Should You Go To College For Game Dev? My Experience 

I say, go to college to get a computer science degree. Get good at mathematics. Get good at software engineering. Get good at working on teams with people. Get good at leadership. Get good at project management. Video games are a subset of software development, and the general principles of software development apply to games development. If you eventually get out of the game dev business, you still have a very valuable degree you can fall back on for jobs in the software development industry. Stay the hell away from any school or program focusing exclusively on game development. If you ignore this advice, at least look at the industry experience of your teachers. Are they just a tenured slob who couldn't program asteroids? or have they shipped multiple titles? Also ask hard questions: Why are they teaching instead of making games? Also remember, nothing is fucking free. There's always an angle people are using to try to get money or benefits out of someone else. If you don't think you're paying, think again. There are tons of shady schools with "get rich quick" programs designed to lure in stupid kids and get rich off of them.

I'm very glad I didn't go to college,so many people told me too "I'll learn more". I finished High school in 2011, wasn't sure what to do with my life, I wanted to make games since I was 3, but never thought I could ever do it. in 2013 I was smacked in the face with inspiration all of a sudden, so I went with it, downloaded Unity, blender, UDK, learnt to make games in both engines and was learning 3D art. 3D art is my strong suit today, and now in 2017, thinking of my first commercial title, I made roughly 12 little games to help learn, and I move from project to project WAY too much which messed me up, by 2014 I talked to people who dropped out of college for game design or graduated, and I knew way more than they did, they spent 4 years, I spent 1 year. I am a solo dev, and glad I went that way because learning every aspect really helps with understanding over all design, I feel I made a good decision, and if I went to school for game design, I probably would have finished not wanting to make games, but 4 years strong, still going :)

Yup. I'm a graduating student who took a game development course. Needless to say, I should've dropped out on my first year and started creating a damn game. But it's not all that bad, I met good people and my girlfriend through it so I'm at least thankful for that. But as for learning actual game creation, I'd suggest people to skip it and just focus on improving the skills that you want to get. I've wasted 4 years of my life when I could've just sat down and got more experience making games.

in sweden we have free education an outr game dev/design schools are quite good in the first week you have to make small 2d game with a group and it's really educational

I also went, except I was a video game art major, and I also determined that it was a waste of time and money. You end up teaching yourself everything anyway, so why pay money to sit in a classroom and learn it there?

i dropped out my school this year, i am on my existence minimum right now(19yrs) and in the last 6 month i was learning myself to program the game i had in my mind. the progress i have made was huge, i am about to release my game until the end of this year and even if i don't know if my game gets it's success which i want it to have, i can say that breaking my school was the right way because everything i need to know i teach myself .

It REALLY depends on the school you're going 'cause it sounds like you went to a shit one. To put things into context, i come from French Polynesia, worse, from Rangiroa and i knew nothing, i mean Jackshit, about anything related to Video Games dev. Anyway, i didn't wanted to spend 3 years studying useless things. So i went for a private College and ended up going to Inter-DEC College of Montréal in Canada for an 1 year accelerated training. Why Canada ? Well, because despite what people might say it is the Video Games Capital. And it was worth the shot. I was trained by professionals in the industry, some works with EA, Ubisoft, BeHaviour and some indie studios like Too Much sugar (one of the founder was my Level/Game Design teacher). They gave me the tools and all the basics (Animation, Texture, 3D Modeling, VFX, Level/Game Design, etc.) i needed to think by myself and to specialize in something i really wanted to do. But that's not just that, of course. I also ended up with a small team (we were 9) and most of use were already mature enough to not act like immatures brats. We never had any problems into voicing our opinions but most of all, putting our ego aside for the greater good: The Team (because at the end of the year we had to make a full game in less than 3 months). What happened then ? We all graduated with honors while the other english group failed to deliver the final project because they couldn't just be a team because of their ego. Almost everyone of us found a job in the industry including me, and we still keep in touch and help each other out from time to time. I failed a lot, but it's part of the process and the game developping world is just wonderful. I never regretted my choices. Going to a College also gives you the good methodology and the fundamental knowledge to build a solid basis ; and an environment with people ; where you can thrive. If anything i would recommand you Inter-DEC Montréal (too much expensive for what it is though), NAD center (3 years programm but they have partnership with big names like Ubisoft/Gameloft), or IsArt ; to name a few.

