This is why I went the distance as an indie dev. It's still very difficult development work, it's hard to make things as you want, but you also get the unique opportunity to be completely broke all the time.
I've been all-indie but as a freelancer for 14 years. I wish I had gone triple A now. Why? Because of all the indie people I've worked with, only 3 projects went to completion in 14 years. It didn't much matter to me at the time because I got paid, but now I think of all the titles I could have on my resume which don't exist, the portfolio work I don't have because I cannot show the results and nobody looks at code. It's been rough. Now I've started my own studio.
Thanks for the shout out Tim! To the topic of your video, I'd say being in an industry adjacent place can be really fulfilling! I love playing and reviewing games but I know that actually trying to make them and engaging with teams and company structures would quickly turn it into something that would feel too much like work to me and I'd start to resent it which would definitely kill the passion for me.
Indeed, corporate structure is what drove me to go back to university. Being in meetings with projects managers, PLM and procurement managers can suck out any life energy from your soul.
Worked in the game industry and the emphasis of pleasing shareholders over actually creating fun products is a reality that may be hard to swallow for newcomers with a real passion for games 😅
Ha. To bad these people are so short sighted and dumb that the only way TO please shareholders is to actually make good products and make actual money. Whoever thought simplifying and shilling out everything for short term profits is the biggest idiot ever
@@trinitronjonatranit's not always a viable option, based on many factors like where they live, or the income they need. Especially right now, when the tech industry is letting so many people go.
@@trinitronjonatran Privately-held companies also have investors, they are just not traded on public markets. You still have exactly the same pressures to push the line up, and if anything, you have less transparency / regulation on how you make that happen. Not sure where this myth came from that only public companies are money-chasers. Private equity is a whole thing.
@@trinitronjonatrandawg, most are publicly traded. Idk what about his comment triggered you enough to minimize his statement or the same complaint that the majority of us customers have, but yea its not as simple as "don't work for publicly traded companies then", wish it was though. I'd love there to be more companies like larian.
I loved video games in middle school and high school and was absolutely convinced the games industry was my future. I had so many ideas and planned out which colleges I wanted to go to and studios I wanted to work for… Took my first comp sci class in my junior year of high school and realized it was NOT for me. Hated nearly every second of it from the first print line. Never have been an artist either and began to despair. I realized I didn’t actually want to make games - I had ideas for games I wanted to PLAY, and just imagined myself telling other people to make the games for me. Luckily around that time I found philosophy and realized not only was I super passionate about it, but was good at it. Finishing my degree now and have won some undergrad awards for philosophy papers and my professors are encouraging me to pursue the academy. I still love video games, especially CRPGS. I’d still like someday to maybe try and make a little indie game for myself, but I’ll have to teach myself some coding and how to draw. I really appreciate this video though. The important thing for me was learning that liking video games and wanting new, original, good video games, is not the same as wanting to be a developer. I’m happier being a consumer and player and accept that. :)
I mean, game development is not only about code, you can do plenty of work with no coding required. Not trying to change your mind or anything lol, but that's just how I also felt but realized that my desire was not about the coding aspect of game making but the creative part.
Some of my fellow philosophy undergrads were transfers from comp sci. They inverted the typical conclusion, and thought philosophy was best in university, programming self-learned. I tend to agree with that academic principle. Later on, I came to see the merits of programming, that it can come naturally with a philosophical mind, if you approach it right. But programming a game and designing one aren't the same. There's potential to design in other ways, I think, if you find a new route. I've found a lot of indie devs have masterfully coded some of the most boring, derivative platformer slop imaginable. It's like finding the most inventive and roundabout way to make a saltine cracker. There's a higher level of design to a game.
Now we just need a point and click adventure game about getting into the gaming industry called So You Want To Make Games in the style of King's Quest 1: So You Want To Be A Hero.
You’ve mentioned in several videos that you’ve never done indie dev work. Do you have noncompete agreements that would prevent you from developing small indie titles? If not, have you considered doing a couple small indie projects, maybe on some of the more niche ideas you’ve had that traditional studios won’t greenlight or maybe even just so you can see that side of the industry?
I don’t have any noncompete agreements, and I’ve made little games on my own. I just never finish them. Coding Toys (Insomnia Edition) ruclips.net/video/mHMFG8uvOb0/видео.html
I like that Tim gets asked the same question over and over and despite his probable annoyance at the questioning, he still takes time to find new things to talk about when it comes up so that people still get an answer.
Not sure why but your consistency with the introduction of your videos is really nice. At this point I think it cues me into a good mindset subconsciously and helps me tune out other noise. This was a great video, thank you!
I've been making games since 2010. Focusing on Unreal Engine. I once heard the best question in all of Game Dev. "Why did you want to become a game developer?" and the perfect answer was..... "It seemed like a good idea at the time".
I'm "self taught" mechanic for 20 years now, but did all the paper stuff later in my career to get certificates. I tend to do game modding etc on my freetime a hobby. But recently my body is starting to fail so ihave been thinking about switching to computer side as a mainwork and mechanic stuff backdown as a hobby as it were when i was still young 😅
I'd recommend going the normal SWE route as games is kinda hard to get into from what I've heard. Possible, but pretty competitive and tough on your mind as some companies are pretty intense with hours. So burnout is pretty common.
Depending what type of mechanic you are, you could look into hybrid work. Everything from cars to washing machines has a computer in it now, and they sorely need folks who are equally facile with a drill as with diagnostic software. Let the young'uns do the heavy lifting, but you can move up while retaining the seniority that comes with experience.
I needed this. I think I can go into the game industry seriously. I don't have many strong skills that are desired in the industry yet, but I'm still young, learning programming and writing. I think I enjoy working in a team, going with the flow and communicating over big projects. I think as much as I enjoy games as a hobby, I'd even moreso love to make it my career. Honestly, more than anything, I simply can't come up with any other industry that fits me better. I've loved games and game design my whole life (though who doesn't!), I have a deep interest in the worlds of art, design, technology, and finance, and I deeply value leaving a mark on this world through the act of creation. I know it can be a cynical and soul crushing industry on the inside, but what isn't? At the end of the day, I have to pay the bills somehow.
I wanted to be a game developer from 1983 onwards. I never attempted it because back then making games wasn't as easy as it is today. Also my school life was turbulent. Long story short, I became an IT guy, network engineer, database manager and tutor and fell into web development. From there I learned Flash and how to code with PHP and Actionscript. This got me into the games industry using Scaleform to make user interfaces. I was 33 when I decided to get into game development. It's never too late. My one piece of advice. Specialise in something that won't be decimated by A.I. in 5-10 years. Even if AI will take over, specialise anyway.
@@tehf00ngreat story, thank you for sharing! But one question, what could be something that I can specialize in that won’t be eliminated by AI in the game industry? I am working at being a concept artist but AI might make it redundant later
@@aaron6290 I'm already seeing the effect on my concept artist friends who are moving away from that and learning more technical elements to subsidise the time between commissions. However it's not stopping them. It's hard to say exactly which parts A.I. will take over completely. Likely none of them and some human element will always be needed. One specific trait I've noticed which stands out as something A.I. will have trouble with for a long time is culturalism in it's dialectical states. Meaning that depending where you live, how you live, there might be something as important as a smell or a common element that is specifically and intrinsically linked to a culture. Like the smell of black hair being straightened by hair straighteners. Or an idiosyncracy that is common to the people in an area. Those things an A.I. doesn't pick up on. So when writing storylines, or dialogue, this is where a human element will always beat out the A.I. interpretation. Which I believe leaves narrative writing and cinematically sequenced art in the realm of humans for a long time to come.
Game dev here, indie, developed over 70 games from flash to Unity. A pretty popular one that blew up recently was a sim where you kill the family guy characters as Stewie. That's actually an important detail, because I found based on the numbers, it doesn't matter how good a job you do anymore, only things that have to do with an already established franchises get any traction, literally every original idea comparatively never gets off the ground. Also, despite being skilled in most aspects of development ( coding, modeling, texturing, ect ) I have NEVER gotten a professional gaming job. I've APPLIED to hundreds over the years, got scammed a couple times in the process. Point of my rant? I put it all on game dev and got nothing in return. Be prepared for that as a probably outcome. Also worth noting is by the time you get yourself established, A.I will be doing the job anyway...
I'm doing so right now as a hobbyist basically. I did a unity tutorial game several years ago on my own (very basic lol). And then helped in a small game jam by teaching myself blender to make the 3d models and an animation (very unfinished but we at least had something we could present!). And now I'm giving it another go, teaching myself more of the coding and more of the blender skills. So far I really enjoy working with blender, though I don't know that I'll move beyond hobbyist for any of it. But I'm gonna push forward on solo dev as quickly and for as long as ADHD hyper focus will allow, just to see what I can get done and what I enjoy the most in the process!
After almost 10 years on Networking, I felt like I needed a change. Was desperate for one, to be honest. I was always angry, moody, always tired, haven't created anything in a long time. So, I tried getting into the gaming indursty. Since I can't code to save my life and I have no prior dev experience (only playing ton of games basically), I tried Unreal Engine 5. Made a short FPS demo as a showcase what I could learn by myself in a month. Sent it out to a couple of companies to check it out, hoping to get at least into QA. Long story short: After 5 failed attempts and one part-time offer, I'm back in Networking ... Well, at least I tried and with my current "special" shifts, I sleep more :D
@@arcan762 Worked 10 years as a Senior Networking Engineer for a large US unnamed company as a part of the global network provider. Remotely configuring sites, poject work and so on. Now it's very similar to that, except I don't support one large customer, but many smaller ones.
@@Nastara That's how we loosely translate the type of work we do. ENG is my secondary language, so ... working with computers, providing/setting up/maintaining/troubleshooting/fixing communication channels for various companies.
@@decode.666 Ah, so like IT infrastructure type stuff? Big games companies also have those kinds of people, though they don't work on the actual games themselves. Network programmers are paid well and always in demand in the games industry, and may be a worthwhile transition if you are still interested.
Long long ago, I sent Piers Anthony a letter asking him how to be an author. His reply was just do it... it was a form letter printed on a dot matrix printer (high tech at the time) . I never did, I went from that desire, to special effects which I never did , to soldier, to computer programmer. I still sometimes think about writing, I might still do it. I think that advice though.... is just it if you want to do something, just do it and do it till you don't want to do it anymore.
Just remember that Tolkien was over 35 when he wrote LOTR and Bram Stoker didn't write Dracula until he was 50. That's all the encouragement for not having done any of what I would like to have gotten done and published I need.
This is truly the ultimate self-reflection. I know that as much as I want to be free and do whatever I want as an indie dev, I know I wouldn't get anything done. I am going into my junior year in high school. Last year as a sophomore, my school offered a one month python programming class. By the end the final project was to create a text based game using what we learned. Me, being obsessed with Fallout, made a recreation of Fallout New Vegas in the span of four days. Sure it was certainly a bit of a mess, but it ran, and the people who played it, loved it. Now during the summer I tried to do the same with the original Fallout, a much simpler game to port. I can't even get past making the cave of Vault 13. I do worry slightly what this may mean for a future career in gamedev. Great vid as always, Mr. Cain.
Don't be so hard on yourself :) Focus, follow-through, and self-discipline are all skills that build with practice and maturity. Part of why the general advice is to "start small" is because smaller projects are easier for your brain to "swallow whole", if that makes sense. You could also reach out to your friends (or make new ones!) and practice making games together. You'll (1) be able to keep each other on-task & motivated to finish, and (2) gain valuable experience working together in a team towards a common goal. Being an indie isn't something you just wake up one day with all the skills for - I don't think there's anything like that in life, except maybe breathing. And even that often gets a "jump start" with a slap on the back/bottom 😅 Try not to get frustrated! Keep a notebook (or Google Doc/iNote/etc) with your ideas, progress, failures, lessons-learned, etc and over time you will build the wherewithal to knock out something really spectacular. We all look forward to it :)
I find pleasure in playing games, particularly for their art. I often spend an excessive amount of time appreciating the textures, which extends my gameplay beyond the expected "allotted" time. The theme music captivates me as well.
