 1990s, I can say the industry is going through a lot of change right now, but the overall picture for somebody coming out of high school, the path isn't too different than it was back then.
What he needs to do right now is get his feet wet with the concept of what game development really is. If he wants to be an artist or animator, then it's simply a matter of learning to make art, but with an emphasis on being organized and efficient with the output (eg. Make Rome from pocket lint). If he wants to be a producer or designer, then it's a matter of understanding how games are built and going from there. In the latter cases, they usually start in QA and work their way up. Those aren't positions you take directly out of school. Education costs have risen significantly, but a lot of the cost is unnecessary. For example, in most programs your first 2 years are spent on satisfying pre-requisites and other base courses which feed into your major for junior and senior year. Therefore, no need to spend $40K per year on that stuff. Go to community college which would allow money to be saved. That's what I did. I only had to take out a loan for my last 2 years of school and was able to pay it off within 4 years of graduation. There's nothing (relevant) about games development that a college can teach that requires you be in the program for 4 years. In fact, I'd argue to say that a college cannot effectively teach games development as there are no standards and the technology changes too quickly. The best that can be done is to teach students how to think and be efficient with their work. Since students will be doing grunt work their first few years in the industry, spending the extra $$ on game-specific programs won't pay off as they'll be obsolete before the information can be used. That said, avoid game-specific schools like FullSail. What I've seen from those programs is lack of fundamentals from students. They know the buttons to push that they were shown, but they tend to lack attention span and critical thinking - both of which are highly important in games development. Not saying that there haven't been success stories, but the trend is not encouraging. The other point I'd like to make is as technology and methods change, those who went to a more traditional school tend to fare better because they have the fundamentals to fall back on to allow them to adapt. Basically, game-specific programs are like high stakes poker. You're going 'all in' expecting a quick payday whereas with traditional college you're taking the slower route of building up your wealth over several hands. The ones who do best have critical thinking skills and are good at not getting caught up in the hype and crap from the ADD folks who surround them. Matt From: softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com [mailto:softimage-boun...@listproc.autodesk.com] On Behalf Of Paul Griswold Sent: Monday, June 17, 2013 4:42 AM To: softimage@listproc.autodesk.com Subject: OT: (sort-of) getting in to game dev Hi guys, My daughter's boyfriend has expressed an interest in getting into game development. He's just a teenager, so he really doesn't have much of a focus yet other than "I want to get into games". But I told my daughter I'd get some recommendations on things like what he should study, good colleges for careers in games, different job descriptions, good entry-level positions, etc. So, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Any advice at all would be great. Thanks, Paul
