   If you were to talk to kids about game development...
  If you were to talk to kids about game development how would you describe what you do, what it takes to do it, and how their current schooling makes an impact on their future in game development? Why am I asking this? For starters, my son is 15 and deeply interested in game development. I would very much like to encourage him in this direction since he is very passionate about it. His grandfather was a software developer who died of cancer about 7 years ago before my son really gained any knowledge of computers - or I would pose some questions to him.I am researching information about game development to help motivate him with his high school studies - so that he understands how each of his core classes (history, mathematics, science, and english) have an impact on game development. This information is important so as not to squash his dream, but to help internally motivate him to continue doing his best and working toward his dream.He needs to understand what is involved in becoming a game developer/programmer, what kind of dedication it requires, and that just about everything he is learning in high school (and will learn in college) will tie in somewhere down the road.I am a single mom doing everything I can to encourage my son, so if you can add some supportive information to this post, answering some of my questions, I would be most grateful.wndy26PS. With permission from anyone who replies, I would like to repost/quote your comments into my parent support group for other parents to use as well.[Edited by - wndy26 on September 13, 2007 3:44:20 AM]
  Why not just point him at this site so he can ask his questions here (that way the answers would be available for the whole community)? I'd also point him towards Tom Sloper's FAQs (several of which involve school related discussions).[Edited by - Driv3MeFar on September 13, 2007 4:16:22 AM];Game Career Guide is also a good site to get information from.   ;Quote:Original post by wndy26If you were to talk to kids about game development how would you describe what you do, what it takes to do it, and how their current schooling makes an impact on their future in game development?Tough question [smile]Games are as large a medium as film; the amount of money involved is comparable, the number of people involved is comparable, and to some extent many of the skills involved are the same. There are a huge number of different roles a person can take within the medium, ranging from the more creative to the more analytical. Personally, I'm a programmer - I specialize in computer graphics and systems design - but my co-workers are artists, designers, musicians... The jobs themselves can get quite specialized. I remember hearing a story - it may be apocryphal, mind - that EA employ some people dedicated to painting sweat onto the players in their football games. Still, that's pretty rare - most jobs have much more creative freedom - and one is best placed to be creative when one has a wide base of knowledge and experience from which to draw, even stuff that may not seem to be "relevant."Quote:For starters, my son is 15 and deeply interested in game development. I would very much like to encourage him in this direction since he is very passionate about it.Cool stuff. Be aware, though, that he'll need to play for the long term. It can take years to become proficient at some of this stuff - especially if you're trying to do everything yourself. Commercial quality games can take over 300 skilled and experienced people several years to make, which is a lot of man-hours. That said, smaller games may only take one tenth of that. If he aims reasonably low, then he'll get results quickly which will encourage him to keep going; dreams of epic commercial titles are good things, but they're best kept on ice until he's really ready to undertake them, which might be a decade from now.One of the most common things we see here is young developers undertaking Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) as their first projects - a genre in which even enterprises with millions of dollars behind them have been known to fail - and while even a failure can teach you something, MMOGs are so difficult to get a handle on that the failures tend to be rapid, total, and devastating.So yeah. Dream high, aim low, and close the gap over time. [smile]Quote:I am researching information about game development to help motivate him with his high school studies - so that he understands how each of his core classes (history, mathematics, science, and english) have an impact on game development. This information is important so as not to squash his dream, but to help internally motivate him to continue doing his best and working toward his dream.Right. Well, firstly, by the time he's finished school, it will be basically impossible to get a job in the games industry without some kind of degree. The vast majority of people applying to the industry at the moment do have degrees, so if you don't have one you'd better be pretty damn impressive for other reasons, and that rarely happens. So to one extent, he needs to keep on at his studies to get a degree, preferably a good one.Beyond that: The subjects you've mentioned are good for programmers and great for designers. Mathematics is practically required for a programmer, and parts of the sciences will really