Tricky decision
polycounter lvl 4
Hey all, my name is Vidas (known as fakado online) and I'm an aspiring level designer. I've got some things I posted on the Unreal Engine forum and one of them here on Polycount named "The Room" which I'm still working on. I love working with UE4/UDK/3dsMax completely and would love to get a job in the industry.
However, I've been doing research over the past year with some people pointing for "Join the games industry, yay!" and some saying "You'll regret this for the rest of your life".
Now obviously, the two statements keep resonating within me and thus I keep changing my mind towards whether or not I wish to enter the course and then industry.
I have already firmly accepted a Games Design course that offers a Masters at Staffordshire + they work hand-in-hand with the Unreal team. However, I believe that at the time of my results, I should have approximately 140 more UCAS tarrif points than originally intended which should put me at 420 tarrif points at the minimum.
This has caused me to consider doing a business degree as I had just finished two years worth of business at sixth form in just one year at a Distinction* level (highest possible) and although I understand it's only the basics being taught, but Business Management (or Business Law) are now potential university courses that I am considering as my "Adjustment" on UCAS.
I'm a fairly social guy and like to stand out when possible that's why I think I might make it in the games industry, but due to the lack of job security, I feel quite scared (+potentially having to move family around the country/world so I can have a job)
So what do? Should I continue to pursue a Games Design Masters (or normal) BSc degree at Staffs and try to find a job in the games industry, or should I go for a more secure field such as Business Mngmt/Law where I may not enjoy turning up to work each day?
Thank you for taking the time to read and hope I can receive some responses that will help me make the final decision.
tl;dr - Games or Business?
However, I've been doing research over the past year with some people pointing for "Join the games industry, yay!" and some saying "You'll regret this for the rest of your life".
Now obviously, the two statements keep resonating within me and thus I keep changing my mind towards whether or not I wish to enter the course and then industry.
I have already firmly accepted a Games Design course that offers a Masters at Staffordshire + they work hand-in-hand with the Unreal team. However, I believe that at the time of my results, I should have approximately 140 more UCAS tarrif points than originally intended which should put me at 420 tarrif points at the minimum.
This has caused me to consider doing a business degree as I had just finished two years worth of business at sixth form in just one year at a Distinction* level (highest possible) and although I understand it's only the basics being taught, but Business Management (or Business Law) are now potential university courses that I am considering as my "Adjustment" on UCAS.
I'm a fairly social guy and like to stand out when possible that's why I think I might make it in the games industry, but due to the lack of job security, I feel quite scared (+potentially having to move family around the country/world so I can have a job)
So what do? Should I continue to pursue a Games Design Masters (or normal) BSc degree at Staffs and try to find a job in the games industry, or should I go for a more secure field such as Business Mngmt/Law where I may not enjoy turning up to work each day?
Thank you for taking the time to read and hope I can receive some responses that will help me make the final decision.
tl;dr - Games or Business?
Replies
but if you want a good degree, go medieval literature. I hear its a good one.
And although the job description with crunching and such is stressful in the games industry, it just feels like it would somewhat be worth it because I'd be surrounded by people who aspire for the same creative things as me.
Worst case scenario, I'm thinking of maybe doing a business degree and doing level designs in my own time to build a portfolio and getting decent pay for the first 10-20 years of my life and then moving on to follow games passion after I have some money placed together for me/family. If not that, I'm thinking of using my existing knowledge of business from my sixth form and climbing the corporate ladder within the games industry.
But again, I don't know. It's a tough and scary choice as either one could potentially ruin my life through stress/job insecurity.
No fancy piece of paper is going to make your skills legit, but it doesn't hurt to bring other specialist skills to the table and have options.
Really, it comes down to what do YOU actually WANT to do?
My advice is simple:
1) If you are capable of self-learning, there are much better ways than spending 3-4 years at University and racking up £40-50k's worth of debt that you will be paying off for the rest of your life. Stuff like level design is more practice than tuition, and there are plenty of decent learning resources for 3d art that don't cost you £9000 + living costs per year.
2) If you are certain you want to go into games and would not be willing to work in another field, and fit the requirements of #1, then doing any other degree is just as much of a waste of time and money. Take a regular job now, and work on your art / level design in your free hours - when work becomes available, make your applications. If your portfolio is good enough, you can then make your break into the industry.
3) A more standard (and sensible) degree can be useful acquiring better paid work outside of the games industry and this is not a bad route to take. Business, Engineering or Software orientated degrees are all quite viable and can put you in a better position to find work on graduating. Games jobs are few and far between, and there's a lot of competition from other skilled applicants.
To put another spin on why game design degrees are useless - have you considered the fact that there are now 250 undergraduate games related courses in the UK, but there are also only 9000 people employed within the UK games industry (and I would hazard a guess that 1 in 20 of these or less are junior development positions). If each of these course spits out only ten qualified graduates per year, then they are spitting out six times as many graduates each year than there are jobs for total.
I've met a LOT of people with game degrees in the UK. The vast majority of them work in retail.
I think that the plan I'm going to follow is to try switch over to a business degree and spend any free time I have to do some portfolio work and post here on Polycount so I can improve and get an industry standard portfolio. If the course-swap doesn't work, I'll consider the games design course at Staffordshire, but will probably just take myself to some job and work on my portfolio in any free time I get.
The community here seems great and I hope that it can continue to help me improve. Hopefully I'll be able to regularly start posting and participate in the community and maybe even get to know some people around here and do some sort of networking.
Games and any other art form/entertainment are a wonderful thing, its creation at its most primitive state first and foremost. I say go to school to learn the stuff that is harder to grasp without guidance, aka high level math and programming. You can art it up on your own, its easy enough to get your foot in the door on that side of things.
Also, business wouldnt be bad as it is something to fall back on and is practical. falls into line with the whole not needing a degree in the games industry. But once again, if you do want to end up in the industry, a computer science degree is only a good thing. Learn how to program and then get into art if you want... You will be a force to reckon with. Art ninjas are invaluable.
Leveldesign is something that is pretty niche and a gamedesign job, mainly filled with
people that have been mapping in their youth, creating maps in editors with other peoples content mainly, often strategy games or shooters. Its about paths, player interaction, telling stories and leading gameplay (..)
If thats what you mean, did you did such things in the past ? If not, its maybe a little late but not impossible
If you mean environment art, creating 3d assets and building environments after a concept or greybox of a leveldesigner, then people should have plenty of advice here.
3 years for a something like starting 3d from scratch is possible but you have to be very dedicated
If you are not sure about it, then its probably not the right thing to do. Its a hard biz and there are many 3d people starting a lot earlier than you likely. But do what you think is best, just making a reality check here you should know best
Hey, thanks for the reply. Yeah, I had the sudden realization a couple of days ago when I found out the difference between the two job roles. I had only done minor things connected to level design and most of the things I make are usually more environment art than level design.
I think if I did do the course at Staffordshire, I'd be able to become even better in environments and 3d modelling.
The main problem why I think that wouldn't work is that my 2d skills are quite basic and I think I'd be highly overtaken by other environment artists regardless of my 3d skills due to them being able to also conceptualize their ideas in 2d.
The lecturers at Staffordshire apparently have been in the industry and the course allows branching off into specialized areas such as hard surface modelling, level design, environment design, animation and so on.
Do you think that as someone without good 2d skills could make it into work as an environment artist, working off of other people's concepts or straight from my head? Perhaps 3 years at Staffordshire may give me the opportunity to also focus on 2d art.
Thankyou