Video Gaming Career
Slayer5227
Elkridge Member
I have been thinking about this lately and I know that every kid says this at some point but "I wanna make video games." I know that there are 4 main categories for a career: Engineering, Art, Design, and Production (correct me if I'm wrong and there is more), I'd like to get info on each from people who do them and maybe see what's right for me. If I wanna do art to I have to be amazing at art? I've always loved drawing and doing art but I don't think I'm the best artist, but I like to learn. If I wanna be a software engineer, what does that entail? Am I going to be dragging myself out of bed everyday to go to a class where I have to learn a whole new language? Just some info would be really appreciated. Thanks.
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Buy a begginers guide to directx/c++ and see if you like it. Honestly, my brain was chemically not ready for programming until the age of 24. It's hard, but some people develop quicker than others. If you suck horribly at logic and math, don't frustrate yourself.
Art
You have to be a good artist to make it, and to find out what your potential is you should just take a couple classes.
Design/Creative Management
You have to be extremely logical and understanding of humanity and their expectations. You will be working essentially as a manager between all fields here making sure the creative vision is accomplished by each art, engineering, qa, marketing, etc. This is just as much management as it is game design.
QA
Good place to start. Wonderful entry level arena in to gaming companies that can lead to a more specific field.
Marketing
If you like the business end of things, this is where to be. This is what I like doing, and it is what I am good at. Do what you are good at, it will make you happy because you will get more frequent positive feedback.
The other portions of production
Community management, web design, finance, human resources .. there is a lot of more standard jobs you can do in the gaming industry that have gaming industry characteristics melted in to them. So if you cant fit in to one of the above categories, there is still a place for you in the industry.
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It can easily take 10 years of going to school and working to find a fit for yourself. Don't worry too much now. Just try different things and pick some potential companies you like in the same area you want to go to college at.
I've fallen in love with marketing because I get to be close to the product every day. I learn it inside and out, and can speak intelligently about what we've produced, without stepping into fields I'm no good at: engineering or art.
I can honestly recommend marketing, especially if things like Facebook and Twitter are up your alley. Social media is a big part of marketing, now, and the interactivity with a community is awesome.
Why does a bottle of Tide detergent look like that? Why those colors? That label? What about all the advertisements you've ever seen? The look and feel of the website? Any public encounter you've ever had with a bottle of tide detergent is all marketing.
You shape the public's perception of the product, and the product's place in the market.
It's an unorthodox side of creation, but it's fun to walk into work each and every day knowing that I'm going to MAKE something, and that real people will see it, read it or hear it.
I've been doing a bit of research on various positions. I believe most of my interests will fall under what PirateNinja has listed as 'Engineering'. I like getting into the guts of a problem/idea and fixing it/making it happen. Specific areas I've had pique my interests have been combat design, level design, standard programming, event scripting.
My job at THQ is marketing their video games, but almost exclusively in social media. So when you see anything written about Company of Heroes 2 on Facebook, Twitter, G+, the official site and forums, that's all me. I get to talk about video games all day, it's living a passion. And all that after I thought I would only love my job if I was in an animation/VFX field.
There are tons of branches to the video game industry, you just have to explore them all. You might be surprised.
It's good that your pondering this now. It will take some time before you really understand your goals and wants and how you'll be able to accomplish these. Taking a bit of time to plan now, is very helpful. I'm only two years ahead of you and am interested in more or less the same thing (art side though.) The advice offered here rings true, so keep these in mind, plan ahead in terms of classes/experimenting, and you'll be on your way to finding the niche that you like.
As there are a few artists in this community I'm sure they will all agree that artists really are "a dime a dozen" and to get anywhere in the bigger studios or at least a foot in the door it's all about timing, luck, and being damn good at what you do.
