I agree with twestern. Employees who are only in it for the money in that industry do not last. You have to be REALLY passionate about your job and the gaming industry. Why? Because you'll be working a hell of a lot for pay that isn't even that great! Especially during crunch time (Remember the EA Spouse incident? EA employees during crunch time barely had a life outside their job). Unpaid overtime too since you are on a salary.
I personally had ambitions about working in the gaming industry as a programmer but then I sucked at algebra, geometry, calculus and so that never happened. lol. I see that as a blessing in diguise because while I love videogames, programming bores the shit out of me (well at least the coding and bug fixing part is. The sense of accomplishment at the end feels nice though) and I don't want to work in an industry that treats their workers like shit (long hours with no overtime pay since you are salaries. Job security is non-existant pretty much. So you'll be job hopping a lot, etc). I also tend to be more interested in design than programming but I've never bothered to try to make a video game* because it's difficult to be motivated to put in that much work in something when you aren't getting paid for it.
* (I got bored of RPG Maker in like a couple weeks when I was like 14. rofl Obviously RPGMaker is child's play but hey I was 14, lol. I studied Visual Basic and Java in highschool and tried to learn C++ as a hobby but I gave up on a C++. I was too bored with trying to learn the basics. I was like, "I want to create a RPG now!!!"
I have flirted with the idea of amateur development as a hobby thing to do (The Pier Solar team really inspired me) but there just isn't much cost-benefit to it. As I said, it's difficult to be motivated to put in that kind of investment when you aren't getting paid and you're already tired as it is from school/work. I'd rather use the time to play videogames instead. lol.
I do have some ideas in my head about what kind of games I envision making (even going as far as thinking about mechanics and what not) but ultimately, my ideas of what would make for a great game may seem like utter shit to everyone else. lol. And sometimes your ideas may seem great in your head but then epically fail in executation. For one, I envision creating an old-school turn-based rpg with a focus on combat, dungeon crawling, exploration, challenge, etc. (ie. early 8-bit era Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy before they put in heavy dialogue into these games) but with a modern twist (modernized mechanics, combat system, etc.) But I think that kind of idea would have a very limited appeal seeing as how most jrpg players care about narrative (whereas I care more about gameplay. Hence why I prefer something like Etrian Odyssey to say modern Final Fantasy)
Ultimately there is like virtually zero cost-benefit for me to get into amateur development with a bunch of fellow hobbyists. And given that wannabe designers are a dime a dozen, I know I'd pretty much have to know programming to be taken seriously. Everyone wants to be the designer. It's the cool job.
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