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So your teenager tells you they want to 'make video games' for a living

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Re: So your teenager tells you they want to 'make video games' for a living

#61

Post by anonymousab »

You get them to figure out and write out the logic to pong. On paper.

Then graduate them to actual programming, and help them along a bit. Tell them to experiment with pong when they get it going. Add more paddles. Add more balls. Add obstacles.

Add whatever they think would be cool.

A Richard Garriott has talked about, good game design is a critically difficult field. Get them experimenting with gameplay as related to the underlying engine before you ever push them to a game design school.

Re: So your teenager tells you they want to 'make video games' for a living

#62

Post by BryantD »

jmomo wrote: post #19

I worked in the video game industry for about six years. I worked for both major publishers and some startup MMOs. Specifically, I was doing online infrastructure kind of stuff. The gaming industry wasn't something I was actively trying to get into, and I had worked in telecommunications and manufacturing prior to this. When the big telecom I was working on started losing customers back in 2001, I knew what was about…

I have not worked at the companies you worked at based on dates and descriptions, but I've worked with people you've worked with. (Atari-funded studio with MMO logic in the database? Yep.) I can't gainsay anything you've said.

The flip side, however, is the creativity. At my last job but one I worked with writers who I've respected and whose work I've enjoyed since I was 18. I work with artists who do stuff that blows me away. It's the only industry where I get to be involved with that kind of creativity on a daily basis, and that is more emotionally satisfying for me than (say) search.

Oh, and the stability is no worse than startups. I've worked at two studios that are more than ten years old at this point, one that cratered, and one middleware company that probably doesn't have a ton of life left in it. All four of the companies I worked at in Silicon Valley in the 90s are gone, and two of those were serious business (Sun and AltaVista).

Re: So your teenager tells you they want to 'make video games' for a living

#63

Post by SoftwareMaven »

jacques_chester wrote: post #43
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My work on League of Legends came as a direct result of a contract gig building an extranet for a gas pipeline company: Java and Activescript is Java and Activescript. In fact, you could argue we were solving the much harder problems in that game, since we had to deal with the massive scaling, while the game engine only had to deal with 10 people at a time.

Though the problem space is already partitioned for you, to some extent, on a per-game basis. Have you written anything on it?

The game is partitioned, but the lobby is not. The lobby is where all the concurrent players have to split into groups of roughly similar capabilities while now allowing anybody to wait too long. Our team was responsible for partitioning things for the game team.

I haven't written anything on it. I'm not convinced my piece of it was really interesting enough to warrant it. :) There were a lot of far smarter people than I on the team (it was one of the best software engineering teams I've ever worked on).

Re: So your teenager tells you they want to 'make video games' for a living

#64

Post by rc4algorithm »

jmomo wrote: post #19

I worked in the video game industry for about six years. I worked for both major publishers and some startup MMOs. Specifically, I was doing online infrastructure kind of stuff. The gaming industry wasn't something I was actively trying to get into, and I had worked in telecommunications and manufacturing prior to this. When the big telecom I was working on started losing customers back in 2001, I knew what was about…

"I saw from the inside a huge multi-mullion dollar Atari-funded game studio go down in flames because the developers didn't know that you can't use disk drives as a CPU: they built almost all of their MMO item inventory logic into SQL triggers and events."

Can someone describe to a newb what's wrong about this?

Re: So your teenager tells you they want to 'make video games' for a living

#65

Post by zachlatta »

gambiting wrote: post #29

"If your kid is not an expert at math, don't even bother discussing the subject of being a computer game programmer. It's a non-starter. " This. I am doing Games Engineering right now and the amount of maths is larger than I've ever done in my life.

From my experience in the industry you just need to know your linear algebra and calculus. What does this exorbitant "amount of maths" constitute?

