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Game development seems to be one of the most competitive and least forgiving corners of the larger software development industry. A long time ago, games are wh

by thearn4 11y ago

Game development seems to be one of the most competitive and least forgiving corners of the larger software development industry. A long time ago, games are what originally motivated me to learn to program. But some point along the way, I came to believe (whether true or false) that game development was really not a very enticing career path, both in terms of compensation and technical & creative challenges open to solve. I wonder how many others came into software along the same path.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago
> both in terms of compensation and technical & creative challenges open to solve Can you name other "career paths" where are more technical & creative challenges open to solve? I am working on an indie game project right now and worked for a big corporation in a total different sector before and I must say, that when you talk about compensation, you might be right (at least, when you are working in a company), ... ... but when thinking about technical & creative challenges, game development always wins for me hands-down in my personal experience.
- ahmedbaracat 11y ago
  From my experience, I think compensation might be more prevalent when you are indie because you are less likely to have a stable income compared to working in a company. But I may be wrong :)
  - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
    I did not want to touch that topic, since there are different things to consider and experiences can differ. I mentioned only working in a company, since from that what I saw in my country, compensation for ordinary developers in a company are far less than when working in other sectors as software developer (in deed, I do not know any sector, where payment is less than in the Gaming industry). At least one plus is that the Gaming industry is more likely to take people without formal education (which might also be connected to the lower wages). Of course, when working in a company, you are less likely to not be able to pay your rent any more.
    - pandaman 11y ago
      Compensation in the games industry varies wildly. In my opinion, this is because there are many people who have <5 years experience and few people who have 10+ years. The veterans have high salaries and other forms of compensation (profit sharing, bonuses) while newbies are given less than in an average consulting/web shop.
      - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
        I guess so. But it is a little difficult to get data from veteran people, since those figures are most often negotiated in silence. All I can see are the entry level offerings and they are in deed often below those for web-developers. I think, it is similar as in other areas -- when you manage to be seen as key-developer, you are in a much better negotiation position -- but for that, you must be either a star from the beginning or done some real great tasks in the company.
        pandaman 11y ago
        You don't need to be a star to make good six figures. You just need to be good enough to get into a top-tier studio. While financial data is hard to obtain in general, luckily, the Activision lawsuit has made a lot of it available to the public, everything from project budgets to the salaries[1] is now a part of public record. 1. http://gamerant.com/activision-lawsuit-infinity-ward-salaries-bonuses-dyce-150382/ http://gamerant.com/activision-lawsuit-infinity-ward-salarie...
        geminiradio 11y ago
        I've been out of the mainstream industry for 7 years now, but I made 6 figures when I was working with Steven Spielberg at Electronic Arts in Los Angeles. Before that, when I was at ION Storm in Austin, Texas, I wasn't that far from it. I'm usually in a lead designer / creative director position, but a really solid, senior programmer or producer earns about that much, too. Gamasutra and GDC put together a salary survey every year. I think that's public? I would search for it.
- thearn4 11y ago
  > Can you name other "career paths" where are more technical & creative challenges open to solve? Fair question. Once I was in graduate school (math program), I went down the scientific/large-scale computing path. It isn't a very large field of course, compared to consumer-facing software. It was more of a personal drive.
  - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
    Oh, of course there are some areas. I also can name the one or other. But when you want max-out your chances, to get hired and are not a star-programmer in such an area, you will possibly find yourself in some dull and boring area, how I found myself one day (I must admit, that I had total different expectations about the job, but that is a long story by itself ...).
ahmedbaracat 11y ago
I also started with game development for Windows phone using XNA, switched to marmalade then Unity. Stopped creating games a few months ago thinking mostly like you plus wondering how/if my games are solving real user problems or whether they are only providing distractions. However, searching for companies looking for developers with game development background and familiarity with Unity, I found a few startups who are either using games to fund and solve real user needs or using Unity to create educational/informative visualizations for museums and businesses. This led me to change my mind and return to creating games and hopefully start working with one of these startups
- respondwelljobs 11y ago
  I work for a company just like this. We use Unity (and lots of other game tech) to make games for health, mostly for physical therapy and rehab. There are interesting problems to solve in this space and we're putting good energy into the world with our work. And, we're hiring! If you (or anyone else reading this) is looking for a great job and know a good amount of Unity/C#, drop us a line at jobs@respondwell.com. Remote work is fine, too.