As an aside to the first point you made about how everyone has great ideas: no, actually, that's not true at all. Most people have no idea what they want in the slightest. Most people that _think_ they want to make something - like a video game, in this instance - haven't the first clue what that _actually_ means, nor do they have even the scantest detail they could explain about their supposed idea if prompted. In the vast majority of cases, people that _think_ they have creative ideas are actually utterly clueless, with nought but the most vague, ill-conceived notion of an idea, let alone a mostly-formed one they could explain at length. In most cases, if you ask someone what they mean when they say, "I wanna make video games", the response you'll get is something like, "I like [genre/franchise], so I wanna make my own!" Then you say, "Okay. And?" And that's when you get a blank stare. "What do you mean 'and'?" "Go on. Tell me your idea. What's it about? Do you have a setting, characters, mechanics, aesthetic choices, music, etc. already all planned-out in your head? Do you actually _know_ what you want to make? Can you describe it to me?" And you will almost-universally receive nothing in response. Because they don't actually have any idea what they want; they just _feel_ like making a video game would be cool because they have an incredibly limited and simplistic idea of what it would entail and they don't have a single creative bone in their body necessary to actualise it, even theoretically. The most you'll get is "Well, I want it to have [identical mechanics, systems, aesthetics, etc. to thing they already like, with almost no original thoughts at all] because I like those things." What they're describing is a rip-off. Because that's all they know how to do: copy someone else's homework without coming up with anything original. And attempting to find success in an industry in which originality is absolutely crucial to get noticed, no one is going to give a damn about your cheap, tacky clone of a superior product made by someone else already. It is a scant few _actually_ creative, driven people that can make something worthwhile. The vast majority of people aren't part of that group. They're just envious wannabes and copycats.
Thank you so much for answering my question Tim!. I also want to say your story about how you overcame your color blindness was very inspiring. I have Mild Cerebral Palsy and I was very inspired after listening to your video about having a disability in the game industry.
I literally just want to make my game. Not convenient for me in terms of prospects or specialization, but it’s honest, and I never tire of filling different roles to make it real. I’m probably greedy - not willing to compromise on things that might kill the passion. Though even the “unglamorous” things are motivating to me, and I’m glad to learn anything, or pivot for marketing, etc. I think the passion only fades when it’s a waste of time, or against the vision of the game inherently. Like being asked to implement an unnecessary feature to please higher ups. Hell, I’m even glad to implement a feature that gets scrapped, because it was an exploration, not a waste of time. But problems that arise from a muddy, cynical or lazy vision are a no-go. Don’t ask me to give it my all for a vision you don’t even believe in.
I've played and loved video games for 25 years. I always thought I wanted to be a game dev, but looking back I would have been eaten alive. Happy to work a boring 9-5 in insurance software development.
Be a nights-and-weekend dev. Be a hobbyist. Join game jams. It's really a golden age as far as making & sharing games solo, or in small-teams. Engines help you conserve your precious spare time, and there are so many channels for posting your games for free, or putting them out for sale. I've played games since Ms Pac Man at the arcade, written games since the Amiga, and sold games since Android Gingerbread - kept my day-job in enterprise software *and* my love of making games. Game dev can look like whatever you want it to look like.
I work full time in a different industry, but for the past x amount of years I've been fiddling around in unity trying to teach myself different things in order to tackle my dream project. The past year I've been focusing a lot more time on it to try and push something out. Everything I've seen about the industry (both professional and indy) has made me not want to go anywhere near it. I'm happy with my job but I am falling short of being happy with a lot of new games out there so I want to develop my own to follow my passion moreso than a career. With that said, thank you for making this video, I see so many "how to get into video games industry" style youtube videos and none of them raise these important questions about what you actually want out of a career and what the reality is actually like.
Great advice Tim. Only thing I can think of missing here is about wages. IE: think about how much you can be paid in the role you want. SWEs and artists have a vast difference in wages, for example. It’s not the MOST important part of the equation, but it is still important.
I'll chime in as an artist, echoing what Tim has said; I loved being an artist, I loved feeling like I was expressing my ideas. I loved the act of creating art. I've been in the industry for about 5 years as a concept artist. Outside of work, I want absolutely NOTHING to do with art. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to think about it, I don't want to hear others talk about it. That's my job, and when I'm not on my 9-5, I don't want my work to invade my personal life. That's just one example, but I think it works. The question you have to ask is, do you want your hobby or your love to become a job? Because I can almost guarantee that once your passion becomes a job, it will not be a passion anymore. You need to know if you want to sacrifice something you love for something you might be good at as a career.
It's much the same with code. How I manage is that my game-dev scratches a different itch from my day-job in enterprise-dev. I get more interesting problems to solve, and can mix in other passions like art/writing/music, game design, and even business & marketing (reading Statista reports is fun, I am a proud weirdo :) I think folks also need to have diversified hobbies - if you only have one hobby, you really can't afford to sacrifice it to the altar of capitalism.
To be fair, I don't think it is any better to turn something you're not passionate about into a job, because you'll hate it even more probably. At least there is some chance you'll not absolutely despise all your work when it is your passion.
@@keatonwastaken Passion is a spectrum, and surprisingly malleable. You can absolutely take a job just to pay the bills, in an area/topic that you have no particular interest in. But basic work-ethic will usually kick in, and you'll take pride in the work itself. Plus all the contextual stuff - being able to support yourself/family, good coworkers & managers, even something as simple as a nice spot to eat lunch, or shop/explore before you head home. There are a lot of reasons people work at Job A vs B. I would say most of the time, in most fields, passion for the industry or work-product is not all that high on the list.
Also, the games industry can be pretty tough. I've met some people who worked in games for years without shipping a single game (cancelled projects), it's pretty disheartening to see years of your work just go to waste. Also, you got to handle your work being criticised, you need thick skin. Many professional games developers move on to other industries after they're been punched in the face several times (not figuratively obviously... although... :)
Talking to folks in pro game-dev circles, it seems like a lot of folks go into it assuming they'll be able to make their ideas a reality, "someday". But whether they're indie or AAA, they can often end up mid-career (or later!) without ever having been in a position to make *their* games. Rather, they're usually making someone else's game as an employee, or even as a studio head doing external contracts, or being limited to what ideas the publishers will back. And yeah, a lot of your portfolio can end up cancelled, and/or under NDA, with not even a decent salary to make up for it... It's why the retention rate is so poor.
@@mandisaw tbh, I think this is true for all artistic industries (music, film, dance, etc). People are drawn to them through passion and creativity and once they're in, they realise it's an ego driven cutthroat environment where you have to work so hard it becomes a lifestyle rather than a job, and is plagued by frustrating business decisions, indecisive leadership, and subject to the unforgiving side of the hand chops of the market.
@@r3m1 True, true. Some of the traditional media industries do have more established career ladders for folks to move up the ranks, or at least find a way to shield themselves somewhat from the worst of the BS. But you're right, creative industries are still literally business-as-usual, even if the "product" is art. Every generation of would-be professional artists has to learn that.
When I was a teenager one of my friends was really into coding. Spending time with him doing his thing made me realize that I enjoy playing games, he enjoys making games. I think a lot of young people who think they wanna work in the industry doesn't really understand that difference, that making games involves many completely different activities from playing them, and it's pretty crucial that you're into doing one of those things.
Very good advise Tim, I think a lot of people romanticize game development and often really underestimate the work that goes into making a game and how many people are involved when making high quality AAA level games. Not saying that amazing looking games in the indie scene aren't possible, very much on the contrary, but its not something you'd start your game career at. That said, and while I think you mentioned things about it in other videos I don't know the full experience for you here, but for me growing up in the 80ies in Europe, access to information about learning how to make games and access to the tools to do so, wasn't as accessible as it is today. Today there is tons of free information online, there are tons of free tools you can teach yourself, often free additions of the same software that is used commercially at bigger studios, etc. And while I went the self taught route and thus advocate that, it's not much different if you choose to follow a game development education, there are so many available now and they give you a solid foundation. Though I will say that it takes more than just showing up in class, to become good at what you do. So for anyone who decides for themselves that yes, this game dev journey is for me, there really isn't anything stopping you from giving it a go. You just need to want to put in the work, whichever route you decide to take.
This is solid advice, not just for the Video Game industry but in general. As a Chef I'd offer variations of these same questions to someone wanting to enter the culinary field. One thing I think maybe didn't come across enough in the video is, while these are questions to definitely consider at the start, they're not necessarily always questions you have to have an answer for right away. I suspect Tim didn't enter the video game industry because it was his dream to make Grand Slam Bridge, but he ultimately decided the juice was worth the squeeze and it worked out well for him. I'd advise a lot of what to consider is whether you personally feel the process of finding your answers is worth the risk of disappointment or failure.
I don't know if I want to go into the industry. But I've been playing around with cloning old games (Space Invaders, Flappy Bird, nothing special) in Unity and the moments of brilliance I feel when I solve a problem is really powerful. Tweaking the numbers and variables until I get it to feel *just right* is a very palpable feeling of success. I don't know if I want to make this into a profession, but I'm currently enjoying the process of developing / designing clones of older, simpler games. My current goal is to make something small and original before the end of the summer. This video is excellent food for thought, though!
Wish you good luck with the project ! There is so many paths to get into the industry, and so many disciplines, it's hard to guide people on how to do it. If you enjoy coding, doing mods or your own projects is never a bad idea. The other route is ... school. In any case, no matter what you go for, showing that you have a drive to do personal project is always a huge plus. When hiring juniors, the attitude might be equally if not more important than the skills for companies. You can learn skill. It's way harder to learn motivation and eagerness to learn ( and people skills while we're at it). Cheers
I worked in a somewhat indie studio for a year (we made everything around the projects, but we had a publisher who funded the games) and yeah, it can be a lot of different work one gets to do if the team is small. We still had a mostly structured weekly task list. The studio made mobile puzzle escape room type games, so my weekly tasks usually were to take the level art, make it into a scene, and then implement the gameplay. I got to do plenty of various things - code the interactions, do shader work, sometimes adjust or change parts of the level art, put sounds, playtest to see if the level flow makes sense :)
Something that I think is important to add is that there's a place to try things, specially when you are starting in the industry. There are a lot of companies that give the opportunity to grow "horizontally" wich means that you may be doing 3D art but you want to try being a Concept Artist and that's fine. Or even you can move companies and try different genres that you like or even working in different teams. So specially when you are young and want to start, you don't need to know everything right of the bat. There's room to try and get the feeling of things before committing to just one thing. Hell I started as an Indie and worked 10 years and now I'm in AAA for 3 and still don't know where am I staying, I'm about to turn 40 and keep learning so much every day, so yes, try to answer this questions but lot of these answers also come from experience. My 2 cents there.
You could make a solid flow chart with the questions posed in this video, lol. Awhile ago I decided I wanted to make a game, nothing too crazy just a small point and click adventure game in the style of the old Lucas Arts games from their golden age. Eventually I started working on my backlog for everything I could think of that I would need to do in order to make said game. I think regardless of whatever project you're working on, it could be making a game, writing a book, building a new patio, whatever, the first and most important thing you need to do is to get organized and get your goals and objectives clearly outlined and quantifiable. The problem was when I was much younger and less experienced my goal was just "I want to tell cool stories and maybe make someone's day a bit better after playing my game". A good outcome but lacked a framework. Now all that said and and done, if I could go back in time to young pre-college me and tell him to change his plans, would I? No. Game development and by extension becoming a software engineer and a project manager may be chaotic and difficult at times but it blows sitting around drawing wrenches in auto CAD out of the water. So, moral of the story for my fellow zoomer aspiring game devs, the path of least resistance is boring. Make that game if that's what you're passionate about but have a plan, and have friends to help.
Hi Tim, I've been trying to get into the industry as a programmer for the last 10 years. I feel like I'm on my last chance for so I have a plan for the year going forward: - Get the highest grade possible for a Master in Computer Science for Programming - Do Networking and Game Jams at the University - Continue to make micro games and demos in Unity and Unreal - Setup a private company to ship potentially 3 games on Steam, Google Play or Playstation Store - Practice Programming interview tests Now with all that in mind is that good enough, because I've made demos and I have over 5 years experience in professional programming but I get nothing from job applications because I fear it's not good enough. Like seriously what is considered good enough to even get interviews for Games or the tech industry in general these days. Have a nice day.
I'm programming&designing in construction industry and these are my 2 biggest fears preventing me from pursuing getting to the videogame industry: - suddenly being expendable until I get experienced - working in art vs. working in primary profession I made a mod for Barotrauma and people loved it (~50k subs) which motivated me a lot and working on games is always in the back of my mind.
Thank you so much for making this video, Tim. I think this will prove to be incredibly useful for many aspiring game developers figuring out what they want to do as they start learning the craft. It's always awesome to get advice from someone who's been in ANY industry for nearly as long as you have.
