I am an older IT professional looking to get into the gaming industry, with an eye towards eventually designing, but I'm not certain if my current plan is at all practicable and would like to get this community's opinion on it.

In a nutshell, I am planning to get the vendor certifications for Photoshop and either 3d Studio or Maya (or possibly both, depending on what advice I get) to improve my technical credentials. In the fall of this year, I would enter in the certificate program for Game Design offered by the University of Washington. When that completes next summer I would then start contacting the various development studios in the Seattle area and pitch myself as an IT/Application Support contractor (being completely upfront about my longer-term goal). Once hired, I would look to effect the move into the creative/design area at an undetermined date in the future.

A few points that might help clarify things:

• I'm oriented towards the technician angle because I don't have a portfolio to show for any of the applications above
• I've played with modding tools like the Elder Scrolls development kits, but most of my ideas are still in the theoretical stage
• I can't afford the cost and don't want to spend the time to get a credential from one of the Name programs (lost most of the past five years dealing with a series of debilitating injuries and am looking to get this in motion as soon as possible)
• I would propose something like a one-year support contract with the understanding that there was no guarantee of any position in the fields I wanted, but that if I demonstrated technical qualifications, work ethic, and creative ideas I might have a chance to move over
• [to be interpolated when I remember what I wanted to put here]

So that's my plan. What I'm hoping to learn from you all (really, can't we find a better second-person plural than this? ) is the following:

1. Do you think that this approach would work? Would Developers have any interest in what I would have to offer?
2. Does anybody have any experience with the vendor certification above? Do/would they carry any weight?
3. What is your opinion of the curriculum/program offered by UW? Does anybody know what sort of reputation it has?

Thanks much in advance.

edit- forgot: I recently started a one-year desktop/server engineer contract at an Xbox development house. I have no real interest in their game genre, so I wouldn't be looking to get on with them.

I think your plan is almost certain to fail. I suppose there is a chance it might succeed, there is a chance the stars could align in your favor. But considering that you do not exist in a vacuum, so many of your actions rely on finding rare jobs and getting them without REAL credentials or REAL experience, and there are so many other skilled, experienced, and diploma-bearing individuals you will be competing against, it is quite unlikely.

The programs you suggest are usually just professional development courses. They are a dessert or snack to help your career, not a main course of education. That game design certificate doesn't look like much of anything. 9 credit hours, three courses. It is not a college degree and will not pass most HR filters. The application certificates similar are not worth very much other than documenting that you know where the buttons are.

Here is how I read your plan.

• Learn enough Photoshop for art to get a certificate, meaning you know all the buttons. Perhaps opening a career option for character artist, concept artist, UI artist, whatever. Without the degree, I hope you've got a lot of art skill and practice or the certificate means nothing.
• Then learn Maya or 3D Studio enough to get a certificate, probably on the path to become either a modeler or animator. As a modeler you will use some of your Photoshop art talent. Again, without the degree I hope you've done a lot on your own and an incredible portfolio, because the cert itself will not give you a job.
• Then get a certificate of game design, nine credit hours of schooling. That is roughly 5% of a degree.
• Then get a job as IT in the studio (an extremely rare job opening) or as a customer support person (at a call center, not the studio). IT is unlikely, since nothing up to this point prepares you for that. A call center job is throw-away, if you can speak English and arrive on time you can do that. Neither of those jobs directly relates to game development.
• Finally, transitioning from either IT where you keep email working and format machines, or from a call center where you are miles away from the studio, and through some amazing but unrealized method, gain a role as a senior game developer. Somehow magic happened.

And with your edit: You also have a "desktop/server engineer" which I assume is a programming position. Which has nothing to do with art, modeling, animating, IT, support, or design.

When I look it over, I don't see a game designer. I see someone who has no idea what they want to do with their life and doesn't commit to any field.

1. Do you think that this approach would work? Would Developers have any interest in what I would have to offer?
2. Does anybody have any experience with the vendor certification above? Do/would they carry any weight?
3. What is your opinion of the curriculum/program offered by UW? Does anybody know what sort of reputation it has?

1. No. Studios hire people within a specific discipline. They hire artists when they need art, animators when they need animation, modelers when they need models, writers when they need writing, programmers when they need programming. And when they need designers, which is a position requiring several years of experience -- they hire someone with years of experience and design skills.

2. Most are of those certificates nearly worthless on their own. They can have value if you are already in or near the role and need a skills refresh. For example, if you have only been using Photoshop lightly for your job and need to get back into it, gaining a photoshop certification may help you at the current or next job.

3. Their computer science program -- an actual bachelors degree or masters degree -- has a tiny bit of name recognition. It won't be enough to land a job, more like "I have heard of that school before". A full bachelors degree or masters degree, not a continuing education certificate, is the normal workplace requirement.

I can't afford the cost and don't want to spend the time to get a credential from one of the Name programs (lost most of the past five years dealing with a series of debilitating injuries and am looking to get this in motion as soon as possible)

This is going to be your biggest problem. You are unwilling or unable to get the normal credentials. It is possible to get around that in the US if you have an absolutely amazing portfolio of work that shows you can do the job, but you also wrote:

I don't have a portfolio to show for any of the applications above

So that puts the kibosh on that.

As Frob pointed out, this seems like a plan that in the end will most likely fail. The game industry is an extremely hard industry to transition positions internally. You will probably be able to get an IT position but I doubt this will get your foot in the door. Even QA has around a 5% chance of getting your foot in the door from what I've seen, because companies go through so many people that they would rather hire for the position, than train someone in the company already trained to do something else.

I will not recommend a school/courses directed towards game design. Most of these are scams and will not get your hired in the industry and will most likely not even get you an interview. Your best bet at getting into game design is become a software engineer and get your foot in the door that way or if you are an artist build up a good portfolio.

There is always the chance though that you will get a game design job through an IT position but I wouldn't bet on it.

Honestly, start building skills that are directly related and demonstrable by building a portfolio of games. Go learn Unity 5, or Unreal Engine 4, or Cocoas-2D, or GameKit, or MonoGame, or anything really -- as long as you can use it to develop and showcase your skill at making games, you'll be moving in the right direction.

That said, design positions are a rarefied role in an already rarefied field in an already rarefied industry, and one which is extremely competetive with no shortage of young brainiacs willing to work 50-60 hours weeks for relative pennies on the dollar. I don't mean to be discouraging, but that's the reality of the situation. You may not posses the health, or the youth, or the willingness to give up a significant amount of personal time to be competitive, and you might have life-circumstances (e.g. people to support, debt, etc) that would be serviceable with a typical entry-level games industry wage, or much less as an IT monkey.

The upside of being alive today, though, is that there are avenues for dedicated, talented people to make their own way and break into viable markets like Steam or Xbox Live, or the Playstation Store. That's no cake-walk either, and far from guaranteed (or even likely) success, but its a shot you can make something of if you put in the work and have the vision.

Honestly, start building skills that are directly related and demonstrable by building a portfolio of games.