I’m currently applying to Sheridan Game design, it’s the only one I can afford.
The school of hard knocks teaches the best 
No actually a degree can be helpful if your looking to join a big triple a studio for sure, but a portfolio of “proven success” is also important.
If your more like me, and want to work alone mostly and independently, it might not matter at all, as Google can teach you quite more than any school ever could.
Anyway, do both! Take classes, and learn by trying to make stuff, even if that stuff comes out terrible you’ll learn a lot from it.
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I’ve worked with a good number of people who at one time went to game design schools, some of them the best rated ones. I haven’t met anyone yet actually working in the industry that doesn’t almost swear every time the subject comes up. Especially if they are still paying off the student loans they took out for them:)
Generally the top game designers work in management roles also. Because being a good game designer requires knowing almost every aspect of game development. It’s rare that the top game designers started out as game designers, they started out working in another area and then moved to game design as the breadth of their experience at making games grew. Very much like how people move into management.
The game designers that get hired out of those schools, just do grunt work mostly and get paid some of the lowest wages in the industry.
In your position not having any experience, you basically have a flawed picture of what making games is like. What you really want is to pick a needed hard skill area as your starting point. High level that’s either software development or the art side. Explore those areas until you find what you like best.
If you get serious about it, then treat it that way and if you go to school, get a 4 or 6 year degree. I’m not up to speed on the best tracks for the art side, but I do know that you can’t go wrong wth a track in Computer Science. It’s the foundation of the largest variety of roles you will find in the game industry. I’d hire someone with a CS degree for game design every day over someone from a game design school.
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Portfolio is king. A half decent weekend game jam will do more for your CV then a year in school. Second to portfolio is contacts. Spending time at the events and becoming friends with the industry veterans will help more then a year in school. Finally skills are important too.
A good school can provide all of those. But frequently game schools simply end up being expensive ways to delay actually doing anything. Game development degrees tend to be tailored to what students want, rather then what the industry is demanding. A game development degree won’t guarantee you a job when you get out.
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Assuming you are American, here is what I would do.
Join the National Guard or Reserves. Keep your head low and get through basic training, it’s not a big deal, and choose an MOS that’s really easy and maybe something to do with computers. After that, just do your one weekend a month or whatever it is and now you will get paid a monthly stipend to go to college. This way, you won’t need to work some lousy job AND go into debt to pay for school.
You can still learn on your own in case the schooling is worthless, and you’ll be making money instead of losing money. And don’t worry, if there is some nonsense war and they call you up, just go to Canada. Lots of game studios there anyway.
Unfortunately Google can teach you a lot of junk, some of which might actually make life harder, and a newbie doesn’t have the experience or knowledge to recognise what’s good and what’s not.
In my mind, a good school offers a few things:
- Experienced teachers who can guide you effectively, avoiding the issue above.
- Connections, both with students and teachers, and also with the industry at large. A good school should be well connected with local industry.
- Solid foundational coverage. If you’re self teaching then you might not realise gaps in your knowledge, and you can’t fix what you can’t see.
- Deadlines that you’ll commit yourself to working to.
- A qualification. This may or may not matter. For some people or jobs it does.
I still entirely agree with “do both”, and ultimately in this industry you’ll end up doing a heck of a lot of self teaching. If you can afford to, though, I think you’re giving yourself the best chance at doing well if you take advantage of the things a good school can help you with. Why go it alone when there are people who can help?
They key there, though, is good. I agree that there are some schools which might not end up being any better than Google searches.
True, and I’m not sure I’d trust anyone who says they can guarantee me a job from some study regardless of the area.
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Self taught works best when there is something driving it. I got started as a developer because I was presented with an opportunity to be part of an early tech startup back in the late 1990’s when nobody really knew what they were doing. So I had compelling reasons and the learning was very focused and goal oriented.
School can provide a similar structure.
The downside of self taught is that you tend to skip fundamentals favoring the practical, and then have to go back at some point and learn them. That happened to me and it’s a common pattern in self taught developers.
@angrypenguin has some good points. Just starting out you don’t know what you don’t know, you really need some structure to guide you.
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Very true. No one tends to have 100% success rates, and anyone who says they do is selling something.
However anyone getting into games should be aware that there tend to be more graduates then there are entry level jobs. Many people get into game schools because they love games. Which leads to an oversupply of people with game qualifications in the marketplace.
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I’ve never heard that any “game design” school had any merit. A computer science degree is a different matter.
–Eric
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There’s a also a course called “advanced programming in gaming”, should I go for it? But it’s a PG course.
That’s the problem, here in India there are no local game jams, there are a few but only for college students (I just finished high school) and there’s no one to contact as there’s no major game industry (growing VERY slowly). Isn’t it worth it that I go to Canada(college) to make some contacts and participate in events?
Not in America…
Finally someone points out the positive side. I do think that when I’m creating a game sometimes I get stuck for hours on a very minor hurdle, wish there could be someone who could teach and guide. Also, yeah, I feel like I’m lacking basics. Connections are indeed the way into game industry
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Does the game jam need to be local? Because there are almost always several happening at any moment in the year.
Sounds like animation and game industry are kinda some, no jobs guarantee
What are it’s benefits? Also I’m just starting out with unity so I may not be suited for a game jam right now.
few related notes here that i’ve had to experience myself:
in many countries it can be difficult to get work permits / resident permits, without proper degree papers,
also in regular companies (not game dev), salary is often automatically higher if you have a degree to show…
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For starters you are forced to work within a time constraint and a theme constraint. This encourages creative thinking in addition to learning to properly scope your project to have it completed on time. Additionally there is the benefit of learning to work with a team if you decide not to go solo.
You’ve released four games. You’re likely more qualified than you’d think. You’re definitely ahead of many other beginners.
My point was that a game you made in week will get you more interviews then a year of college. You don’t have to do a game jam to actually make a game. And if a game that takes a week will get you in the door, consider how far a game that you spend a year on will get you.
In which case you are not going to get a job in game development. You could go indie and make your own studio, but that’s a long and difficult route.
Immigration is a very complex decision. First consider if you can actually get into Canada. Lots of countries have skill requirements on work visas. Student visas are possible, if you have enough money, studying abroad is really expensive.
If this is frequently the case, then school could be useful for you. Sounds like your highshool did a poor job of teaching you to be a learner.
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Totally missed this point. In that case my recommendation to the OP changes. Don’t bother with game school. You likely already know more then they will teach you. You have a portfolio, use it to start applying for jobs. Or do a traditional computer science degree.