- fauigerzigerk 11y ago
  >wondering how/if my games are solving real user problems or whether they are only providing distractions. Keeping ourselves entertained on this planet is a very real user problem. It has been a core part of all human cultures for millennia. As we become more productive at producing all the essentials for survival, entertainment will take an ever growing share of our economies. Entertainment is the one industry that I'm sure will still exist in a 100 years and employing people. I would be very surprised if it were not at least 50% of our economies at that point.
  - skybrian 11y ago
    I would make the opposite prediction. Entertainment is becoming cheaper and more abundant all the time due to computerization, and this is happening faster than in industries like energy and health care. So I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a lot more and better entertainment, but it seems unlikely that we'll pay a larger percentage of income for it. More likely, people will be paying less and getting more.
147 11y ago
I was exactly like this, until one Christmas I was giving the book The Lean Startup and decided building web applications was more fun and practical.
dfan 11y ago
I was a game developer for 20+ years (Looking Glass Studios, Harmonix) and boy oh boy were there a lot of technical and creative challenges. I ended up leaving largely to reduce stress and because I wanted to try doing something else with my career, but if what you want are technical and creative challenges, it's a pretty good job.
- geminiradio 11y ago
  Who is this!? I worked at Looking Glass too. (This is Randy Smith.)
  - dfan 11y ago
    You don't know who dfan is?? This is Dan Schmidt. Congrats on Rite of the Shrouded Moon!
    - geminiradio 11y ago
      Thanks man! Yeah, I figured that must be Dan Schmidt. :)
- clessg 11y ago
  For my own sanity, I would much rather continue writing JavaScript and Golang apps than do full-fledged game development. It's incredible that some people are able to deal with it, and not have their spouse leave them. By the way, if a mod is here: I think I accidentally downvoted the above comment. (More precisely, my cat and Vimium did.) I tried to reverse it but I doubt it worked. Please remove the downvote if it's still there.
- Arjuna 11y ago
  [...] but if what you want are technical and creative challenges [...] This is so true. I developed a space shooter for iOS, and it was quite a challenge. This was my first game, and what I found to be quite interesting is just how much is involved in simply finishing a game. For example, every little detail that it takes to make something commercial-quality, like graphics [1], compelling music, game-play, rock-solid frame-rate, user interface, all of the timers that need to be managed, transitions between levels, and in my case, some interesting mathematics (I implemented a Catmull-Rom algorithm to generate flight paths for the enemy drones on one level)... the list goes on. [1] Incidentally, the article quoted Daniel Cook. For my game, I used Tyrian graphics that he created. He made them available under a Creative Commons license.
sliverstorm 11y ago
Game development seems to be one of the most competitive and least forgiving corners of the larger software development industry. A long time ago, games are what originally motivated me to learn to program I suspect these two things are related. It seems that games are one of the top reasons people learn to program, and it seems we have an oversupply of eager game devs because of it. As for challenges in gaming, I wonder if it is like robotics. I got into electronics inspired by robotics. But it turns out robotics is not really about electronics. It's a lot of things, especially math (control theory), but the electronics part is one of the least important parts of the field, as car as I can tell. Similarly in gaming, it seems greatness has little to do with accomplishment in programming and a lot to do with story, art, music, and user experience.
joesmo 11y ago
I too got started programming games when I was around twelve. I agree it's probably the most competitive and least-forgiving areas, but it seems to have a lot more challenges, both technical and creative than any other area as well. I'm curious why you think it has less.
lewisl9029 11y ago
I have a somewhat analogous background. I went into Waterloo Computer Engineering wanting to work in computer hardware. I quickly found out that hardware was not only insanely complex and difficult to learn, but also really, really boring (just my subjective opinion, I hope nobody takes this personally). Thankfully, I had the option of specializing in either hardware or software in my program. I ended up choosing the latter and couldn't be happier with my choice. Having gone through this experience has given me a new appreciation for all the incredibly smart people working on hardware. Without their hard work and innovations, our software industry wouldn't even exist. Although if I could go back and choose a major again, I'd probably go with either Software Engineering or CompSci, because all the time I spent struggling on hardware courses could have been better spent on building up a better foundation in CompSci theory in a program with more focus.

by thearn4 11y ago

Game development seems to be one of the most competitive and least forgiving corners of the larger software development industry. A long time ago, games are what originally motivated me to learn to program. But some point along the way, I came to believe (whether true or false) that game development was really not a very enticing career path, both in terms of compensation and technical & creative challenges open to solve. I wonder how many others came into software along the same path.

