I'm a comp sci major and my school offers absolutely nothing related to game development. The only things we ever work on with regards to programming are boring database(banking, accounting, etc.) projects. I took a look on Full Sail's website at their degree program for game development and almost shed tears. They are teaching things that I can only wish my school would teach; directx, openGL, 3D engines, Win32 API, etc.
Now granted I could learn most of that stuff from self-teaching books, which is the route I'll have to take anyway seeing as how my school doesn't teach anything related to game development, I somehow doubt books would offer the same learning experience.
So how are degrees in Game Development/Design regarded? Because until someone tells me they are a joke and a waste of time, jealous Yoda is.
Name:
Anonymous2007-01-04 1:21
It's a joke. And you're even more stupid if you believe that DirectX has anything to do with games... Shit, IHBT.
Name:
Anonymous2007-01-04 1:26
From the outside, they're considered a joke. I have no idea about inside the industry.
I took a number of game-oriented subjects at university, but I would never admit that to a potential employer. Instead I show them some "demos" I coded "in my spare time" if that's the sort of thing they're interested in.
You're better off getting an all-round education. Game dev is a fast-moving field, and much of what you learn today won't be relevant in a few years.
Name:
Anonymous2007-01-04 1:30
i wanna be a game designer too. full sail send you A LOT of shit when you ask for info in the mail.
Name:
Anonymous2007-01-04 6:19
No one can really teach you good game design mainly because not many people (especially those who make and sell them) have absolutely any idea what good game design is. Programming yes they can teach you, graphical shit yeah they can teach you that, but how to take abtract concepts of varying levels of interactivity and turn them into something even playable is something you just have to either know for yourself or experiment until you get it right. Of course, in order to even try to do so yourself, you'll need the programming ability.
Name:
Anonymous2007-01-04 16:30
If you want to work on games, then pick a specialization. Modern games have programmers for the graphics and game engines (they usually just tie together licensed stuff like scene graphs and game engines), programmers that create tools for the artists to use to create content for the engine, and a shitload of artists.
Name:
Anonymous2007-01-04 19:28
I think a better idea is to concentrate on your math.
There are plenty of coders. There aren't that many who dream in numbers. If you have a solid grasp on that, there are plenty of other interesting things open to you, not just game development.
Name:
Anonymous2007-01-06 6:46
I live in Vancouver and have met a couple of people who have taken game programming courses and gotten jobs in the industry. If you have a background in math or programming (university degree, or at least a couple of years of courses) and you take one of those game programming degrees, you have a very good shot of getting a job.
And I'm not saying that as a stupid 4chan catchphrase.
I slept in my college math courses and now I regret it. Writing graphics systems isn't impossible and I do indeed do it, but it is a mental uphill battle to program any of the math-heavy stuff I'm unfamiliar with because I was a flakey, lazy student in all things math.