Perfect video I like that these are a lot of things that you've more or less said before, but have repackaged in a straight-to-the-point manner. I wouldn't see any of this as being blunt, but being honest and manner-of-fact. I feel like this is a great video to open seminars, or to show to university kids both at the beginning and at the end of their course
This is the perfect set of advice for anyone looking to get into any "hobby" driven profession. Personally I love video games too much to work in the industry.. but i'll happily set up a game company if I ever become a multi millionaire
Ive wanted to make games since it clicked for me as a kid (around 10) that it was a job that exists. Spent countless hours looking for what part of the process I most enjoyed, and found a deep love for writing, worldbuilding, level design, designing gameplay systems, etc. Now I've recently graduated with a BA in Game Design and have been using a website with an alphabetical list of all game companies in the US and slowly working my way through alphabetically looking at each website and applying for any of the jobs that fit. All while working as a writer on a couple of large modding projects for the game Mount & Blade Bannerlord and still making stuff in my freetime. It'd be torture if I didnt love doing it.
industry is changing. Crunch is less of a thing ( depending where you work of course ). Other workers will complain if ppl smell, and I can imagine HR rolling their eyes for having to send an email to everybody haha.
Thank you for making this! I’m sure it was helpful for people considering this career path. I am in the middle of my career and just enjoy consuming games. Sam Cooke- finest human voice I can think of. I love some Sam Cooke. I’m an avid musician myself- but I won’t learn any Sam Cooke songs. I’d like them to remain magical to me. I don’t want to see the fretboard when I hear his music, I just want to get lost in it. Right now I’m playing the System Shock remake, 2nd play through. I’m letting myself get lost and wander around the station… I don’t want to know how it was made. I couldn’t get lost if I made the roadmap. Hats off to you creatives who are willing to give that up because of your passion to create. Thanks again, this was a great video.
I'm already a product owner and though I would like to be a game producer I do understand that domain knowledge is something HUGE for a PM. As much a modern management doctrine says you can manage anything, knowing the ins and outs of the industry makes a difference.
The fact that game ideas is a huge no-no in this industry scream volumes. No wonder games today f'ing suck. And people get mad at Kojima for... wait for it... actualizing new ideas. What do you know...
I hope that a lot of prospective game developers watch this video. The questions posed here are vital for being able to appropriately navigate the industry
I would say take the self taught route and work on a portfolio, test different areas of jobs within the industry that sound interesting towards yourself and try to complete some tasks/projects to add to said portfolio. Being self taught and an indie developer allows you to learn at your own pace and allows for some self reflection and growth in areas you wish to work on without the pressures of being part of a company. Then if you decide you've gained a certain level of experience to show off to players or a company you wish to work for you'll have a portfolio with your accomplished projects and you might have a better idea what area you wish to continue growing in. That or if you want a more structured route that is going to cost you a lot of money, pressure, and anxiety then go to college to learn the basics of code, art, writing, etc. But also be prepared to be self taught along the way because not many colleges offer a "Video Game Developer Degree" and won't be teaching exactly how to make games. They are going to give you the fundamentals and push for taking different courses outside of your goals in order to earn certain credits to get which ever Bachelors Degree you think will land you a job in the industry. Along the way you also have to make sure you maintain a certain GPA or you could get kicked out of which ever college you're studying in, etc. etc. enjoy the student loan debt while potentially regretting the college route. Don't make any major decisions without doing proper research and understanding what you might be getting yourself into. Figure out what route would work best for you and try it out. Just understand one route is going to cost you a lot more in finances and mental health.
great video Tim! and I've read this so many times in other video comments, but its true every time for me too -- your thoughts about a life and an industry that are so different from my own experience somehow apply so well, are so relatable and help me see more clearly! Thanks for making your channel and videos, I hope you continue as long as you like to
I wish someone told me after learning gamedev that a lot of the magic in games would be gone. It used to be this black box that would do cool things, now everything is just rational. Of course you would use a hash map to store predetermined values alongside a seed value, it makes it easier to debug.
There are still a lot of interesting problems to work out in this space, and a lot of great work to be done. Stuff way outside the box that nobody has thought of yet. It's out there! But it's a very hard road, and not very secure or prestigious.
Listlessly moved through life with no motivation to do anything. im now into my first year of learning to code. Have made a few little VERY rudimentary games. It has ignited a passion in me that makes my life worth living. During my waking hours my thoughts are either how I could get the code to do X, Y or Z. How I could write it in a more efficient way what I can add to the current project that would force me out of my comfort zone with the code to use stuff I've never messed with yet. I've got a history with good SEO. Quite familiar with digital art, ran long format D&D campaigns for years. For me its not a matter of if or how or why or can I make it as a game dev; This is the path now. There can be no other path.
Y'know how you said about doing a less industry-focused video on Fridays? I'd love to see a general walkthrough of whats on your shelves and in the clearcase behind you. Of course can see a lot of Fallout stuff, but would love to hear any annecdotes tied to them!
i have an awnser for all those questions and my simple limitation is time. i want to go indie and everytime i find motivation to start working on it i get hit with my reality whether its my family , kids, stress and whatever excuse a 30yo with 2 kids can make with a fulltime job. making games is hard and takes time and if you want to go for it you either need to be very responsible/disciplined or go all out. and i cant commit to any of it because of how i am myself. I want to go indie and make different types of games throughout my career. i want to contribute to the community of amazing developers that source out their code for people to use or artists that make free assets. but man is it hard and it takes so much time to learn. i want to work in the game industry but i feel like i wont be able to make it in my current situation unless i start working in a game company but getting into one requires you to have at least 3-5 years of experience in whatever language their engine is and be up to date with tech. Even though i am a programmer and work at a bank i cant help but feel intimidated by what for programmers game companies look for. im not even in one and already feel my impostor syndrome cooking up. thanks for the video!
Great video, but I think the title should be something along the line 'So you want to join the game industry?' more than 'So you want to make games?' because you can work solo and go indie (which you did mention in the video). I love your vids ! Best wishes Tim
I'm working on my dream game, but I'm largely doing it just for the sake of making something. I'm learning Blender, learning Godot, learning about PBR textures which are WAY easier to make than I thought they'd be... I would love to make a living on it, but if that's gonna happen, I want it to happen on my own terms, where the only people telling me how to make my game are the people who love playing it. That's the dream, I really don't think digging into the broader game industry is for me, though.
Hey Tim! Question I've had for a while: how do you go about content creation pipelines? For example for stuff like: enemy AI, puzzles, player weapons, player skills, narrative content, etc ...when would you go for: a) a designer-oriented tool in-engine (think a custom window in Unity); b) a designer-oriented tool outside the engine (think FMOD); c) scripting language where designers use API made by programmers. This is a topic that truly intrigues me and I'd love to hear your overall thoughts about it. Thank you as always, love from Italy ❤️🙏
Have you watched my video on Tools? ruclips.net/video/_P4-2Nv_Or8/видео.html I also have a video coming up in two weeks on when to code vs when to script.
I use Unreal Engine so most of the things can be done in engine. I customised the editor and write plugins which means I can take any external program and integrate it with either an SDK or some dll external abuse with a wrapper. But the golden rule on content creation pipelines is speed of workflow. Let's say someone is using Daz to create a character, but the implementation in Unreal is yucky and other artists are having trouble getting their work done on time because they are working around the Daz issues. I already know beforehand that this will cramp the style of more people than it will help unless I get pure Daz content creators. So what I am saying is sometimes it's the people who define the content creation pipeline you use because you hire skillsets and you must adhere to those boundaries unless you want to get into on-site training and slow yourself down. Sometimes that's a good thing because you want to keep up to date, but often it's outside of the scope of the project management. So you deal with it. (this is the case in indie anyway. I don't work AAA because I love games).
Indie dev experience. My worries are getting noticed, getting funding, and finding people to work with me. I'm sure more will come about. A studio owner once told me he found it always easier to make games with other people's money as it was one less worry. So I can understand the appeal of publishers. One tidbit I'd add is don't go into games for fame or money. As there are better ways to acquire both.
I like how you rip the bandaid off immediately, Tim. People need to understand that being passionate and having ideas doesn't matter on its own, bring something actually useful to the table.
Exactly. The guy who made Stardew Valley worked on it for like ... 4-5 years, 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. Just because he wanted to make that kind of game. There was zero revenues, and zero promise that it would sell once it was done. His wife worked 2 jobs and he also had a part time job on top of that. He succeeded, but lots of people don't ( and we don't hear about them of course ). Being payed to "just have ideas and tell people what to do" is what happens when you worked in the industry for 25+ years and you become a creative director somewhere or something like that.
I'm not in the gaming industry but I am in software. I feel like working in a software development company is 40% skill based and 60% being willing to put up with other people's crap and still enjoy working with them. If you're ok with that then welcome to software development 😀.
Heya, Tim! You touched on a topic that was (heh) topical to my experiences, and I wanted to ask you a question about it. I've worked software QA for 6 years now, and have risen to QA Lead in that time. I've worked on mobile applications, web applications, installable apps, etc doing manual, automated, API you name it. Taught myself JS to work in Node based frameworks, and have a variety of automation frameworks under my belt. I've thought about transitioning to the gaming industry at points, but always stopped myself due to the fear that my skills in software applications wouldn't translate to real-time engines or what have you. My dream job growing up was working in games, and I even made a video game as a teenager for a national competition with my friends. I do 3D modelling on the side for my D&D games in tabletop simulator, love level design, have worked for free on a lot of indie projects when I was younger, and have a veritable graveyard of unfinished, pre-alpha hobby projects on my personal Unreal Engine install on my hard drive. I always always wanted to be an artist, but put my dreams on hold to chase (what was to me) a more stable career path (and more lucrative). My question is, do you believe my skills in more traditional software QA could translate over into game QA?
Well these questions always pop up for me because I have no particular skill sets and I am more or less an art oriented person so those roles could fit to me better but since I wish to go for indie I need to be a jack of all trades and try to tweak things to work out well. What I have doing for conding is learning tutorials, trying to understand what the said code means, learning commands (Gdscript) and improve them or altering. I am also a game modder on my free time and I do added some addon to small games, altered the code, wrote some extra with the same logic as it was added but I still feel I am stupid and this may not be for me but it's a dream for me. I personally not wish to join to large teams simply because the creativity is killed there and you could end up like me in the previous job I did until last month. Monotonous, boring, your ideas dismissed. If I ever join to a team for improve my skills I personally would join to small teams or team up with other solo devs. Later on the road I wish to make my own studio and I know it is a huge responsibility but I'll gladly take it once I know fully what I am doing, what must be done and what is what better to outsource to other person.
To be honest I’ve heard so many friends of mine who worked in the games industry say it kills your love of video games that im just going to learn skills on my own and make indie games as a hobby/side gig.
Hello Tim ! I have two main questions that each could be on there own separate videos. The first is about AI tools. Have you tried them ? Personally, everything that is not visuals (Speech, text,coding) is actually decent and i started incorporate it in my job. Have you done so ? In which context ? The second one is maybe....controversial ? And i want to preface the question is mainly pushed by curiosity and i mean no ill will. With the recent outrage a few months back about consulting for inclusivity/story in games ( i won't name the games or companies or else it might get toxic) i was wondering if ever used a consulting company for one of your game ? If so, what was the experience ? Was it a choice made by the team or it came from above ? Love your vids and have nice day.
All this is why I didn't get into the gaming industry. I got into the television industry instead, where I could fulfill my creative needs by writing, producing, editing, and directing daily, and I was able to conceive and develop various projects from start to finish, and I found it quite rewarding. I was able to scratch that creative itch, and I was able to go home after long, stressful days and just game. I didn't have any passion for television, which allowed me to disconnect after work and not think about it. That wouldn't happen if I was a game developer, and I think I'd be sad if I didn't have the time and energy to play the games I love. Plus, I'm pretty sure I worked less and was paid more than I would have if I were working in the video game industry. I think it worked out. Still, I love learning insider baseball stuff about the video game industry, which I can understand at a deep enough level because of my relatable skills. I'm disabled now, and I'm not working anyway, so, it's all moot at this point. I can spend the majority of my time playing video games (including some of the ones you had a hand in.) I don't think much about the stress and headaches I endured throughout my career, and I can just play a game without it conjuring negative memories. I love following this channel. I'm more of a kind of voyeur who just enjoys your anecdotal stories, and getting a better understanding about how games are made. Thanks!
Interestingly, I've found indie game-dev to be a great way to use my TV production skills. Much of it translates - budgets & timelines, knowing your audience, structuring a cohesive story within tight constraints, and building characters people can connect with. I had mixed-results from a career change from tech to news to scripted during the Recession, and ended up back in tech - games offers me a way to be the entire production company, so to speak.
