Hey All,

I'm looking to get into the gaming industry. I've skirted around the idea for a long time, always thinking that I couldn't do it. I've finally decided to take the plunge.

My question is whether it's worth going to school for game design/coding etc. I've been writing content for paper games for a while, and have a good idea of story and some basic design. But I have next to no technical know how. 

My instinct is that such things can be learned with a lot of practice, video tutorials, and more practice. I've also heard that a degree is not really that important, since you get hired based on your portfolio/prototypes. Why not just make the games?

But won't a degree help with contacts and mentoring--I'm not a great networker.

Of course, it'll plunge me into more debt, but...

If anyone has advice, let me know. Also any idea of a program to start with: Game Maker, Unity, Godot, Construct, Stencyl--I've heard good things about them all, so much so that I don't know which would be best to start with!

Thanks

It depends on a lot of factors. If you're in a country where tuition is free, then it's more worthwhile than if you're in one where tuition costs 5 years worth of salary...

If you want to learn to be a programmer or artist, I would recommend a degree focused specifically on those professions (computer sciences, software engineering, fine arts, etc). 

If you want to be a game designer, then maybe a game school is a decent choice, as there isn't a well agreed upon educational framework for that profession (yet), so game schools are the closest thing. Alternatively, you could get a tertiary degree in anything else too - English literature, Philosophical Theology, Psychology, Electrical engineering, Teaching, etc (if education is a luxury you can afford). The point of a degree, aside from starting a career is to create more well rounded adults, and people with lots of life experience tend to be good designers in every field of design (IMHO).

For what its worth though, game specific courses can be a bit predatory. Hopefully it's different in the rest of the world, but here in Australia, the local game schools produce an equal number of graduates per year to the number of people currently employed in the local industry... The local industry certainly isn't at a 100% growth rate -- so if we guessed 3% growth, then 97% of graduates have no hope of finding an employer... It's even worse than that when your realize that they are also competing against the people who did specialised art/code degrees, and people who didn't do a degree at all. To make that picture even worse, pure "design" jobs probably account for well under 5% of all game industry jobs, so the competition to secure an actual "game designer" job is fierce. 

In that light, I would certainly recommend having a portfolio that proves you're worthy of such a rare career. Maybe that means skipping school to toil at a basement desk. Maybe it means doing a degree and spending nights and weekends on hobby projects. Maybe it means packing a tablet PC into a backpack and hiking across Europe... 

5 hours ago, HomeBrewArcana said:

whether it's worth going to school for game design/coding etc.

There's a world of difference between the two sides of your slash there.  Which is it you're really asking about? Are you asking about design? Or are you asking about programming instead? The advice differs widely, depending on which you're asking about.

It can be worth it, if you have the funds to go and spend all of your time there networking, learning and building your portfolio, no matter if it's for design, code or art.

Of couse you can learn it all by yourself. There are a bunch of self-made masters in the industry, probably just as many as those who studied. However, the path through school can be easier.

In my personal experience, the biggest benefit has always been the network you enter by simply going to school and getting to know students and teachers alike. If you do decide to go to a game school, chose one that has mostly teachers from inside the industry, as those are the ones who can get you a job (if you're good enough)

One big problem with teaching yourself game design is that few people really know what game design actually involves. If nothing else, a good syllabus (and, unfortunately, bad ones exist) will force you to gain some experience in all the relevant areas.

Incidentally, since you mentioned video tutorials, I would say that these are a poor substitute for books. Videos are snappy and memorable but they rarely go into depth in the way that a good book does, and there is much less quality control involved in who gets to produce them. Be prepared to read.

10 hours ago, Kylotan said:

One big problem with teaching yourself game design is that few people really know what game design actually involves. If nothing else, a good syllabus (and, unfortunately, bad ones exist) will force you to gain some experience in all the relevant areas.

Incidentally, since you mentioned video tutorials, I would say that these are a poor substitute for books. Videos are snappy and memorable but they rarely go into depth in the way that a good book does, and there is much less quality control involved in who gets to produce them. Be prepared to read.

Thanks for the advice. I prefer to read anyway! Any recommendations of good books?

1 hour ago, HomeBrewArcana said:

Any recommendations of good books?

Bunches of'em. Definitely have a look at Tracy Fullerton's book and Raph Koster's book (neither of which is about "coding" but rather about design).

I really like Jesse Schell's The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses.

I'm not suggesting this as a replacement for a book (which, if chosen well will be much better rounded and complete) but online you'll find some great reading at Daniel Cook's Lost Garden.  Click on "essays" at the top and try the tags for "worth reading" and "science of game design" for some good starting points.