My Advice to You/ Penny Arcade Expo

I was doing  my  usual browsing of the game development resource site  Gamsutra.com  which  is part of the  CMP Media network that runs  the Game Developers Conference and  and  Game Developer Magazine when I found this article about using  post secondary education as a way to prepare to enter the game industry.

I am currently a senior in an undergraduate game design program and have found it to be one of the strangest experiences I have ever had. On the one hand, our education has been based heavily on everything traditional with the added bonus of having project based classes on game design. However, I've found that this traditional structure only undermines our attempt to succeed at game projects. The game design classes themselves have been quite helpful but that does you little good if you are left with no time to apply those skills that you obtain.

And right now, as I tour about the country via our nations under-funded passenger rail system, I have to wonder if my job hunt which is forcing me to take online classes to finish up, is really going anywhere. I mean yes I have learned things in the past two and a half years but is it really enough?

Anyone who chooses to look into a career in game design should do some serious thinking before they decide they want to invest in post secondary education. When I was going to a JC that I half cared about I was lucky enough to have lunch with one of the industry's most prominent designers and it seemed like getting a job within that company would have been likely had I had the guts to stick around. Over two years later, I got a tour of a prominent development house up here in WA and although the chances of me working with them seemed good, I had to stick with what was safe and move to San Diego so I could be close to the school while still meeting their degree requirements.

I don't know if there is a lesson in all of this. I would think that there has to be. Maybe it's that the work we do as developers doesn't lend itself real well to a college environment. Or maybe it's that you should know the risks of making a commitment before you do so. But whatever the case is the heart of the matter is anything that you commit to comes with a price. I just wonder if I'll be able to "earn out" from the cost of going to college for Game Design.

The Penny Arcade Expo went well. There was a small expo floor and two theaters where GDC style talks were held. Although I didn�t really partake in it, there was also a host of gaming competitions being held in the convention centre which offered the gamer a chance to mess around between learning about indie games, the state of the game industry, Red vs. Blue, or the makings of the famous Penny Arcade comic strip. Next year the show is to be held in Seattle proper so that should make travel a bit easier for those who choose to take planes or trains to the convention.

 

Big industry shows like E3 are being reworked to appeal to the business side of things and while some maybe crying, smaller shows like PAX, AGF and GDC offer gamers, developers and media personal a better chance to converge and share information so we can continue to further our way of life.

I�ve made a few site updates. Here is hoping that you like them. If anyone would like to help me make the site look nice please let me know. My battle with CSS isn't going well silly Tim Berners-Lee and his HTML why can�t we all use something simple like a pdf maker?