I'm gonna be honest, I went to game dev school here in the Philippines, and I'll tell you at first I wasn't learning shit and It really got me scared cause it looked like I wasn't going to absorb anything from this school. When I finally got to the major subjects (specifically Game Programming), I don't know why but I got EXTREMELY motivated when my professor taught me how to do Unity. For the first time I was actually making a game out of my own hands, and it felt incredible. I was learning C# like crazy! It made me feel like a code wizard (even though my codes look pretty basic if you ask me). It also helped that my professor was really good at teaching programming. That was the point in my life that I finally got a direction on how game development works. It made my dream to make video games a possible reality. After that however, that was pretty much it. When I was done with all the programming subjects, I felt like I needed to know more. So I self studied. I was ignoring the crap out of my minor subjects (ex. English, Psychology, Theology etc.), and I was purely focused on my youtube tutorials. I'll tell you right now.. I learned WAY more from those tutorials than I did in school. While I was in my senior year, the school gave me an opportunity to work on a game for thesis. My game then went on to get nominated for Game of the Year in the National Awards for local creatives. I'm not gonna lie, but I actually did get something out of my school. But mostly because of what I've learned from my own. To keep the story short, Going to Game School gave me a good direction on game dev, but that's just it. A direction. The rest was all up to me. I can't 100% say I regret going to Game School, but if I had the power to go back in time to tell my high school self on what to do for his future, I'd tell him to start learning Unity on his own while he's still young (and with the sufficient amount of energy XD) and tell him to pursue a Degree in Computer Science. That I believe would've been the better case scenario.

I go to school at AAU for Game Development and I can honestly say its taken my development skills to a whole new level. I haven't released anything yet, and am only about 2 years deep into my degree, but I can honestly say it was one of the better decisions I have made so far.

I went to a traditional 4 year college for computer science. I really wanted to make games, but I had compromised to settle on a "real" job in programming. I ended up transitioning into and IT degree because A) Calc II was a big brick wall for me for some reason, and B) the classes kind of killed my passion for programming. The degree definitely helped me get non-dev jobs, and the social benefit of college was awesome, but it certainly didn't inspire me to be a developer.

Teach yourself to code (as the poster did) and do a Games DESIGN course, will give you the creation process , social ties and contacts. I graduated but I entered the course expecting to be taught everything the rest of my course were animators/graphic designers/modelers etc and half of my graduating year work on the lego game series now. A friend on the same Uni's Games Dev course told me students were dropping out in the first year as they already knew coding and had gotten jobs.

Graz University of Technology, my sister's university, has a major where you actually make games. You get assignments to analyse games, and you get grouped together with other people to create a game at the end of the semester. They also frequently have business insiders (like Josh Sawyer from Obsidian Ent., or the creatore of Assassin's Creed) come over to talk about the game dev culture. And the best thing: this university is almost for free!

So I'm about to finish high school (I'm 16 now), I like game development much (almost finshed my first mobile game). I thought I'd need to go to college in order for companies to hire me, because you know, certificates and stuff. Do you think game development companies would hire people who didn't go to college, but who did make their own game. and thus having experience?

I go to Wits in South Africa, they are to the point about making games. 1st year they focus on board games & the later years is digital games. can't remember the last time I had a lecture, it's more practical. It's versatile: you learn comic book creation & animation for the BA side & a while electrical engineering degree for the BEng side.

I am agree with you. College is just waste of time and money. Its only tech about fundamentals . I also dropout of college because they teach me only theory not actual programming or coding.

honestly these have been my thoughts for so long. This video inspires the fuck out of me. Sorry you had to learn the hard way, I appreciate you sharing your experiences for others to learn from

thanks for saving me the 50,000 bucks. you’re a very wise man

I'm at my ten year mark of my military career and have very recently started trying to make a game. I've used WC3 world editor , modded torchlight 2, and am now using RPG maker MV. I mention the military thing because I can stay for another ten years and collect retirement, or go to college and get a degree for game designing. I have a story I want to tell and have loved games my whole life. This story I want to tell would best be told through a video game but I feel like I put my dreams aside to serve in the military. This whole video was something I really needed to hear. The timing is perfect, and the experience you describe resonates with what some of my friend s who went to college for game design have said. So thank you for sharing your experience and opinion on this. I'll stick out my career but like you said a few times, imma make a fucking game.

New sub. This resonate so well with me. 7 published games, 50k+ in college debt and 1 week left at Devry in Design and I felt like Ive learnt nothing. I take that bavk I learnt 1 thing never go to college for design in any form. Its good to have the paper but experience and a portfolio is number one. College is for medical and criminal justice. I bought books and learn Java myself then came across libGDX which I made all 7 games with now I decided I need to get games out faster and I recently came across the Defold game Engine as well as Unreal but Im still in the learning process with unreal

Glad you are giving advice and sharing your experience. I feel bad for everyone who gets scammed by this "school system" and it's only getting worse. Great advice!

Damn, I'm so thankful I found your channel. I'm 17 and still have a year of school left. And I decided to create my first complete game this summer. And i am probably not going to take a game design course when i'm finished. I probably study physics then. Maybe I then can get a job as VFX supervisor for realistic effects. I love effects and fancy stuff. ^-^

My online graduate degree in cs was incredible; but only because I've been traveling the world and I was able to stay focused on ai and software development. Each person's experience will be totally different, but I agree DeVry isn't the best example for game dev. Glad you made it passed the bs and you got out of LA, I left in 2017 and never looked back :)

Thanks for making this. My experience hasn't been too different, but I want to clarify that for me, the problem has been bigger than just problematic colleges; a lot of books written on the subject are also pretty bad, and I've had issues with a coding boot camp and some video tutorials I took, too. I have a mind to write a list of bad things to watch out for in bad education, because unfortunately there is a lot of it.

