IT/CIS Degree in the Gaming Industry?

Marossi · Nov 21, 2018

So, this is something that I've been questioning myself.

As a background, you should probably know that I am 20 years old and I live in Brazil, where the gaming industry over here is sadly dead for now. I'm working on an CIS (Computer Information Systems) degree and I'm doing really well at it, with high grades and all, but after reflecting for a while, my passion really is with Games, I really like the Videogame industry and oh it would be a dream to make it as a programmer in the videogame industry, it's such a shame this market over here is basically nonexistant aside from some VR and Mobile games.

I'm really wondering if I should finish my CIS degree or if I should do something else. I like programming alot, but I can't program something in an industry I don't really like, is an CIS degree valuable to becoming a programmer in the gaming industry? Is it something I should work on or should I drop it and do a general Game Development Degree?

Also I will probably need to work on Computer Science related to Games degree outside my country, since I fully expect my CIS degree coming from an underdeveloped country to be worth almost nothing to get a full-time job as a programmer in the gaming industry.

Iyagovos · Nov 21, 2018

Finish your degree. Video games is an incredibly, incredibly competitive industry, and you want something to fall back on. I don't work as a programmer, obviously, but many people i know did Computer Science in Uni and got into games, as well. It's not worth dropping out to potentially work in an industry that you might not enjoy anyway.

Marossi · Nov 21, 2018

James Bartholomeou said:
Finish your degree. Video games is an incredibly, incredibly competitive industry, and you want something to fall back on. I don't work as a programmer, obviously, but many people i know did Computer Science in Uni and got into games, as well. It's not worth dropping out to potentially work in an industry that you might not enjoy anyway.

I see. Did you had any experiences with international students and if they are working on the gaming industry nowadays?

Unis from developed countries are pretty different here with underdeveloped countries (at least in Brazil) and I'm really hoping my grades with my CIS degree would help me get a spot.

Iyagovos · Nov 21, 2018

I've never worked at a development studio personally, but I work at a publisher now, and we do have our fair share of international people here, yep!

Trace · Nov 21, 2018

At least you're trying to get in as a programmer, which generally is always in demand.

Just expect to be paid less and work harder than if you had an equivalent job working on something that wasn't a game.

Kopite · Nov 21, 2018

The impression I get is that the development sector of the Video Game industry isn't necessarily a fun one to work in even if you like games. Even if you get through the generally unreasonable work hours and so, you could just be stuck doing stuff like making sure bushes and stuff look good which is probably a far cry from what you might initially expect.

Dr. Mario · Nov 21, 2018

I only know the Brazilian games industry from stuff like SBGames, but I thought that was pretty huge. Maybe it's just people wanting to get into the game industry, or all locally focused.

Marossi · Nov 21, 2018

Trace said:
Just expect to be paid less and work harder than if you had an equivalent job working on something that wasn't a game.

Sadly this is pretty much the case for many people who wish to follow their passion, I expect this but even landing a full-time job in this area would be amazing and yeah, there's the honeymoon period where everything in the industry is amazing but I honestly believe this industry is one where I fully expect to love it after the honeymoon period and give my hardest to make it into.

Kopite said:
The impression I get is that the development sector of the Video Game industry isn't necessarily a fun one to work in even if you like games. Even if you get through the generally unreasonable work hours and so, you could just be stuck doing stuff like making sure bushes and stuff look good which is probably a far cry from what you might initially expect.

Yeah, that's something that after following news about the industry ever since I was like 13, was made clear. Crunch hours are expected and working on boring stuff is also expected. I feel like it's not exclusive to the gaming industry, every job has it's fair share of boring and frustating parts to work with.

soul · Nov 21, 2018

Kopite said:
The impression I get is that the development sector of the Video Game industry isn't necessarily a fun one to work in especially if you like games. .

