Career In Game Designing and Suitable Colleges

vishnov

Journeyman
Friends, I happened to read an article on digit on game designing and it looks promising to me. I want some opinion and advise about the practicality of doing that course. I am a new comer to this forum so forgive my mistakes i may have unwittingly made. Here are my doubts

1. What is the probability of getting employed after completing ,what they say, a 2 year course.
2. What are be the skills (programming and personal) required to be a good Game Designer?
3. Which institutes offer such courses apart from DSK Superinfocom. It's a good place to learn but its way too expensive.
4. Any guess about the approximate cost for admission and all expenses combined for the entire duration?
5. And lastly my pay scale. I don't expect it to be paid in lakhs for a stater but still how much will i possibly earn?

I'm a B.tech final year student and honestly i don't believe i will do any justice to my degree if i get a job. I practically would have no interest and passion in what i would do. Gaming always fascinated me, not only while playing, but in all fascinating aspects. Even if i earn less, i will be contented. So guys please give me your honest opinion and suggestions.
Thnx in advance!
 

Anorion

Sith Lord
Staff member
Admin
the best thing you can do is pick up the required skills PART TIME while pursuing professional options
the problem is that there is no specific dept in a particular company you can aim for with a skillset
generally, photoshop, zbrush, 3ds max, maya, UDK, unity and some scripting knowledge will allow you to make a game. training for these software is available in various institutes without the extreme prices that some charge.
we (india) make bits and pieces for games worldwide without consuming them ourselves, in a professional studio your work will be limited to rigging, lighting, texturing or a particular part in a highly specialized process
right now in india, the trend is towards mobile and social games
there are indie projects where a single developer has made the engine, all the resources, the music, and handled the marketing (phew!)
making games takes all the fun out of playing games, bear that in mind when thinking about this field
 

Mr.Kickass

In the zone
@Anorion is right about the design part

I find this interesting that I asked the exact question but at a different time. You're in your final year. I was in my first. Still, I couldn't get an answer. I wasn't in Pune and moving didn't seem like an option to me. I was already enrolled in B.Tech in NCR. Besides, none of my friends knew an iota of fact about gaming. Setting up an AMX Mod was the best they could do. No idea about development. No idea about math required to code. No idea about tools. Nothing. So I dropped the idea.

It's question like your's that triggers temptation. Well, I gathered some resources but never bothered to check them back. It may not be much, but its at least in the right direction. When I was applying for jobs, I did receive something from Ubisoft. No knowledge about gaming held me back. Thought it was a marketing job but still, development interests me more.

So, there are a few pointers that might help you but judging by the questions it seems you've already done some research yourself. Now what I have for you might not be very relevant to an Indian scenario but, learning remains the same anywhere you go. The only remedy to this problem would be to network, network, network and more. You need to get hold of somebody already working.

IMHO, if you want to do it anyway I'd suggest going the indie route. Create your own games. Learn while making them. You'll gain experience and projects to talk about. Practically, I don't think that is the best way. @Anorion has put it nicely and I couldn't agree more: the best thing you can do is pick up the required skills PART TIME while pursuing professional options

Make a list of institutes that are offering any game design courses.
Research them. Reach out to ex-students, if you can.
Now, the most important part: Network.
Create links with those who can help you get hired. (I cannot mention this enough)
Do independent development separately to gain knowledge. (Indie Route)

By the time you finish the course, you'll be much more experienced.

Here are some resources that I myself gathered long time back. I hope it helps you. All the best

Extreme Beginner Help!|gamedev.net
New to Tuts+: Game Development? Start Here|gamedeveloopment.tutsplus
[Strictly Coding Related Question Board] Game Development|Stack Exchange

And remember, you have to pick your role. Dev or Design ? Based on that you should start learning. IMO, most schools teach you graphics. Programming is a different ball game. Also, a game can be developed on any platform. Be it console OR your browser(simple flash games)

Lastly, I'm no expert so anybody more experienced is invited
 
OP
vishnov

vishnov

Journeyman
Mr. Kickass..which is more feasible? Designing or Development? I have no one amongst my circles who is synonymous to gaming industry. And about going Indie..where do i start? What should i start doing now? I have many more questions to ask..but need some solid answers first. Plz help me!
 

sandeep410

Journeyman
Since you are in Btech last year. I suggest you 1st complete the course and get your name sake degree.
After that dont join any courses. Start learning game development by yourself which means game programming. You have to be a designer as well as a developer bec if you are just a designer you wont go anywhere. Theres lots of game developement tutorial out there you should start learning that, which means you would need to learn some programming languages like c#,c++,javascript etc.
After that you should start to learn to create games for PC,IOS,android and HTML5. You will also need to learn unity 3d.
As of now IOS and HTML5 is were the money is but that might change later.

You will need a good gaming PC and atleast 50k money for various things.

As about financial stuff. As a game developer you will always do financially ok even if you are going very bad bec we are a thrid world country and money we need to survive is less. If you are doing good then you will earn more than top guy of your college earns. And if you are doing excellent then you are a millionaire.

You can start by making simple games for android and IOS. Dont expect any money to come for your first 5 games. After that as you get better you can slowly see difference. If you wana do a gaming related job, you can also do that after you have released some games. You will get a job easily if you just showcase your games to hiring company. but you would generally make more money by going Inde. Also its a good idea to make freindship with an artist.
 

Anorion

Sith Lord
Staff member
Admin
html5
games are most highly competitive

where to start? youtube videos. get low poly 3d models off the internet and rig, skin and animate em according to game animations. like make an attacking creature in 16 keyframes in 3ds max. make a demonstration for each of the 12 basic principles of animation. gif sprites are fine too.
follow an modify any tutorial for UDK or Unity

there are games indite titles with modifying one highly specialized game and engine, canabalt is eg

BTech is good, you could have done part time pg diploma in game design during btech (see if you can fit it in to final year) and gone on for full time pg diploma in game development after BTECH
game design involved skinning animating and creating resources for udk or unreal, game development involves terrains, physics, interfaces, i/o
 
OP
vishnov

vishnov

Journeyman
html5
games are most highly competitive

where to start? youtube videos. get low poly 3d models off the internet and rig, skin and animate em according to game animations. like make an attacking creature in 16 keyframes in 3ds max. make a demonstration for each of the 12 basic principles of animation. gif sprites are fine too.
follow an modify any tutorial for UDK or Unity

there are games indite titles with modifying one highly specialized game and engine, canabalt is eg

BTech is good, you could have done part time pg diploma in game design during btech (see if you can fit it in to final year) and gone on for full time pg diploma in game development after BTECH
game design involved skinning animating and creating resources for udk or unreal, game development involves terrains, physics, interfaces, i/o

thankyou
 
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