Christopher
If I want to design games, is experience in that field more important than a college degree.
#College,#Exerience,#Video Game Developement
2 answers
Henry Ryder
Henry’s Answer
Hello.
Definitely good experience in games design will reflect very positively on you .
If you can get a free version of Unity or Unreal Engine and just start going through the basics and make a small game demo, in this way you will learn by doing. If you can show an impressive portfolio of work that will make more of an impact than a certificate of education.
A college course will give you time and guidance to enable you to practice your skills. A college course will hopefully encourage you to excel by surrounding you with other people who are also learning similar skills.
If you have time, are highly self motivated and have ample resources then you may well not need the college to learn the skills, although college provides a useful structure to help people learn.
Henry recommends the following next steps:
Ted Curran, M.Ed.
Ted’s Answer
When you get to the big leagues and you're ready to compete for a desirable job, you will be in competition with other game developers who
1. Have used their independent time all along to build skills in game dev
2. Have followed an education track that has prepared them for careers in that field, and
3. Have built networks of people who can connect them with the best jobs
School helps with #2 and #3. You're at a place where you can start on #1 right now. That will give you an advantage over the other people who ONLY did 2 & 3, but believe me, you want to be as prepared as you possibly can be.
For me, it was working in TV. I did a lot of relevant prep work on my own, but once I got to Hollywood I realized I was competing for jobs with people who had majored in TV in college *and* been building TV experience all along since high school. They formed networks largely based around who they had gone to school with and that's how people moved from job to job over their careers.
You can try to make it by doing 1 alone, but just know that there are a lot of other people out there who have done 1,2, and 3 and they'll be applying for the same jobs you will.