3 questions for those of you who work in the Industry

[clyde]

Basically I'm no where near where my 19-year-old self would have expected me to be.  But I doubt I would give him any advice if I had the chance to talk with him.  The good, the bad, the ugly, the glorious all helped get me to a point that I'm really happy with. 

 

This is true for me also. There are some awful things that happened and also ineffable ecstasies. Both were necessary to become who I am. If I had known the stuff I know now, I would have never taken some of the risks that allowed for this all. Not that everyone made it out alive. There is definitely some survivorship-bias to consider when getting the perspectives of older folk.

[Murdoc]

1. What do you like most about your job? Why? I like the sense of accomplishment within my own individual work. When given the freedom to do what I do best, it's great. I like being creative, making art and doing cool things, so when that gets to happen, even with long work hours, I feel pretty good about myself.
2. What do you like least about your job? Why? The fact that being creative, making art and cool things only happens about 1-10% of the time while most of it is fire fighting, headaches, and long, long hours because of bureaucratic headless chickens.
3. What advice would you give your 19 year old self? I went to a game design school when I was 17, I think I took a year off to re-evaluate what I would need to get into the industry, so by 19, I was probably applying for 3D animation. Right now, I would tell my self to stay out of school, keep working, do different jobs, and wait until I was 25. I know if I never went into the industry I'd probably be on this forum lamenting about never doing it, but I'm 31 now and I know I won't survive another 2-5 year production cycle, life has taken it's toll and I need a career change

 

(Not to sound like a downer, I used to teach and mentor people at a couple colleges and it's pretty clear the big corporate, stable jobs in the games industry aren't going to be around in abundance, with so many schools churning out very talented people, it's a tough industry and the people that make it in will be chewed up. Maybe this is my idealistic nature talking, but if I was going to school today for games, which I would tell my 19 year old self not to do, but if I did it despite that advice, I'd tell myself to take the courses that would gear me for independent development. Which isn't to say that's a cake walk or there is anymore of a sustainable future in it)