Hi Paul, so you pressed that poor 18 year old boyfriend of your daughter into giving you a reliable and realistic plan of the future?
He had to come up with something at least related to your field, if only to make you feel more comfortable because you wouldn´t question a decision similar to yours, of course. Kids are clever, even if they just look plain slothy at a glance. It takes a lot of brains to skip homework and not get caught. Now that you´ve been pulled in to do the research and give him a headstart (for the love of your daughter) how about questioning the future in general? Your girl is around 18, so is her boyfriend. Expect some surprising changes in the situation. Part of growing up should be the right to change mind and try things instead of locking on on version one. That said, I would not recommend jumping to conclusions too much in terms of judging the current economic situation in VFX and Games as the only measure of being able to make a living with artwork. BUT. It´s a very limited market with lot´s of competition and only too few shops to go to. This depends on the country of course, here in Germany, we have 3-5 film VFX shops, 10-25 postproduction boutiques and 3-5 Games facilities. I´m skimming off the top of the crop but on purpose. This boils down to some 30 options to start with, taking an average 10% rule, that makes 3 empty slots to fill for an average guy. Personally, I studied graphics design and can recommend it for the broad set of influences I came in touch with, even if completely unrelated to what I currently do, the studying gave me the time to build up a more extensive set of skills and also made me learn basic project management and budgeting skills. The most important thing is the friends I made there, people tend to stick together and remember each other. Graphics design really isn´t my field of work but the artsy types are sort of the same feather. I would recommend getting a degree. It gives you access to options you can´t have all by yourself. Cheers, tim P.S: There´s a lot of freedom in all the big, impossing players going down the drain,even if it shows the button pushing concept doesn´t work. Unfortunately, they try to be cheap with artists again and again. I can´t recommend trying to do artwork/design/quality for such a business people... On 17.06.2013 13:42, 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
