Hi,

I would like to ask for advice regarding my first job.

I've been interested in game engine development for some time now and I was offered a role of Game Engine Developer few days ago. The only "problem" is the fact that the game engine is:

• written for game terminals, the ones that you can find in casinos.
• it is written in Java

My question is how will the experience gained in developing such engine help me in future jobs? I always wanted to make game engines for AAA games and I'm having some tough time making a  decision, because I really don't know how many similarities there are between making computer game vs game terminal games. Another thing is of course Java. I know that 90%  game engines for triple A games are written in C++ and that is also considerable downside for me...

How well do you know Java and C++?

Most AAA games are 3D and from what little knowledge I have of casino games, they are mostly 2D and mostly only graphics and gameplay logic.

IMO, it is very odd that they wouldn't use a prebuilt engine.

I consider myself to be intermediate C++ programmer with slightly worse Java knowledge

5 minutes ago, fleabay said:

IMO, it is very odd that they wouldn't use a prebuilt engine.

As far as I know, they are responsible for making game engine that is later used by other casino game developers.

It sound pretty interesting and you will of course learn a lot of stuff. It's not always necessary to learn EXACTLY what you're aiming at, because there's lots of different things to learn anyway, also a game engine can be a quite complex thing.

Assuming that there won't be an "AAA 3D game engine" job just around the corner, and even if, they might look for a more experienced coder there, I would suggest you to take this job and see what you learn from it.

I would take it.

When moving on(from this first job) you will have demonstrated that you are not afraid to move outside your comfort zone in order to reach your goals.  You will have commerical experience in programming, and in Java - an OOP language.

Sometimes in your career you may have to take on a project to pay the bills, and casino games have been there since the first home computers hit the shelves.  If you put yourself forward then you can boast having played a part in a real casino system.

Best of luck!

I did engine dev at a gambling company for a few years before doing it for games. It's going to be way more relevant to gamedev than a regular business programming job if that's your other options ?

We used C++ and Gamebryo which is directly relevant to gamedev, but when I got back into games, my new employer insisted that I start out in a junior position (and salary) because I was coming from another industry...

Like others have said, lots of experience will still transfer to traditional video games.Worked at a casino games company using a prebuilt and found the experience to be useful and relevant. 3D graphics in casino games is becoming pretty common, the gameplay is a bit different, but not so specific to casino games that it won't be useful.

Casino games are also very regulated and have a very high bar for QA, you may be able to use this aspect of the experience to your advantage. As far as the Java vs C++ thing goes, I wouldn't worry about it too much, it's still programming experience, as long as I you can adapt to C++ in the future.

From what I gathered if you're not working for a major triple A on an already well established game engine, a large factor for making a custom engine is the licensing. And indeed you're likely to find yourself working for the gambling industry for a while for that reason

Thank you all for responses! You've been very helpful. Happily, I was given the opportunity to take the almost exact same role, but with C++. I accepted the offer obviously.