I'm so tired of this subject. The internet has given us this wonderful opportunity to skip the corporations altogether, and do it ourselves, but still everyone looks to the corporate milk bottle for salvation.

Why do we never see posts in help wanted "Marketing expert looks for games to publish", or "Natural team leader looks for team'? It's always the artists and programmers looking upward for money for the work that only they are capable of doing.

Isn't that what gamedev is all about? Helping us make the connections on our own?

I want to make games but I don't want to get a 'job'. Making games leads me into the world of fantasy, and looking for wageslavery is the last thing on my mind when creating something.

If finding a job in an established company is the only option we have, then its time, much like for musicians, to question the industry and what its doing, and start finding ways to bypass the uber greed and ubercontrol they exert.

Many people do "skip corporations". It's called "indie gaming".

There is a vast difference between making games and making music. With a reasonable investment, I can acquire the equipment needed to make music that can compete (technically, if not artistically) with anything anyone else can make.

That is simply not the case with games. Commercial games have budgets in the tens of millions. Sure there are avenues that don't require this (the iphone is a good case for this), but you are severely limited in scope compared to what can be achieved with a larger budget.

I agree fully with DeceasedSuperiorTech. And I do believe indies can compete with corporations, provided they are honest about the strengths and weaknesses of each group.

-Corporations have giant selling-machines setup and running. Even lackluster games can make millions when piped through these machines.

vs.

-Indies do not have the massive expenses associated with maintaining such giant selling-machines. A game can be considered a "success" with a vastly small fraction of the sales of the corporate game. Provide a nice living for a small handful of people instead of thousands.


-Corporations can put an incredibly large number of resources (money, developers, artists) into a game.

vs.

-Indies, because they aren't using so many resources, do not need to aim for as high-yielding a target. They can develop games for niche markets that simply don't offer a significant enough bounty to be worth the expenditure of massive corporate resources. And so they will not be competing with the corporations for these tiny markets, but rather with other indies.


I could go on, but I think this makes the point. Indies can be just as successful as corporations (so long as you adjust the terms of this success relative to the scope of the business). I think where a lot of Indies run into problems is in one of two categories:
1) They imitate the corporations, trying to succeed by using strategies that are out of their scope (let's make the new World of Warcraft! mentality).
2) They never actually get off the ground. They don't finish a game, or they don't build a business out it. Lack of self-discipline or motivation can be the case, or lack of business knowledge. Making games is only one side of it, indies need to be just as knowledgeable about business as about games (again, small startup, sometimes bootstrap business in this case -- not giant corporate business -- this comes after years of success and growth). Many giant corporations were once themselves indies -- successful ones.

Quote: Original post by ChurchSkiz
DW covered the important things in the first post. My shortened belief:

1. Yes, you can get a job without a degree
2. Yes, you will have to work your ass off to get it.

Spend time making games, having well polished demos, and most important, network.

And to reinforce the above I'll say it again:

Networking is important in our industry as it is in all professional industries. The best part about networking is that it can be done by those who may not have the money to afford a degree.

The objective of networking in my opinion is to initiate and improve relations with a studio or someone in a studio, preferably a impressing a boss until the point comes where you can effectively bypass Human resources when sending in your resume/cv.

This sentence is important:

>> Effectively bypass human resources. <<

One of HR core jobs is to sort some kind of order from chaos when it comes to job applications in the industry. Because there are quite frankly so many of us with skill sets that range from non-existent to flawlessly professional applying for positions. They are employed to sort through a constant influx of applications.

The negative side to this is that your requirement for entry can become based on things you may not consider important for the job. In a perfect world your demos, skills, soft-skills and passionate nature should secure you a job. Unfortunately HR is about matching the credentials that fit the job in a more corporate sense. And in most cases they will consider education and degrees, 4-year bachelors being the average bar.

From my experiences HR is both your best friend and worst enemy in this industry. If you can earn the respect of people that work within a studio then you may get yourself that job.

Attend conventions and meetings big and small. Think creatively about how you present your work. If you've created a small game demo then why not print it off in to DVD and present it to some developers as your "Business Card"

Or better yet, dress up as a Stormtrooper!

Quote: simply what i am asking is, do i have a chance getting a job as game programmer with no degree?

To be blunt, your only chance right now would be to get to know someone in the industry who will help you get your foot in the door - and that's assuming that you actually are talented/smart/dedicated enough to attract their interest.

I do actually have a 2 year degree and about 6 years of experience with C++, and right now I've had zero luck pursuing programming jobs (in general, not just game development). But to be fair, there are few programming openings in my area and I can't afford to relocate, so I haven't been able to put in very many resumes.

To OP:

Since you didn't put location into your profile, I would like to say this.

Yes you can - but only in Malaysia. From what companies are complaining at IGDA meetings, if you can prove what you worth (as simple as shows a portfolio and answers question to prove what you know in order to develop that portfolio), you can get a job at game dev company. As simple as that. This is due to certain things I rather not mention (education system, etc, etc, differences, etc, etc, focus, etc,etc). On short, a lot of local company is complaining that getting a degree holder is easy, getting someone who can do it is hard. and they are willing to take in people who can do it, even without a degree.

Well, that's what I heard at local IDGA meeting. That is. This may vary from country to country.

What it really comes down to is this:

How much of your future are you willing to bet on whether or not the guy who is in all other ways equal to you won't have a degree for himself?

Quote: I want to make games but I don't want to get a 'job'. Making games leads me into the world of fantasy, and looking for wageslavery is the last thing on my mind when creating something.

I don't really think anyone wants to get a job so they can make games. Most people just want to make games, but making games requires a lot of investment in time. And, we require food, water, and shelter in order to live, which require money, which requires a job.

People have two options as I can see, either they get a full-time job and make games part-time, or make games full-time, which requires that they have a job making games.

Honestly, I'd prefer to work with a small development house which does the kind of niche games I like, rather than a dog whining at the end of big publisher's leash. I'd rather not get anywhere close to a mamorpaga, or generic shooter factory if I can help it.

Quote: already wrote why. my marks are and will probably not be high enough to get to university+i probably wouldn't have the money for it.

I don't know where you live, or enough about your situation to give any advice, but I would suggest you look closely at your options, and maybe talk to your school councilor. Try to find out what your options are before deciding on a path.

Quote: Institutionalized education simply does NOT have a monopoly on learning. You can learn outside of school. I find I learn more efficiently and comprehensively outside of school (more enjoyably and cost-effectively as well).

I actually do 95% of my learning outside of school. I didn't learn C++, or Lua from School, at best I'm learning Java, which I already know. And I'm looking forward to learning Haskell on my own, if only to figure out how functional systems measure up to OOP.

The ASP.NET Forum I did for my National Diploma project was perhaps 20% what I learned in School (Yay! web forms, html, and session variables), and 80% what I learned through my own research.

What school does for me is formalize my learning into something which is professional. It helps me abstract my problems to their core concepts, thereby gaining insight into the internal workings of what it is I'm actually doing. It also gives me an opportunity to network--And in fact the only one available to me in this Country.

Even the smartest programmer I know, a friend of mine who created a server side scripting language capable of generating a complex CMS website in three days (He created a simple one right in front of me in 30 minutes) started his road with the same diploma I had. He would have never known most of the concepts he used existed without institutionalized learning.

[Edited by - WazzatMan on August 4, 2009 12:09:46 PM]

Wish you good luck in search of a job



John

EDIT by Evil Steve: Removed spammy-looking link

[Edited by - Evil Steve on August 5, 2009 5:33:44 AM]