You're right about working less & being paid more though. The games industry badly needs the sort of union representation that built viable careers out of TV/film/theater. You're starting to see little glimmers of it here & there, but either US-only or on a global scale, it's so far behind.
@@mandisaw i's shocking to me that an industry that makes more profit than film, television, radio, and music combined pays less than all those other jobs. It's criminal, really.
@@misterfinnster3562 It's because it started in tech, and continues to emulate that industry, as opposed to any media subset. Tech has its own love affair with exploitative labor practices, bias & pay inequity, and boom-bust layoff cycles. And of course tech loves to dangle the carrot of a few highly-paid roles - much like games justifies its poor practices with the possibility of becoming a design superstar like our Tim. For myself, I feel quite lucky to have landed a union job in tech, where I make software that helps ppl, have good work-life balance & benefits, and didn't have to worry about getting the Boxer treatment at age 40. Games takes the best & worst from tech - unfortunately traditional media seems to have started following in its footsteps, to not-great outcomes...
I use to spend a lot of time searching and finding companies for junior artist role. Either in 2D or 3D. Would never hear back after sending a portfolio/ resume. Instead of improving my skills. With social media I'd get the algorithm showing me junior artists that'd be posting about getting a new job and/or employed artists/ art directors. I'd take FOREVER to even find their work and more so; more disgruntled when I thought I was comparable to the juniors just hired. Or the general attitude or vibe; I didnt appreciate looking trying to get hired and just started to self teach coding. I will say; if your doing simple games and Unreal, Unity or Godot was frustrating/ hard to grasp. It might surprise you that just doing basic C (or Odin) with a framework(?) (Raylib, SDL2, etc) would be a lot faster and easier to learn. I'd say a lot of the difficulty with game engines is; theres A LOT of "non-info" beginner related search results instead of dive in and just do it. (Get no results or think about core CS stuff with a more lower level approach)
Whats the problem with the gaming industry? Its in the name. Industry. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of that word? More often than not you picture a factory pumping out mass produced product and the factory worker doing the same formulaic thing everyday. To say I want to go into the game industry to make your dream come true is the same as an engineer going to Ford to mass produce grey economy cars, thinking they will be making hypercars. The real truth is the pioneers dont go that route. They go there to finaince their dreams of making their own dream machines and gather experience but they never saw it as where their dreams would come true. Shelby, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Harley and Davidson, all had to craft their dream machines by themselves or in a small group with their own hands after they had gathered the experience and finiance needed from their years of various roles in the industry. And thats the mentality you'll need to have going in. Artistry and industry never mix well. For artistry requires a personal touch, a vision and dedication to creating not selling, all of which an industry can not provide. But it can be a major stepping stone, just know thats all it can be and you will be viewed as the expendable factory worker while you are there.
So you're in high school or college, and you love gaming and you like the idea of working on games for a living, and you meet someone who knows someone who is a big wig at a big game company. So you manage to get a coffee date with this person, and you tell them what you're thinking, and you ask for advice. Well, being the super nice person they are, they pretend to seriously entertain the idea of working toward adding you into their organization, and to do that they'd have to figure out where you would fit and how they would sell it. So they would ask you all these exact questions that Tim just asked. But the reality, of course, is that they would almost certainly not be able to sell it - the idea is to give you an idea of what to work toward so that they (or someone in a similar position somewhere else) might eventually be able to. Is it coding, is it art, is it story writing, is it cinematic arrangement, is it marketing, is it design, is it management... In any case, what you have to do, to get in, is to do a bunch of whatever it is, and prove that you can do it. Like any industry, it's kind of a chicken vs the egg thing. You have to have money to make money, you have to know people to get to know people, you have to have experience to get experience. This is life's cache 22. The best advice is, pray daily for a miracle, and continually watch carefully for one to appear. (Because they do actually happen, all the time, believe it or not. That's how Tim got there, that's how they all do.) I think what happens with most people, is that the fruit that catches their eye is out of immediate reach, so they end up more-or-less forced (or feeling forced) to reach for more low hanging fruit. There are two key differences between those who eventually succeed and the rest of the masses: 1. they never give up and 2. they pull all the stops out by the root.
I am probably never gonna be in the gaming industry, but I would choose to be a story writer/script-er or something that makes me involved with story. Or level design.
Thanks for another great video Tim! Having ADHD, I find myself constantly struggling to get started. I know that I want to work with games and dream of doing indie, but it can be difficult to know where to begin with so many different areas and skills to learn. I wouldn't mind taking the time to develop and learn all of the necessary skills, but with so many areas and directions to choose from I just can't figure out where to start / what to prioratize and end up putting it all off. Do you have any recommendations for a non school starting point that could help start me out on my journey? Thanks!
the passion is why these soul sucking companies are underpaying their workers, because there is always someone more passionate and more naive who will do it for less money.
The "I have an idea that's going to be big!" is something you see nonstop in software, and in game dev. If only ideas were worth something, every person in software would be a billionaire by now. I always have a counterquestion to the people asking how to get their idea developed: This small game studio is five friends. Each of these four people have 10 ideas before they're done with their morning routine. Ideas that are made by people already in the industry, pulling their weight and knowing more about game development than you. So their ideas are likely more viable, considering that they have the knowhow to actually implement the idea, at least partially. Now not every idea is a good one, and they know this. If you write the ideas down every day, into a single massive file, you could spend a day at the end of a month, going through it for the good ideas, and maybe even a great idea. 10 ideas per day leaves you with 300 ideas per month. Let's say a quarter of the ideas are good enough to develop into anything, so you pick 75 ideas to look into a bit longer. A tenth of those makes it past a bit longer of a thought, so you now have 7 ideas that could be actionable. Out of those, maybe one is a great idea. Their company still only makes one game at a time, and game development even for smaller games takes six months at the very least (and being very optimistic here for simplicity). When it comes time to pick a new game idea, the team of five friends now whip up their notebooks and give their ideas. 6 months with 7 decent ideas each month and maybe one great one each month, that totals 210 actionable decent ideas, and 30 great ones. They pick maybe 20 to make a quick prototype out of, roll another 2-6 to the winning prototype as elements of it, and maybe hold on to one or two ideas they thought had potential. Rinse and repeat. They will never run out of ideas, they will never catch up to the pile of ideas they have, and they each gain more experience from the development of the last game, making them more competent and diverse in their roles. What does your idea bring to the company? You wanted them to make your game, so sell it to them now. Why should they trust an outsider, with zero game development experience, that "has an idea", when they just last week went through a list of hundreds of ideas the people in the studio had? It's a hard sell to bring an outsider to a company to begin with, without knowing the dynamics, but then to also split the revenue. You must be able to provide them with some value: Having "an idea" will never be enough. Which is why I've said it elsewhere: Make a demo of your game. A vertical slice. If you can't program, now is your time. The tools have never been more accessible. You can find tutorials for almost any game engine, there are countless courses both free and paid. If you can't program - or don't want to - then make the art, and pay for someone on fiver to make your prototype. If you can't do art either, then pay for someone to do the art, and another to make the demo. In the very oversaturated gig job market, you could get a bare-bones demo made for under $500, easily. So if you truly believe your game is worth pursuing, a small investment to showcase this is very much worth your while. It'll be simpler to sell your demo to a publisher or a studio, than just "an idea".
I just stopped asking and started doing. Just start making games. Download Unity or Unreal and get to it. Stop waiting for someone to say it's okay, or how you should do it. Just go do it. All it takes is starting and sticking with it to release.
I'm someone who's programmed with python, ruby, bits of other languages and even dabbled in unreal engine blueprints once and I'm considering delving into Godot and making some simple games with that just to see how to make some features I care about and see whether they play off each other well
I do like coding but low key I don't mind if I cannot break into the industry because one thing I've learned is that the best way to ruin enjoyment for anything is to make a job out of it. I love gaming and I tried my hand at streaming everyday and lo and behold I started to dislike playing games because I would game 10+ hours a day everyday on stream. Eventually after a few months I realized its pointless to force myself into doing things that I don't want to do and instead I just do whatever I feel like doing. Life is much better this way.
On one hand I agree with you, on the other I would say: working on a project with a team is waaayyyy different than working on a project by yourself. I have been in the industry for 15+ years now, and I enjoy the team dynamic and being able to be a part of something big that would be impossible by myself. If you really like doing it as a hobby without stress and taking your time, it might be better to keep it that way , but if you really enjoy solving problems and having a good challenge, it's hard to beat going into the industry. For me, being part of a team that are all working for a common goal is probably my favorite part.
With the thing about the hobby Vs job, people need to remember that work is work and a job is a job The thing that you do everyday for money, if you keep doing it in your off time you're going to cause yourself problems
I'm learning how to use Unreal engine, because I want to make my own games. I have a job with lot of free time, I have a stable situation, so I can take my time. I don't want to turn it into a job nor working in the industry. I want to make MY dream games, not care about monetization.
One thing to mention is going indie is far harder. It does require an incredible amount work, and for whatever reason your game may still not rise to the top. I am not saying someone can't make it just make sure you are committed.
I've always been open to discussing business ideas and providing feedback. However, once I signed an NDA as a consultant for a small startup, at a party, a friend of mine wanted to introce me an enterpreneur, but i refused because I knew he was the founder uf a start up operating in the same field of my client. I told my friend I could not talk to that guy, even if I'd liked to. I know what you mean. Anyway it's sad not being able to talk to people once you're involved.
Everyone who loves games should spend 6 months working in QA. You get a window into how games are made that includes every other discipline except possibly pure code if you only do black box.
Love this channel. I was wondering if you could go into where you find inspiration for unique mechanics that AREN'T other games. What are a few of your "Eureka!" moments that led to some of your favorite personal design decisions?
Heh, I really would have loved [past tense, on purpose] to partner up with 1-2 people to do graphics for what I wrote, because all of the games I've ever created had ASCII graphics. (All of them turn-based, with various degrees of RPG: my first game, in 1998, was an X-Com knock-off but instead of aliens, you battled against Lovecraftian monsters - and I stuck to making tactical RPGs or strategy RPGs ever since.) I stopped releasing my games about 12 years ago, now I just make them and never finish them, because finishing that last 20% takes 80% of energy and brainpower.
This is why I went the distance as an indie dev. It's still very difficult development work, it's hard to make things as you want, but you also get the unique opportunity to be completely broke all the time.
I agree thats the best part of it.
Doing it for the love of the game lol
Who needs money when you can just eat noodles.
A get poor slow scheme
I've been all-indie but as a freelancer for 14 years. I wish I had gone triple A now. Why? Because of all the indie people I've worked with, only 3 projects went to completion in 14 years. It didn't much matter to me at the time because I got paid, but now I think of all the titles I could have on my resume which don't exist, the portfolio work I don't have because I cannot show the results and nobody looks at code. It's been rough. Now I've started my own studio.
Thanks for the shout out Tim! To the topic of your video, I'd say being in an industry adjacent place can be really fulfilling! I love playing and reviewing games but I know that actually trying to make them and engaging with teams and company structures would quickly turn it into something that would feel too much like work to me and I'd start to resent it which would definitely kill the passion for me.
I'm also a fan of your channel, I heard Tim shout you out and I was like "oh damn!" Hell yeah man!! 👍
Def checking out your channel from this video
Indeed, corporate structure is what drove me to go back to university. Being in meetings with projects managers, PLM and procurement managers can suck out any life energy from your soul.
Hey, it's Mortym! You 100% all the games I don't have time for LOL
Can you actually sue for someone copying just an idea or system you've implemented?
Worked in the game industry and the emphasis of pleasing shareholders over actually creating fun products is a reality that may be hard to swallow for newcomers with a real passion for games 😅
Ha. To bad these people are so short sighted and dumb that the only way TO please shareholders is to actually make good products and make actual money.
Whoever thought simplifying and shilling out everything for short term profits is the biggest idiot ever
@@trinitronjonatran
Exactly it’s that pessimistic attitude that ruins all products
@@trinitronjonatranit's not always a viable option, based on many factors like where they live, or the income they need.
Especially right now, when the tech industry is letting so many people go.
@@trinitronjonatran Privately-held companies also have investors, they are just not traded on public markets. You still have exactly the same pressures to push the line up, and if anything, you have less transparency / regulation on how you make that happen. Not sure where this myth came from that only public companies are money-chasers. Private equity is a whole thing.
