Senior Member
Youre going to fullsail? Damn, so you really want to be a game developer then. What are you going to study there?Originally Posted by me262
btw, are the results of the vote so far public?
Senior Member
Does anybody really care about "game dev education"? Where I live nobody gives a shit about this. A university degree, yeah, that could ( mind the stress on "could" ) help something but otherwise it's money thrown out of the window... unless you do it just for learning the tools of trade.
Senior Member
btw, Michael, if youre watching, i was thinking, if enough people vote in this poll, maybe could you send the results to epic? Or to Wartourist, he might forward it to the right people. If more people vote that is.
Linux Game Publishing
Heh... Depends on what they're selling. What they're claiming is a Bachelor's in that space- lots of places are advertising "game dev" degrees of late. From what I can tell, at least 2/3rds of them are like what the DeVry university degrees were like when they started in the collegiate business. Lots of practical knowledge and no real theoretical backing- it was like a technical school on steroids. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but it has it's own consequences. It could be viewed as a college degree (and I know of a lot of places in this area (Dallas, Texas...) that have viewed it as such, but put it down one rung from CS/MIS degrees...)- but you're going to have to keep up with things to keep from becoming technically obsolescent. Without a huge heaping serving of theoretical background (and I'd went out of my way to find out more than even they were teaching us as a Computer Science degree...) it's going to be harder for you to do this initially.
If it were me, I'd try to get the CS degree or the Software Engineering degree- it might be "boring" at first, but there'll be a solid base for the rest to follow. In the end, if I were a producer at a studio, or the Lead Dev, I'd have to see if someone had ANY degree and then find out a little more about whether or not they knew how to think instead of just point-n-click. A person with a CS, Sw Engr., or EE degree will be considered first over a Game Dev degree, but they'd be considered all the same if they could show me something that proved they could think for themselves and they could grok the types of tasks I'd need for them to do. Doesn't matter if it's game dev, client-server systems, etc.
Senior Member
Or if youre a hot chick like Jade Raymond just add the word "producer" next to your name and thats it.
Linux Game Publishing
"Producer" implies either they've managed a game project before or they're fronting at least PART of the investment for the project in exchange for creative management rights- just like in a record or a movie deal.Or if youre a hot chick like Jade Raymond just add the word "producer" next to your name and thats it.
Senior Member
Hehe... that's what I thought. Granted I'm up for a CS because I like it and not because it could or doesn't grant me anything. I prefer anyways to let my work speak instead of a degree...
Senior Member
Further to Svartalfs comments, there are also "game dev" courses which are just plain old software engineering or CS courses with a thin veneer of games over them to attract students. Given the tendancy for degree courses to try and get students taking a small amount of material from other disciplines, "game dev" students would just do that as part of the core course. (Story structure and the like.)
Realistically, when presented with a degree like that, you first want to look at where it's from and glance at the syllabus for the course. It's normally pretty obvious what type of degree it really is.
Linux Game Publishing
With 12 pages of CV, I'd have to say that I concur with that philosophy...Hehe... that's what I thought. Granted I'm up for a CS because I like it and not because it could or doesn't grant me anything. I prefer anyways to let my work speak instead of a degree...
Works always speak waaaay louder than the scrap of paper that says BSCS/MSCS or similar. The degree gets your foot in the door, the rest, as they always say, is up to you.
Trust me, as someone who's been a hiring manager in past work lives, this is always the case.
Linux Game Publishing
In this case, the emphasis from what I was able to garner from the curriculum for Fullsail is that they're more of a media/graphics arts technical school that is piling on something resembling a bit of a software engineering centric bent to game dev. It seems a bit lacking in theory for my tastes.
It will get your foot in the door in some places, but it'll hamper options outside of the game industry as a whole. There's not enough there to easily score (though you could still do so...my friend from one of these degree programs is fairly well off now over at VHA being a Programmer Analyst for them...) work outside of the industry- something you honestly and seriously need to consider. This is because you could burn-out, be laid off from your studio, etc. Happens all the time and unless you've backup plans it's harder to hit the ground feet-first and get running again. If you've been at it a while in the industry, your experience and skillsets if you avoid becoming technically obsolescent will speak louder than the degree and it'll become easier over time to fix a mishap under those circumstances but it'll be a longer time than if you'd done the CS or similar degree.
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