Hi guys! I’m curious on the demographics of the forum, and was wondering people from how many different countries may be participating in game development with Unity and this forum in particular. So I created this thread, where you can share where are you from (continent, country, city, depending on the amount of information you’re willing to share online) and how’s game development like there!
I’m from Córdoba, Argentina; I was born in another city in the northern border with Brasil and Paraguay, but I moved here years ago to study computer science. There’s not much game development here, I have to say, so it’s hard to find people with the required skills to build a team, but I still like learning and having projects. What about you?
I started when the whole computer industry didn’t really exist (8 bit era) so there wasn’t any internet, and there wasn’t any help. But for all of us starting then, it was just fine! We loved it.
So there aren’t any issues, worldwide really, from my perspective. Got a computer? go for it. Simple.
You could always try organising a local game developers meetup on Meetup.com. There isn’t one there now, but I bet you could probably find a few like minded people locally through that. Barring that, you could also just reach out to online communities.
I’m in Melbourne. Probably has more game development going on of any other city in the southern hemisphere. We have a government body that funds creative arts. Our own local sales reps from Unity and Unreal. We have an international games week, which includes Unite, GCAP and Pax. We have monthly IGDA meetups with 100ish people in attendance. Massive global game jam events every year. Several big game schools. And there is always a steady stream of job adverts for game dev positions filtering through.
On the flip side game dev pay is poor. There are more graduates from game schools every year then there are people who work full time in the industry. With such a glut of supply, there isn’t much incentive for companies to pay top dollar. Also the high Australian wage and unfavorable tax position has driven almost all of the AAA developers to close down their Australian studios. Most of the industry is run by small start up studios. Some of them do really well, others only last a few years then run out of cash.
Prior to Melbourne I was living in New Plymouth. The town had three game developers, one of whom could never leave the house due to anxiety. The two of us still managed to run monthly meetups. We tied in with some of the local video gaming community and got a bit of a social scene running.
Oh, Australia… A good number of decent games came out of there. Just to mention one made with Unity, I played a year ago this game:
which is made by an Australian studio. The game is very decent; though it seems childish, it has a sweetness and
delicacy that one can’t but enjoy. A great example of what three experienced game developers can do if they keep it simple and well oriented. The game nearly has any textures, for example; most of the models are colored simply by materials. The final product of this is very nice actually.
I’m from Budapest, Hungary and I have moved to San Jose, California, US four years ago.
As far as I know there is a sizable community is going on here, although I haven’t had the opportunity to go to meetings so far. Will see next year (I always make new years pledges but usually I don’t hold them, so will see).
Well, I almost wrote some political stuff on the forum. But let’s just say there is more sunshine here than it is in Hungary. (and then 2016 happened… but still more)
I’m living in Hollywood North. It’s kind of cool seeing parts of the city disguised in different shows. Although Deadpool 2 made no attempt to hide the city and even has a map of the city displayed at the end.
There is a lot of game dev going around here (EA is here) although there has been some major shutdowns such as Capcom. I’m not plugged into any of it and have been developing on my own.
One of the suburbs has opened up a new health and technology district by one of the hospitals and my day job just happened to open up a location in the building. I’ve been meaning to try and get involved but I have been too busy with my day job. I’ve started to make a concerted effort to reduce the amount of work that I am accepting before Christmas and I have geared up development on my project. I’m hoping to start full bore marketing in the New Year.
San Rafael, California here. It is just across the Golden Gate from San Francisco. The area is pricey, so you pretty much need to be doing indie game dev as a side gig until you’re well established or you won’t be able to pay the rent. There are lots of talented people in the area, so if you want to bring on other people into your project or your company you will have no shortage of available talent. This is especially so just an hour away in the South Bay.
Just a bit of local trivia, but no one local refers to Silicon Valley by that name. It is called the “South Bay”. In the same way that no Americans refer to our country as “The States”, it is a label generally only used by outsiders.
I am from Chile, but now I’m living in Miami. I’m trying to get a hold of all the Unity developers here because I don’t where they are xD. There are a fair amount of devs here that use Unity but apparently, they don’t like to communicate. In Miami, there are meetups however for the other engine that starts with U. But not for Unity :c. I’m trying to change that.
Game design and art are largely the same regardless of engine. Here around Washington DC devs use a variety of engines, or none at all. There’s still plenty to talk about with the non-Unity folks at meetups.
And of course I’m not taking mines seriously either. I learned this a long time ago.
(and then 2016 happened… but still more)