I love the game making industry and it’s very and exciting thing to get into. Though I’ll be majoring in Computer Engineering, as a side thing I would love to focus on something to benefit the game industry (and hopefully make some side money while I am at it too).
So if there is any veterans in this industry can maybe give advice on which jobs have the most potential(job wise) and approx.$$. I have done some tutorials on Blender/Unity/UDK and Though I only touched the top of these programs I was excited from the start and I most certainly wanna pick a “job” and refine my skills in that particular position.
I mean no disrespect to anyone who has this as their full-time occupation but for me, I just want to be more productive than playing games all day.
Some of the positions that so far interest me are:
Now I am not just picking the one that has the most $$ but just wondering what would freelancers and such make as compared to contracts. I am willing to put in hours to do something fun and eventually use it to my advantage in the future.
Ah I see, So I will probably pick up one of the C’s and learn the basics then get into one of the engines. I know the “fluff” jobs make the most but I wanted to help have a hand in creating the actual game. Thanks Callahan!
was a great eye opener and seems like animation and art might be the more growth potentially(as a whole). While programmers start to pop up more and more nowadays.
Everything is pretty much equal though (as a side job I mean) and besides the ridiculous amount for the business portion. Mainly of which one you have a more passion in. So I am a little stuck, I think I’m leaning towards Art/Animation as it’s harder to come by.
There are extremely skilled people in each field, it chooses you, not the other way around.
Programmer: no artistic ability. (a bit like a room of chimps )
Technical Artist: some artistic ability and programming skills.
Character Animator: good sense of weight/motion/kinematics.
Zbrush/Mudbox Modeller: good sculpting skills.
Texture Artist: good painting skills.
Concept Artist: good imagination and drawing skills.
etc.
Marketing: ability to whine about the dent in their Ferrari after running someone down.
haha well actually I am the marketing director of my student-newspaper organization for my college and I can say that your statement is completely true. Though I hate it, I don’t feel that creative ability that I can potentially do with the other fields. I made a couple of objects around my house with blender and I have to say (though it was like trying to climb a sheer rock cliff, i’m getting the hang of it) it is fun the whole way. I also have an affinity for programming, so according to your description I think Technical Artist/Animator might be something I will try until one of them start to pull me their way.
Every field requires lots of skills. Even on design. Today’s designers are the one making our games. Programmers only work on tools/low level stuff.
Btw, programmers makes the big money.
It really depends on the kind of programming your doing on the game, a lot of programmers get paid about the same as artists unless they are working on core engine or gameplay tech. Like most things it depends on your level of expertise and experience.
It’s Game Developer Magazine’s annual survey. It’ll give you some real data on who makes what (at least averages) in what parts of the country. Worth the $3.95…
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