Awesome video Tim. You are a therapist ! I love how you said it at the end.: ... Maaafakinn engiines....It gives me the power of inspiration! :)I was just stuck on thinking about this and you take me out in the reality again. Thank you ! Your's the most useful channel about game dev. I found so far ! I will keep coming back on this video just to refresh myself with positiveness .

Then...what now? I know i can rely on game dev as my one job and must prepare for the future but... i just don't know what to do as a part time or side job because there are many things yo could do, I'm still at my first year in college taking a computer science degree, no one in it really cares for the game aspect so I'm trying to do 2 things: 1. Learn Game Dev myself, experiment with its elements and see in which aspect of it I'm good at. 2. Try to find a side hobby that will benefit me for whenever I'm unemployed as an Game Dev. If anyone can answer i would appreciate it so much.

So, im taking a major in interior design right now and its starting to feel like a chore taking this course. Actually deep in my heart i have a passion for game development and animation. The first day i went to college i wanted to take animation with game design but then my parents convienced me that int. Design has a better job prospect and its needed where im at. And i felt that too, so then i thought i should just take int. Design but learn animation/game design on my spare time. But its already 2 semester now and i havent accomplished anything. Anyone know where i should start?

Man... I was legit looking up for online colleges before I found this. You got me motivated to finish the tutorials I have found online.

I graduated from DeVry with a Game and Simulation Development degree in early 2017. It turned me off of game development because of the terrible education it gave me. I ended up working for business software companies as a project manager. Recently found your channel here in 2022 because I want to get back into game development as a side job. In the hopes it can be my main career as an Indie developer. The senior level classes at DeVry cover(ed) more of project management and high level game development stuff you wanted to learn. The whole education path was a mis-mash of different parts of making a game. The overarching education didn't have a good direction.

You know I honestly feel the same about college and making video games. It has been my dream to make games but I always felt like i needed to wait to go to college. You are totally right though I'm glad I watched this video. I need to learn how to program to start I found a free course online hopefully that helps. BTW also watched a few of your other videos must say love the advice! Thanks

can you show us your games ?

dude, love you. okay, back to my extreme overdue project

Man... I'm so glad you said this. It makes me feel a little better about the path I'm taking. I had a VERY similar experience except I never got to get to the video game courses. I felt a LOT of the same emotions that you did. Thanks for making this video man. Really. I don't know how old you are exactly, I'm 25. I wish I had started learning the practical skills sooner too. My dad said the same things and me, not really knowing anything about life other than the fact that I wanted to bring games to gamers just kinda went with it, thinking it was the sensible path. Well, 12k in debt a year later, and with no practical skills or way to afford further classes I had to drop out. I was lost for a while. I tried to do a lot of things. I even moved to Georgia to try to get into realty, hoping that I could use it as a means to fund my video game development later on. Unfortunately Georgia has laws that excludes anyone with a defaulted debt of any sort from obtaining a realty license and I only learned of this near the end of the course. I was lost for a long time, depressed and unsure what to even do with my life anymore. I thought of the possibility that I might have to work as a cashier for the rest of my life. But I started some cheap online courses to teach me the basics of Unity and the next courses I'm gonna take will give me the basics of C# FOR game development IN Unity. I feel like I'm finally making progress. It was a long and painful ride here and there's still more to go but your video has given me some hope that if I really apply myself here and work on these skills then I can at least live a normal life and pay the bills.

Can I break into the big game industries like ubisoft,activision,EA,gameloft and Microsoft without a computer science degree?????

11 years ago I finished a games degree, riiiiight before the financial crisis. Needless to say, 11 years later, I'm only just now getting into game making.

Hey man, just wanted to give you some input. I went to SNHU from 2011-2015 for Game Design and Development, and I think it had already improved from your experience. My first two years were an absolute joke unfortunately, but the professor responsible got fired. My last two years were better, taking classes for animation, character design with 3DS Max and ZBrush, and a few general courses with Unity and Unreal Engine. I have to say I wasn't in a good place in life at the time, so I applied myself a bare minimum and didn't expect to want to even touch a computer by the time I graduated. So for me personally it wasn't worth the $30k (including hefty scholarships) debt when I could have taught myself more on RU-vid in my basement. On the flip side, there were so many great resources at my disposal had I only really tried to dig in. Ed Brilant is an amazing animation and modeling professor and I still stop in to chat and maintain a connection. We had access to 3D printers, a VR Dev kit, constant game jams, indie clubs, and presentations from people in the indie and AAA industry. I passed on most of this, but even then I came away with some good friends and contacts that I still bounce ideas off of for potential future projects, and it seems like the program is only getting better and better. To anyone who is considering college, give SNHU a shot and take advantage of EVERYTHING. I'm sure plenty of people could just use RU-vid and Google as teachers but actually being in that environment gives you access to people, ideas, and in my case programs like ZBrush and Photoshop which I would have had trouble affording out of pocket. Thanks again for these great videos!