Re: So your teenager tells you they want to 'make video games' for a living

#66

Post by Jach »

My two cents: if you or your kid has any doubts about going to college because you're sick of the general school bullshit, and if you're wondering if things will be different at a game school, then save your money and time and don't go. Due to the nature of accreditation and schools wanting to make money thus letting/forcing students to use federal financial aid, they play by the same rules other colleges play by, and students will get the same crap as any other school. If you really want to be a game developer, now is the best time ever to forge your own path going down the Indie road. With some diligent networking you can even get picked up by the big boys--but by that time, you might not want to get anywhere near them. If you don't know what to learn or want more formally gained knowledge, go through the course catalog of one of the schools and get the books on those subjects. (The course catalogs will also convince you that you don't need to be that smart--to add to the video's advice, along with asking about graduated students' job placement, ask about current students' GPAs and what the most commonly failed classes are. I bet a calculus and physics course are among them.)

Re: So your teenager tells you they want to 'make video games' for a living

#67

Post by dsfasfasf »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #33

> You do not go to college to 'learn' talent. You are either born with it or not. Can't say I agree with this entirely. I absolutely agree that going to college for four years will not make you into a good artist. But "being born with it" will not make you a good artist either. Hammering away at it two hours a day from age 12 to 22 will make you a good artist. You may never be a great one (that is where being born wi…

I was with him until he said that. Is an excuse to give up on anything. You might as well believe in destiny and that your entire future has already been written. Who believes something like that? Seriously. Does he believe that that girl woke up one day and started drawing like that? He is wrong on this count. What you need is perseverance.

Re: So your teenager tells you they want to 'make video games' for a living

#68

Post by rdouble »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #33

> You do not go to college to 'learn' talent. You are either born with it or not. Can't say I agree with this entirely. I absolutely agree that going to college for four years will not make you into a good artist. But "being born with it" will not make you a good artist either. Hammering away at it two hours a day from age 12 to 22 will make you a good artist. You may never be a great one (that is where being born wi…

The artist he linked to is exactly the kind of art that one can get better at with practice and a good teacher and curriculum, and does not require much in the way of mystical innate talent.

Re: So your teenager tells you they want to 'make video games' for a living

#69

Post by jacques_chester »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #63
jacques_chester wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though the problem space is already partitioned for you, to some extent, on a per-game basis. Have you written anything on it?

The game is partitioned, but the lobby is not. The lobby is where all the concurrent players have to split into groups of roughly similar capabilities while now allowing anybody to wait too long. Our team was responsible for partitioning things for the game team. I haven't written anything on it. I'm not convinced my piece of it was really interesting enough to warrant it. :) There were a lot of far smarter people th…

I know the guy who writes the GameRanger lobby service (it's literally a single guy - Scott Kevill - for the whole thing).

He's got about 3 million users. Not sure how many concurrent users he gets -- probably an order of magnitude or two less than LoL does.

Nevertheless, it all runs on I think one or two beefy servers. There's a very high fanout of game-available messages and they need to be addressed based on user-registered preferences as to the games they want to play.

From what he tells me, most of his secret sauce is network hackery. Batching up carefully-sized packets and so on. All that stuff I was basically awful at in uni.

Re: So your teenager tells you they want to 'make video games' for a living

#70

Post by ChrisNorstrom »

I'm one the dumb kids that went to a game development school. That school was Full Sail University. Do NOT Go There.

Full Sail has almost ALL the red flags that the article and video talk about. Including rushed "accelerated" courses, pumping out students, trying to teach us calculus in 1 month, trigonometry in 1 month, everything was so rushed. Classes were $3,000/month. Lab techs (assistants) played world of warcraft instead of helping us. I honestly have so many bad memories from Full Sail I really don't want to talk about it. The money wasted, the stress it caused me. I just feel overwhelmed with bad emotions.

Just stay away from Full Sail. I went back in 2006, I doubt they've changed. Their marketing and advertising is amazing though...

"Full Sail is not recognized by a regional accreditor or by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. As a result, most traditional colleges would not honor credits earned by transferring Full Sail students or those who attempt to continue their studies after earning an associate degree from the university

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/24/romney-right-a...

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