As far as my experience in animating (school and personal animations) goes (digital or traditional) understanding the mechanics of whatever it is you're animating, physics, TIMING, and ability to think "three dimensional" is absolutely necessary. I LOVE traditional animation and have a great dislike for digital. I have a ton of respect for "real" digital animators (I'll explain in a sec), but prefer the pencil and paper approach more. It feels more personal and you really get the sense that whatever is being brought to life by you has a touch of you in it
Traditional animation, as many of my fellow students have learned, is not for some people. It's fun to see on the tv or movie screen, but what it really takes to create them is not enjoyed by a lot of people. To quickly put it into perspective 1sec of animation in the US on "1s" (1 drawing per frame) is 24 drawings. Disney does a lot on 1's and that's why their drawings are very smooth and very lifelike in motion. On the other hand things like Family Guy are done on 2's (1 drawing for every 2 frames) which is 12 drawings per second of animation. Many people quickly realize that drawing the same thing OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER again is not really what they enjoy and eventually end up in background art (which is extremely impressive), character development, storyboarding (which I love), etc... Give it a shot sometime. Draw the same thing (trying to keep proportions, perspective and timing) for a 5 sec animation, 120 drawings for five seconds...crazy. I'm not telling you this to turn you off from it, but I want to give you an actual perspective of what animating entails (traditionally).
Digital animation is quite a bit easier in a sense. There is always "undo" and the ability to work with minor tweaking on the "inbetweens" of key frames that help alleviate the time needed. But, Flash is no easier than traditional art; 3ds Max (my personal favorite), Blender, Maya, etc...all have their issues and if you're modeling as well it becomes VERY time consuming. Working with UV's (the detailing, coloring, texturing of models) is a bitch...simple as that. Lighting can be a pain if you're trying to get the correct mood, etc...I can go on about this forever with the difficulties, but that would sound like I'm a hateful bastard and dislike what I do. The most beneficial and biggest payout that makes each one of these issues entirely worth it is seeing your creation come to life in front of you! Even stick figures! I mean, there is this still drawing and TONS of them (or a solid model standing in T-formation) and when you put everything together it becomes "real"!!! There is nothing better than seeing pencils laid out across your floor, markers everywhere, papers wadded up and stacked neatly in 9 different places because you don't want to mix up the frames, the scanner in a very "used" position and all 720 frames scanned in digicel (good program) playing right in front of you and whoever else you choose to show it to and everyone saying "man, that's awesome! It's ALIVE (laughs and smiles are had by everyone at this point)!" It can be extremely time consuming and frustrating, but the end result is so worth it that it motivates you to continue on and continue creating!
Do the animation world a favor...regarding @primesuspect's comment, I agree and disagree. Find your program to work with, but don't just jump into it create junk and say "look what I did!" Get a few books (I can loan you some if need be) READ, understand, AND THEN create your junk (because you will create junk at first). Hold on to this junk work to monitor your progress and watch it! Every artist has 1000 bad drawings, animations, paintings, etc...in them that need to come out first before the good work starts coming. Create your junk early and get it out of the way, but do it with knowledge and an eye to see your mistakes.
Two books that are considered animation BIBLES are:
"The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation" by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston (two of Disney's original "9 old men" and probably the two most well-respected and well-known animators)
The other book is "The Animator's Survival Kit" by Richard Williams. This book is written by the guy who did "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and many others. He learned from many of the original "9 old men" and has nothing but GREAT information to offer those wanting to animate.
A couple others to look at for digital animation (well too many books to list), but read a bit about John Lasseter (The most respected man in digital animation) and look at Jason Ryan's website www.jasonryananimation.com
Just my personal view and opinion about the animation section (which is obviously used in video games). If you can animate you can animate for ANYTHING! =D
@QuandyTheTurnip I took a class this year in school (Computer Science 2) and I made a flash game (Pong) and a few simple games in BlueJ using Java code. The class made me absolutely despise coding because of the way it was taught. The teacher never taught anything, he would simply say "you can figure it out, you're a smart kid, look in the book if you have any problems" and send me on my merry way. Are all classes like this is the programming side or is he just an awful teacher?
@primesuspect I would love to write for Icrontic like @GHoosdum and @UPSLynx said, if that is an option
@JBoogaloo Thank you for the advice, I'm not necessarily as interested in the animation side of things, I have never really cared about movements, but more the look and feel of the characters and environments would be more what I'm interested in. Thank you though, that gave a lot of insight to the animation side of it.
If you really do want to get into Software stuff, personally I suggest looking into a QA job while in college. They are pretty easy to get in to, at least for entry level, and can get you quite a bit of easy experience in the field, and looking at a lot of code. Not to mention having a QA background when going into Development is really nice.
Anyway, I know someone who moved up the chain quickly in the direction he wanted to go in after starting in QA. I don't know the industry personally though, so I guess times have changed.