Hunter

Oh I can actually see this! Like in my head or something! FU - Hey Bob, how are the kids? Bob - Uh, they're doing good. FU - Oh thats nice, you're fired. Bob - Uh.. FU - Just kidding, Bob.. heh-heh. So, Saturday. Bob - Uh... Saturday? FU - You know Bob, job securtity in todays world... yikes. Oh, not to change the subject but did I ever tell you about my half-brother John Joseph? Bob - ... FU - He was indicted for attempted murder and conspiracy several years ago. The authorities had him pinned as a lieutenant in the Luchese family. It all turned out well in the end, Bob, because the judge and two prosecutors and all the evidence just disappeared one day. Isn't that incredible? It was like a miracle from heaven! He lives in the next area code. We have BBQs at each others house every other week. We're tight like prom night. Bob - Uh, I'll be in Saturday? FU - Whoomp, there he is! Bobert! Ol' Reliable! Thanks Bob, I knew I could count on you! Bob - You're welcome, I think. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> lol I'm just going to jump in real quick as someone who used to work for Feargus (and doesn't currently), that I've never seen him make anyone work seven days a week. In fact I don't ever remember hearing anything more than "we've got to have this demo ready monday, so if anyone can help out this weekend that would be great." There was never any pressure or punishments

Amazon.com has listings for Fallout1/2 I am completly ignorant as to whether they ship to China

Baragonas use of the word study brings up a point to me. Whether or not you get a degree, you have to be determined to learn everything you can about your field. Even after you've got a job, you need to keep learning the new technologies. Whether you get the degree or not, you need to do the learning.

If you're looking for the actual contact, Lucasfilm has a licensing division. I don't have the number

I do agree with you on this. I'm just disagreeing that it's necessary AFTER breaking in to the industry. A degree is still a good thing though. I got my BS in CS after getting in to the industry, I'm working on a Master's in software engineering now. I do think that adds something when I interview. Unfortunatly, in a lot of California you can't expect to afford a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom house on a game professionals salary.

Is Harvard known for producing good game developers? It seems to me that in the gaming industry experience beats all. Almost any job posting will require 2 or 3 years experience. This discussion has been more focusing on how a degree helps when you have no experience. BS from Harvard would help I think.

In some fields this does work, but as far as computer science, it can amke quite a difference. I've worked with people with and without degrees. Over time, those without may be able to hold their own to an extent, but most with have the concepts to be more flexible. Many without degrees focus more on specific languages, while those with CS can move from one to the next quickly and still apply the overall concepts. The best thing I think the formal education does for computers is teach you the shortcuts so they don't have to be reinvented. Can save a significant amount of time when money matters. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I would say, in the case of CS. If you feel you aren't getting much out of the computer science classes, try mixing in more software engineering classes. They're the boring ones most of us try to avoid that just teach the "planning" parts we don't think we'll ever need

Personally, I prefer brackets like this. I also usually put parenthesis around return values. And you shouldn't declare variables in the for statement like that, different compilers treat it differently scope-wise. If you end up trying to compile in a different compiler you could end up fixing hundreds of those. #define ITERATIONS_TOTAL 100 #include <iostream> using namespace std; // Hello world function! int main() { int i; for(i = 0; i < ITERATIONS_TOTAL; i++) { cout << "Hello world!\n"; } return(0); } I doesn't really matter though, as long as you can remember to do it the way the rest of the team is doing it.

Let me just clear up that couldn't make a button in Visual Basic comment. We had our choice of languages. So I let him choose any language he wanted to make his part of the application in. I'm completely confident that he didn't actually know how to program in any language. He chose VB because he didn't know how to code and thought it would be easy in VB. After watching him try to figure it out for about half an hour I just sent him away.

Not everyone is perfect. Also it helps going into buisness compitions and conventions. Im a member of Delta Epsilon Chi at School and thats really going to help my resume and im in training for State compition next month. :D <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Not everyone's perfect, but you should know how to use a computer if you want a computer science degree Keep up the good work. College wasn't really for me, I couldn't stay awake in class :/

Best thing is to get a QA or CS position in a gaming company and work on your portfolio. Entry level positions often are filled from inside a company. It really helps to have some example of the work you want to do. If you want to be a designer, do some level designs on paper or make some maps for your favorite game. If you want to be an artist or animator, put together some sample work. If you want to be a programmer, write a small game. Have something you can give a potential employer to show you can do the work. EnderWiggin, I wouldn't worry too much about being rich. More money just means more work to make sure you don't lose the money. Just try to find a good balance

I would be curious to see what percentage of people in the industry have degrees as well. I was mainly aiming the question at people who are interested in getting into the industry. I don't think the degree is necessary, but I do recommend getting a degree. I agree with B5C. Getting a degree shows that you can accomplish a long term goal. I disagree that the degree proves you have the knowledge to do the work. Of course, I'm somewhat jaded. Someone I had to work with for a college project couldn't even put a button on a form in visual basic, but he got a BS in CS.