@@trinitronjonatrandawg, most are publicly traded. Idk what about his comment triggered you enough to minimize his statement or the same complaint that the majority of us customers have, but yea its not as simple as "don't work for publicly traded companies then", wish it was though. I'd love there to be more companies like larian.
Tim always goes hard. I was fully expecting this video to be 5 seconds long.
"Hi, everyone, it's me, Tim. Make a demo. Bye!"
Making a demo came to my mind right away haha
I loved video games in middle school and high school and was absolutely convinced the games industry was my future. I had so many ideas and planned out which colleges I wanted to go to and studios I wanted to work for…
Took my first comp sci class in my junior year of high school and realized it was NOT for me. Hated nearly every second of it from the first print line. Never have been an artist either and began to despair.
I realized I didn’t actually want to make games - I had ideas for games I wanted to PLAY, and just imagined myself telling other people to make the games for me.
Luckily around that time I found philosophy and realized not only was I super passionate about it, but was good at it. Finishing my degree now and have won some undergrad awards for philosophy papers and my professors are encouraging me to pursue the academy.
I still love video games, especially CRPGS. I’d still like someday to maybe try and make a little indie game for myself, but I’ll have to teach myself some coding and how to draw.
I really appreciate this video though. The important thing for me was learning that liking video games and wanting new, original, good video games, is not the same as wanting to be a developer. I’m happier being a consumer and player and accept that. :)
I mean, game development is not only about code, you can do plenty of work with no coding required.
Not trying to change your mind or anything lol, but that's just how I also felt but realized that my desire was not about the coding aspect of game making but the creative part.
I'm glad you found your true passion :)
Some of my fellow philosophy undergrads were transfers from comp sci. They inverted the typical conclusion, and thought philosophy was best in university, programming self-learned. I tend to agree with that academic principle.
Later on, I came to see the merits of programming, that it can come naturally with a philosophical mind, if you approach it right.
But programming a game and designing one aren't the same. There's potential to design in other ways, I think, if you find a new route.
I've found a lot of indie devs have masterfully coded some of the most boring, derivative platformer slop imaginable. It's like finding the most inventive and roundabout way to make a saltine cracker. There's a higher level of design to a game.
Now we just need a point and click adventure game about getting into the gaming industry called So You Want To Make Games in the style of King's Quest 1: So You Want To Be A Hero.
You are a hero and have to leave
Nitpick: "So you want to be a hero" was the tagline for Quest for Glory, not King's Quest
It exists, it's called The Beginner's Guide
So you want to make games? Rule number one: don't post your killer idea on the Internet.
I'm a cabinet maker but I feel like I'm still learning stuff that relates to me watching all these videos
You’ve mentioned in several videos that you’ve never done indie dev work. Do you have noncompete agreements that would prevent you from developing small indie titles? If not, have you considered doing a couple small indie projects, maybe on some of the more niche ideas you’ve had that traditional studios won’t greenlight or maybe even just so you can see that side of the industry?
Non-compete agreements have been banned by the FTC recently.
I don’t have any noncompete agreements, and I’ve made little games on my own. I just never finish them.
Coding Toys (Insomnia Edition)
ruclips.net/video/mHMFG8uvOb0/видео.html
@@CainOnGames Made indie games but never finish them? I mean that sounds like a true indie dev to me.
@@JustDaveIsFineOne of us! One of us!
@@CainOnGames Wow, I do as well with indie development as a prolific developer. Guess I must be doing pretty good.
I like that Tim gets asked the same question over and over and despite his probable annoyance at the questioning, he still takes time to find new things to talk about when it comes up so that people still get an answer.
Not sure why but your consistency with the introduction of your videos is really nice. At this point I think it cues me into a good mindset subconsciously and helps me tune out other noise.
This was a great video, thank you!
I've been making games since 2010. Focusing on Unreal Engine.
I once heard the best question in all of Game Dev.
"Why did you want to become a game developer?"
and the perfect answer was.....
"It seemed like a good idea at the time".
I'm "self taught" mechanic for 20 years now, but did all the paper stuff later in my career to get certificates. I tend to do game modding etc on my freetime a hobby. But recently my body is starting to fail so ihave been thinking about switching to computer side as a mainwork and mechanic stuff backdown as a hobby as it were when i was still young 😅
I'd recommend going the normal SWE route as games is kinda hard to get into from what I've heard. Possible, but pretty competitive and tough on your mind as some companies are pretty intense with hours. So burnout is pretty common.
Depending what type of mechanic you are, you could look into hybrid work. Everything from cars to washing machines has a computer in it now, and they sorely need folks who are equally facile with a drill as with diagnostic software. Let the young'uns do the heavy lifting, but you can move up while retaining the seniority that comes with experience.
3:52 “Are you okay with your hobby turning into your job.” I’ve never looked at things like that. Thanks for this piece of wisdom.
Game Publishers knocking outside your door dressed like Elsa from Frozen:
Do you wanna build a MOOOOOOOOBA?
that was anna
It's battle royale now
@@mdd4296 nope its live service game now
haaaahahahahahaha
I needed this. I think I can go into the game industry seriously. I don't have many strong skills that are desired in the industry yet, but I'm still young, learning programming and writing. I think I enjoy working in a team, going with the flow and communicating over big projects. I think as much as I enjoy games as a hobby, I'd even moreso love to make it my career.
Honestly, more than anything, I simply can't come up with any other industry that fits me better. I've loved games and game design my whole life (though who doesn't!), I have a deep interest in the worlds of art, design, technology, and finance, and I deeply value leaving a mark on this world through the act of creation. I know it can be a cynical and soul crushing industry on the inside, but what isn't? At the end of the day, I have to pay the bills somehow.
I wanted to be a game developer from 1983 onwards. I never attempted it because back then making games wasn't as easy as it is today. Also my school life was turbulent. Long story short, I became an IT guy, network engineer, database manager and tutor and fell into web development. From there I learned Flash and how to code with PHP and Actionscript. This got me into the games industry using Scaleform to make user interfaces.
I was 33 when I decided to get into game development. It's never too late.
My one piece of advice. Specialise in something that won't be decimated by A.I. in 5-10 years. Even if AI will take over, specialise anyway.
@@tehf00ngreat story, thank you for sharing! But one question, what could be something that I can specialize in that won’t be eliminated by AI in the game industry? I am working at being a concept artist but AI might make it redundant later
@@aaron6290 I'm already seeing the effect on my concept artist friends who are moving away from that and learning more technical elements to subsidise the time between commissions. However it's not stopping them. It's hard to say exactly which parts A.I. will take over completely. Likely none of them and some human element will always be needed. One specific trait I've noticed which stands out as something A.I. will have trouble with for a long time is culturalism in it's dialectical states. Meaning that depending where you live, how you live, there might be something as important as a smell or a common element that is specifically and intrinsically linked to a culture. Like the smell of black hair being straightened by hair straighteners. Or an idiosyncracy that is common to the people in an area. Those things an A.I. doesn't pick up on. So when writing storylines, or dialogue, this is where a human element will always beat out the A.I. interpretation. Which I believe leaves narrative writing and cinematically sequenced art in the realm of humans for a long time to come.
Game dev here, indie, developed over 70 games from flash to Unity. A pretty popular one that blew up recently was a sim where you kill the family guy characters as Stewie. That's actually an important detail, because I found based on the numbers, it doesn't matter how good a job you do anymore, only things that have to do with an already established franchises get any traction, literally every original idea comparatively never gets off the ground. Also, despite being skilled in most aspects of development ( coding, modeling, texturing, ect ) I have NEVER gotten a professional gaming job. I've APPLIED to hundreds over the years, got scammed a couple times in the process. Point of my rant? I put it all on game dev and got nothing in return. Be prepared for that as a probably outcome. Also worth noting is by the time you get yourself established, A.I will be doing the job anyway...
@@davidmills47 original idea? Where? Who?
I'm doing so right now as a hobbyist basically. I did a unity tutorial game several years ago on my own (very basic lol). And then helped in a small game jam by teaching myself blender to make the 3d models and an animation (very unfinished but we at least had something we could present!). And now I'm giving it another go, teaching myself more of the coding and more of the blender skills. So far I really enjoy working with blender, though I don't know that I'll move beyond hobbyist for any of it. But I'm gonna push forward on solo dev as quickly and for as long as ADHD hyper focus will allow, just to see what I can get done and what I enjoy the most in the process!
After almost 10 years on Networking, I felt like I needed a change. Was desperate for one, to be honest. I was always angry, moody, always tired, haven't created anything in a long time.
So, I tried getting into the gaming indursty. Since I can't code to save my life and I have no prior dev experience (only playing ton of games basically), I tried Unreal Engine 5. Made a short FPS demo as a showcase what I could learn by myself in a month. Sent it out to a couple of companies to check it out, hoping to get at least into QA.
Long story short: After 5 failed attempts and one part-time offer, I'm back in Networking ...
Well, at least I tried and with my current "special" shifts, I sleep more :D
What do you mean by "Networking"? Assuming you don't mean computer networking.
@@arcan762 Worked 10 years as a Senior Networking Engineer for a large US unnamed company as a part of the global network provider. Remotely configuring sites, poject work and so on. Now it's very similar to that, except I don't support one large customer, but many smaller ones.
Yeah what does Networking mean in this context?
@@Nastara That's how we loosely translate the type of work we do. ENG is my secondary language, so ... working with computers, providing/setting up/maintaining/troubleshooting/fixing communication channels for various companies.
@@decode.666 Ah, so like IT infrastructure type stuff? Big games companies also have those kinds of people, though they don't work on the actual games themselves. Network programmers are paid well and always in demand in the games industry, and may be a worthwhile transition if you are still interested.
Long long ago, I sent Piers Anthony a letter asking him how to be an author. His reply was just do it... it was a form letter printed on a dot matrix printer (high tech at the time) . I never did, I went from that desire, to special effects which I never did , to soldier, to computer programmer. I still sometimes think about writing, I might still do it. I think that advice though.... is just it if you want to do something, just do it and do it till you don't want to do it anymore.
Just remember that Tolkien was over 35 when he wrote LOTR and Bram Stoker didn't write Dracula until he was 50. That's all the encouragement for not having done any of what I would like to have gotten done and published I need.
This is truly the ultimate self-reflection. I know that as much as I want to be free and do whatever I want as an indie dev, I know I wouldn't get anything done.
I am going into my junior year in high school. Last year as a sophomore, my school offered a one month python programming class. By the end the final project was to create a text based game using what we learned. Me, being obsessed with Fallout, made a recreation of Fallout New Vegas in the span of four days. Sure it was certainly a bit of a mess, but it ran, and the people who played it, loved it. Now during the summer I tried to do the same with the original Fallout, a much simpler game to port. I can't even get past making the cave of Vault 13.
I do worry slightly what this may mean for a future career in gamedev. Great vid as always, Mr. Cain.
Don't be so hard on yourself :) Focus, follow-through, and self-discipline are all skills that build with practice and maturity. Part of why the general advice is to "start small" is because smaller projects are easier for your brain to "swallow whole", if that makes sense. You could also reach out to your friends (or make new ones!) and practice making games together. You'll (1) be able to keep each other on-task & motivated to finish, and (2) gain valuable experience working together in a team towards a common goal.
Being an indie isn't something you just wake up one day with all the skills for - I don't think there's anything like that in life, except maybe breathing. And even that often gets a "jump start" with a slap on the back/bottom 😅
Try not to get frustrated! Keep a notebook (or Google Doc/iNote/etc) with your ideas, progress, failures, lessons-learned, etc and over time you will build the wherewithal to knock out something really spectacular. We all look forward to it :)
I find pleasure in playing games, particularly for their art. I often spend an excessive amount of time appreciating the textures, which extends my gameplay beyond the expected "allotted" time. The theme music captivates me as well.
As an aside to the first point you made about how everyone has great ideas: no, actually, that's not true at all. Most people have no idea what they want in the slightest. Most people that _think_ they want to make something - like a video game, in this instance - haven't the first clue what that _actually_ means, nor do they have even the scantest detail they could explain about their supposed idea if prompted. In the vast majority of cases, people that _think_ they have creative ideas are actually utterly clueless, with nought but the most vague, ill-conceived notion of an idea, let alone a mostly-formed one they could explain at length.
In most cases, if you ask someone what they mean when they say, "I wanna make video games", the response you'll get is something like, "I like [genre/franchise], so I wanna make my own!" Then you say, "Okay. And?" And that's when you get a blank stare. "What do you mean 'and'?"