Fixed. Avoid at all costs if you want to enjoy gaming in the future.

kenta · Nov 21, 2018

Finish your degree, without question. Start working on pet projects that you can assemble into a portfolio -- maybe start tinkering with something readily available like UE4 or Unity and make some things that you find interesting. Make a proof of concept demo for a game you'd like to see/play, or a tool you wish existed, something like that. But finish your degree, absolutely. If nothing else, you ensure that your resume will pass the first round of sniff tests by meeting the basic requirements of the job

Ryan. · Nov 21, 2018

It honestly wouldn't hurt to stick around and finish your CIS degree. I'm not entirely sure how much you have in terms of electives if any, but for my CIS degree my program offered a topics class in Unity over the summer one year. I didn't have time to take it but it was nice to see the offer.

What you could do if you can is always take an IT job at a developer and work your way up. Depending on the position and how the studio is you could still be working on the game in some degree.

Marossi · Nov 21, 2018

soul said:
Fixed. Avoid at all costs if you want to enjoy gaming in the future.

Nowadays I'm not one to play much games at all outside of the big ones for a limited amount of time, I just wish I could be part of something, part of a project related to games, in a industry I actively follow and have interest with.

kenta said:
Start working on pet projects that you can assemble into a portfolio -- maybe start tinkering with something readily available like UE4 or Unity and make some things that you find interesting. Make a proof of concept demo for a game you'd like to see/play, or a tool you wish existed, something like that.

I actually have some pet projects ideas that I'm starting to work on, I'm learning Unity now as we speak, I guess my main worry is that I will need to do at least a Computer Science degree in a developed country to actually get past the first round of tests before a job interview.

Deleted member 13370 · Nov 21, 2018

You should absolutely finish your degree, having a traditional career to fall back on is really important in an industry as volatile as this. Later on Computer Science is probably the best way to go, and make some small games and prototypes in your spare time to get an understanding of intricacies of how game development differs from general application development.

Kopite said:
The impression I get is that the development sector of the Video Game industry isn't necessarily a fun one to work in even if you like games. Even if you get through the generally unreasonable work hours and so, you could just be stuck doing stuff like making sure bushes and stuff look good which is probably a far cry from what you might initially expect.

I can't speak for the American industry as I work in Europe, but I strongly disagree with this. There is a lot of hard work and that's not reflected in your paycheck, but releasing a game is a fantastic experience which I doubt you would get from delivering an expense tracking application or customer database. (Not that that work can't be fun too, programming is super rewarding but not for everyone)
I wouldn't blindly recommend the industry to anyone, but I would without a doubt recommend it as long as you have a realistic understanding of what the actual work is like.

VFX_Veteran · Nov 21, 2018

The gaming industry (as well as the tech industry as a whole) is over-the-top competitive. It's ridiculous actually. Not implying that my experience is the standard but I've had a comp science since 1999. Worked several years in the film industry and have had the most difficult time getting into the gaming industry. Nearly all of them give timed programming tests and whiteboard interviews that involve optimizing code in front of several other programmers. Some people are good at this, but others aren't. I would be OK with this kind of tactic if the salaries were as competitive as the film companies average salary but sadly they aren't even close.

Pursue the degree no matter what. You can use it outside of the gaming industry.

soul · Nov 21, 2018

skurk said:
I can't speak for the American industry as I work in Europe, but I strongly disagree with this. There is a lot of hard work and that's not reflected in your paycheck, but releasing a game is a fantastic experience which I doubt you would get from delivering an expense tracking application or customer database. (Not that that work can't be fun too, programming is super rewarding but not for everyone)
I wouldn't blindly recommend the industry to anyone, but I would without a doubt recommend it as long as you have a realistic understanding of what the actual work is like.

There are so many interesting projects that involve programming outside of the gaming community, not everyone are working in the mobile industry.
Every field has its own unique traits.

As a gamer/developer myself, I get OP's appeal to work in the gaming industry.
I'm not familiar with a CIS degree myself, but every company needs an IT engineer and if you are into active development&IT, the latest field that includes pretty much both, is DevOps.