Dang. Mine has been great tbh. We had no english or other corses before it, we got right into it. Also we get to make two complete games. For these two games we work with all the other students from other courses like the 3d modelers, audio kids, animators, ect.. Most of my instructors have been very knowledgable as well. But overall i find nothing is better for learning than working with other real people. I think you just got a bit unlucky my guy. Also the connections are worth a lot. And as much as people would like to deny it you need marketing and connections. You can make the best game ever and it can flop.

I knew I wanted to make games since I was 5. Coming out the gates with great experiences like Conkers Bad Fur Day, Mario 64, Super Smash Bros., Sly Cooper, Kingdom Hearts, Sonic Battle 2 Adventure. Keep in mind some of those came out at different times, but it built up my dreams of wanting to create games and giving people great experiences they'll never forget. Now even more inspired after watching your videos. Though you may never even see this comment. *Still watching* Holy shi-, did you said DeVry university? Bro, I'm also in DeVry University!! They didn't have the game course by the time I enrolled, so I went with the second best option... MD&D. Not what I needed, but it was something I wanted to learn. But before college- back in high school during my sophomore year. I've been learning how to make games using RPG Maker VX Ace and I have lived through many of the topics you've discussed in many of your videos. I think I'm going to waste a whole lot of money and time in a degree that wasn't specifically in the skills I wanted to learn with the motivation I was not ready to be invested into, along with the...huge future debt I'll have to pay back. Everyone always says to go to college and get a degree, it'll help you through life. To a degree, their correct, and at the same time, I known people who are still paying that debt off. Be it in a low end job or unable to find a place to hire them. Mostly being teachers I met and people a few years out of college. I believe college is not for everyone. It's for those who need a kick in the ass, being told to wake up, and forced to focus being dangled a degree that works like a Pokeball (that works less than half the time of it's known purpose) and the constant fear of a giant debt they'll have to pay back for many years to come. Though I plan on finishing it by Jan 2019 (been in for 3+ years) and hopefully my first working game I can be proud of before then. Maybe even a couple. I'm getting rid of being a shiny collector of game ideas and concepts. Sticking to one currently until I've finished "half" of it. I can agree DeVry University...is mostly as you described.

2018 and you still gotta waste 2 years before you make games...

i love this guy,you have saved me. I hope you are happy .i really mean it.

I had a similar experience through one of the art institutes. I still wake up in a cold sweat remembering the horrible classes and shady practices and it was nearly 8 years ago.

My problem is not knowing exactly what major to go in because there's no specific major just for game designing or developing. Most colleges near me provides mostly communication desgin or communication illustration so I'm stuck.

dude i am 2 and a half years into studiyng IT. The game courses at other universities here in germany are freaking expensive. So i had to go with normal IT. Hearing you talking about your experiences helped me a lot, thank you for that

I am working hard trying to become a game dev and eventually own my own studio myself

Lovely content! Keep it up!

College does have its uses. Talking to successful game developers, its amazing how many of them have degrees in totally different areas. I knew this gamedev who made a drifting game and had a background in automotive design or something. Myself and one of the guys who made Towns have backgrounds in Botany and so much of that goes into my games. It must be so difficult putting together a degree in a field that changes fashionably and technologically every ten minutes.

I'm in my first year, game dev -2D graphics, not because I think the course is gonna make me a game guru, but because I want the uni experience. Also, being here gives me a lot of opportunities to meet a lot of studios and companies, as well as aid in creating my own studio. Sweden Game Conference is in the same town (Skövde) and we get like 90% off when we buy the ticket which is normally ~ €200, so only there is a big opportunity. We also actually create games here. A lot of former students present their games from the last year in the conference. Every school is not a good fit for each individual, but it's more than just the practical most of the time. Some schools just entirely suck, though, I guess.

thanks tim for your help and advice i ve just recieved your email about dropping school and the fact we become a real developper game by practice , coding daily games , so im really interested in the content you sharing with us 👍keep up bro by the way i ve just started learning making games from scratch in c# unity so hope you the best and success have a good day

Yup, I dropped out a Master Degree basically because I spent too much time thinking "ok, the last course was just one step, so this one is one step further, and when I finish a PhD I probably will have enough knowledge to make good games". Turns out that after 2 degrees, and half a master degree, nothing were actually leading me to MAKE F*CKIN GAMES, they were leading me to academic stuff, and research, and scientific methods and that academy bullsh*t. Then I dropped out, from my Professor job, which I made some savings, and started this, Pigdev Studio, after 2 years I'm still trying to figure out how to make actual money from it, thanks to you I already have lots of insights about it, but now I can securely say: I have the skills AND the balls, to make games. So the next step is just to use this skill to solve people's problems and make a living out of it. And I agree so much with you that I feel really bad thinking "what could I have achieved if I dropped in the first degree and actually dig into game development?". But these are thoughts that don't push me back anymore, they did in the last year or two, but not anymore.

thanks for the video.

