I was honestly the director and producer and coder on my group project in the Spring. Three people who weren't making decisions (at least good ones), and one person who abandoned us to be the lead "designer," but I won't tell that story for the billionth time.
Oh mans, the should you be studying to make games argument. 75% of the people in my major (basically a computer science and media hybrid) wanted to make games. I was just meh at the time and went in a different direction because I just didn't want to make games. And then later I saw how hard it was for everyone, and most of them ended up being web developers, or the poor abused coders Andrew spoke of (went to EA). After that I did my hardest to tell my webdev interns to steer clear from there. (at my old company we always got one who was really trying to get into games).
Axel, sounds like you've heard it all and you still want to make games, which must mean you're dedicated at least. Even if there's only a slim chance I'm sure there's a way you can get in. Do you know anyone in the kind of position(s) you want to be in? They might have advice. I can't give solid advice because I don't make games, but I always tell webdev people to always study and work on side projects as much as possible, aka, don't just stick with what you're doing in school. I bet if you independently work on games for fun and make something cool, it'll make you stand out.
I've got a friend who just started a game design program. He's already had a paid internship with Activision and had dinner with Bobby Kotick a few times, and that was before he even started college.
One of my good friends is a game designer, and I've met a ton of his game designer friends, and it seems like they are all focusing on putting together their own games rather than trying to be a part of an established studio, which definitely seems to be the way to go. Even just in the past year, indie games have become extremely profitable, or at least way more profitable than they used to be. Steam and XBLA have done a lot to increase the visibility of these games, too. There have been a bunch of truly "hit" indie titles that created viable sources of income for these very small dev teams.
If you're a "designer," it seems way more logical that you should be aiming towards putting together your own tiny team of artists and programmers to make games based off your ideas, and if they're truly good and original, then your "foot in the door" will come by way of getting your name out there through success and buzz on the digital download market.
Also, Blizzard offers multiple paid Game Design (not programming) internships.
What do you do during these internships?
Blizzard is part of Activision, and I'm assuming that that is the same type of internship my friend had. He beta tested CoD:MW3. So yeah, no actual decisions, no coding, just being the intern bitch and seeing how long you can run against a wall before collision detection fails.
"Profitable" is probably the wrong word for indie games. Lucrative is probably more accurate. For every one that's a hit there's probably a hundred that don't recoup their development costs.
Code is beautiful. I was saying menial because I'm not expecting to work on the cool complex physics code, or creating the A.I. code. When I get hired, I imagine I'm not going to be in charge of cool, complex code, but instead working under someone doing something far lesser. It may still be cool, and I'm happy to start there, but it's more than likely not going to be fun.
Now, granted, I'm not a coder, but I have a feeling that "cool" A.I. or "cool" complex physics code probably isn't going to be any more or less "fun" than "menial" coding tasks. I'm pretty sure it's going to take an incredible amount of likely frustrating work, which may result in an excellent game after a while.
It's like bottling beer. Is bottling fun? Fuck no. But you've got to bottle it before you can drink it. So you commit yourself to doing the work because you've set an end goal.
This is not to say that some "menial" tasks won't be fun. I'm sure people like writing particular chunks of code, just like I enjoy using certain pipettors or my stand capper. However, I encourage you to keep it in perspective: making a game involves lots of hard work from a lot of people, and I doubt your experience will differ significantly from that of other people who have tried to do the same thing.
There's more to the writing, they mean the actual text that appears when you accept a quest, dialogue that might occur in the more complex quests, the narrative, etc. I wouldn't be creating it, but probably proofreading, managing the internal organization of it all, etc.
There's more to the writing, they mean the actual text that appears when you accept a quest, dialogue that might occur in the more complex quests, the narrative, etc. I wouldn't be creating it, but probably proofreading, managing the internal organization of it all, etc.
There's more to the writing, they mean the actual text that appears when you accept a quest, dialogue that might occur in the more complex quests, the narrative, etc. I wouldn't be creating it, but probably proofreading, managing the internal organization of it all, etc.
You mean the stuff that no one reads?
Yep. Still a job. Still a pathway to what I'm actually interested in. Having that experience is good resume material for trying to get jobs in writing for games where the writing is actually read.
Wait a minute, are you trying to become a writer now? Here is the crux of the issue, "designer" is ambiguous and I honestly have no idea what they actually do. Can you give me a brief rundown of what the daily life of a designer is?
Wait a minute, are you trying to become a writer now? Here is the crux of the issue, "designer" is ambiguous and I honestly have no idea what they actually do. Can you give me a brief rundown of what the daily life of a designer is?