TitanicFall · Nov 21, 2018

CIS graduate here. You're probably going to get ignored not having the Computer Science major if you want to be a software developer at a big gaming corporation. However I think it's a flexible major that's worth having especially if you want to branch off from a developer role. However I have no desire to make games like you do. I'd finish out the degree if you're close to being done, and then get a Masters in Computer Science.

Deleted member 13370 · Nov 21, 2018

Another thing - if you can find game jams to attend near you, you should! They're a great way to understand the dynamics of working within a team and on a time constraint, while being very cheap in terms of money, time commitment and consequences of failure. And they're great for networking, especially if the concept of networking and mingling makes you panic, since you get a practical task to solve and work together with. Everyone who wants to get into the industry should seek out game jams.

soul said:
There are so many interesting projects that involve programming outside of the gaming community, not everyone are working in the mobile industry.
Every field has its own unique traits.

I wasn't referring specifically to mobile development, but I assume you thought so based on me using the word "application", which makes sense. What I was referring to was the general development of software other than games, but I can't think of a good term other than application and software, and the latter feels maybe too broad.
I absolutely agree that there's a lot of cool stuff to work on, and programming is fun in the sense that even if the end product isn't interesting (such as expense management...) the actual work of making it can still be really interesting and rewarding.

Marossi · Nov 21, 2018

skurk said:
You should absolutely finish your degree, having a traditional career to fall back on is really important in an industry as volatile as this. Later on Computer Science is probably the best way to go, and make some small games and prototypes in your spare time to get an understanding of intricacies of how game development differs from general application development.

Thank you for the input, I guess it's the obvious answer since it has a plan B with it attached in case things don't go well with the gaming industry, since you said, it's really volatile. I'm gravitating towards doing exactly what you said.

VFX_Veteran said:
The gaming industry (as well as the tech industry as a whole) is over-the-top competitive. It's ridiculous actually. Not implying that my experience is the standard but I've had a comp science since 1999. Worked several years in the film industry and have had the most difficult time getting into the gaming industry. Nearly all of them give timed programming tests and whiteboard interviews that involve optimizing code in front of several other programmers. Some people are good at this, but others aren't. I would be OK with this kind of tactic if the salaries were as competitive as the film companies average salary but sadly they aren't even close.

Pursue the degree no matter what. You can use it outside of the gaming industry.

I feel like this is not exclusive to the gaming industry, IT also has this stuff happening to a certain extent, it's crazy but it's the way they roll I guess.

skurk said:
Another thing - if you can find game jams to attend near you, you should! They're a great way to understand the dynamics of working within a team and on a time constraint, while being very cheap in terms of money, time commitment and consequences of failure. And they're great for networking, especially if the concept of networking and mingling makes you panic, since you get a practical task to solve and work together with. Everyone who wants to get into the industry should seek out game jams.

You literally read my mind, I was just thinking about this.

TitanicFall said:
CIS graduate here. You're probably going to get ignored not having the Computer Science major if you want to be a software developer at a big gaming corporation. However I think it's a flexible major that's worth having especially if you want to branch off from a developer role. However I have no desire to make games like you do. I'd finish out the degree if you're close to being done, and then get a Masters in Computer Science.

This is what I'm afraid of, at least it's a worth having in case things don't work out for me in the gaming industry. I'm still not close to being done, I just finished my freshman year, still more 3 years to go, but I feel like I still should finish it for having a safe backup plan in case everything goes sour.

SweetJohnnyCage · Nov 21, 2018

I am not a developer, but I do work for a company in the games industry as a business development manager. We're a startup, so I talk with our dev team on a daily basis. None of them have game development degrees, but do have degrees in all facets of computer engineering and software development. I've done work with a lot of game devs and publishers, and I can tell you that a degree does go a long way, but so does experience. We have a couple people from Brazil in my company who worked for mobile game developers in the country before joining us remotely. Brazil may not be the greatest country for game dev jobs, but I wouldn't totally ignore the opportunities there at mobile devs since it will get you some valuable experience that you can then use to go elsewhere more easily.

I say finish your degree and then find an opportunity where you can learn, then transfer that new knowledge to a bigger company, and hopefully get to Europe or the US.

