Please check this site out - http://slashdot.org/features/99/08/20/143215.shtml I guess this was another message board where billions of guys say game programming sucks!! How many bucks does a good quality 3d game usually make?? thnx

Who cares about slash-dot? Their information is blown way out of proportions just because of the fact that they have a linux page.

U mean to say they are talking about developing games for the linux platform??
well i dont think so!

well NES8BIT i''ll mail the page to ya=

When a read the article I was quite shocked. Much of the information in it I have had in the back of my head for some time but I have never seen it put this way.

I am specializing in computer games at my university and I must say that it is a bit depressing to read this kind or article. I have a few comments though:

1. The article talks a lot about that the industry sucks because many games that the developer loves turns out to bad in they end and sell bad. In conclusion, you don''t make a lot of money. I think I can live with this. After all making games IS more fun than making database applications. The money don''t make that lot of a difference.

2. The gaming market is increasing in size very fast. Money must come out of it someday. At least when the industry as matured and does not inhibit the hit/miss strategy used by publishers.

So even with these problems I think that there is hope for the future. I will lie to myself and just keep on doing what I am doing. :-)

Jacob Marner

Jacob you lucky bugger, Doing computer games as a University course! My tutors were IT dinosaurs, and look very poorly on the subject. And they never tought us any where enough C++ to do a game!

This thread seems similar to the Game Jobs thread.

I haven''t read the article because I''m stuck at work But I will give it a read.

Anyway reply to point one.
The public are picky. While one person likes a game another will not. The games made may not be bad games but just unpopular (while there are games that are very poor games!). You are right, unless you become the next Carmack you will never make as much money makeing computer game as database. But as you said there is no fun in Databases (I should know!)

Point 2.
The Gaming industry IS making money, a LOT of money. More than Hollywood. Of course not every publishing house and development team makes money but unfortunately thats business. And as for the hit and miss of releasing games, the second publising houses come up with a Formula for releasing games the industry will go down the Pan. The music industry uses formula''s its getting rare for original music to hit the charts now because of industry organisation. I would hate that to happen to the Game Industry.

Yes keep the Good fight, you are lucky. When I did my Uni course (1995) The internet was still in its infancy and I didn''t really know how to use it as a resource (and I spent far too much time playing MUDs and Downloading porn!). If I knew of sites like gamedev back then (if they exsisted) my life would have turned out very different!

V

What else do you need; besides a miricle.
Money. Lots of Money. or I''ll never do a sequel!

Now I can''t speak from experience since I don''t work in the industry but loving both games and the technology behind them I do read quite a bit on the subject. From what I''ve read, most seems to agree with what this fellow is saying. I''ve posted on this before and I always have thought it was a shame: some of our most talented programmers in the world and they get paid nothing compared to programmers like myself who work in the business world. I''d love to join to ranks of game programmers (goodness knows it''s my passion) but take a HUGE cut in salary, lose all my excellent benefits, job respect I currently get, not to mention job security? Don''t think so. Besides my current job is pretty decent. For now I keep it on the hobby level.

Perhaps it will change. I certainly hope so. There are a lot of factors that make it difficult for companies right now. Bad marketing, short shelf life, expensive development, etc. all make it rough. Case in point: Looking Glass just went under and they have done some truly awesome games. I certainly hope it will get better...

Sieggy

To NeoReality,

Actually it is not an official kind of game programming course I am taking. At out university they promote individual ideas when you reach graduate level. For me this meant that I could sit down and make up a set of subjects that I though was about game programming and then do these. Some of them was courses (such as a course in graphics and networks programming) but others I had to do myself (such as learning directX and Design patterns). I am currently writing my master thesis which is a RPG authoring system. You can see it at www.marner.dk. This is actually my education! I think I am lucky that I can do this.

In my under graduate years I thought that game programming just should be a hobby, but then I asked a few of my professors what they though about it and they all agreed that if I wanted to - then fine - go ahead. I was quite surprised at the least. I was sure they would look down upon gaming as not being "proper" computer science, but things are changing. 5 years ago things was different and it would nok be possible. I think that game programming is gaining respect at the university and with time this respect will cause game programming to be more serious - using more serioyus methods and probably giving more stable and better results as many other places in the software industry.

Furthermore, I am quite surprised that so few do the same as me. People usually just do not know that it is possible. At my university I am the only one (as far as I know) doing gaming at the graduate level. We are 200 people on each year so I think this is strange. After all, dikuMUD gamma 0.0 was made as a project at my university so we have some tradition for gaming. (The computer science department is called diku for short)

Finally for completeness, my university is the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Jacob Marner

I just read the article and it sounds like he either worked for a bad company(s), got his feelings hurt, or something else. Maybe he did just get burned out though, who knows. I''ve been in the industry for 6 months now and I''m loving it. I actually got a raise when I got my current job after working as an applications programmer for about 7 years. I was making about the standard for the field. I''m not sure where the "game programmer = less money" came from. Maybe people aren''t haggling enough or aren''t worth more money.

I''ve been through a mini-crunch time, working from 7-8 a.m. until 11 or 12 for a couple of weeks and it was a little hectic but I survived.

I guess it all boils down to how much you love what you''re doing. I can''t imagine doing anything else.

Breakaway Games

I just thought that I should elaborate on what my graduate level education contains and give a few thoughts about why I am able to do this.

First let my say that although some of things are not given as courses I still get
credit for them by putting them into some written project.

I have learnt at my graduate coruses:

Courses:
Networks programming and networks in general
Graphics (I made a phong shading engine from scratch and then we also learnt a bit OpenGL)
Distributed programming
Computational Geometry

Other parts:
Design Patterns
UML
DirectX
Windows programming including MFC
General game programming concepts
Java (don''t laugh! - Java can be used partially for games - if you are clever!)
XML and SGML (for data file formats)

and a few more things that I might add later, including some AI courses.

And finally I am making a thesis in which I make a game engine
and thereby get to try all the theory in practice.

From the undergraduate courses I already know C++ and assembler so there was no problem here.

I think maybe that my professors might have been liberal with me as my grades are quite good and because I have been working as tutor for 2 years. When I started my tutor said "You are not here to learn how to make a new version of Doom" but he turned out to be wrong. A know of a single thesis that was published here that shows how to transform the book pipelines to one that is as efficient in Doom. And I know of another project at out univesity that is about improving some of the algorithms used in 3D cards.

Oh, and about saleries, I talked to a guy working at Electronic Arts and he says that the saleries is the same as everywhere else in the IT industry.

Jacob Marner

felonius:

I totally admit I could be wrong on this since I do not work in the game industry but all the quotes that I have heard put salaries below business IT developers. Not just below, but way below, not to mention hours and benefits. Out of curiosity what did he quote you?

Sieggy