1) Get an idea at the spur of the moment 2) Open Photoshop 3) Make masterpiece 4) Force poor web developers to make your creation even though its rediculous 5) Profit?
Wait a minute, are you trying to become a writer now? Here is the crux of the issue, "designer" is ambiguous and I honestly have no idea what they actually do. Can you give me a brief rundown of what the daily life of a designer is?
Wait a minute, are you trying to become a writer now? Here is the crux of the issue, "designer" is ambiguous and I honestly have no idea what they actually do. Can you give me a brief rundown of what the daily life of a designer is?
1) Get an idea at the spur of the moment 2) Open Photoshop 3) Make masterpiece 4) Force poor web developers to make your creation even though its rediculous 5) Profit?
Oh we are talking about game design
There are people like this who hang around the CS department pretty much everyday. They are web start-up idea men. "Oh, I have this brilliant website idea that is going to make 'us' a gazillion dollars, I just need you to do all of the work." They never get anywhere.
I would like to see that course website again at the end of the semester. I am biased in that I think it will probably lean towards "fun class that reinforces your self esteem" more than "serious learning experience", but I honestly want to be wrong in that regard. I want you to win, but I also want to help: and for me that includes a fair amount of criticism.
In a similar vein, friends of mine that have pursued "design" have actually picked up GMing and board game design in order to flesh out a portfolio of sorts.
We are learning a lot though. Submitting game ideas, learning about game concepts and the terminology used in game design, creating design documents, etc.
Today we talked a lot about what makes a game, then came up with some good analog games that we would've played as kids, and then had to come up with modifications of analog games that changed a part of their ruleset and changed the feel of the game. My group modified the game Heads up, 7-Up. In that game, 7 people from a group of 15-20 or so are taken out of the larger group. Everyone else closes their eyes and puts a thumb up, and the 7 chosen people pick one person's thumb to put down. The people who get their thumbs put down have to try and guess who put their thumb down. Our modification was that the people who didn't get picked had to form a group and try to figure out who put who's thumb down. This way, no matter what, every person was always involved somehow.
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After that I did my hardest to tell my webdev interns to steer clear from there. (at my old company we always got one who was really trying to get into games).
Axel, sounds like you've heard it all and you still want to make games, which must mean you're dedicated at least. Even if there's only a slim chance I'm sure there's a way you can get in. Do you know anyone in the kind of position(s) you want to be in? They might have advice. I can't give solid advice because I don't make games, but I always tell webdev people to always study and work on side projects as much as possible, aka, don't just stick with what you're doing in school. I bet if you independently work on games for fun and make something cool, it'll make you stand out.
So there's that.
And I'm sure other companies do too.
This one in particular seems tailor-made for me.
If you're a "designer," it seems way more logical that you should be aiming towards putting together your own tiny team of artists and programmers to make games based off your ideas, and if they're truly good and original, then your "foot in the door" will come by way of getting your name out there through success and buzz on the digital download market.
It's like bottling beer. Is bottling fun? Fuck no. But you've got to bottle it before you can drink it. So you commit yourself to doing the work because you've set an end goal.
This is not to say that some "menial" tasks won't be fun. I'm sure people like writing particular chunks of code, just like I enjoy using certain pipettors or my stand capper. However, I encourage you to keep it in perspective: making a game involves lots of hard work from a lot of people, and I doubt your experience will differ significantly from that of other people who have tried to do the same thing.
Writer comes up with scenario, dialogue, and basically anything written that's plot-related in the game.
A separate job is designer, coming up with the gameplay and base format of the game. They come up with features and ideas.
Being the lead coder would be less ideal, but still cool, coding the main structure of the game and working on any number of different things.
2) Open Photoshop
3) Make masterpiece
4) Force poor web developers to make your creation even though its rediculous
5) Profit?
Oh we are talking about game design
In a similar vein, friends of mine that have pursued "design" have actually picked up GMing and board game design in order to flesh out a portfolio of sorts.
Today we talked a lot about what makes a game, then came up with some good analog games that we would've played as kids, and then had to come up with modifications of analog games that changed a part of their ruleset and changed the feel of the game. My group modified the game Heads up, 7-Up. In that game, 7 people from a group of 15-20 or so are taken out of the larger group. Everyone else closes their eyes and puts a thumb up, and the 7 chosen people pick one person's thumb to put down. The people who get their thumbs put down have to try and guess who put their thumb down. Our modification was that the people who didn't get picked had to form a group and try to figure out who put who's thumb down. This way, no matter what, every person was always involved somehow.
I don't' buy magazines but I might buy this one :O