I enjoyed going to the college for game development. I got a lot of new connections, got smashed a thousand times and got a chance to study abroad for a while.

Doing this, could I eventually get a job at a big third party company like EA, or Ubisoft or something? I’m 16 by the way... So I’m just try figuring out what I need to do, to do that.

wonderful and honest video amazing to see on youtube in this day and age,.,, good on you

Wish this advice was around when I signed on the dotted line. Damn. Almost 40 and I still have the bug for wanting to make games but feel it maybe too late. :(

Honestly game dev college or whatever you want to call its more you do stuff they judges you basically which IS Incredibly important but if you want to actually learn how to code and stuff your kinda have to learn it on your own which is kinda the hard part in the college

None of the things I learned about game dev were in college. Not saying college was worthless, it was helpful to learn how to code. But after you get the basics of object-oriented programming down, if you want to be a game dev, it's best to just jump into it from there. I tried taking game design courses on Coursera and Udemy, but nothing helped me as much as trying to just do it and figure it out as I went. Experience is the best teacher

Although college may not meet all your advanced learning expectancy I believe a large part of game dev college is the connections and help with a portfolio to help get a job, and while yes they do try to get you to get a job it helps both you for experience and helps them with a higher job rate, and that college does sound pretty sh** ngl ---

College is a waste of money and time unless you're in it for S.T.E.M Degree. If you're interested in doing game dev, you need to: self study + reach out directly to a game dev; pay them to mentor/teach you + purchase courses designed to teach game dev; nothing else.

I plan on going to college, getting a degree in Computer Science and some other related fields, and try to find a job for that. STEM Careers are plentiful, so it shouldn't be too hard. I'd also thinking about making a game or two as a passion project on the side, as a hobby. If that goes well, maybe I'd use the funds to make more games, hire people to work with me, and(hopefully) eventually start up a small development studio. I pray for this nightly.

They will never taught u to make games i am experiencing same this year final semester in bachelor computer science.....all we do is print "hello world" in different language 😂😂😂

I am Majoring in Computer Science and Game Development - which is 3 year degree. The sum of the tuition fees would cost, where I'm living, 1 decent brand new car... And it's a good solid degree. You said you could buy 4-5 cars, where you live, with your tuition fees. Fees in the States in general are so crazy.

I enrolled at University for game dev a few years back. Silliest shit I've ever done - and I've done a lot of dumb shit. I was expected to do 2 years of film and creative writing before I went anywhere NEAR game dev. I had to drop out as my work ran out of kitchen staff and I had to go full time. I was pissed at the time but I'm glad it happened - 2 years later, instead of only just getting started I had a product up and selling on the Unreal Engine Marketplace.

All you need is practice, same as creating anything else.

I'd say for this the issue is more to do with it being at a "for profit" university like Devry there are actual universities that teach game design. In the UK the best would be Staffordshire, Abertay, Hertfordshire if you want Russell group then Southampton. Many uni's here too are not decent but yeah i'd say the issues he had were mostly because of where studied as opposed to the course. In the US you have Ivy league university Penn, and Cornell teaching game courses other great US uni's would be Carnigie, Michigan university of south california and many others which team gaming courses. Going to Devry of course your experience would be different. Also he says at the end it was 10 years ago, those courses have come a long way

You are not alone. In Russia the same shit. Wasted 4 years in college and 1 year in university and just said them "fuck all of you, you don't know how to programm not speaking how to fix pc." So now working solo doing my stuff by my very self.

Try going to the schools over in Austin. It's a game dev heaven.

There is also the problem of dogma when teaching to a large number of people. There are as many ways to program and doing the content pipeline as there are creators. Learning a paradigm might be as harmful as it might be helpful, so schools are basically bound to teach for the common denominator. That being said, I think a school for game dev can be good if person has no prior knowledge. One of my friends was a traditional artist and wanted to get into game dev, so he took some courses that teaches pixelart, animation, 3D graphics, etc and he found that really helpful. Here in Finland college is free, but there aren't any full gamedev schools around, you can take game development courses as optional education here and there (I think making games is still looked down a bit as a profession). But I agree on the premise that if you are going to dedicate your active day time to learning gamedev anyway, it doesn't matter if you do it in school or follow tutorials online. Also... most of the industry pros at the moment have self learned their skills. I'm of the generation where there were no education available. By the time people started to take game development as serious career choice I have already mastered my core set. And most of the stuff haven't changed. If anything, making games and learning to make games is so much more easier now.

