Any industry folks here? What do yo think?

What about a job doing some sort of design related stuff for a videogame? Like designing characters or levels, or doing concept art or whatever. Or how about writing? Like writing the script for a story-based game.

 

make something that gets published and you got yourself a foot in the door.

That said, that will depend not only on your natural talents, but also on the sleepless nights you should spend studying in excruciating detail the work of others before you, the highs and the lows, the knowns and the unknowns. That's a lot of research and it took me about 2-3 years to cover most of it - still learning as I go actually.

Thankfully though it's paying off more than any degree related to the field of video games. For the record, I studied Law and work as a lawyer as well, so it's not about the studies, it's about passion and commitment.

 

To be honest, almost everyone who says "I wanna get into the gaming industry" should just forget about it and try something else.

 

I did say "almost everyone". Sure, some people can make it if they try hard enough (and even then probably only into some relatively low-level position, not like lead designer of Fallout 4), but most of the ones who are like "omg I wanna work on video games it's been my dream since childhood!!" are better off trying to find something else to do.

 

And what do you do sir?

I understand the sentiment though. Many people watch Food Network and think professional cooking must be a blast. What Food Network forgets to mention is how little you will get paid initially, how you will almost never have a life outside of the kitchen, the many hours you will work(and the many you will not get paid for), the fact that it is nearly impossible to date outside the industry, etc,etc etc. With that said and the many years of reading games industry horror stories, I personally still want to be a part of it at more than an end user level. From what I understand, it wont be too drastic of an adjustment for me anyway.

 

My advice: make an indie game

Not a social game, those are shit and fuckers like zynga will rip you off the minute your facebook game gets even a shred of popularity.

About game schools:

 

At the moment the way education is going the sad truth is that the Game Design degree is viewed as a joke by most and your chances of being employed in a major development firm are very slim with only that degree in mind. More and more people are taking up these degrees because of the increase of gamers around the world and only few succeed in this rapidly growing industry. Nowadays anyone can teach themselves how to sculpt mesh models with zBrush or animate models with 3D's Max and then implement those materials into an engine like Unity or UDK with all the thousands of tutorials floating around the Internet.

What I would personally suggest if you really want to get into this business is to take up a Computer Science course and in your own time try to learn from various tutorials how to do what, and implement it to the engine you would be using, which then can be compiled into your own game. Experiment with all the different departments that make up Game Design; Level and Model Design, Audio, Programming, Concept Art, Animation, Writing and so on. Do this to just get an idea of what you are expected to produce as a full time employee in a major development firm just on a smaller scale. Combine that self-taught knowledge with what you would be learning in a Computer Science course and produce a short demo that shows your abilities as a game designer, also include some sort of documentation which would guide the employer of the steps taken to create your masterpiece and the software and tools you used to show your determination and that you mean serious business to make you stand out from the competition - and there is plenty out there, and who knows after several rejection letters you might get a job somewhere. All it matters is that you pursue your dream, and everything will work out in the end. ;-)