Hi. So I’m a mother of an eager 17 year old who’s on track for college readiness. But he’s confused about which course should he pursue. He has a creative mind and has similar interests and wants to pursue a degree for the same. But the dilemma is
Digital Media - Its something he’s already familiar with and enjoys doing, but every univ has a different course structure for the same thing and we’re not sure of the median salary graduates get.
Whereas
Game Design - He isn’t well versed in it but finds the course interesting and also, the median salary for the same is quite high and i believe that is an important factor as well.
So please guide us, as to what according to you would be a better choice for him
Having had many friends in game development, I would caution against considering the median salaries in isolation. The median hours per work week for game dev is also quite high at many of the major game industry employers. Converted to an hourly rate, I posit that the salaries for these two fields are very similar.
There are also plenty of people in game development and design who did not major specifically in that specialty. Digital Media will not shut him out of Game Design jobs. So I’d give the edge to digital media given his deeper interest and experience combined with the greater flexibility.
You’ll have to look closely at each specific school to see what you are studying. At Drexel the Game Design program has 2 undergrad options - one for the College of Media and Design and one from Computer Science.
Yeah, I work in game development and I majored in psychology! (I do UX research for video games). There are lots of different roles across games, and in my experience, most game developers hire specialists in each area rather than a generalist across the areas. For example, the devs tend to have degrees in computer science and engineering; the artists tend to have experience and backgrounds in art and graphic design; etc.
Although sometimes people have unexpected backgrounds. The design director of the current game I’m working on has a BA in history! (He later got a second BA in advertising design.) The studio’s creative director has a BA in theater; he started out as a QA tech and worked his way up. One of our studio heads has a BA in Chinese history. One of our new associate producers majored in women’s & gender studies. And a program manager and producer on another title I’ve worked on was a journalism major who later got an MFA in interaction design.
Anyway, so he can major in either and come into the field. What’s more important is 1) he develops skills that are useful in a gaming company, like computer programming and/or digital art, writing, marketing, program/project management, data analysis, etc., AND 2) he gets internship experience, preferably at a gaming company but at the very least at a technology and/or entertainment company. Gaming is a pretty insular world and people tend to move back and forth between the companies within the world; it’s far easier to break in if you know someone and have some experience, and internships are the best ways to do that.
Also, median salaries for majors are not really as meaningful as median salaries for specific jobs. A game design major can go onto become a studio head and make $$$$$ or they can make casual games for a startup and make $. Or they can pivot completely and become a social worker or a teacher or a banker or something. Same thing for a digital media major - the median salary compares a lot of different, potentially disparate job roles and positions that make wildly different salaries. Instead, look at target careers and then look at the salary (and salary progression - some careers start out small and grow bigger as you take on more responsibility) of those.
@Rollout There are studios everywhere now, but they do cluster in the same areas where tech jobs cluster. SF Bay area/Silicon Valley, Seattle, Austin, LA, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Boston, NYC, Chicago, DC.
Mostly yes, but DSD listed the biggest cities for gaming. [url=<a href=“http://gamejobhunter.com/blog/top-north-american-cities-for-video-game-development/%5DGameJobHunter%5B/url”>http://gamejobhunter.com/blog/top-north-american-cities-for-video-game-development/]GameJobHunter[/url] has a ranked list with the number of studios in each metro area, but the list largely reflects what DSD already listed.
Also, size and type of studios make a difference, too…although SF Bay area is listed first, with the most studios, many of those are smaller studios with less than 50 employees. (Don’t get me wrong; there are some big ones there, too, like 2K, Disney Interactive, Crystal Dynamics, and Sledgehammer.) Los Angeles and Seattle follow, but arguably have a lot more of the major players in the games space, including the three leading console manufacturers (Sony/Playstation, Microsoft/Xbox, Nintendo). Also, the list is older.
I’d also say that other opportunities should matter, too - in case he ever gets tired of making games and wants to do something else tech (or non-tech) related. But most of those cities are also big tech hubs with plenty of jobs in that space.
Yep. I worked in game dev for a while, but it quickly lost its luster for me. Luckily Austin, like most other game development hubs, also has plenty of other tech opportunities.
In general, you won’t get stuck in game development because of where you are. As long as you keep some generally-applicable tech skills up to date and don’t overspecialize too dramatically in game-specific technologies, there will be other jobs for you.