I think this situation causes smaller companies to fold. There are penalties for missing milestones and shipdates. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Initial topic was about big companies with draconic work conditions (EA). I guess, smaller companies _tend_ to care more about their employees. If devs on some EA project say 'I quit!' all at the same time, management will be forced to negotiate, but it is the main problem to say 'I quit!' at the same time - one or two persons can get replaced, replacing people from the whole project will bring more expenses, rather than paying more/cutting down work hours to 40-50. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ok, focusing on big companies. I think I agree with EnderWiggin. A large company has the finances to the decision that a group of employees striking could be made example of. Whether or not they would want to go this route is another thing. I just think that seeing as it is hard enough to get into the gaming industry in the first place, would you want to risk your job? I have to admit though that I'm somewhat biased against unions. One thing that I find interesting is that while interviewing at EA I got the sense that projects were much more strictly structured than other places, which should cause less crunch time. The industry in general is still a bit fast and loose when creating products. As the process for creating games matures, projects should start running more smoothly. (I'm working on a Master's in software engineering, so my heads full of all kinds of foolishness right now )

Developers do get paid less in general. It's more about the perks and the work environment. Are you willing to make $10~20k less a year to enjoy going to work instead of dreading it? I don't think award-winning always equates to big profits. For instance (I may be off here, don't kill me), the Fallout and Icewind Dale games were well received but only sold "normal" numbers. Sometimes it's just name recognition. I'd bet if you took Icewind Dale 2 and renamed it Baldur's Gate 3 it would have sold twice the copies. I don't think the disk itself costs all that much, but the packaging, manual, shipping, and cost of shelf space all add to the tag you see on the shelf. That's not to mention advertising and paying a couple dozen people to work fr a couple years.

They'd probably just hire new devs. Theres a surplus of people who want to break in to the gamming industry. Many of them would be willing to take a job for a couple years, even if they knew it was going to be horrible hours, just to get the experience on their resume. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> In the middle of the project? No, they wouldn't afford that. But he problem here is that ALL of them will say 'NO' at the same time. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think this situation causes smaller companies to fold. There are penalties for missing milestones and shipdates. A union might make more sense for larger companies. I don't know if I'd want to pay union dues and have to worry about being forced to strike though. I'd rather be able to make my own decisions on such matters.

This reply is somewhat late, but I would say that MFC is becoming more of a skill for legacy apps. There are much better application frameworks available now. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> You're probably right, I just added it because I was almost always asked about MFC during interviews...I never actually used it. Out of curiousity, do you recommend a framework?

They'd probably just hire new devs. Theres a surplus of people who want to break in to the gamming industry. Many of them would be willing to take a job for a couple years, even if they knew it was going to be horrible hours, just to get the experience on their resume. A union sound like a good idea, but I think in practice it would be very bad. I'm trying to imagine how many of the smaller companies would fold if a union prevented them from shipping products before key times like Christmas. Crunch time will probably always exists. I've never seen a project that didn't have a crunch time. Well managed projects will ussually have a reasonable crunch at the end. A poorly managed project will tend to have a worse crunch time. But the reality is that things go wrong sometimes (always) and the result is crunching to get the project done on time.

I knew I was leaving something out I made the poll mostly because I see in so many different places people asking if a degree is really necessary. Since a degree can't really hurt your chances, I'm curious as to what the resistance is. I personally dropped out near finishing for an opportunity to get into the industry. I later finished while working.

I'm just asking because I see many posts asking if a degree is necessary for getting into the gaming industry. Getting in isn't the easiest thing, and a degree couldn't hurt. So if you don't mind humoring me ...Why don't you want to get a degree?

Interesting catch 22 of the gaming industry. Almost all positions require 2 years experience in the gaming industry. If you don't have experience now, you won't when you get your first job School can't hurt, so why not boost your chances?

Just a general reccomendation for those who want to live "The Dream" I reccomend starting small. No experience = no financial backing. Plus you have no experience, you're going to make mistakes :D The best way to start is by getting into the industry and getting some experience, but if you're determined to do it on your own: Don't jump right in trying to make the Half-life 2 killer. Start with smaller things and work your experience, reputation, and cash flow up. If you don't want to work for another developer try starting with smaller games. There are lots of small flash games on the internet. (I'm thinking Tetris-a-like size). You could design and create a couple small games like this, maybe make a little cash. There are plenty of third party tools and libraries that developers use that are smaller than writing a whole game. Take a look at Rad Game Tools. Come up with something useful that doesn't currently exist. The key is to limit the scope to something you can handle with your current financial situation. Making mods has an occasional payout. Even if you aren't succesful financially, you should learn a lot. And don't give up just because of one failure. If you start and realize you're in over your head, maybe you should try getting a job in the industry first, to build up your skills.

Once you've chosen what schools you want to aply to, it's pretty easy to look up they're prerequisites. You can also check what transfer requirements they have. One I was interested in before required 4 semesters of calculus for a transfer from JC. So math was obviously ranked high for them. You shoudn't limit yourself to what is required though. It never hurts to know more than you need. If you know what areas of programming you are interested in specifically, start learning some of the skills you'll need for that work. If you want to work on game physics, obviously physics will be very important. If you want to do and kind of work with 3d objects (3d engines, physics, etc) you'll need linear algebra. If you want to do tools work, learn MFC and study some GUI style guides.

I havent Been a Student for many years but I do remeber those student discount books that had all the great deals on software. I would Love to take a class somewhere but locally there are only 2 schools that teach it, and both are kinda crapy. I know I went to one of them for my BA . I wonder if being an "online" student would count? They have those online classes all the time maybe theres one for 3d modeling? Hmm oh well again thx for the advice. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Bit of a side note. I don't think the Student Licenses require you to be a student taking a class about the software. They just require you to be a student. You could be taking a history class To get your feet wet, I start with the free trial of Max though. Even if you later choose a Lightwave License because its cheaper, you'll have a basic idea of the difference between the two.

If you're a student, you should check into student licenses. Last time I checked you could get Lightwave for a large reduction, and upgrade to commercial after 6 months if you want to (cheaper than buying the commercial version in the first place). I don't know what kind of student license there is for 3DS Max. If you aren't a student, its probably still cheaper to sign up for a class and buy it :D