I feel you on this video, one of the community colleges I went to I took a Photoshop class. The teacher didn't even know how to use it. The teacher would try to show us how to use a certain function and she couldn't find it and when she did, wasn't using it correctly. Finally, a couple of the students had to show her a better way to access it and how to properly used it. By the end of the first week I figured my money would have been better spent having these two guys tutor me on Photoshop. It was horrible....what a waste of money.

With college i am at for game art is geared toward the the studio and being a machine to produce it than getting the excitement or fun of creating them. Taking it seriously, the course changes ALOT. As its keeping up with the field with professors active in the field. As an artist it's been rough in past as they threw students into unity coding with few having any experience , which is also is understandable to understand the coders pain as they have to take the art courses. Was very aggravating to go forward when have to take new courses they add in to improve the learning process. All of the courses build on each other to so if you miss one thats offered only in the spring then your screwed. Most of the classes i have taken are gaining experience of the programs. I get with you with the problems and various ways that you could fix or make things. Aggravating as the programs will crash a lot or corrupt files so have to save in multiples. I haven't worked for studio or colleges "test" studio environment classes. I am deeply concerned for myself now as I'm learning these programs and matching concepts best I can. Looking at it now yeah, programs cost alot and student version. Agree with you on how to make games but for the art would suggest internships or going to studio and learn the programs. College i am at is helpful as learn techniques and not doing things. It really depends on where you go and research the college.

I actually went to Devry as well for web game programming. I dropped out as well but for different reasons. I also finished up a previous college for 3d animation. I'm actually pretty appreciative of what I learned from both colleges, because I wouldn't have known where to start in the first place. It seems to me that you didn't exactly know what it was you wanted to do, because "How do you make games?" is rather broad, because game development is has a lot of components that go along with it. You probably wanted to learn how to develop game mechanics and things of that nature. And yeah a lot of it has to do with programming, but it doesn't show you how to make the assets like 3d models, if that's the kind of game you were trying to make. I dropped out of college because apparently, I needed the piece of paper to get a job. But I got a job before I got the piece of paper, so now I don't need it anymore. I wouldn't say college is a complete waste of time and money, because I wouldn't have known where to start. At least with college, I knew what to filter out, initially, and what to look into afterwards.

hey Tim, question. so I'm learning to code in C# through youtube tutorials. would you recommend this over going to school? because i don't really have money for school...

Can I become a game developer without college degree?My programming skills are good in c++.Can best portfolio get me a job in big gaming industries like ubisoft,activision,EA and Microsoft etc....

I agree with u

Very good explanation of what you probably won't find in the regular college experience in this industry.

I am currently a 3rd year student at DigiPen Institute of Technology in Washington state in the USA. We are the #4 school in the nation for game design. Industry professionals and ex-microsoft people teach are classes--their info is a few years old but it's their connections rarely are. Do I recommend it? It depends. I went into the game industry not knowing as much about games as someone who, say, has collected every SNES game and has beaten a 100 games per console since. Or someone who has made and published a game with his friend. Or as someone who took Unity classes in high school. The school has caught me up to their level of knowledge much faster than I would have on my own BUT many members of my cohort hate the school and think it's incompetent and awful. However, our alumni are unquestionably successful--We have people who worked on hundreds of titles, including Fortnite, on Plants Vs. Zombies, Overwatch, Dungeons and Dragons, just to name a tiny handful. Connections to these people is invaluable. But did the school TEACH everyone that? Or did it just attract those talented people to this school? I couldn't exactly tell you. I CAN tell you that the school is a mess after the freshman year. That if you're coming here for the game design, then don't and instead, throw out your life and do the programming + game design course instead. Yes, that's a 22 credit course load every semester. Do you know what that is actually teaching you? Complacency when you're forced to crunch. You know what else this school forces you to learn? How to manage your time and your mental health. Or, you don't learn it. And then leave the school traumatized and chronically depressed and anxious. I can tell you haven't cracked under the pressure and I have a great relationship with most teachers and other students. I can tell you it has resulted in me making some good games with lots of people around me willing to playtest and mentor figures willing to give feedback. I hope all that translates into getting a job someday--whether through connection or through portfolio pieces. This has been my review of game schools 3 years after the video was posted

Oh wow bro that so me! I felt inlove with halo and gave me passion to make games cuz of halo too! Wow that's awesome bro!

I feel like for me, game dev is more like a hobby. I remember taking a software design and development subject in my senior year of high school and it was extremely stressful because you had a deadline. I had to use python programming language to create the game. Most of the time I had to watch RU-vid videos and go to reddit for help. Idk, programming is stressful as one little mistake can fuck up the game not even mentioning having a deadline.

Uni drop out here too. Made no sense to me learning stuff I would never use in my games. There are plenty of resources and groups out there to help.

