Hi everyone

I'm a student and I visit a university of applied since in germany in the field digital media. This time next year I'll write my bachelor thesis and have my internship. Since I'm playing and loving games for 16 years now, I'm sure that I want to make this hobby to my job. Since this field gave me experience in c/++/# ,java and even openGL, it's not very deep knowlegde and so, I'll try to get the necessary expertise by learning them besides my studies.I started to read "Beginning Android Games" by Mario Zechner because I thought the Android Marketplace is a nice place for the whole procedure of creating a game and disribute it and so, see the progress in it's whole.

Since my little projekt is still in work, though I find seldom time for it, I realized, that this don't gives me the expertise I need. The problem is, that I want to do my internship at a etablished firm in the buisniss and for that I looked through the typical offers they have on their websites. Many things are done in C/++, engines, scripts and so on, so I tried to learn about theese things. And here I got the problem: I found my self in searching through google without any acceptable results.

For example, I looked through the the source of Ryzom Core, but it is so big, that it would cost me much time to get into this. But then, I don't know how much it gets me further. I tried unity and several open source game engines and saw, that they all quite specific in their handling and aim and so I got to the same question. So I looked through offers from firms to get directly into buisniss and met again the point, that I don't feel even close to confident to do the things they want, what turns me back to google again and so on.

I seek desperatly for an "entrance" to the buisniss to get a general understanding for the whole procedure. A point form where I can start and where I can be sure, it's not wasted time because it's no buisniss standard or in any other way reliable. Somethig like a small studio, which gives me some insight and the chance to do simlple till relevant jobs, to learn it by dooing as unpaid volunteer, so I can finish my studies and besides that learn the things i need to know, to work later on in this field. But I can't find anything which comes close to that.

So I thought, before I get more frustrated by struggling in this doom loop, I just try to ask the community here I encountered some times for tutorials by now.

Oh, I really typed all this text without saying a word about where I want to specialice I want to join as a programmer.

So if you have any tips for me,or if you think my aproach at all will not bring me any further, I would love if you share them with me.

Sincerly

Hello, student. I gather that you want to get a job as a programmer and that the entrance you seek is the entrance into a game programming job. So I moved your post to the Breaking In forum, where jobs are the focus.

I recommend you look at this forum's FAQs for starters. Back out to the forum's main page and click "Getting Started" (upper right).

And next time you post, try asking a shorter question. Questions about getting jobs belong here in Breaking In. Questions about learning programming belong in For Beginners.

All these contradicting results. All these dead-ends. No clear solutions.
I got them too.

But for me they answered questions, not raised new ones.

There is no answer for what you seek.
Not a single solid answer anyway.

People get into the industry by all kinds of means, and luck is always a part of the play. Your main goal should be to reduce the luck involved, but I guess everyone is trying to do that even without knowing it.

So why don’t we view this as a luck-enhancing question?

#1: Tom’s links and his FAQ’s are full of all kinds of information on this luck-enhancing drug.
I do feel that one was overlooked, and that is your ability to speak English. It has been brought up before, but I can say with personal experience over multiple jobs it was a key factor. The basic idea is that working overseas requires English, and by being able to work overseas you open up a very large amount of new jobs to yourself, thus increasing your chances of luck.
(But please do not spell “Project” with a “K”—it brings back bad memories of some games that thought they were cool by replacing every C with a K. Luckily Donkey Kong Country would not bring up bad memories in anyone…)

#2: The reason you are so confused is that you seek a concrete answer where none exists. “How do I get into the industry?” Really? If there was a proved answer to this you would not believe the mess we, in the industry, would be seeing. Some little pimple-face brat finds out online how to get into our industry guaranteed?
Who would stand for that?
We, the industry, would not.

We, the industry, pick people who have it. I can say from personal experience we make mistakes too. The guy we fired a few years ago went on to become a chef. Apparently we didn’t realize we were hiring a chef instead of a game designer. I guess the line between them is pretty thin.

We make mistakes, but if we think you have it, we are going to hire you, even if you are just a chef in game-designer’s clothing (on a side note, I have considered asking in my interviews, “Are you really a game designer, or are you a chef in disguise?”).


This question does not need to be asked. No one asks this.
Firstly, there is no answer. There are no concrete ways to get in, and 10,000 lucky ways to get in.
Secondly, it is a question only you can answer.
Are you a chef, or are you a game programmer? If you are a game programmer, the rest falls into place.


L. Spiro

I see. I try to consider this when I start another thread.

Thanks for the replys, You helped me alot. Don't get me wrong, I don't seek a 5-step tutorial or even a backdoor for getting paid. I just thought, looking at all the things out there and the complexity of modern productions, that there is some kind of "root" knowlegde, which builds the base for all the motors shaped in games. It's probably the way I solve problems, searching for the root, understand and change it if required instead of just handling symptoms. It's not enough for me to be able to handle a framework, I want to know what happens behind the scenes so I can handle any framework if I have to. Therefore I search(ed) the things, I "need to know" before getting deep in any subject. Maybe this sounds naiv or a bit to idealistic to survive a direct impact with the reality, but I try to come as close as I'm able to.

For now, I stick with Your advices and links, though the english part is quite obvious for me, since I wanted from day one to work abroad, but I try harder now to avoid upcomming "projekts"

Thanks for Your time.

I'm sorry, are you talking about CS? Or maybe top-down compared to bottom-up? I'd just thought I'd ask because I'm curious myself. Plus if you're talking about bottom-up then maybe that's where the problem lies, but I'm not sure.

Oh, using these terms, I think top-down fits most. Like one learned java and also learned the principles about object orientated programming can switch easily to c#. And after the most things I saw out there, at most the engines of course, were very high level, I want to earn a generall understanding about the mechanics behind all these systems, so yes, top-down describes it well.

Oh, using these terms, I think top-down fits most. Like one learned java and also learned the principles about object orientated programming can switch easily to c#.

Well, I don't know too much about C# specifically, yet. But that was my thought.

And after the most things I saw out there, at most the engines of course, were very high level, I want to earn a generall understanding about the mechanics behind all these systems, so yes, top-down describes it well.

But that's the thing. As I understand it, it depends on what you mean by "understanding the mechanics behind". If you just wanna learn to use them, then I'm getting the impression you only need to import and learn the built-in object names and the methods/functions to call them. But that won't say much about how the objects themselves are made - what you're actually importing. So in that sense, I'm thinking that it's bottom up (but that it's still easy to learn because the language is the same as the one you use to import it with).

Anyways, I'm just assuming things here. My 2 cents.

Oh, using these terms, I think top-down fits most. Like one learned java and also learned the principles about object orientated programming can switch easily to c#. And after the most things I saw out there, at most the engines of course, were very high level, I want to earn a generall understanding about the mechanics behind all these systems, so yes, top-down describes it well.

l4, if you want to have conversations about (or if you have questions about) the technology behind games, you should use the For Beginners forum. This forum is for conversations and questions about "breaking into" a game job. If this conversation goes beyond that purpose, it'llo be closed, and you can start a new thread in another forum (or in this one, if you have more questions about breaking in).