I wasn’t really sure where to put this, so move this if necessary. I was wondering with intentions of going into game design and I’ve been practicing using unity, what kind of major should I consider obtaining?
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=61669
Someone recently asked a similar question in that thread, and there are some good answers.
Welcome to the forums.
me and him are in two different positions though. I’ve taken two programming classes and failed both times, despite trying as hard as I could. Barely pass my maths as well, giving the same amount of effort.
Math and programming aren’t my forte either. You can try your best of luck at just getting the basic math courses, a physics course in high-school and a ton of art classes. That’s what I’m doing. ^^
There’s a lot of people in the gaming industry that basically say 90% of school suck and just waste your money, and you wont be getting a job after school, so you should just teach yourself. I kinda agree with it for the most part. You can spend $15k a year going to a university for 4 years, being taught by professors that don’t work in the industry, and not being able to get a job after school. Or art schools that cost 30k and you’ll still probably not be able to get a job.
The only reason I would get a degree is if I wanted to move to another country and I needed a work permit, normally 6 years working in the industry = a degree, which is silly because you’ll learn more in the first 9 months of working than you did at school.
I am actually in college. 2nd year, just at a community college where I haven’t really learned much. There was a game course there I took two classes and it was a mess.
I probably should of asked, where exactly in the industry to do want to work? Game design, Tech artists, concept artists, lever designer, programming, animation, prop/environment artist, character artist?
I preferred to be a creative writer of sorts, but from the feedback I’ve been given and from what I’ve read online, looks like that’s hardly a realistic goal. Other options I am considering are game design and level design.
k cool, its never too early to start thinking about your portfolio and how your going to present yourself to companies, the main things you should focus on are
-Making levels with a specific look and theme
-Levels that are fun to run around in and explore
-levels that really work well with the game play of the game (tf2 capture the flag level? or sniper level for crysis? or cool puzzle for a puzzle game?
You may get better feedback and ideas at level designs sites like http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/
and behind the scenes at Blizzards Design team
Game degrees are new so they will be not very polished. Also, don’t expect to find much carry over that your game design degree will allow you to get an IT job or something else. I personally saw the cost versus chance of getting into the industry too small that I am going to school for Computer Science and getting a job I will love and if I can, make my way into the industry through my own effort. Portfolios are really what matter in the game industry, from what research I have done it’s more important to show you know what your doing than have a piece of paper saying you know all of what you are talking about. Work hard, build yourself some demos and a portfolio and if you want to spend money for college, go for a day job that can pay the bills until you can show your worth in the industry. That’s just my advice. I will be a senior this fall for my 4 year CS degree. The games industry is tough to get into make sure you have a good back up plan to secure your future. Don’t sacrifice your dreams though! Just make sure you can get somewhere you like to be and have a good plan B as your plan A might be harder than you thought. 
Remember, choosing plan B isn’t giving up on A, its just re-prioritizing them. Good luck!
You don’t need to know a math if you want get into programming. I am the living proof of it. I dropped out of school because of math. But few years later I bought 3D Buzz XNA/C# game programming course and it was the best investment into education I have ever made. My math still sucks but I understand the logic behind the game programming. Learning programming has helped me even understand math better. Thsese two things have lot in common especially on a logic side. So don’t ever give up on learning programming just because you have failed in math. Programming is fun and math is boring. Your brain will learn fun things better and you still will develop enough logic thinking skills if you are passionate.
Ps. I still hate math, yuck…
A degree won’t guarantee you a job. Ability, passion, work ethic and past quality work WILL get you a job and keep you in a job. The most important thing you can do for yourself is to work hard. If you don’t understand something, don’t give up, just know that eventually you will understand it if you stick with it, regardless of what it is. If games are what you really want to do, work hard at it and you’ll be there soon enough.
Pardon me, but I disagree.
First of all, you should know that even the best XNA/C# course will not teach you some more advanced programming topics ( paging, fetching and prefetching, cache prediction… ) because they do not exist inside a managed language ( like c#, or any .net/mono language, for the matter ). Moreover, when you work with Unity ( especially at an amateur level ) you are more likely to be “Coding”, not “programming”. This is a subtle distinction, but if you were working on the underlying engine ( Unity itself for example ) you would be much more likely to say that you needed math, that that you didn’t need it.
There are also some areas where you can go much deeper with a math/phisycs background ( i.e. shaders )
Conclusion: If you are serious about a Programming career ( not talking about arts here ), then you DO need math.
Adults, is 60,000-90,000 enough to stay alive?
No problem you can disagree
Programming is a thing that you can learn all your life and still gain new knowledge. There will never be a day where you can say “i know everything about programming”
And yes i was talking about Unity programming (altough C#/XNA course did went a great dephts into game engine programming itself.)
I see it like this. I take this example from my personal life. I failed math miserabely. I was the kind of person who was unable to learn something if i did not have personal interest in it. Math was boring and i could not stay focused. But i always have been interested in programming. I wanted to learn but everyone laughed and said if you are unable to learn math then you will never get programming.
I do say that this learning experience was very hard for me at first but it got easier as the years went on. The funny thing is that i belive if i had to learn math now for some reason it would be OK. It would be still a very boring subject to me but my learning and logical skills have become much better thanks to programming.
Depends on what country you live in, but in Virginia where this is posted, yes this will give you a very comfortable salary. Consider that 60k is equal to 4 minimum wage jobs. ($7.25 x 4 = @$28 an hour)
Well I appreciate all the help here, but I’m still or maybe more confused as I’m not sure what degree I should look for now. Relatives are all saying computer science for this and they don’t believe me when I tell them that I emailed employers and just about all of them say the portfolio is most important. I guess they don’t see how they would pick between two people of equal experience and give the job to the person with the English degree.
A computer science degree would be more important than a gaming degree, in my opinion, because a gaming degree is limited to the engine used for the course, and there isn’t much carry over into other fields. Computer Science on the other hand teaches you the foundation of programming that is not only useful to gaming, but other fields as well. Should you be interested in incorporating other libraries into a game engine (Augmented reality, AI and whatever SDK’s you want to include) you will have a better starting point with a CS degree than if you just have a gaming degree.
Also, I’m not sure if this has been covered, but are you interesed in the art aspect of the game or just programming?
I actually don’t like programming. I took two courses, tried my best and failed. I wanted to be more of a writer, but from what I’ve heard that’s not really a smart option. I can’t draw, but I am great at coming up with ideas and expressing those ideas, but as I’m figuring I would have to have my foot in the industry for several years before that can even be possible.
If you don’t like programming then you definitely shouldn’t pursue that option. It is not for the feint of heart and if you’re not even interested then you’ll fail before you start.
Forget about smart options for a second and think of what you really want to do with you life. If you put forth all your effort, you can do any career path you want IF you try your hardest. If writing is what you really want to do, put everything into it and pursue it. Don’t settle for something else you’ll regret it later.
Where to start? I would suggest emailing a few studios and politely asking what they would look for in hiring a game writer and if they would allow you to apprentice with them (likely unpaid). It never hurts to ask, and the worst they can say is no. Research everything you can find about game writing on the internet and ask around on writing forums. Learn everything you can about game writing, plots from games past and present and future. Know everything about game writing and what makes them interesting. Become an expert on game writing and identify what determines good and bad game writing. That’s a start.
Good luck!