SAE Institute in Australia is really good. For the game development course the first year is math, some design and making small games in Unity. Part way through you start making teams with design/audio/animation students and do small projects that you need to work on very quickly. There was a lot of crunch and it was very stressful but I learnt a lot in a few years.

What would you recommend if I know nothing at all about video game development and wanted to eventually work for companies like EA or Bethesda so I can improve games such as Madden or Elder Scrolls, CoD, Apex Legends etc? I'm not really into indie games.

I'm in a game design program in a vocational college. We do nothing but game related stuff, 2 month in i made atleast 20 game concepts, maybe 6 of them actually fleshed out though, one game in game maker to just get something done in a couple of days, meetings with industry people, get to know amazing student that probably will be collegues in few years and in a cuple of weeks we'll develop out first game using the inhouse engine for playstation 4. Oh and school assists us in finding 6 months internship for the last half year of school. It's very much worth it! :) Enjoyed your video though, i bet if someone has enough drive they might learn as much as we do in school anyway. The school's name is PlaygroundSquad btw, i really recommend it for anyone in sweden.

hello, now I'm 20 years and I'm studying computer science engineering and i have to pursue masters in game design , was it a good idea ??

great advice

I would say instead of taking subjects like game development, one should take some tangent subject, like if you have aptitude for programming go for computer science, if you are interested in building physics engine and stuff go for physics major, if you are interested in animation go for art, for graphics engine go for maths. Game development is very easy with stuff like unity now days, so you can learn it much better on your own. Taking tangent subject will give you alot of knowledge in that subject, will help u problem solve things too like suppose if you are making in which performance is a big part, computer science can help u, cuz u would have learn about stuff like data structures and unit testing, and if you are making a game which requires very appealing and unique art style, having art knowledge will definitely help you I am doing comp sci engineering atm, although I like its studies, the way my college teaches is awful, but I like the course, learnt alot from it

Dude...... I feel you bro but at time it was the year 2000. A game development course wasn't even being offered anywhere. So I settled for University degree in Computer Tech. I didn't care for most subjects but was ravishing hungry to get into any coding classes. Only info I could find at the time on game development was in REALLY expensive books but I got em. One was actually game design, the remaning were mostly coding. Remember the "Games Programming Gems" series? Afterwards started my career down being a business analyst / system analyst and now 17 years later comming back to give game making a solid crack.

So, what's your suggestion for me when my parents are basically requiring me to got ot college. Yet I feel like everything I'm learning I either already know or I can just teach myself. The majority of everything I'm learning in class is self taught. Should I switch to perhaps a computer science degree or cyber security, or would I also be able to teach myself those things as well. Granted I also feel like doing what I need for a lot of these classes and extra classes required for my degree are also taking time out of my efforts in my actual game creation. So any suggestions?

well if you want to work in ubisoft (for example) to work as a programer shit you have to dominate a lot of programming languages ,physics and mathematics ,etc normally thats taught in college but nowdays we live in an era where almost any kind of information is avalible to anyone I feel there will be more people who will start studying by themseves and will start skipping college which is expensive I also believe the internet will make college obsolete

Thank you so much for your video. It's so helpful. I have some game ideas . Getting a team to build a game is very expensive so I thought to look into it and see if I can do it... Studying in uni/college is expensive and I wouldn't know where to start. So you video have been super helpful. I'll try out Unity and see where it takes me.

I taught myself to program and I'm glad that I don't have any school debt. The hardest thing about being self taught (for me) is the concern in the back of your mind that you have overlooked researching something that you need to know. The one thing I wish I did have was some sort of mentor (that knows what they are talking about). I think a game dev mentorship program could be really cool. Even if they didn't teach you to code or how to use an engine, they could guide you with links to valuable information. Each week you would show them the game you are working on and they would give you advice on what to research to improve your concept. I think it would be especially beneficial for game devs who are starting out, because it's hard to know your scope when you know nothing to begin with.

It's insane to me how accessible information is and how inaccessible affordable "education" has become.

What type of coding should I learn to make a game?

As a freshman in highschool I see a full future ahead. But when I look at college I know everything I learn there I can learn online. Hell I'm going to highschool for game development. But I wanna go to college for the name of the college. MIT, I want a job. I want people to see my computer science PhD next to my name and shit like that. I loved this video, it opened my eyes to a whole other world. Thanks.

thank you sir youve given me some insight into real world gaming industry

i understand what you mean because i wanted to look for a college that will teach me better methods on making video games but so far i havent found anything that could actually help me