help; while history, science, and english are all extremely useful for a designer, the first two to give inspiration and background knowledge, and the third to help a designer with the core part of their job which is communicating the game's design to everyone else on the team.Quote:He needs to understand what is involved in becoming a game developer/programmer, what kind of dedication it requires, and that just about everything he is learning in high school (and will learn in college) will tie in somewhere down the road.What's involved depends on exactly what kind of role he wants; but it generally all requires a lot of dedication and hard work. Everything he learns could tie in one way or another; whether it's that he'll be someday facing a programming problem that reminds him of a biology topic and the comparison helps him solve the problem, or it's that he needs to understand the life of a soldier to accurately represent it in a war game, it all tends to come back around.Even things that don't seem useful; you never know what kind of approaches people will be taking to games in five years time. An example of this would be multiprocessing: it's a staple element in any good computer science course, but it didn't seem useful in games five years ago. Suddenly, the new generation of games consoles (Xbox360/PS3) have multiple processors, and that previously uninteresting topic gets a lot of attention. (This is the reason why I'd recommend against "game development" degrees, btw - they do a good job of teaching you how everyone currently does things, but I'm not convinced they do a good job of preparing you for when things change).Quote:I am a single mom doing everything I can to encourage my son, so if you can add some supportive information to this post, answering some of my questions, I would be most grateful.I think you're doing great by even posting here. Beyond what I've said in this post, I'd recommend seeking out other people for him to meet and possibly work with; games are made by teams, not individuals, so the sooner he gets used to working with other like-minded people on this stuff the better. See if there are any IGDA events in your area, and when he's a bit older maybe buy him a membership.Quote:PS. With permission from anyone who replies, I would like to repost/quote your comments into my parent support group for other parents to use as well.Sure, feel free to pass what I've said on to others, if it was helpful, which I hope it was.   ;  As a programmer - I can describe what I do as "I install a compiler and program some things".This is the best way to get started, in my opinion. At 15 he should have plenty of spare time to get started learning the ropes. Most successful game developers got their start by doing it (or something similar) as a hobby in their spare time - often starting in their mid-teens.As long as he doesn't bite off more than he can chew - we get lots of unskilled 15 year olds coming through here with grand visions for games that would take hundreds of man-years to achieve, who stubbornly refuse to be dissuaded (while spending their time achieving and learning very little).It may be different in Australia - but school hasn't really done very much for me as far as game development goes. However I can agree with Tom Sloper that a real, 4-year degree is important for employment purposes.I should make a disclaimer, though, that it's not a requirement to have a degree, and if your son really isn't into school, then he may be better off with a different approach (such as a game school or a "dive in at the shallow end" approach). If he's very driven, passionate, talented and a good independent learner, then a 4-year degree that's just to get an employment tick-box covered may actually hold him back or sap his enthusiasm.Quote:... help motivate him with his high school studies - so that he understands how each of his core classes (history, mathematics, science, and english) have an impact on game development.Along the same line as before - while the skills he'll practice in these classes (like the highly nebulous "the ability to learn" or "life experience" that people like to rave about) are peripherally useful in game development - do not fool yourself (or him). There's very little that he will learn in high school that can be directly and meaningfully applied to game development.A case could be made, for example, that in science he'd learn Newton's laws of motion that could then be used in a physics simulation for a game. However if he's really keen on game development, he'll just research it himself in a textbook (or the Internet, these days) - this is certainly what I did when I was his age.The point I want to make is, while high school classes are not totally useless, chances are a driven individual could invest that time in far more effective ways towards achieving their goals. This isn't to say that one should drop out of high school (it does, after all, help with getting a degree and employment). But to say that it's "game development related" is a very big stretch - and not really fair to use as a "carrot" to get him to study.In any case, to you and your son: good luck [smile]EDIT: oh, yes, and - permission to repost granted.EDIT #2: I'd like to point out that the information in this Sloper FAQ is pure gold for anyone getting started in game development.