The only question I asked myself when I was offered my current job is "Does it pay the bills?". Since I was getting more money it was a no-brainer. If money is even a consideration beyond that I would suggest staying with your present job. Very few people are in the industry to make money. A couple of additions and comments to your lists:

Game Programming:

Add #2 from IT Consulting. Most gamers respect the difficulty involved in making a quality game (even if they do complain about the time it takes ) You can interact with them as much as you want (via .plans, e-mail, etc)

Depending on the office, dress codes are more lax. I''ll never have to wear a dress shirt and tie again as I did with business programming! Shorts and t-shirts every day if I want! That may not be a big point for everyone but I like to be comfortable when I''m at work.

The opportunity to play games as part of your job!

IT Consulting:

A big negative for me was the corporate politics! I couldn''t stand it. I''m sure there''s some of that in the game industry but I''ll probably be more shielded from it.



Breakaway Games

I believe what Talin said about the game industry. One good point he made was that other non-game related IT could be fun as well.

I have recently been presented with a chance to start working in the game industry. Technically, the manager hasn''t extended an actually offer yet, but he did mention the high likelihood and he just wants me to meet with one more person that won''t be in until Tuesday. It may be pre-emptive, but I need to start thinking about my decision now.

I have two career paths I can choose between in my opinion:

IT Consulting:
1. Big money
2. Interaction and respect from end-users
3. The satisfaction and exhilaration from getting several dot-coms off the ground.
4. Programming tasks can become mundane. Now matter how much enthusiasm you try to preserve, you don''t always have the time to learn new technologies you may be interested in

Game programming:
1. Good money
2. I''d feel like a pea compared to my brilliant colleagues.
3. Satisfaction from contributing to a creative product (although the programmers don''t get to help design at all).
4. Programming is much more scientific and challenging. At least with us, you are always working with technology that you are interested in and are forced to learn new things. More invention occurs in this Industry. In fact, one of this company''s divisions is breaking off into it''s own company because of how successful their invention is going to be (ClearBand).

Please add to the former list of considerations at your will.

Jacob, not all game companies make as much cash as EA.

The game company I am speaking about specializes in children’s games. This is good because they make a lot of money right now and currently even have to turn away projects. They are very stable. Most of their stuff is for Disney. They are also planning on doing some X-Box development in the future and are starting a hard-core Playstation 2 game in 2 months.

Last but not least this company has an Alpha 1 deadline by the end of this month yet the lead programmer on the project is frequently working 10 hours a day to meet the deadline ("10:00 am - 8:00 pm"). I know many of you are still in school, but plan on 9 hours a day minimum. 10 hours is not bad.

I know I said that was the last, but also consider this:

I generally don''t like work related travel. Some people who have never done it may think it''s exciting, but the prospect of waking up at 4:00 am to catch a limo to the airport to attend a dumb meeting (or spend a few hours in a boiler room) in another state only to catch a flight back later that night and not get home until 10:00 pm when you would have otherwise spent much less time at the office that day and ate dinner at "Eat at Joe''s Crabhouse" instead of the airport pizza joint. At this game company business trips would me going to E3, Disney, Microsoft or their animation studio in Dublin Ireland - I''ll take some of that!

Do you recommend I jump on this opportunity? I’d love to read your ideas.

My thoughts are that as Talin pointed out, I may be at the appropriate age right now (just turned 25) versus later in life. Also, it would be easy for me to get back into business related IT (especially in Chicago) a few years from now if things didn’t work out for me in the game industry. It would be more difficult to find a game-programming job for two reasons: 1. There are only 4 game companies in Chicago that I know of and 2. I’d probably have to take a pay cut (after 2 more years of experience I could charge a lot of money in consulting) whereas right now I’d be getting competitive salary at this game company.

I suppose I don’t stand to lose anything my trying this out right now. If I don’t, I’ll always be wondering, “What if?”

Perhaps the best perk at the game programming company is I’d be able to put an aquarium in my office. People there have crazy offices as you can imagine. It isn’t as sterile as everywhere else I’ve been (it is clean actually, just more interesting). The thing I wouldn’t like ironically is having my own office. I’d rather sit adjacent or at least in earshot of other programmers.

Thanks for reading this lame post.

Hmmm, I don''t know about that, but I like making games. Then again, I don''t do it professionally...

If you code it, they will come...

Commander M
http://commanderm.8m.com
cmndrm@commanderm.8m.com

To Sieggy,

The guy I talked to (I won''t name names) did not quote any numbers. People in good jobs usually don''t and I anyway don''t know how to compare saleries in Canada (where he works) with those that I know here in Denmark. The entry jobs that I have looked at both in gaming and other IT is at about 25000 Danish Kroner a month (equal to around US $3700 a month) but then there is the high taxes (ranging from 50% to 70%) but free education and health care.
I heard elsewhere that salaries in gaming is about 25% below other IT companies, but that guy at EA said that it was not true what I asked him. I do not know what to know.

There is so many rumours going around, so I think that we must conclude that some companies make the same salaries as in other IT companies but other lie up to 25% below. I guess that experience, bargaining and choosing the right company ensures that you are in the high end - but in what industry isn''t this true?

To DrJohnB,
It sounds like you already made up your mind. Why not give it a try? I guess that is why you reading this forum anyway.

I am 25 too, and plan to enter as a professional in a year or two. I hope this isn''t to late for me, but this is the normal age that people end their master''s over here.

Jacob Marner

quote: Original post by Raptor

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=

No, the post I made had absolutely nothing to do with the thread. Just in case you want my e-mail, here it is: nes8bit@hotmail.com

i still see mixed opinions!!

what does the development cost of a good quality game vary between??
and what about the turn over??

thnx

Wow that is shocking!!

do all the game programming companies in the us have a very small profit??

why dont ne college kids get along and make a game and share the profit??
that way there is no need to pay salaries and the profit is worth for the part time job!!

Machaira, I kind of decided to go with the game company. I''m not getting as much hobby game development done as I''d like to. I may in fact have to work on game development full time if I want to accomplish anything meaningful. Thanks for your advice everyone.

that still dosent answer my question-
how much does a game development company make per good quality game of theirs??