"Go on. Tell me your idea. What's it about? Do you have a setting, characters, mechanics, aesthetic choices, music, etc. already all planned-out in your head? Do you actually _know_ what you want to make? Can you describe it to me?" And you will almost-universally receive nothing in response. Because they don't actually have any idea what they want; they just _feel_ like making a video game would be cool because they have an incredibly limited and simplistic idea of what it would entail and they don't have a single creative bone in their body necessary to actualise it, even theoretically.
The most you'll get is "Well, I want it to have [identical mechanics, systems, aesthetics, etc. to thing they already like, with almost no original thoughts at all] because I like those things." What they're describing is a rip-off. Because that's all they know how to do: copy someone else's homework without coming up with anything original. And attempting to find success in an industry in which originality is absolutely crucial to get noticed, no one is going to give a damn about your cheap, tacky clone of a superior product made by someone else already.
It is a scant few _actually_ creative, driven people that can make something worthwhile. The vast majority of people aren't part of that group. They're just envious wannabes and copycats.
Thank you so much for answering my question Tim!. I also want to say your story about how you overcame your color blindness was very inspiring. I have Mild Cerebral Palsy and I was very inspired after listening to your video about having a disability in the game industry.
I literally just want to make my game. Not convenient for me in terms of prospects or specialization, but it’s honest, and I never tire of filling different roles to make it real.
I’m probably greedy - not willing to compromise on things that might kill the passion. Though even the “unglamorous” things are motivating to me, and I’m glad to learn anything, or pivot for marketing, etc.
I think the passion only fades when it’s a waste of time, or against the vision of the game inherently. Like being asked to implement an unnecessary feature to please higher ups.
Hell, I’m even glad to implement a feature that gets scrapped, because it was an exploration, not a waste of time. But problems that arise from a muddy, cynical or lazy vision are a no-go. Don’t ask me to give it my all for a vision you don’t even believe in.
I just love you, Tim. Thanks for taking the time and effort to make these.
I've played and loved video games for 25 years. I always thought I wanted to be a game dev, but looking back I would have been eaten alive. Happy to work a boring 9-5 in insurance software development.
Be a nights-and-weekend dev. Be a hobbyist. Join game jams. It's really a golden age as far as making & sharing games solo, or in small-teams. Engines help you conserve your precious spare time, and there are so many channels for posting your games for free, or putting them out for sale. I've played games since Ms Pac Man at the arcade, written games since the Amiga, and sold games since Android Gingerbread - kept my day-job in enterprise software *and* my love of making games. Game dev can look like whatever you want it to look like.
I work full time in a different industry, but for the past x amount of years I've been fiddling around in unity trying to teach myself different things in order to tackle my dream project. The past year I've been focusing a lot more time on it to try and push something out. Everything I've seen about the industry (both professional and indy) has made me not want to go anywhere near it. I'm happy with my job but I am falling short of being happy with a lot of new games out there so I want to develop my own to follow my passion moreso than a career. With that said, thank you for making this video, I see so many "how to get into video games industry" style youtube videos and none of them raise these important questions about what you actually want out of a career and what the reality is actually like.
Great advice Tim. Only thing I can think of missing here is about wages. IE: think about how much you can be paid in the role you want.
SWEs and artists have a vast difference in wages, for example.
It’s not the MOST important part of the equation, but it is still important.
I'll chime in as an artist, echoing what Tim has said; I loved being an artist, I loved feeling like I was expressing my ideas. I loved the act of creating art.
I've been in the industry for about 5 years as a concept artist. Outside of work, I want absolutely NOTHING to do with art. I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to think about it, I don't want to hear others talk about it. That's my job, and when I'm not on my 9-5, I don't want my work to invade my personal life.
That's just one example, but I think it works. The question you have to ask is, do you want your hobby or your love to become a job? Because I can almost guarantee that once your passion becomes a job, it will not be a passion anymore. You need to know if you want to sacrifice something you love for something you might be good at as a career.
It's much the same with code. How I manage is that my game-dev scratches a different itch from my day-job in enterprise-dev. I get more interesting problems to solve, and can mix in other passions like art/writing/music, game design, and even business & marketing (reading Statista reports is fun, I am a proud weirdo :) I think folks also need to have diversified hobbies - if you only have one hobby, you really can't afford to sacrifice it to the altar of capitalism.
To be fair, I don't think it is any better to turn something you're not passionate about into a job, because you'll hate it even more probably.
At least there is some chance you'll not absolutely despise all your work when it is your passion.
@@keatonwastaken Passion is a spectrum, and surprisingly malleable. You can absolutely take a job just to pay the bills, in an area/topic that you have no particular interest in. But basic work-ethic will usually kick in, and you'll take pride in the work itself. Plus all the contextual stuff - being able to support yourself/family, good coworkers & managers, even something as simple as a nice spot to eat lunch, or shop/explore before you head home.
There are a lot of reasons people work at Job A vs B. I would say most of the time, in most fields, passion for the industry or work-product is not all that high on the list.
Were you passionate about doing art before or did you just one day decide to learn tools for work?
Also, the games industry can be pretty tough. I've met some people who worked in games for years without shipping a single game (cancelled projects), it's pretty disheartening to see years of your work just go to waste. Also, you got to handle your work being criticised, you need thick skin. Many professional games developers move on to other industries after they're been punched in the face several times (not figuratively obviously... although... :)
Talking to folks in pro game-dev circles, it seems like a lot of folks go into it assuming they'll be able to make their ideas a reality, "someday". But whether they're indie or AAA, they can often end up mid-career (or later!) without ever having been in a position to make *their* games. Rather, they're usually making someone else's game as an employee, or even as a studio head doing external contracts, or being limited to what ideas the publishers will back. And yeah, a lot of your portfolio can end up cancelled, and/or under NDA, with not even a decent salary to make up for it... It's why the retention rate is so poor.
@@mandisaw tbh, I think this is true for all artistic industries (music, film, dance, etc). People are drawn to them through passion and creativity and once they're in, they realise it's an ego driven cutthroat environment where you have to work so hard it becomes a lifestyle rather than a job, and is plagued by frustrating business decisions, indecisive leadership, and subject to the unforgiving side of the hand chops of the market.
@@r3m1 True, true. Some of the traditional media industries do have more established career ladders for folks to move up the ranks, or at least find a way to shield themselves somewhat from the worst of the BS.
But you're right, creative industries are still literally business-as-usual, even if the "product" is art. Every generation of would-be professional artists has to learn that.
When I was a teenager one of my friends was really into coding. Spending time with him doing his thing made me realize that I enjoy playing games, he enjoys making games. I think a lot of young people who think they wanna work in the industry doesn't really understand that difference, that making games involves many completely different activities from playing them, and it's pretty crucial that you're into doing one of those things.
Great video to show any one at the beginning steps of looking into getting into a game dev career. Thanks for sharing as always Tim!
Very good advise Tim, I think a lot of people romanticize game development and often really underestimate the work that goes into making a game and how many people are involved when making high quality AAA level games. Not saying that amazing looking games in the indie scene aren't possible, very much on the contrary, but its not something you'd start your game career at.
That said, and while I think you mentioned things about it in other videos I don't know the full experience for you here, but for me growing up in the 80ies in Europe, access to information about learning how to make games and access to the tools to do so, wasn't as accessible as it is today.
Today there is tons of free information online, there are tons of free tools you can teach yourself, often free additions of the same software that is used commercially at bigger studios, etc.
And while I went the self taught route and thus advocate that, it's not much different if you choose to follow a game development education, there are so many available now and they give you a solid foundation. Though I will say that it takes more than just showing up in class, to become good at what you do.
So for anyone who decides for themselves that yes, this game dev journey is for me, there really isn't anything stopping you from giving it a go. You just need to want to put in the work, whichever route you decide to take.
This is solid advice, not just for the Video Game industry but in general. As a Chef I'd offer variations of these same questions to someone wanting to enter the culinary field.
One thing I think maybe didn't come across enough in the video is, while these are questions to definitely consider at the start, they're not necessarily always questions you have to have an answer for right away. I suspect Tim didn't enter the video game industry because it was his dream to make Grand Slam Bridge, but he ultimately decided the juice was worth the squeeze and it worked out well for him.
I'd advise a lot of what to consider is whether you personally feel the process of finding your answers is worth the risk of disappointment or failure.
I don't know if I want to go into the industry. But I've been playing around with cloning old games (Space Invaders, Flappy Bird, nothing special) in Unity and the moments of brilliance I feel when I solve a problem is really powerful. Tweaking the numbers and variables until I get it to feel *just right* is a very palpable feeling of success. I don't know if I want to make this into a profession, but I'm currently enjoying the process of developing / designing clones of older, simpler games. My current goal is to make something small and original before the end of the summer. This video is excellent food for thought, though!
Wish you good luck with the project !
There is so many paths to get into the industry, and so many disciplines, it's hard to guide people on how to do it. If you enjoy coding, doing mods or your own projects is never a bad idea. The other route is ... school.
In any case, no matter what you go for, showing that you have a drive to do personal project is always a huge plus.
When hiring juniors, the attitude might be equally if not more important than the skills for companies.
You can learn skill. It's way harder to learn motivation and eagerness to learn ( and people skills while we're at it).
Cheers
I worked in a somewhat indie studio for a year (we made everything around the projects, but we had a publisher who funded the games) and yeah, it can be a lot of different work one gets to do if the team is small.
We still had a mostly structured weekly task list. The studio made mobile puzzle escape room type games, so my weekly tasks usually were to take the level art, make it into a scene, and then implement the gameplay. I got to do plenty of various things - code the interactions, do shader work, sometimes adjust or change parts of the level art, put sounds, playtest to see if the level flow makes sense :)
Something that I think is important to add is that there's a place to try things, specially when you are starting in the industry.
There are a lot of companies that give the opportunity to grow "horizontally" wich means that you may be doing 3D art but you want to try being a Concept Artist and that's fine. Or even you can move companies and try different genres that you like or even working in different teams.
So specially when you are young and want to start, you don't need to know everything right of the bat. There's room to try and get the feeling of things before committing to just one thing.
Hell I started as an Indie and worked 10 years and now I'm in AAA for 3 and still don't know where am I staying, I'm about to turn 40 and keep learning so much every day, so yes, try to answer this questions but lot of these answers also come from experience. My 2 cents there.
You could make a solid flow chart with the questions posed in this video, lol. Awhile ago I decided I wanted to make a game, nothing too crazy just a small point and click adventure game in the style of the old Lucas Arts games from their golden age. Eventually I started working on my backlog for everything I could think of that I would need to do in order to make said game. I think regardless of whatever project you're working on, it could be making a game, writing a book, building a new patio, whatever, the first and most important thing you need to do is to get organized and get your goals and objectives clearly outlined and quantifiable. The problem was when I was much younger and less experienced my goal was just "I want to tell cool stories and maybe make someone's day a bit better after playing my game". A good outcome but lacked a framework. Now all that said and and done, if I could go back in time to young pre-college me and tell him to change his plans, would I? No. Game development and by extension becoming a software engineer and a project manager may be chaotic and difficult at times but it blows sitting around drawing wrenches in auto CAD out of the water. So, moral of the story for my fellow zoomer aspiring game devs, the path of least resistance is boring. Make that game if that's what you're passionate about but have a plan, and have friends to help.
Hi Tim, I've been trying to get into the industry as a programmer for the last 10 years. I feel like I'm on my last chance for so I have a plan for the year going forward:
- Get the highest grade possible for a Master in Computer Science for Programming
- Do Networking and Game Jams at the University
- Continue to make micro games and demos in Unity and Unreal
- Setup a private company to ship potentially 3 games on Steam, Google Play or Playstation Store
- Practice Programming interview tests
Now with all that in mind is that good enough, because I've made demos and I have over 5 years experience in professional programming but I get nothing from job applications because I fear it's not good enough. Like seriously what is considered good enough to even get interviews for Games or the tech industry in general these days.
Have a nice day.
I'm programming&designing in construction industry and these are my 2 biggest fears preventing me from pursuing getting to the videogame industry:
- suddenly being expendable until I get experienced
- working in art vs. working in primary profession
I made a mod for Barotrauma and people loved it (~50k subs) which motivated me a lot and working on games is always in the back of my mind.
Thank you so much for making this video, Tim. I think this will prove to be incredibly useful for many aspiring game developers figuring out what they want to do as they start learning the craft. It's always awesome to get advice from someone who's been in ANY industry for nearly as long as you have.