[Edited by - Andrew Russell on September 13, 2007 6:16:12 AM];Quote:Original post by wndy26my son is 15 and deeply interested in game development. I would very much like to encourage him in this direction since he is very passionate about it.I would have to recommend getting him to actually try out some development.  A good place to start may be a simple tool like Game Maker or the more complex Torque Game Builder which will allow your son to put together games and experience some of the process involved without neccesarily having to spend as long learning as is typically involved with picking up a programming language.  From there he may discover he's more interested in another area (art or sound for example) or could move on to either more specialised tools or a programming language such as Phrogram or Python.Tom Sloper's FAQs (linked above) are also an excellent resource which you should be sure to investigate.I'll leave it there, if I continued I'd really just be echoing what Richard 'superpig' Fine and Andrew Russell have already said.Oh, and you're welcome to quote/repost what I've said if you wish. [smile]   ;  To add to what Kazgoroth has said about resources - there are plenty of freeware tools out there to get started with.If programming takes his fancy - there's PyGame and there's XNA - the latter comes with some rather nice starter kits (second two there are free). I wouldn't recommend getting started in plain Python or C# (the languages behind these respective frameworks) - the frameworks will get him up and running faster and more easily.If design is his thing, Game Maker has a free version that's at least not 30-day limited.If he's into art, there's The GIMP and Inkscape.I'm not sure about sound/music tools (perhaps someone can suggest something) - I'm afraid what I use for this isn't freeware. Audacity lacks a lot of features, but it's worth having a look at.In any case - as we've all mentioned now - the best thing he can do is to install some of this software and start experimenting.(Again, repost permission granted - assume the same for any other post of mine in this thread.)   ;  For a less technical answer, which I think is what you were after:I can't be much help with some of your questions, as I'm only just now coming into  professional game development, but I can certainly tell you of my experience;I studied hard all through school, got good GCSEs, then good A-Levels at college. My A-Levels were Maths, Physics, Electronics and Computing. I went on to do a MEng in Computer Science, which I got a first for. I did all this through hard work, and there's no reason your son can't do the same. I also worked on a few small hobby projects outside education from the age of about 15.One week ago I posted my CV on a job site, and have been on the phone almost constantly since then - job agencies are jumping all over me desperately trying to get me a job. I've only had two interviews so far, both of which came back to me the very next day with offers well above what I was looking for. The reasons they state are that I have an excellent degree, I got excellent A-Levels in subjects that are very important (mostly maths and physics), that I've put in the time outside of education, and that I'm enthusiastic about games and want to go far.So, that's my story so far. I think it illustrates very well how important it is to do well in school in subjects such as maths and science, and that further education really does help. Put in the effort and he'll go far :)EDIT: I didn't mention English; that's incredibly important too. Employers love people who can convey ideas effectively and professionally. I can't honestly say History is that important, but tell him I said it is anyway if it'll make him study harder ;)   ;  If I were to talk to kids about game development, or programming in general, I'd try to impress on them that there are basic skills involved that pretty much anybody should be able to develop:Orginizational skills.An orginized project is more flexible, easier to develop, and expand upon.Researching skills.There's always something in a project that you didn't know how to do before.Communication skills.You'll very likely be working within a team and the project will go easier with fewer misunderstandings.Good skills to have in any profession, really.The basics of programming are actually pretty simple (loops, if statements, and algebra) but then so are the basics of construction (use a hammer & nails to get two pieces of wood to stick together).  To use the basics effectively to create something that is usefull and durable takes experience.  Determination and dedication will get you that experience.Oh, and yes, if anything I said is useful, by all means quote me.   ;  Tom Sloper's stuff, as previously suggested, is really, really good. Same with the suggestion for the IGDA chapter.As for actual implementation, there really is no better way than to roll up your sleeves and get started; and there is no better time for people to start programming games than now. Between Pygame and some of the new XNA stuff, it's pretty exciting to get started even writing small games to "test the waters" before deciding if you want to try it full time.Since games are both technical and artistic endeavors, obviously there's room for most studies in there. I've even worked in sophomore-level anthropology courses in my non-game software career. [wink]Feel free to quote me if you want.   