[gameprogrammer] Re: How to get into the game business

On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Loretta Thompson <
lorettalthompson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Bob,
> Just a comment. Thank you for your insight. I have been running game
> programming camps for years. My son went to a two week summer camp at
> DigiPen and I hired him as an instructor at age 16. When he went to UCLA he
> got a job as a games tester for Activision. It was not his gaming skills
> they wanted, they wanted him to follow instructions and write reports. He is
> in the credits on several games, but decided he wanted to finish college
> first.
>

Yep, but since this is the Game Programmer list I focused on programmers.
Testers, artists, receptionists, accountants, they all have their own path.

Bob Pendleton


>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 10:48 AM, Bob Pendleton <bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> When I teach, on this list, at parties... I get the question "how do
>> you get into the game business" or "Will this class get me a job in
>> the game business". They are pretty much the same question. The person
>> asking the question wants to get a job working for a game
>> developer/publisher and they want to know how.
>>
>> The second question, always asked by students is easy to answer:
>> "maybe, but I hope not". One class in game programming is not
>> sufficient to qualify you as a general purpose game developer. The
>> first one has an answer that is so simple and obvious that no one ever
>> believes me. The answer is to write a game and sell it. It doesn't
>> matter how you write it, and it doesn't matter how you sell it. Once
>> you have done so *you* working for your self, are the president of a
>> game company and are working in the game business.
>>
>> The game business is extremely entrepreneurial. The only people I know
>> who have spent 10+ years in the game business own their own
>> businesses. Quite often they have gone from owning their own to
>> working for others and back many times. Too many people seem to think
>> that you can go to college, go to work for _____ (fill in the blank)
>> and retire at age 65. That does not happen unless you own the company.
>> You might be able to do that by getting a degree, learning COBOL, and
>> going to work for AT&T maintaining their billing system, but do not
>> count on it even there.
>>
>> What you need to do is start writing games. Start with games you can
>> finish in a couple of weeks or at most a month.
>>
>> Where do I get that advice? From my own career and from the history of
>> Id. The Id folks started writing games
>> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Software) for Softdisk. They had to
>> produce a game a month and ship it. In my case I started out writing
>> games in Basic on printing paper terminals back in the early '70s. I
>> spent 20 years learning discrete event simulation, graphics,
>> programming, and writing small games as a hobby before I got a job in
>> the game industry. After I got sick of that I moved off and wound up
>> spending 5 years doing corporate research on the games business and
>> game's interaction with telecom before moving on from there.
>>
>> If you don't want to be writing games enough to be writing games right
>> now... do you really love it enough to be in the business?
>>
>> If you wanted to be a kung fu master, you would practice every day of
>> your life. Do you expect to do less to be a game development master?
>> The words "Kung Fu" by the way mean something like "mastery developed
>> by great effort over time". And, OBTW, recent scientific studies of
>> the development of expertise indicates that it takes 10 years of daily
>> effort *daily effort* to become an expert at anything.
>>
>> In brief, if you want to write games, then write games. If you want to
>> be in the game business, be the game business.
>>
>> Am I saying do it all on your own? Of course not. When you have a
>> problem you can't solve look it up, read a book, take a class, ask
>> this list :-) But, until you start, you will not know what questions
>> to ask. Learning requires that you do it wrong, otherwise there is no
>> learning. How many times will you jam your fingers before you learn to
>> block a kick? Everyone who can block a kick has jammed a finger.
>>
>> BTW, it really helps to give up on shame. It really helps to learn
>> that you do not know *the* answer, just an answer.
>>
>> Bob Pendleton
>>
>>
>> --
>> +-----------------------------------------------------------
>> + Bob Pendleton: writer and programmer
>> + email: Bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> + web: www.TheGrumpyProgrammer.com <http://www.thegrumpyprogrammer.com/>
>>
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>>
>>
>


-- 
+-----------------------------------------------------------
+ Bob Pendleton: writer and programmer
+ email: Bob@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
+ web: www.TheGrumpyProgrammer.com

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