As others have said, he should decide what about games he really wants
to do first. I'd suggest you point him to some free/open source tools -
Blender, Unity3D, etc. These programs will often have a vast amount of
tutorials or user forums available to assist in the learning curve.
Have him start with those and see what he can come up with - no, he
won't be making Final Fantasy his first try, but he might at least get a
basic matching game working first.
If that makes his brain melt, maybe get him to try some game editors, or
join a modding community. Games like Torchlight II, The WItcher 2, etc
are under $20 I believe and come with the same tools the game makers
used to build the levels. After he builds a few, and assuming his brain
hasn't melted, have him put a few of his levels out for the larger
community to play with and critique. If the critique makes him roll up
into a ball sobbing, this is a good sign he should re-think his career
options.
After a month or so of trying each he's come up with absolutely nothing,
again, time to re-think his career options. Don't expect a fully
working game in this time, unless its purely been copied from a
tutorial; but it will at least open his eyes to see how much work is
really involved, and how little glamor there is.
I too would caution against a too narrowly focused school. I've had
friends attend Full Sail, and while almost all raved about how amazing
the program was, it seems that most studios would bring them on board as
an unpaid intern to complete one small aspect of a game and then move on
to the next years batch. If he likes coding, suggest a computer science
program where his skills can be used for any number of tasks, not just
games. If it's the art work he likes, then I'm sure you can offer him a
variety of suggestions on where to go next.
If there are any game studios in your area, it might be an idea for him
to contact one and see if he can arrange a tour or speak with someone
there. It was definitely an eye opener for me while attending
University in Toronto to be able to go see two completely different
animation studios. The first we saw looked like the animation studio on
every single behind the scenes DVD you've ever seen; the second had
about 30ppl crammed into a tiny attic apartment converted to studio
complete with render farms to make it 40 degrees inside in the dead of
winter.
Today he also has the option to self publish any games he creates. For
a one-time fee of $25 he can begin selling Android games almost
immediately, or for $99/yr he can sell games on iOS (though be prepared
for many, many arbitrary rejections from Apple). I'm not sure how
things are on the Xbox side of the world, but Sony has been making a
number of pushes to get Indie game developers on PSN. Nintendo and Sony
have both made commitments to bring Unity support to their consoles -
can't say for sure, but I imagine Microsoft would have something similar
as well.
Again, none of this will make him rich or have typical 8hr days, unless
he's incredibly talented and incredibly lucky. As long as he
understands that clearly and still has passion for it - let him loose
and see what he comes up with.
On 6/17/2013 7:42 AM, Paul Griswold wrote:
Hi guys,
My daughter's boyfriend has expressed an interest in getting into game
development. He's just a teenager, so he really doesn't have much of
a focus yet other than "I want to get into games".
But I told my daughter I'd get some recommendations on things like
what he should study, good colleges for careers in games, different
job descriptions, good entry-level positions, etc.
So, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. Any advice at all
would be great.
Thanks,
Paul