I had the same experience now the past year and a half. I took a 2 year course on 3D design and animation and the 2nd year was an online web course about 3D games design. I didn't get the best grades in high school so I couldn't go to regular free universities here in Norway, I had to apply for one of those private schools since I wanted higher education about art and design. The first semester was really worth it, I get a good introduction to 3D using 3DS Max and I became friends with a former student who taught me the basics of ZBrush and I kept learning it in my spare time until I pretty much mastered it. 2nd semester we focused on animation and it was so basic, we learned about motion like bouncing balls, squeeze and stretch, parenting and linking objects to one another, and building basic rigs, then our teacher told us to download lowmax rig and start planning some small scenes and make an animation for our portfolio at the end of the year. He didn't teach us anything else after the first month. The 3D games design web course was so bad, I wish I just said fuck it after the 2nd semester and started learning games design on my own. I wasn't ready to learn UE4, blueprints were way to complex for me to understand with no programming knowledge, and the course being online and all sucked when I needed help. I once asked my teacher "hey I want to make menus and use my controller to navigate them, but the input seemed way off and unresponsive, do you know how I can fix this?" and sent him a screenshot of my blueprint. I didn't get an answer so a week later I wrote him a new e-mail and asked "hey did you get my last mail? I still haven't found a solution for this controller input problem". He then replied he had gotten it and read it but he didn't have the time to help me so I should go this forum and ask there... It felt so bad when you pay so damn much money for a school in a country where education usually is free and you don't even get some help.. So I've had some good moments in school but I feel like I've wasted a lot of time the past 7 years, should've just taken media in high school and gotten a graphic design job. Luckily, a month ago I decided to download GMS2 and learn GML, idk why but it's much simpler for me to understand GML then the drag and drop version. The other day I managed to make something simple that drew text to the screen showing what dd/mm/yy and what time it was with just using the manual when I needed help. I wish I started learning GMS to begin with because after this past month of learning GML I understand more about how to code games, even in UE4 and blueprints, then that full year of trying to learn blueprints at school taught me.

My college experience was very similar and I was also told college was the way to go from my family too.. ended up owing 65k after attending ITT Tech for computer networking and cyber security. Oh and my school went out of business and I'm still left with the bill.. go figure. I really wanted to study programming for app/game development, but I was pushed in a different direction by the school, likely to fill up the classes so they could hit quota for investors. I spent most of my free time learning C# programming, unity, as well as other skills and tools useful for game/software development, this is what got me my job and experience. I also met more people from social media that were positive impacts in my life and successes than I found at school. I'm doing ok now, but absolutely, just figure it out yourself using online resources. Don't pay buckets of money until you know it's a good decision. In the end I spent 65k + interest by the time it's paid off, and learned relevant industry techniques on my own than I did in school.

I️ had a similar experience, went to college for communications/film. The department was weak and unorganized. I️ ended up dropping out two years in. I️ worked 8 years straight as a cook and now I️ want to learn how to make games for a living. Any ideas where to start?? So far I️m just going to read some books.

I had a very similar situation as you, luckily I backed out before I spent more than 5 thousand and got it paid off in the year, I'm 19 now but I wanna build a video game company I don't wanna have restrictions on what I can or can't do. I learned nothing from college, I feel the only purpose of college is connections with classmates who might be in the same boat as you. But the problem is for the 3D designers we can't just go build a game without learning coding (which is against my natural thought) I like to be creative not have set rules to use in coding so for us designers we have to find a code or tutorials to copy which can be hard sometimes. So we have to find a coder to work with. But for the coders they can go online and get free models or even pay for some. So much easier as a coder. I'm sure all of us have these big dreams of games that we've written down or dreamt about. College was a waist for me. But who TF does a 3D modeler make a game????

Sir, first of all ur video was great but college n university education has still not improved, atleast not in India! M 21 yr old n my dad told me tht if I like computer science then the only way to become successful is by doing engineering. So I also believed him n started CS engineering. Now in first yr, they thought us bio, mechanics, maths, electrical n electronics engineering, etc. In 2nd yr also they kept teaching us maths, etc. N only subject related to computer was c++. N not full c++, it was only object oriented programming which I had as a chapter in computer subject when I was in 12th. At this point I was highly disappointed! Today my 3rd yr has started n I really don't want to continue here bcuz I dont see my future here IT WOULD BE A GREAT HELP IF U READ MY COMMENT N REPLIED ME BACK. BCUZ HONESTLY I DONT KNOW CODING, OR ABOUT CREATING GAMES THROUGH GAME ENGINES OR SOFTWARES, ALL I KNOW IS THAT I REALLY WANNA CREATE AMAZING GAMES SO THT PEOPLE ENJOY THEM!

Check out engines and see which one appeals to you. Don't just pick one at random and tolerate it. ClickTeam Fusion, (My personal favorite) Construct 2, (not tried) Game Maker Studio, (owned, not tried) GDevelop, (not tried) Unity, (tried for tons of hours, good for 3D games, not easy for 2.5D games) Unreal Engine, (Tried for 5 minutes) LUA (not tried), C# (part of unity) and the list goes on. Grab a free version of an engine and try some tutorial videos.

I am in college for Video Game design. My first term courses include Animation using 3DS max, Modelling using 3DS, Character Design things, game theory, and digital drawing. In the future we will be introduced to Unity and programming + mocap etc. This guy's local colleges suck lol