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Forums - General - Gettting a job in games

So, I had orientation for my collage. Now I need to chose a major(or an idea of one) so I can determine my classes. I'm hoping to get a degree that could apply to video games(not nessisarly dirrectly, but one that can get me a job there). So, I ask, what majors do you need for these carrers

 Indusrty Analysis, Critic/Journalist, Tester, Developer(graphics or programming).

I know it seems like a child hood dream, but hey, atleast humor me. Thanks guys(and gals)



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Depends on what you want to do:

Art: Take as much life drawing and sculpting as possible and then start taking some painting and color theory classes. The first thing you want to do is become as good as possible at the basics and don't touch any 3D modeling program until you've gotten the basics. More people have tried going straight into Max and failed because they couldn't do the basics.

Level Design: This one is harder because not a lot of people define level design as the same thing. Anything to do with architecture and history will always help as well as rhetoric classes as documentation and being able to get your point across is beyond important. If you're more technical, start learning C++ and scripting languages such as Lua, if you're more on the art side, take some art classes (see above). Level design is a bit of art and programming and it's where the rubber meets the road. You need to be able to do everything but don't try to be a jack of all trades. The best way to practice it to buy Quake 4/Half-Life 2/ and just build things. Pick something with a strong community that you can have people play your maps and just practice practice practice. Above all, concentrate on gameplay.

Programming: C++, math, and physics. Be awesome at all three because you're going to be using them all all the time. Linear algebra (and numerical linear algebra) will be used most often and physics will be fairly key as well. It always helps to know other languages but know C/C++ like the back of your hand.

 

If you say what exactly you want to do, I could probably give more info but that's the pretty basic rundown of the three fields that you woudl start in. 



Computer Science encompasses a lot. Grapichs Design. English/Journalism if you want to write. Business degree if you want to do analysis, I think.



I remember, when my parents said, video games are a fad, tey will go out of business, and no one can make money off of games, lol.
Funny looking back then and what is going on now huh?
Good luck with your career in video games, If you do not want to desing/create, you can always do PR or Executive management. I would take those courses as well, it wouldnt hurt.



Dolla Dolla said:
Computer Science encompasses a lot. Grapichs Design. English/Journalism if you want to write. Business degree if you want to do analysis, I think.

 Graphic Design wouldn't hurt, but it wouldn't help you to specialize in that.  If you want to write, you need to take a little more than just English and journalism wouldn't really help much at all.  You would have to go more along the lines of the creative writing approach but getting into being a writer is probably one of the hardest things to break in as since 1) not many places employ writers and 2) they are a dime a dozen.  Analysis could be fun but that isn't really a game job in that no studio has an on board analyst.  Computer Science works well for programming, just make sure you take a lot of math and physics (preferbly at least minor in math) and can also work well if you want to go into level design and specialize in scripting.