Word of Advice: Don't!

I've now made this mistake, and fully regret it.
Its been one of the most interesting and weirdest experiences of my life.

To update my situation, for the last year and some change I've been working as a tester and part-time writing contributor in the industry, when I hit abit of a road-block in my career.
I had neither the training or experience to advance as a full-time writer, or as a full-time programmer(I only had the job because a member of my FFXI guild was a senior manager at Capcom). In the interest of advancing my career, I decided to go school for some fields that would help me out, as opposed to the traditional historical/philosophical/psycological hyberbole I'm prone to take up(Hello useless theology degree).

So I decided to focus more on the programming end of the spectrum, and enrolled in one of the more prominent schools for game programming, located in Orlando.
Seemed to make all good, logical sense to me at the time, Lord was I ever wrong.

I've been here about two months now and just withdrawed in disgust, its an absolutely amazing enviroment that even the most astute socialologist would be baffled by.
All day, both teachers and students, discussing the most *inane* things.
During orientation the director tossing out tshirts to people who had 2 60s in WoW(even asking that to begin with?).
Listening to classmates discuss how "Halo is the best game ever"
My favorite, "Halo is the best selling game of all time"
Sure... If you ignore the other 50 games above it on the list, and of course , they take *great* offense at being corrected.
"Super Mario Brothers 1, 2 and 3, are in the top 1-4, not Halo"
3rd person: "No Idiot, The Sims has been the best selling game of all time for awhile now..."
*rolls eyes*

Sounds pretty harmless at first, but spend an hour browsing 1up.com forums, or Nintendo.com.
Can you IMAGINE living in an enviroment like that?, its like living inside a message board of flaming fanboys.

It was at that point in time, I came to a stark and resounding realization about my lot in life.
I love games, But I hate gamers.

For anyone who plans to pursue anything like this in the future, I recommend going to a regular college for programming or writing. Game specific schools are a great place to punch those idiots whos' posts you've been skipping all these years, and little else.

I havn't made my own topic in along time, so just thought I'd share a recent experience.

Schools are a great place to start a base in programming. However, experience is what will get you the job. Side jobs, your own programs, etc. are the way to start down the road that leads you to the job you want.

You're probably better off haivng got out of it early. I've never heard of a single person that ever had anything good to say about working as a developer in the game industry.

Aye, I realize that now, I still want to pursue a career in the industry. But I'm gonna tackle it from the writing/creative end as opposed to the practical end.

I've worked as a tester/writer for abit now, and yes, frequent 20h days blow, the pays actually pretty good, but thats not as much an issue.
I have family money I want to invest in the future in my own development studio(like most people, I wanna be a manager/designer), I just see working as a developer as a step to getting the experience and contacts needed to suceed on my own.
It might not be pretty but its a means to an end, or least thats how I view it.

So we'll see how this turns out in the future, thanks for the feedback ^^.

Why not go to an accredited university and get a BS in programming or CIS or whatever they are calling it these days? Of course as others have said experience will net you more in the long run but most places do still look highly on a 4 year degree.

For example: http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=pround&message.id=3665

Hopefully you can at least see the post, you don't have to be logged in to view their forums. Anyway a perusal of their jobs indicate a 4yr BS degree as a requirement.

Aye, I realize that now, I still want to pursue a career in the industry. But I'm gonna tackle it from the writing/creative end as opposed to the practical end.


I know their is a MFA offered in Dallas for 3D design. I know someone that just Graduated with his MFA. He is going into Game Design. Look into the Chicago Insitute of art. What is your interest? CIA has a writing program too. Sounds like you need to look into getting a BFA.

here is a link to help you start looking
http://www.artschools.com/

I had a 4 year stint as guide>GM>Quest Troupe for Sony and that totally convinced me not to head toward the video game development route. Like Sanchek said, most people use video games as an outlet to relax from work ... if you had to play the game 24/7 it wouldn't really be much of an outlet, would it? Maybe 10 years ago before the industry exploded, but right now its a huge grind all day backstab all night field that it needs another 10 years to either settle OR you take the independant route and develop your own projects and piggy back on that reputation.

Yeah, all of the original GMs for Everquest got their dream jobs and design video games for a living now. But do you think the GMs for Everquest (or WoW or whatever) now are ever gonna be making a lot more than minimum wage (in LA no less) even 5, 10, or 20 years from now?

*edit* This was coming from a non-technical side jumping into the game field. Naturally someone very skilled in the art or programming side will be able to do just that: art or program. However, the design and development where all you need is an idea ... well it makes the field very difficult to break in regardless of your college training.

However, the design and development where all you need is an idea ... well it makes the field very difficult to break in regardless of your college training.

I realize its the traditional cliche' "Yah, I do well, but what I *really* want to do is direct!" .
Honestly I just want some industry experience at a higher level so as I said I can invest in my own projects in the future.
I have the money and time, but don't feel comfortable investing into a field that I really just don't have a firm grasp of knowledge over, or more importantly appropriate contacts.

Designing the gameplay, writing the story, the dialouge, the setting, etc. Is what I really *do* enjoy, and have been already doing for years as a semi-pro in the table-top industry to good success(Hell, only reason I don't do that is you need to be a Mega-Star writer to even break $30,000 a year in that industry, that and even for the best in the field [Weis, Hickman, Greedwood,etc] job security is practically non-existant).

My previous job at Capcom was testing and doing localization writing(that part wasn't too bad, had some minor creativity, localization is almost never a direct translation from original language, but a total re-write with just the same core ideas as the baseline, which is why they take so long.)

My original post was alot more to do with the enviroment of a gaming school (I seriously don't know what I was expecting...I shoulda saw that comming).
Theres alot of ways to break into the industry, but thats probably the least appealing of all of them for any sane individual.

I've already made some arrangements, Gonna pursue degree in english(maybe an eventual masters), and linguistics.
I'm still planning to take programming classes but not gonna make it as much a focus as before, simply because its a useful skill to cultivate.

I appreciate the advice and opinions in this thread, Thanks, helped me focus my end goal alittle more.

Also looking into taking a few Psychology classes. This will help you understand motivations of the player, characters and your co-workers.

Already did all that in my first go through in college
(this will be 5th time going back in my lifetime thus far, and I'll probably never stop. Student 4 life.)