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To make a game like dragon age, what profesion do I have to take in college?


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#1
Nyeredzi

Nyeredzi
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I am very creative, good in visual art, good in writing,... don't know what to take in college. 

 

Is it even a good Idea to pursue these kind of thing?

 

I'm thinking of being a Concept Artist, a Writer, and possibly Designer

 

One of the people I look up to is Micheal Kirkbride



#2
Seb Hanlon

Seb Hanlon
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If you want to make a game like Dragon Age, at the scope and scale of AAA, you need to be a large team.

 

If you want to work on a game like Dragon Age, the advice I give students is to find a relevant area of specialty and study that - if you want to be a programmer, get a CS or Comp Eng degree. If you want to be an animator, study animation. If you want to be a designer - well, my team has a lot of designers with CS degrees.

 

The philosophy behind this advice is that if you get a broad education (aka "university degree"), you'll have a lot more flexibility and career opportunities if for whatever reason you can't get into the industry or change your mind later. As a programmer, you can pay your bills with (for example) PHP while you practice making games on the side and keep applying.

 

On top of a solid education (which recruiters will often straight up screen for - it's rare we hire people without either shipped titles or a degree), something you made (a mod, a prototype, a NWN module, a Twine game, a graphics demo, your art portfolio, etc) is one of the best things to bring to an application - it shows that you've taken raw ideas and cooked them down to the point where you can put it in front of other people and have them evaluate it.


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#3
Seb Hanlon

Seb Hanlon
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It's a bit discouraging to see industry veterans warning hopefuls not to treat QA as entry-level, especially when some of those veterans got their foot in the door that way...  :unsure:

 

Are there any entry-level positions in the game industry? All I ever seem to find are postings requiring 2-4 years experience.

Most of the "entry level" positions we recruit are typically (paid) internship programs in partnership with colleges and universities.

 

It is not unheard of to hire people with experience from non-game-industry jobs, where those jobs cross over in responsibility and related skills. Many parts of the game development machine have parallels in other industries - for example, several of our editors have come in with experience in journalism.

 

This crosses back to what I was saying before; a general broad based education will help you get a job. That job, game industry or not, might help you get the game industry job you want. Who knows, you might end up finding something you like more than game dev after all.


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#4
Seb Hanlon

Seb Hanlon
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Gabe Newell says that college degrees don't matter. What you need to do to prove you are qualified to work in game development, as according to our lord and savior, you need to be able to 1) Make a game, 2) Successfully advertise and draw attention to your game, 3) Finish and Launch your game.

 

If you can do those three things, you don't need a college degree and you will get to work at Valve. 

Of course - YMMV, some conditions apply, void where prohibited by law, see in-store for details. My experience is but one path among many.

 

That being said, I wager there's lots of people who accomplish all three of those (definitely nontrivial) objectives and haven't yet received their Golden Ticket Offer Letter from Our Lady of the Lambda.


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