You don’t want to work in the video game industry

"The training industry has jumped onto exploiting the wannabe. Lots of colleges and universities have jumped on the bandwagon. There are now hundreds of supposed game industry courses in the UK."


I have a open day at qauntum in london tomrow.. im gonna go in a kick up a fuss!

Im'a tell them bruce sent me...


Qauntum...from what i actually saw...looked a bit phony anyhow, seems like a nice excuse to get out the house either way

 

I tried writing a reply with serious and solid arguments, but at the end it ended up being a long-ass post and it felt a bit like bragging.

I don't agree with your article, it seems bitter, and it is discouraging people who want to work in games.

The only points I agree with are game industry courses being useless and competition being fierce. I don't think the other points apply to the industry as a whole (definitely not to the company I'm working for).

There are still a lot of great studios out there.

 

FYI, nobody ever agrees with Bruce's articles - he's full o' shit.

 

Agreed.

While he may have worked at a few places in his time he never pays attention to whats going on, makes things up in his head and calls it 'fact' and according to ex work colleages he was pretty shit at his job.

Whenever Bruce speaks, here's what most people reply:

 

I'm new and I'd like to become a game designer. I'm trying to gather information on what that job consists of, etc. This was the first post I came across after registering

but, I'm not discouraged. There was certainly one problem with the original posters perspective. He clearly doesn't love designing games. Love makes you do silly things.

 

In fact, he doesn't design games, or make them, and never has. His background is in marketing. So there you go.

 

It's all about doing what you love, if you love making games then it's a fantastic career.

I would say though it's not a job where you'll find a lot of people doing it just for the money (without the love). People like that can be easily sniffed out

 

that, basically.

I've held some decent paying jobs that required 0% creativity and could have been performed by high school students if it didn't require a security clearance. I traced satellite imagery, worked in an absolutely terrible office environment, and was steadily drinking my self to death.

Then I moved the hell out of south mississippi and started going to school for animation. I was already tooling around with maya/3ds/etc in my spare time. It's been said above, for some people this was/is a hobby and I can imagine nothing better than getting paid for doing something you'd be doing anyway.

I used to dread the idea of working in an office again, due to past experience....but this time I am around generally like-minded people who would rather do their job than play offal-polotik. It's miles apart.

So yeah, having to have a job sucks. Hell, the wage system sucks, capitalism sucks, government and taxes sucks, and people suck too. But since running up a mountain and raising goats is not the best option here in the states I might as well try to play along in the fashion of my choosing.

I cannot describe the number of warnings about this industry I hear. I cannot see how anyone can even get close to the industry without slogging through people bitching about it. If people took all this to heart there would be no game developers. There wouldn't be doctors either, if everything you hear about residencies is true.

Apparently some people think it's worth it.

 

I would say don't let the cynics get you down but also don't just feed in to the industry's problems by shrugging your shoulders and going along with them. Change it for the better.

 

ya sure

 

That's the spirit!