PythonicAlpha 11y ago

> both in terms of compensation and technical & creative challenges open to solve Can you name other "career paths" where are more technical & creative challenges open to solve? I am working on an indie game project right now and worked for a big corporation in a total different sector before and I must say, that when you talk about compensation, you might be right (at least, when you are working in a company), ... ... but when thinking about technical & creative challenges, game development always wins for me hands-down in my personal experience.

ahmedbaracat 11y ago
From my experience, I think compensation might be more prevalent when you are indie because you are less likely to have a stable income compared to working in a company. But I may be wrong :)
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  I did not want to touch that topic, since there are different things to consider and experiences can differ. I mentioned only working in a company, since from that what I saw in my country, compensation for ordinary developers in a company are far less than when working in other sectors as software developer (in deed, I do not know any sector, where payment is less than in the Gaming industry). At least one plus is that the Gaming industry is more likely to take people without formal education (which might also be connected to the lower wages). Of course, when working in a company, you are less likely to not be able to pay your rent any more.
  - pandaman 11y ago
    Compensation in the games industry varies wildly. In my opinion, this is because there are many people who have <5 years experience and few people who have 10+ years. The veterans have high salaries and other forms of compensation (profit sharing, bonuses) while newbies are given less than in an average consulting/web shop.
    - PythonicAlpha 11y ago
      I guess so. But it is a little difficult to get data from veteran people, since those figures are most often negotiated in silence. All I can see are the entry level offerings and they are in deed often below those for web-developers. I think, it is similar as in other areas -- when you manage to be seen as key-developer, you are in a much better negotiation position -- but for that, you must be either a star from the beginning or done some real great tasks in the company.
      - pandaman 11y ago
        You don't need to be a star to make good six figures. You just need to be good enough to get into a top-tier studio. While financial data is hard to obtain in general, luckily, the Activision lawsuit has made a lot of it available to the public, everything from project budgets to the salaries[1] is now a part of public record. 1. http://gamerant.com/activision-lawsuit-infinity-ward-salaries-bonuses-dyce-150382/ http://gamerant.com/activision-lawsuit-infinity-ward-salarie...
      - geminiradio 11y ago
        I've been out of the mainstream industry for 7 years now, but I made 6 figures when I was working with Steven Spielberg at Electronic Arts in Los Angeles. Before that, when I was at ION Storm in Austin, Texas, I wasn't that far from it. I'm usually in a lead designer / creative director position, but a really solid, senior programmer or producer earns about that much, too. Gamasutra and GDC put together a salary survey every year. I think that's public? I would search for it.
thearn4 11y ago
> Can you name other "career paths" where are more technical & creative challenges open to solve? Fair question. Once I was in graduate school (math program), I went down the scientific/large-scale computing path. It isn't a very large field of course, compared to consumer-facing software. It was more of a personal drive.
- PythonicAlpha 11y ago
  Oh, of course there are some areas. I also can name the one or other. But when you want max-out your chances, to get hired and are not a star-programmer in such an area, you will possibly find yourself in some dull and boring area, how I found myself one day (I must admit, that I had total different expectations about the job, but that is a long story by itself ...).

ahmedbaracat 11y ago

I also started with game development for Windows phone using XNA, switched to marmalade then Unity. Stopped creating games a few months ago thinking mostly like you plus wondering how/if my games are solving real user problems or whether they are only providing distractions. However, searching for companies looking for developers with game development background and familiarity with Unity, I found a few startups who are either using games to fund and solve real user needs or using Unity to create educational/informative visualizations for museums and businesses. This led me to change my mind and return to creating games and hopefully start working with one of these startups