Perfect video
I like that these are a lot of things that you've more or less said before, but have repackaged in a straight-to-the-point manner.
I wouldn't see any of this as being blunt, but being honest and manner-of-fact.
I feel like this is a great video to open seminars, or to show to university kids both at the beginning and at the end of their course
Thanks for the video 😊 Honestly even as someone already in the industry I still found this video insightful and thought provoking!
Thankyou so much for your insight. This is such an underrated channel.
This is the perfect set of advice for anyone looking to get into any "hobby" driven profession. Personally I love video games too much to work in the industry.. but i'll happily set up a game company if I ever become a multi millionaire
Ive wanted to make games since it clicked for me as a kid (around 10) that it was a job that exists. Spent countless hours looking for what part of the process I most enjoyed, and found a deep love for writing, worldbuilding, level design, designing gameplay systems, etc.
Now I've recently graduated with a BA in Game Design and have been using a website with an alphabetical list of all game companies in the US and slowly working my way through alphabetically looking at each website and applying for any of the jobs that fit.
All while working as a writer on a couple of large modding projects for the game Mount & Blade Bannerlord and still making stuff in my freetime.
It'd be torture if I didnt love doing it.
Hi, Tim. It’s me, Dave.
Hi, Dave. It's me, Miles.
@@Nerfunkal Hi, Miles. It's me, Max.
@@nyx8026Hi, me. It’s Dave, Tim.
@@RyanTheRequel It's Hi. Me Dave Tim.
MY NAME IS ROGER! **snarl**
i have never once in my life cared about videogame development but your perspective keeps it engaging and interesting!
Another question to ask yourself,
" Can you handle the flucuations in body hygine? Especially during crunch!"😂😅
industry is changing. Crunch is less of a thing ( depending where you work of course ). Other workers will complain if ppl smell, and I can imagine HR rolling their eyes for having to send an email to everybody haha.
One of the industries where not having a sense of smell is a legit advantage.
Ideas come easy turning them into games is a whole different story
Thank you for making this! I’m sure it was helpful for people considering this career path.
I am in the middle of my career and just enjoy consuming games. Sam Cooke- finest human voice I can think of. I love some Sam Cooke. I’m an avid musician myself- but I won’t learn any Sam Cooke songs.
I’d like them to remain magical to me. I don’t want to see the fretboard when I hear his music, I just want to get lost in it.
Right now I’m playing the System Shock remake, 2nd play through. I’m letting myself get lost and wander around the station… I don’t want to know how it was made. I couldn’t get lost if I made the roadmap.
Hats off to you creatives who are willing to give that up because of your passion to create.
Thanks again, this was a great video.
I'm already a product owner and though I would like to be a game producer I do understand that domain knowledge is something HUGE for a PM. As much a modern management doctrine says you can manage anything, knowing the ins and outs of the industry makes a difference.
Mortisimal Gaming is the GOAT of game reviewers. All professional no bs
The fact that game ideas is a huge no-no in this industry scream volumes. No wonder games today f'ing suck. And people get mad at Kojima for... wait for it... actualizing new ideas. What do you know...
I was just thinking "This is a big question" seconds before tim said it, lol.
Great Vid Tim, as always!
I hope that a lot of prospective game developers watch this video. The questions posed here are vital for being able to appropriately navigate the industry
I would say take the self taught route and work on a portfolio, test different areas of jobs within the industry that sound interesting towards yourself and try to complete some tasks/projects to add to said portfolio. Being self taught and an indie developer allows you to learn at your own pace and allows for some self reflection and growth in areas you wish to work on without the pressures of being part of a company. Then if you decide you've gained a certain level of experience to show off to players or a company you wish to work for you'll have a portfolio with your accomplished projects and you might have a better idea what area you wish to continue growing in. That or if you want a more structured route that is going to cost you a lot of money, pressure, and anxiety then go to college to learn the basics of code, art, writing, etc. But also be prepared to be self taught along the way because not many colleges offer a "Video Game Developer Degree" and won't be teaching exactly how to make games. They are going to give you the fundamentals and push for taking different courses outside of your goals in order to earn certain credits to get which ever Bachelors Degree you think will land you a job in the industry. Along the way you also have to make sure you maintain a certain GPA or you could get kicked out of which ever college you're studying in, etc. etc. enjoy the student loan debt while potentially regretting the college route.
Don't make any major decisions without doing proper research and understanding what you might be getting yourself into. Figure out what route would work best for you and try it out. Just understand one route is going to cost you a lot more in finances and mental health.
great video Tim! and I've read this so many times in other video comments, but its true every time for me too -- your thoughts about a life and an industry that are so different from my own experience somehow apply so well, are so relatable and help me see more clearly! Thanks for making your channel and videos, I hope you continue as long as you like to
I wish someone told me after learning gamedev that a lot of the magic in games would be gone. It used to be this black box that would do cool things, now everything is just rational. Of course you would use a hash map to store predetermined values alongside a seed value, it makes it easier to debug.
There are still a lot of interesting problems to work out in this space, and a lot of great work to be done. Stuff way outside the box that nobody has thought of yet. It's out there! But it's a very hard road, and not very secure or prestigious.
Listlessly moved through life with no motivation to do anything. im now into my first year of learning to code. Have made a few little VERY rudimentary games. It has ignited a passion in me that makes my life worth living. During my waking hours my thoughts are either how I could get the code to do X, Y or Z. How I could write it in a more efficient way what I can add to the current project that would force me out of my comfort zone with the code to use stuff I've never messed with yet. I've got a history with good SEO. Quite familiar with digital art, ran long format D&D campaigns for years.
For me its not a matter of if or how or why or can I make it as a game dev; This is the path now. There can be no other path.
Y'know how you said about doing a less industry-focused video on Fridays?
I'd love to see a general walkthrough of whats on your shelves and in the clearcase behind you.
Of course can see a lot of Fallout stuff, but would love to hear any annecdotes tied to them!
i have an awnser for all those questions and my simple limitation is time. i want to go indie and everytime i find motivation to start working on it i get hit with my reality whether its my family , kids, stress and whatever excuse a 30yo with 2 kids can make with a fulltime job.
making games is hard and takes time and if you want to go for it you either need to be very responsible/disciplined or go all out. and i cant commit to any of it because of how i am myself.
I want to go indie and make different types of games throughout my career. i want to contribute to the community of amazing developers that source out their code for people to use or artists that make free assets. but man is it hard and it takes so much time to learn.
i want to work in the game industry but i feel like i wont be able to make it in my current situation unless i start working in a game company but getting into one requires you to have at least 3-5 years of experience in whatever language their engine is and be up to date with tech. Even though i am a programmer and work at a bank i cant help but feel intimidated by what for programmers game companies look for. im not even in one and already feel my impostor syndrome cooking up.
thanks for the video!
Great video. Thanks, Tim!
Great video, but I think the title should be something along the line 'So you want to join the game industry?' more than 'So you want to make games?' because you can work solo and go indie (which you did mention in the video). I love your vids ! Best wishes Tim
I'm working on my dream game, but I'm largely doing it just for the sake of making something. I'm learning Blender, learning Godot, learning about PBR textures which are WAY easier to make than I thought they'd be... I would love to make a living on it, but if that's gonna happen, I want it to happen on my own terms, where the only people telling me how to make my game are the people who love playing it. That's the dream, I really don't think digging into the broader game industry is for me, though.
Hey Tim! Question I've had for a while: how do you go about content creation pipelines?
For example for stuff like: enemy AI, puzzles, player weapons, player skills, narrative content, etc
...when would you go for: a) a designer-oriented tool in-engine (think a custom window in Unity); b) a designer-oriented tool outside the engine (think FMOD); c) scripting language where designers use API made by programmers.
This is a topic that truly intrigues me and I'd love to hear your overall thoughts about it.
Thank you as always, love from Italy ❤️🙏
Posting to watch
Have you watched my video on Tools?
ruclips.net/video/_P4-2Nv_Or8/видео.html
I also have a video coming up in two weeks on when to code vs when to script.
I use Unreal Engine so most of the things can be done in engine. I customised the editor and write plugins which means I can take any external program and integrate it with either an SDK or some dll external abuse with a wrapper. But the golden rule on content creation pipelines is speed of workflow. Let's say someone is using Daz to create a character, but the implementation in Unreal is yucky and other artists are having trouble getting their work done on time because they are working around the Daz issues. I already know beforehand that this will cramp the style of more people than it will help unless I get pure Daz content creators. So what I am saying is sometimes it's the people who define the content creation pipeline you use because you hire skillsets and you must adhere to those boundaries unless you want to get into on-site training and slow yourself down. Sometimes that's a good thing because you want to keep up to date, but often it's outside of the scope of the project management. So you deal with it. (this is the case in indie anyway. I don't work AAA because I love games).
Indie dev experience.
My worries are getting noticed, getting funding, and finding people to work with me. I'm sure more will come about. A studio owner once told me he found it always easier to make games with other people's money as it was one less worry. So I can understand the appeal of publishers.
One tidbit I'd add is don't go into games for fame or money. As there are better ways to acquire both.
I like how you rip the bandaid off immediately, Tim. People need to understand that being passionate and having ideas doesn't matter on its own, bring something actually useful to the table.
Exactly. The guy who made Stardew Valley worked on it for like ... 4-5 years, 10 hours a day, 7 days a week. Just because he wanted to make that kind of game. There was zero revenues, and zero promise that it would sell once it was done. His wife worked 2 jobs and he also had a part time job on top of that. He succeeded, but lots of people don't ( and we don't hear about them of course ).
Being payed to "just have ideas and tell people what to do" is what happens when you worked in the industry for 25+ years and you become a creative director somewhere or something like that.
I'm not in the gaming industry but I am in software. I feel like working in a software development company is 40% skill based and 60% being willing to put up with other people's crap and still enjoy working with them. If you're ok with that then welcome to software development 😀.
Heya, Tim! You touched on a topic that was (heh) topical to my experiences, and I wanted to ask you a question about it. I've worked software QA for 6 years now, and have risen to QA Lead in that time. I've worked on mobile applications, web applications, installable apps, etc doing manual, automated, API you name it. Taught myself JS to work in Node based frameworks, and have a variety of automation frameworks under my belt. I've thought about transitioning to the gaming industry at points, but always stopped myself due to the fear that my skills in software applications wouldn't translate to real-time engines or what have you.
My dream job growing up was working in games, and I even made a video game as a teenager for a national competition with my friends. I do 3D modelling on the side for my D&D games in tabletop simulator, love level design, have worked for free on a lot of indie projects when I was younger, and have a veritable graveyard of unfinished, pre-alpha hobby projects on my personal Unreal Engine install on my hard drive. I always always wanted to be an artist, but put my dreams on hold to chase (what was to me) a more stable career path (and more lucrative).
My question is, do you believe my skills in more traditional software QA could translate over into game QA?
Well these questions always pop up for me because I have no particular skill sets and I am more or less an art oriented person so those roles could fit to me better but since I wish to go for indie I need to be a jack of all trades and try to tweak things to work out well. What I have doing for conding is learning tutorials, trying to understand what the said code means, learning commands (Gdscript) and improve them or altering. I am also a game modder on my free time and I do added some addon to small games, altered the code, wrote some extra with the same logic as it was added but I still feel I am stupid and this may not be for me but it's a dream for me.
I personally not wish to join to large teams simply because the creativity is killed there and you could end up like me in the previous job I did until last month. Monotonous, boring, your ideas dismissed. If I ever join to a team for improve my skills I personally would join to small teams or team up with other solo devs.
Later on the road I wish to make my own studio and I know it is a huge responsibility but I'll gladly take it once I know fully what I am doing, what must be done and what is what better to outsource to other person.
Thanks for this. I'm toying with the idea of getting into it. These are all great things to consider.
I dont want to make games, i want to make spiritual successors to DAO, Torment, Vampire The Masquerade and BG.
Those spiritual successors aren’t games? Are you talking about writing stories or making artwork?
@CainOnGames I think he's saying he has grand ambitions
Starting off Monday the right way!
To be honest I’ve heard so many friends of mine who worked in the games industry say it kills your love of video games that im just going to learn skills on my own and make indie games as a hobby/side gig.
Came here for game developer advices, and got told to face reality and find myself instead. Top tier advice 👍
Hello Tim ! I have two main questions that each could be on there own separate videos.
The first is about AI tools. Have you tried them ? Personally, everything that is not visuals (Speech, text,coding) is actually decent and i started incorporate it in my job. Have you done so ? In which context ?
