Too many professions and I want a little of every one

Windspiek

I feel like I'm getting to the point where I have to decide which direction to take in the whole mess of jobs professions and what not in the games industry or do I?

To start from the beginning, I'm an 19-year-old guy from Europe and I'm interested in arts psychology science and awesome places. Games have always been my kind of thing until I discovered how awesome it is to create any kind of content myself. My plans to study psychology didn't last long enough to make me write an awesome final exam but I wasn't too much of a fan of being done with my education when I'm 40 anyways.
That was the point where I started to learn Maya and C# and I didn't spent too much of a thought at what excactly I wanted to do as a job and I still don't know how sharp the borders between all the jobs in the games industry actually are. If an environment artist has awesome ideas for mechanics would he be able to get a game designer for the next title of the studio?
I personally feel like game design might be more fulfilling for me as a long term thing due to my interest in psychology and that I have always enjoyed to set something up for people to experience. On the other hand I love painting and modelling a lot ignoring the times of frustration and learning.
The point is I'm applying for an internship in a games company and I was planning to apply as an environment artist but now I'm hesitating to make a choice.
To stop being a drama queen, how did you find out what you want to do for a job? And how likely is it that you are able to change your profession without having to start completely new?

Thanks for reading.


Tl;dr: This thread was mostly for getting my thoughts sorted so I don't blame you.

EarthQuake

Game design is a senior position at virtually every company (unless you start your own). Generally you need to have a lot of experience before even being considered for a role in design that would mean you have any say on project wide design concepts. Environment art/level design is a good start on that path though.

Everyone in the games industry (and outside of it as well) has ideas about a game, a gameplay concept, etc, but very few are in positions to actually make them happen. Getting into design straight out of school is not realistic, so you need to work your way up, even then, getting into a position to make your design dreams come true maybe be very difficult.

unit187

Windspiek wrote: »

I personally feel like game design might be more fulfilling for me as a long term thing due to my interest in psychology and that I have always enjoyed to set something up for people to experience.

Do you realize that most of a game designer's job is sitting there, analyzing statistics, doing math and formulas, testing math and formulas, balancing math and formulas, then writing down some highly technical description of a gameplay mechanic and then doing some more math and balancing.

eld

Making your own games is absolutely the best way to find a studio role as the ultimate jack of all trades, it shows that you're capable of handling and understanding all the roles.

Don't be afraid to make a choice now, you can always switch later on and learn more or different stuff as you go.

PyrZern

If you can do both Maya and C#, I'd say go for indie dev. Make your own game. If you know enough to program a game, and enough Maya for placeholder graphic, it's not so hard to find better artists to replace the game arts. If the designer is also the developer, aka you, you can make whatever you want !

I mean, I would totally do that if I could do programming. I tried to learn C# multiple times but I couldn't wrap my head around it yet T_T So now I'm just doing 3d stuff.

Windspiek

@EarthQuake
Thanks a lot. Environment art/level design sounds good to me because it has arts and some game design elements in it and it makes me pretty flexible.

@unit187
Yes, I do realise that. By the way psychology is a lot of maths as well.

@eld
I will keep that in mind for when I'm done with my education or in a time where I have trouble finding a job.

@PyrZern
Are you sure that starting as a n indie dev right now is a good idea? The market for indie games seems super oversaturated. And I would also prefer to work on games with a larger group and ... I just love AAA open world games.

PyrZern

Well, you gotta start somewhere man. But like someone pointed out, if you wanna design a game, you have to be experienced and in a senior position already. So you have to have something to get you there first.
You will want multiple successful projects/games under your belt. There's almost no way that your first proj will be AAA game.
If you look up on Kickstarter, many indie games are raking loads of money, and they aren't AAA either.
Also, usually AAA games mean one thing = gorgeous graphic. You don't really need that to make a successful and fun game. You need awesome gameplay! Graphic can always be upgraded, crappy gameplay = crappy games.

Windspiek

I shouldn't have said AAA, what I ment to say is games that can afford to have good graphics on top of a good gameplay. I do stop playing a game if it's gameplay isn't good or it involves too much grind although the graphics are gorgeous very quickly and I prefer a good game with outdated graphics to a mediocre game based on Unreal 4. Manuel Calavera is still the guy in town.

JacqueChoi

I speak with a lot of aspiring artists that are working to be become professional 'Game' Artists.

Most of them had an interest in art at a young age, started obsessively drawing when they were in grade school, and have portfolios showcasing their most recent work.

On the flip side:

I have met VERY few aspiring 'Game Designers' that have a portfolio of Game Design Documents. Fewer still a library of Levels made from Editors (Little Big Planet, Starcraft 2, UDK).


If you love art, you make art.

If you love game design, you make games.


If you have neither, then you obviously don't love either.

Windspiek

Looking back game design or level design might be more of my thing because I spent 1,5 years building excessive adventure maps in minecraft with at least 50h sory filled content.
If your into Minecraft you have have heard of a custom map called Paladine's Quest, that was the project I worked on with a whole group of people. That was the kind of thing that replaced drawing for me as a way to prototype ideas. That's why I believe I want to this job because I haven't done anything else in my whole childhood and youth.

Xoliul

Less talking, more doing. Write your idea down, get Unity, watch tutorials, start making something.

WarrenM

Less talking, more doing.

Solid advice for a lot of people in a lot of different situations.

iniside

Windspiek wrote: »

@PyrZern
Are you sure that starting as a n indie dev right now is a good idea? The market for indie games seems super oversaturated. And I would also prefer to work on games with a larger group and ... I just love AAA open world games.

Be realistic. Open World games of even AA grade are enormous effort, and costly. And to be honest. You have bigger chance to create open world game as indie dev than by working in AAA studio. As AAA studio won't take the risks to make AAA quality open world game.

Yes indie open world game won't have awesome graphics, tons of contenet, awsome animations etc. But as an indie, you will get away with, when your concept is good, game mechanic is tights, and it doesn't crash every 1h (;.

Besides you must start somewhere.

I'm actually coding game right now. Though only weekends, I still want to make more art, as I never will be awesome programmer. I'm good enough to pull shit together and make it work (using of course ready engine, and all possible libraries that will do something for me ).

Specialization is good, when you are sure you will get specialized job. But let's be honest. In game industry it's very unlikely. It's more likely that will be doing animations, 3d models, textures, rigging, particles, and if they know you can code, you will be coding ;p.

Windspiek

Don't you worry. I'm moving on from my general c# skills to unity and I'm working on a dialogue system right now. There sure are a lot of free templates on the web but it's for my portfolio.

AAA OW-games was more of in the mindset of think big and achieve at least half of it.