respondwelljobs 11y ago
I work for a company just like this. We use Unity (and lots of other game tech) to make games for health, mostly for physical therapy and rehab. There are interesting problems to solve in this space and we're putting good energy into the world with our work. And, we're hiring! If you (or anyone else reading this) is looking for a great job and know a good amount of Unity/C#, drop us a line at jobs@respondwell.com. Remote work is fine, too.
fauigerzigerk 11y ago
>wondering how/if my games are solving real user problems or whether they are only providing distractions. Keeping ourselves entertained on this planet is a very real user problem. It has been a core part of all human cultures for millennia. As we become more productive at producing all the essentials for survival, entertainment will take an ever growing share of our economies. Entertainment is the one industry that I'm sure will still exist in a 100 years and employing people. I would be very surprised if it were not at least 50% of our economies at that point.
- skybrian 11y ago
  I would make the opposite prediction. Entertainment is becoming cheaper and more abundant all the time due to computerization, and this is happening faster than in industries like energy and health care. So I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a lot more and better entertainment, but it seems unlikely that we'll pay a larger percentage of income for it. More likely, people will be paying less and getting more.

147 11y ago

I was exactly like this, until one Christmas I was giving the book The Lean Startup and decided building web applications was more fun and practical.

dfan 11y ago

I was a game developer for 20+ years (Looking Glass Studios, Harmonix) and boy oh boy were there a lot of technical and creative challenges. I ended up leaving largely to reduce stress and because I wanted to try doing something else with my career, but if what you want are technical and creative challenges, it's a pretty good job.

geminiradio 11y ago
Who is this!? I worked at Looking Glass too. (This is Randy Smith.)
- dfan 11y ago
  You don't know who dfan is?? This is Dan Schmidt. Congrats on Rite of the Shrouded Moon!
  - geminiradio 11y ago
    Thanks man! Yeah, I figured that must be Dan Schmidt. :)
clessg 11y ago
For my own sanity, I would much rather continue writing JavaScript and Golang apps than do full-fledged game development. It's incredible that some people are able to deal with it, and not have their spouse leave them. By the way, if a mod is here: I think I accidentally downvoted the above comment. (More precisely, my cat and Vimium did.) I tried to reverse it but I doubt it worked. Please remove the downvote if it's still there.
Arjuna 11y ago
[...] but if what you want are technical and creative challenges [...] This is so true. I developed a space shooter for iOS, and it was quite a challenge. This was my first game, and what I found to be quite interesting is just how much is involved in simply finishing a game. For example, every little detail that it takes to make something commercial-quality, like graphics [1], compelling music, game-play, rock-solid frame-rate, user interface, all of the timers that need to be managed, transitions between levels, and in my case, some interesting mathematics (I implemented a Catmull-Rom algorithm to generate flight paths for the enemy drones on one level)... the list goes on. [1] Incidentally, the article quoted Daniel Cook. For my game, I used Tyrian graphics that he created. He made them available under a Creative Commons license.

sliverstorm 11y ago

Game development seems to be one of the most competitive and least forgiving corners of the larger software development industry. A long time ago, games are what originally motivated me to learn to program I suspect these two things are related. It seems that games are one of the top reasons people learn to program, and it seems we have an oversupply of eager game devs because of it. As for challenges in gaming, I wonder if it is like robotics. I got into electronics inspired by robotics. But it turns out robotics is not really about electronics. It's a lot of things, especially math (control theory), but the electronics part is one of the least important parts of the field, as car as I can tell. Similarly in gaming, it seems greatness has little to do with accomplishment in programming and a lot to do with story, art, music, and user experience.

joesmo 11y ago

I too got started programming games when I was around twelve. I agree it's probably the most competitive and least-forgiving areas, but it seems to have a lot more challenges, both technical and creative than any other area as well. I'm curious why you think it has less.

lewisl9029 11y ago

I have a somewhat analogous background. I went into Waterloo Computer Engineering wanting to work in computer hardware. I quickly found out that hardware was not only insanely complex and difficult to learn, but also really, really boring (just my subjective opinion, I hope nobody takes this personally). Thankfully, I had the option of specializing in either hardware or software in my program. I ended up choosing the latter and couldn't be happier with my choice. Having gone through this experience has given me a new appreciation for all the incredibly smart people working on hardware. Without their hard work and innovations, our software industry wouldn't even exist. Although if I could go back and choose a major again, I'd probably go with either Software Engineering or CompSci, because all the time I spent struggling on hardware courses could have been better spent on building up a better foundation in CompSci theory in a program with more focus.