A lot of beginner programmers ask the question "How do I make a game?" and "How do I create a game, make a it a profession or sell my game?" So as part of my daily surfing I came across this article on the site "How stuff works" that talks about breaking into the biz of game designing.

How Becoming a Video Game Designer Works

Of course this article isn't going to cover all of what you need to know, but it certainly offers great advice of where to start. Keep these additional tips in mind...

1) Making a game is a lot of work and work takes time.

2) The more you know about your language of choice the better you will be.

3) Read up on some material first before starting a game. These include books on game design as well as obtaining enough knowledge in programming to consider yourself an "intermediate" level. This means if you are a complete newbie, a game is not the greatest first time project for you!

4) Write out your entire project on paper first, making it as detailed as possible. The more detailed it is the easier it will be for you to program it using the plan as a road map.

5) Dedication is crucial to success. Work on your game regularly and enjoy what you are doing.

6) Keep it simple and grow it into a bigger project!

7) Lastly, visit DIC whenever you have a question and we can certainly do our best to get you unstuck and keep you moving forward.

Enjoy!

Nice Marty!

I think I'm going to pin this one

To add to this, people do not enter the industry AS a video game designer. Generally it is something that people move to from programming, art or level design. In my opinion, studying game design by itself is worthless.
Being able to program or do the art for a game and working on several smaller projects first is much more valuable to give you an idea of the process of creating a video game.
Also, you will be expected to do actual work too. It is not standing back and saying "I want this guy dressed up as a knight to run around with like lazers shooting a bunch of alien creatures". There will be a lot of grunt work checking levels and build and whatnot.

#1 tip.. start making games on your own or join a team for an existing game to get some experience. The help wanted forum on gamedev.net always has people looking for programmers and artists. A standard 4 year cs degree can get you an entry job as well, but they tend to like people who've made games already.

I was going to write a lengthy post about how this thread is worthless because of the points mocker mentioned. He is absolutely right. Programming, art, audio, etc.. is how people break in. Even going to Digipen or FullSail for a game design degree seems futile. If you don't land that initial job out of school you are royally fucked.

Design is the combination of story and atmosphere. This require art and level designers, which in turn require programming to bring them to life.

BS in CS, BA in Fine Art or whatever would serve people a lot better.

Ha, Fullsail's right down the street from me. I can't tell you how many of those people just end up as game testers for EA Tiburon. To each their own I guess . . .

I think that maybe Designer was a wrong choice of words for this thread, as if you read the topic then you see it is aimed more towards programmers and all round game creation.

I think martyr was aiming to help the people who come in asking how to get started at all, not just game designers.

for my 2 cents

Learn C++

Buy lots of coffee

I'm not bashing all video game programs, only design ones. There are a handful of universities that I'm looking to going to for their Graduate program. Digipen and the Guildhall at SMU have excellent reputations. Programming, art, and level design tracks, not "game design degrees"

I'm attending Full Sail right now in the Game Development BA. I just wanted to say that Full Sail has an excellent reputation in the Game Industry, as well as many others. Currently, our simulation club (comprised 95% of GD students) is working on a new simulation project with NASA!

Secondly, Full Sail's GD program has a 46% dropout rate during the first 4 months. That tells you that it's both difficult and competitive - thus resulting in many people bashing Full Sail because they couldn't handle the pace.

More importantly, the pace at which Full Sail teaches reflects that of the industry. Any experienced developer/coder/designer will tell you the rate at which this industry changes is phenomenal! This of course is a good thing, because that means bigger and better toys!

Did you know that the first video games were developed as early as the 1950's in Hawaii, where military programmers made tiny games from their systems? And guess what? Almost 50 years later, the military is beginning to invest millions of dollars into game research for simulation training. That's only the beginning, video games are being tested (and very successfully I might add) for all sorts of things!

The entertainment industry as a whole is a $13 trillion industry. Video games account for over 21% of that, up 6% over the past 3 years - in comparison to all other forms of entertainment (music, TV, sports, etc.) are down. Movies have remained constant for the past couple years, usually having high points in the market at the beginning of the year, then declining. This tells you our industry is going to rise, and rise it shall! -- expected massive growth through the year 2020.

Lastly, I'd like to address the schools themselves. Of the two above (Digipen and the Guildhall) Digipen is the is the way to go. Both are newer schools, and just started offering a BA in Game Development. Full Sail has had the BA in GD for several years, and is now offering a Masters in GD, designed for people entering management positions. I encourage all of you to check out our website. Visit the student work section and see some of the amazing things students here do!

Trust me when I say, Full Sail has quite a reputation in this industry - with ties to over 40,000 companies! But it's not for everyone, as the program is intense and strenuous. But we do a lot of fun stuff also - many different competitions, tons of clubs and community life, and dodgeball! //seriously, who doesn't like dodgeball?!

Excellent post Marty!

This post has been edited by Psionics: 10 Sep, 2008 - 09:51 PM

I'm not bashing anyone's education or school choice. All I'm saying is that there is an inherent difference between game design and programming/art in academia.



I've never attended this school.

I'm partial to the theory that people should specialize in game development after learning to be a programmer. Grad, etc...

I feel like this is turning into a debate on what school is better and that isn't productive. However some facts you have are wrong. Digipen has been around since 1999, so FullSail's Game Development has a year on them Guildhall was founded in 2003, but their game development programs are Graduate programs.

Also, I personally don't give a shit about accreditation, but Full Sail has national accreditation whereas other schools mentioned in this thread has regional accreditation. If one tried to transfer credits from Full Sail to any other college, it would be difficult.

Here is an interesting article and for each one of these we find, I bet there are hundreds. It's a personal choice.

Interesting Read

I am going out of my way to not sound like an asshole (because I give that impression supposedly); just trying to simply present facts. As with any program, there are those who apply themselves and work hard and will go places regardless of their choice of school.

You're not sounding like an asshole and I couldn't have said that better myself!

There are always those that will shine regardless of what school they choose. The important part is what you do with the knowledge you gain at an educational institute

I'm not sure I actually want to join some company that makes games, I would rather make my own as a hobby and hold a regular programming job. I can do many many things computer-wise from artwork to programming, I strive to be able to get my microchip box to do as I command it to like some crazed magician (or madman). I go to my university to get stronger, and hopefully get degrees, and then I will find a job. I want to be able to do as many things as possible so I'm not a one-tune programmer (but I specialize strongly in video game creation).

Unless they're a good game director, I'm not sure I could stand being directed by someone who thinks they can design a fun game. I would rather it be my own fault that a game I make sucks than to be known for working on a game that sucks because of a terrible designer. Right now I'm known as a video game programmer who writes cool demos but never actually finishes a game, but to show that I at least know how, I started writing tutorials on all matter of things game programming. To note, it's also the first so-called "series" of tutorials where I've actually written more than just the first part

If I ever make money indirectly with my video games (I don't feel like selling a game ever) I would enjoy freelancing as a hobbyist. For gamers by gamers sort of deal, not for those-who-judge-a-game-based-on-how-it-looks by those-who-focus-on-marketing-a-game-rather-than-making-it-really-fun sort of deal.

This post has been edited by WolfCoder: 17 Sep, 2008 - 02:30 PM

I found this site years ago that has a lot of great information about how to get into the industry and what being a game designer and what-not really means. The site is http://www.sloperama.com/advice.html and is written by a guy who has been in the business for years. I highly suggest it.

This post has been edited by jacobz_20: 18 Sep, 2008 - 08:10 PM