The second one is maybe....controversial ? And i want to preface the question is mainly pushed by curiosity and i mean no ill will. With the recent outrage a few months back about consulting for inclusivity/story in games ( i won't name the games or companies or else it might get toxic) i was wondering if ever used a consulting company for one of your game ? If so, what was the experience ? Was it a choice made by the team or it came from above ?
Love your vids and have nice day.
Tims reaction to weird usernames is priceless
All this is why I didn't get into the gaming industry. I got into the television industry instead, where I could fulfill my creative needs by writing, producing, editing, and directing daily, and I was able to conceive and develop various projects from start to finish, and I found it quite rewarding.
I was able to scratch that creative itch, and I was able to go home after long, stressful days and just game. I didn't have any passion for television, which allowed me to disconnect after work and not think about it. That wouldn't happen if I was a game developer, and I think I'd be sad if I didn't have the time and energy to play the games I love.
Plus, I'm pretty sure I worked less and was paid more than I would have if I were working in the video game industry.
I think it worked out. Still, I love learning insider baseball stuff about the video game industry, which I can understand at a deep enough level because of my relatable skills.
I'm disabled now, and I'm not working anyway, so, it's all moot at this point. I can spend the majority of my time playing video games (including some of the ones you had a hand in.) I don't think much about the stress and headaches I endured throughout my career, and I can just play a game without it conjuring negative memories.
I love following this channel. I'm more of a kind of voyeur who just enjoys your anecdotal stories, and getting a better understanding about how games are made.
Thanks!
Interestingly, I've found indie game-dev to be a great way to use my TV production skills. Much of it translates - budgets & timelines, knowing your audience, structuring a cohesive story within tight constraints, and building characters people can connect with. I had mixed-results from a career change from tech to news to scripted during the Recession, and ended up back in tech - games offers me a way to be the entire production company, so to speak.
You're right about working less & being paid more though. The games industry badly needs the sort of union representation that built viable careers out of TV/film/theater. You're starting to see little glimmers of it here & there, but either US-only or on a global scale, it's so far behind.
@@mandisaw i's shocking to me that an industry that makes more profit than film, television, radio, and music combined pays less than all those other jobs. It's criminal, really.
@@misterfinnster3562 It's because it started in tech, and continues to emulate that industry, as opposed to any media subset. Tech has its own love affair with exploitative labor practices, bias & pay inequity, and boom-bust layoff cycles. And of course tech loves to dangle the carrot of a few highly-paid roles - much like games justifies its poor practices with the possibility of becoming a design superstar like our Tim.
For myself, I feel quite lucky to have landed a union job in tech, where I make software that helps ppl, have good work-life balance & benefits, and didn't have to worry about getting the Boxer treatment at age 40.
Games takes the best & worst from tech - unfortunately traditional media seems to have started following in its footsteps, to not-great outcomes...
I use to spend a lot of time searching and finding companies for junior artist role. Either in 2D or 3D.
Would never hear back after sending a portfolio/ resume. Instead of improving my skills. With social media I'd get the algorithm showing me junior artists that'd be posting about getting a new job and/or employed artists/ art directors. I'd take FOREVER to even find their work and more so; more disgruntled when I thought I was comparable to the juniors just hired.
Or the general attitude or vibe; I didnt appreciate looking trying to get hired and just started to self teach coding.
I will say; if your doing simple games and Unreal, Unity or Godot was frustrating/ hard to grasp. It might surprise you that just doing basic C (or Odin) with a framework(?) (Raylib, SDL2, etc) would be a lot faster and easier to learn.
I'd say a lot of the difficulty with game engines is; theres A LOT of "non-info" beginner related search results instead of dive in and just do it. (Get no results or think about core CS stuff with a more lower level approach)
i found this at the right time...let me go and ponder a bit.
For me, working on the video games industry would be like finding out santa is not real. I don't want that "magic" to go away.
Whats the problem with the gaming industry? Its in the name. Industry. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of that word? More often than not you picture a factory pumping out mass produced product and the factory worker doing the same formulaic thing everyday.
To say I want to go into the game industry to make your dream come true is the same as an engineer going to Ford to mass produce grey economy cars, thinking they will be making hypercars. The real truth is the pioneers dont go that route. They go there to finaince their dreams of making their own dream machines and gather experience but they never saw it as where their dreams would come true. Shelby, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Harley and Davidson, all had to craft their dream machines by themselves or in a small group with their own hands after they had gathered the experience and finiance needed from their years of various roles in the industry. And thats the mentality you'll need to have going in. Artistry and industry never mix well. For artistry requires a personal touch, a vision and dedication to creating not selling, all of which an industry can not provide. But it can be a major stepping stone, just know thats all it can be and you will be viewed as the expendable factory worker while you are there.
So you're in high school or college, and you love gaming and you like the idea of working on games for a living, and you meet someone who knows someone who is a big wig at a big game company. So you manage to get a coffee date with this person, and you tell them what you're thinking, and you ask for advice.
Well, being the super nice person they are, they pretend to seriously entertain the idea of working toward adding you into their organization, and to do that they'd have to figure out where you would fit and how they would sell it. So they would ask you all these exact questions that Tim just asked.
But the reality, of course, is that they would almost certainly not be able to sell it - the idea is to give you an idea of what to work toward so that they (or someone in a similar position somewhere else) might eventually be able to. Is it coding, is it art, is it story writing, is it cinematic arrangement, is it marketing, is it design, is it management... In any case, what you have to do, to get in, is to do a bunch of whatever it is, and prove that you can do it.
Like any industry, it's kind of a chicken vs the egg thing. You have to have money to make money, you have to know people to get to know people, you have to have experience to get experience. This is life's cache 22. The best advice is, pray daily for a miracle, and continually watch carefully for one to appear. (Because they do actually happen, all the time, believe it or not. That's how Tim got there, that's how they all do.)
I think what happens with most people, is that the fruit that catches their eye is out of immediate reach, so they end up more-or-less forced (or feeling forced) to reach for more low hanging fruit. There are two key differences between those who eventually succeed and the rest of the masses: 1. they never give up and 2. they pull all the stops out by the root.
I am probably never gonna be in the gaming industry, but I would choose to be a story writer/script-er or something that makes me involved with story. Or level design.
Thanks for another great video Tim! Having ADHD, I find myself constantly struggling to get started. I know that I want to work with games and dream of doing indie, but it can be difficult to know where to begin with so many different areas and skills to learn. I wouldn't mind taking the time to develop and learn all of the necessary skills, but with so many areas and directions to choose from I just can't figure out where to start / what to prioratize and end up putting it all off. Do you have any recommendations for a non school starting point that could help start me out on my journey?
Thanks!
At the end of the day it's passion, a lot of work and dedication. (Depending of where you wanna work for the passion side...)
the passion is why these soul sucking companies are underpaying their workers, because there is always someone more passionate and more naive who will do it for less money.
The "I have an idea that's going to be big!" is something you see nonstop in software, and in game dev. If only ideas were worth something, every person in software would be a billionaire by now.
I always have a counterquestion to the people asking how to get their idea developed: This small game studio is five friends. Each of these four people have 10 ideas before they're done with their morning routine. Ideas that are made by people already in the industry, pulling their weight and knowing more about game development than you. So their ideas are likely more viable, considering that they have the knowhow to actually implement the idea, at least partially.
Now not every idea is a good one, and they know this. If you write the ideas down every day, into a single massive file, you could spend a day at the end of a month, going through it for the good ideas, and maybe even a great idea. 10 ideas per day leaves you with 300 ideas per month. Let's say a quarter of the ideas are good enough to develop into anything, so you pick 75 ideas to look into a bit longer. A tenth of those makes it past a bit longer of a thought, so you now have 7 ideas that could be actionable. Out of those, maybe one is a great idea.
Their company still only makes one game at a time, and game development even for smaller games takes six months at the very least (and being very optimistic here for simplicity). When it comes time to pick a new game idea, the team of five friends now whip up their notebooks and give their ideas. 6 months with 7 decent ideas each month and maybe one great one each month, that totals 210 actionable decent ideas, and 30 great ones. They pick maybe 20 to make a quick prototype out of, roll another 2-6 to the winning prototype as elements of it, and maybe hold on to one or two ideas they thought had potential. Rinse and repeat. They will never run out of ideas, they will never catch up to the pile of ideas they have, and they each gain more experience from the development of the last game, making them more competent and diverse in their roles.
What does your idea bring to the company? You wanted them to make your game, so sell it to them now. Why should they trust an outsider, with zero game development experience, that "has an idea", when they just last week went through a list of hundreds of ideas the people in the studio had? It's a hard sell to bring an outsider to a company to begin with, without knowing the dynamics, but then to also split the revenue. You must be able to provide them with some value: Having "an idea" will never be enough.
Which is why I've said it elsewhere: Make a demo of your game. A vertical slice. If you can't program, now is your time. The tools have never been more accessible. You can find tutorials for almost any game engine, there are countless courses both free and paid. If you can't program - or don't want to - then make the art, and pay for someone on fiver to make your prototype. If you can't do art either, then pay for someone to do the art, and another to make the demo. In the very oversaturated gig job market, you could get a bare-bones demo made for under $500, easily. So if you truly believe your game is worth pursuing, a small investment to showcase this is very much worth your while. It'll be simpler to sell your demo to a publisher or a studio, than just "an idea".
This is a fantastic video. Thank you.
I just stopped asking and started doing. Just start making games. Download Unity or Unreal and get to it.
Stop waiting for someone to say it's okay, or how you should do it. Just go do it. All it takes is starting and sticking with it to release.
I'm someone who's programmed with python, ruby, bits of other languages and even dabbled in unreal engine blueprints once and I'm considering delving into Godot and making some simple games with that just to see how to make some features I care about and see whether they play off each other well
I do like coding but low key I don't mind if I cannot break into the industry because one thing I've learned is that the best way to ruin enjoyment for anything is to make a job out of it. I love gaming and I tried my hand at streaming everyday and lo and behold I started to dislike playing games because I would game 10+ hours a day everyday on stream. Eventually after a few months I realized its pointless to force myself into doing things that I don't want to do and instead I just do whatever I feel like doing. Life is much better this way.
On one hand I agree with you, on the other I would say: working on a project with a team is waaayyyy different than working on a project by yourself.
I have been in the industry for 15+ years now, and I enjoy the team dynamic and being able to be a part of something big that would be impossible by myself.
If you really like doing it as a hobby without stress and taking your time, it might be better to keep it that way , but if you really enjoy solving problems and having a good challenge, it's hard to beat going into the industry.
For me, being part of a team that are all working for a common goal is probably my favorite part.
With the thing about the hobby Vs job, people need to remember that work is work and a job is a job
The thing that you do everyday for money, if you keep doing it in your off time you're going to cause yourself problems
I'm learning how to use Unreal engine, because I want to make my own games. I have a job with lot of free time, I have a stable situation, so I can take my time. I don't want to turn it into a job nor working in the industry. I want to make MY dream games, not care about monetization.
Hobbyist here, you are 1000% correct. If someone forced me to do Agile game dev for a paycheck it would make me so so sad.
One thing to mention is going indie is far harder. It does require an incredible amount work, and for whatever reason your game may still not rise to the top.
I am not saying someone can't make it just make sure you are committed.
I've always been open to discussing business ideas and providing feedback. However, once I signed an NDA as a consultant for a small startup, at a party, a friend of mine wanted to introce me an enterpreneur, but i refused because I knew he was the founder uf a start up operating in the same field of my client. I told my friend I could not talk to that guy, even if I'd liked to. I know what you mean. Anyway it's sad not being able to talk to people once you're involved.
Everyone who loves games should spend 6 months working in QA. You get a window into how games are made that includes every other discipline except possibly pure code if you only do black box.
Love this channel. I was wondering if you could go into where you find inspiration for unique mechanics that AREN'T other games. What are a few of your "Eureka!" moments that led to some of your favorite personal design decisions?
Have you watched my video on the origin of dumb dialog?
ruclips.net/video/xBUkdO4IK7w/видео.html
Heh, I really would have loved [past tense, on purpose] to partner up with 1-2 people to do graphics for what I wrote, because all of the games I've ever created had ASCII graphics.
(All of them turn-based, with various degrees of RPG: my first game, in 1998, was an X-Com knock-off but instead of aliens, you battled against Lovecraftian monsters - and I stuck to making tactical RPGs or strategy RPGs ever since.)
I stopped releasing my games about 12 years ago, now I just make them and never finish them, because finishing that last 20% takes 80% of energy and brainpower.
This is a great video Thank you!