Jason Attard

Thought up another possible reason for not getting a degree - If you've already got the equivalent in relevant work experience. I also think it would be interesting to add "I've got my degree" and "I'm planning to get a degree" choices to the poll, just to see how overwhealming degrees are in the industry. I personally wouldn't dream of applying to a game job without a degree these days. I got mine well before I got into the industry. I've got one friend who got in without a degree, but he had been working in the software industry since grade 11 and had tons of bleeding-edge graphics programming experience. Jason Attard Technical Designer, Secret Project BioWare Corp.

Greetings, I was hired as a Technical Designer at BioWare in May. I've been a gamer, hobby level designer, and a hobby programmer my entire life. Getting into the game industry (specifically game design) has been my goal for many years, and I focused my education and work experience towards that goal as much as possible. I think my biggest assest was probably my portfolio. It was a short, very polished module, which is exactly what BioWare asked for in my submission. I had already completed several other modules, so I was fairly quick and proficient with the toolset. Despite that I spent three months of my free time polishing about a half-hour of gameplay, to ensure that my very best work was being submitted. I also gave them a link to my website, where pretty much every level I had ever created for a game was available for download, all the way back to Doom. My entire portfolio is still available on the web if you'd like to check it out yourself. My submission module: http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/modules/data/...870561000.shtml My website: http://members.rogers.com/jason_attard/ Thanks, Jason Attard Technical Designer Secret Project