Terbinator · Nov 21, 2018

Continue with the degree, get a Github/similar started, try and get placement years sorted in industry (anything S/W or Game related).

mrprime · Nov 21, 2018

Games industry cares very little for degrees and paper qualifications. Recruitment in games tends to be portfolio heavy, and having games you've made yourself as a portfolio item is significantly more powerful than your paper qualification.

What's important is to enjoy what you do, rather than just being in it for the end product - if you're a programmer, you need to enjoy the problem and the process - not just that it's ultimately going to end up in a game.

Also, subjective, but I don't find that working in games has done anything to diminish my enjoyment of games, so personally I wouldn't worry about that.

IMO, get your degree, and keep as many doors open for yourself as possible, you never know where life may take you.

Velocity:Design:Comfort · Nov 21, 2018

TitanicFall said:
CIS graduate here. You're probably going to get ignored not having the Computer Science major if you want to be a software developer at a big gaming corporation. However I think it's a flexible major that's worth having especially if you want to branch off from a developer role. However I have no desire to make games like you do. I'd finish out the degree if you're close to being done, and then get a Masters in Computer Science.

What would you say is more important: having that Comp Sci degree, or having prototypes, games, demos, or even shipped/delivered games on Steam or for free dl? I am sort of in OP's boat myself except my degree is not in a technical field and I have finished it. (I understand scripting languages and am intermediate at Unity/C# though)

justiceiro · Nov 21, 2018

Finish your degree man. And also, in my Facebook feed, I literally see work in Canada ads every week, and from what I see, a lot of them is for game development in Montreal.

The only reason to change courses would be if you want to make a game or studio all by yourself. I suppose you can do your tcc in game development too, no?

Velocity:Design:Comfort · Nov 21, 2018

Your English seems really great OP, that is already a huge advantage for you I bet. Good luck on everything.

Nax · Nov 21, 2018

Focus on just general software development first - full-stack web applications, etc. There will be too many jobs to count in that area for the foreseeable future. And try out game development on the side. Make the switch once you can support it; most of the time, game development is tough-going.

TitanicFall · Nov 21, 2018

Velocity:Design:Comfort said:
What would you say is more important: having that Comp Sci degree, or having prototypes, games, demos, or even shipped/delivered games on Steam or for free dl? I am sort of in OP's boat myself except my degree is not in a technical field and I have finished it. (I understand scripting languages and am intermediate at Unity/C# though)

Depends on the company, and the HR department. Most resumes aren't read by humans. If you don't have the degree you run the risk of being automatically filtered out by their resume parameters. The portfolio might matter more if you put it in front of someone that actually takes the time to read it. That's why it pays to know someone who can get your resume in front of the right people.

IMBCIT · Nov 21, 2018

I was in your position when I was your age. I ended up dropping getting into games development and transitioned into IT after I went to work when I left college.

I was able to get the IT manager position at my company after being there for 4 years and the programming knowledge I got from my CS schooling helped give me a leg up compared to others in the department as some of our systems are able to be customized using C#.

My big dream growing up was to work at Blizzard as I live in SoCal but horror stories of game dev and crunch led me away from game development. If ypu want to stick with programming general software development is my preferred choice as there is always demand for that. My stepfather was a senior software programmer for about 10 years and he was able to land a job at Nike as a director of technical architecture.

His career path influenced me to get away from games as the IT field, while stressful at times, is very manageable and flexible compared to games development.

IT/CIS Degree in the Gaming Industry?

Marossi

Iyagovos

Marossi

Iyagovos

Trace

Kopite

Dr. Mario

Marossi

soul

kenta

Ryan.

Prophet of Truth

Marossi

Deleted member 13370

VFX_Veteran

soul

TitanicFall

Deleted member 13370

Marossi

SweetJohnnyCage

Terbinator

mrprime

Velocity:Design:Comfort

justiceiro

Velocity:Design:Comfort

Nax

Hero of Bowerstone

TitanicFall

IMBCIT