Permit and stuffs are other sides of the problem
Alright then, I’ll join a game jam soon.
The visa and permits are all figured out, I’ve been visiting education fairs and talking to some counsellors, first few years are gonna be hard to adjust in, but that’s what you have to do when you’re an immigrant.
My high school didn’t teach anything about gaming, art or programming. So it’s all self taught right now.
No, get a job instead, so you can support your gamedev hobbie.
This came up in another game related group recently and one of the game designers in the group said something pretty clever about it. I’m paraphrasing, but it was something along these lines:
The only thing that will teach you how to make games is making games. Going to school to learn to make games is really an investment into getting time to make those games.
So, I know that having to pay to go to school varies from country to country, but I’d say it is worth it if it allows you the time to get experience with creating games. Theory is fine, learning to use tools to design puzzles and gameplay mechanics are also fine, but it’s really the practice of using those tools, that will teach you things, not just reading books and articles that clever designers wrote.
Adding to that, getting a degree is nice to some extent, with the most important part being what you’ve made. With some good projects AND a degree, you will go places. School is also a great place to network and that network will help you find people to work with and work to make a living from. Always network. Always.
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making connections is why I want to go to college, to meet real people.
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This is an interesting topic because it’s universally misunderstood by people wanting to get into making games.
Game design as imagined by most new people, and as taught in game design schools, is basically becoming something that is common knowledge for people who work on games. That type of game design as a profession is narrow, limited opportunities, and has been steadily shrinking in size for the last decade.
But game design hasn’t really gone anywhere, it’s just evolved. It’s a more wholistic approach now that encompasses a wider variety of skills such as marketing and analytics.
It’s really just another version of the bar going up, which happens to all professions over time. This one is a bit different because the stereotypical view of it doesn’t want to die, even though it’s really been dead in modern studios for years.
Yeah, everyone is basically a game designer. Game design is easy, but good game design is hard.
We got spoonfed the fact that hardly anyone on the game design line would end up being game designers. Being able to program or do art is the skills you need to actually get somewhere, and from there you might get to work on game design itself, but it’s not a field that has a lot of jobs compared to art or programming.
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Wait a minute. So you don’t know how to work in group? I think that is essential for creating a big scale project.
Well, I “can” work in groups, I just usually don’t. And that isn’t because I don’t want to (eventually I’d like to run a studio with a group of talented people) - but more so because I can’t pay a team of people to make the games I want to make, and because I don’t really want to work on a team making a project I don’t feel really passionate about!
So yeah, I “know how” to work in teams (though I’m sure I could get better at it), and in many other aspects of life I do work in groups, but when it comes to game development, I almost always work alone 
At some point, despite all the unknown factors, you will have to make a decision. When you do, leave all your second guessing behind and fight towards your goal wholeheartedly.
Your situation will never be ideal, but you’ve already shown you have all the intellect needed to assess yourself and keep on improving. Just don’t get caught in a trap of self-doubt.
Oh, and about working/studying internationally – that will always seeming daunting. But keep in mind, many, many people before you have done it. Just go one step at a time, and remember to have the patience of a saint. You won’t know what might happen unless you really try.
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Don’t worry about that. My wife is an Indian who moved to Canada when she was about your age and mostly grew up there. Canada has a big Indian community (and lots of good Indian restaurants and grocery stores, most importantly), but aside from that it is a very welcoming place. You’ll fit in no problem.
Yes, very few people become designers compared to how many want to be. The odds are much better for getting in as a programmer, and I know a few who have made the switch to design later, although most who considered that don’t, they change their minds as they don’t want the lower salary a designer gets.
I was lucky enough to get a job as a designer over 20 years ago, and now teach game design at university, but it is on a programming centric course that specialises in games (Games Computing, University of Lincoln, UK). Programming qualifications give you a much better chance of working in the industry. There are more programming roles and fewer people applying. It also gives you a better chance if you want a design job.
Tools like Unity have totally changed design. They are so accessible that a designer is expected to do more themselves. Anyone applying for a design role will be up against others who know Unity and can demonstrate their ideas, not just describe them in documents. If you cannot show your designs working, your chances are even slimmer.
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I’m not worried about the community, I’m worried about the admissions right now, it’s competitive.
As imagined by new people, “game design” just means “has something to do with working on a game”.
Even people who know me commonly introduce me to others as a “game designer”, even though my training and all of my job titles until recently have been as a programmer or software engineer. People who don’t know think it’s the same thing.
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The toilet cleaner at a game studio is also a game designer.
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I’m saying that if you would work in a team if they hire you, not that you recruit some peoples for your own studio.
To be clear, though, that’s from a layman’s perspective.
To people who actually work on games there’s a clear set of roles and skills that fall into the “design” category as opposed to art or programming or production management. They’re often developed by people working in one of those areas, but in my mind one of the first steps in becoming a good designer is realising that while there is an overlap, user-facing design activities should be somewhat separated from technical ones.
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OK, now for my answer to the topic. I’m an international student studying Game Development in USA. My school is the Miami-Dade College, MAGIC (Miami Animation and Gaming International Complex). My Teacher is really good, although we are having the first classes of what we supposed to have for pur major (AI, LVL design, etc…), -so you can expects some mistakes from the directory.- I would say that any school could be good but any school, will forbid you from your personal and coolest projects that you could have working in your house, because you are doing the assignments that your teacher told you to do. And my friends are working full time, so they don’t have so much time to shapr their skills during college. What is good for game design and game development and any other major, is NETWORKING. When you are at college you have a see of doors opened at you with new people that work in the industry. I always want to talk to them and see what they think about something.
So, in summary. I will say that if you have the time, if you know the nitty gritties and you need contacts and a more polished version of your skills, go for college.
Indeed. Also, the larger the studio/project the more staff may be under that flag with specific or narrow roles. There are definitely specialities in game design. PVP/combat, PVC, economy, narrative/fiction, story(broad and narrow), content, enemies/units/weapons/etc. and of course lead and product. On SWC we had at the height of the game 5 designers in addition to the lead.
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