Thread: Becoming a professional game progammer (homework lulz)

My task is to write a report on how I will achieve my dream job, from point A to B. I've got all the way up to university covered (or should I even bother that?) but I have no idea what's next. I really have no clue how the industry works and have pretty much no experience of a job. All my life I've just polished my skills without thinking about how to get my job. Now it seems I'm forced to do it. :|
I am aware that this is probably asked a lot so I've looked at sites like gamedev.net for help but I can't really find a good article about it. Maybe I should ask in their forum?
A quick background: The languages I know are mainly C, Perl, Ruby, SQL, PHP and Javascript. I am learning/experienced with Windows API, OpenGL, SDL, MySQL and libraries for common things like reading images (libpng, libjpeg), regexps and XML.
As a game programmer there are different areas like 3D, AI, network and so on but the way there are similar for each of these, right? In any case, my teacher said it would be okay to be a little open-ended and document all of these, whichever it will be I'm gonna be focused on.

So, assume I have lots of skills by the end of my studies. Where do I get a job? Who needs a game programmer? Who needs a programmer? I suspect I might even have to go to another country for job as a game programmer. I believe there's also a hefty amount of requirements regarding experience from working for getting into the gaming industry. Where do I get that? Start out small building applications for companies or work with web development?

Thinking about all this is giving me a headache.
Anyone who has worked as a programmer and can share their experience on how they got where the are today?

well, what you learn in college isn't really what you'll use for your job. Your college degree is more to show your employers that you have a strong capacity and willingness to learn the subject matter. 90% of what you'll use you'll learn on site.

Hmm... portfolio, didn't think about that. That might work too. Those ads that want you to have 70+ years of C++ experience doesn't seem to care about that though. I guess my biggest problem is finding what kind of place I should look for work at. I only know of major gaming companies and I guess they aren't accepting, or at least not accepting newbies like me.

Having a portfolio of software you've done yourself is a big, big part of landing a job with a studio. But this is one truth I can tell you...a lot of the major game development studios hire people they know...in essence, a "buddy-buddy" type of setup. Not too different from politics. The only real way into a large studio if you're not chums with the people there is to get involved with a smaller studio, one willing to take a chance on a "nobody" that shows great potential. Get into a smaller studio and blow everyone's socks off with your amazing programming prowess and it'll be hard for larger studios to ignore you. One or two might present some offers.

But don't be fooled. Today's games are NOT necessarily coded by the best programmers. Developers now have many years of previous blood, sweat, and tears to draw upon at their leisure, none of which they coded themselves. Furthermore, even if you were to land a gig with a major studio, they might just stick you in utility programming, which is VERY boring, especially when you're not doing it as a hobby. You may find yourself much happier with a smaller studio, even if the pay is less (which it likely will be).

One last detail you should know is that when what you consider to be "fun" becomes your job, it will lose a lot of that fun factor, especially if you're a lone wolf. Professional game programmers are some of the most boring people you'll ever know.

I've been a game programmer for 22 years now, including a couple of stints in the professional world. I do it as a hobby nowadays when I'm not doing my "real" job. But I'm also a pretty avid gamer. I can say that games are no less fun after doing it professionally, in fact they became a bit MORE fun for me, because now not only do I enjoy the game but I also enjoy trying to figure out how certain things were done. Of course, there's always the part where you end up saying "ya know, I could have done that part better"...

I've heard before that you need to know a lot of people to get into the business, I guess that's only half true then. I should be able to complete my report now as I probably don't have to be so concrete about what kind of job I should get so thanks for the answers.

Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

You've been a Game Programmer since you were 9, Nod?

Yes. I started in 4th grade on a Commodore 64, I picked up BASIC V2 almost immediately (took me about 2 months to know it well enough to code complex games) and then learned 6502 assembly. Games are pretty much the only thing I know how to code, I have little interest in coding anything else aside from the utilities I need to help make games.

touche.