Anyone in the gaming industry?

[Lord Farquart]

My son need to shadow someone on the 25th of August for school. He is in Grade11 and wants to go study gaming design/programming(or something like that) when he leaves school. So, now he's got to shadow someone in that field as a school assignment. I guess, as programming is also involved, it does not necessarily have to be in the gaming industry, but would be preferred.

If there is anyone that can spare half a day or so and let a kid watch over his shoulder, I would appreciate it. We stay in Centurion, but can get him almost anywhere if need be. If I have to get him on a plane for Cape Town, I will do that too.

 

[Ninja'd]

There were guys here recently promoting their games. Give them a hit

https://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/893102-My-game-Vicious-Attack-Llama-Apocalypse

https://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showth...ime-Manipulating-First-Person-Indie-Adventure

 

[Baxteen]

if you dont find anyone, I am a sql dev but there are quite a few devs in my company, and I am sure we will all be willing to help.
also, based in centurion so it would be the least effort.

 

[Lord Farquart]

There were guys here recently promoting their games. Give them a hit

https://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/893102-My-game-Vicious-Attack-Llama-Apocalypse

https://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showth...ime-Manipulating-First-Person-Indie-Adventure

Thanks, I PM'd them. Hope i get sorted. Hate it when schools drop this on you at such short notice.

 

[Lord Farquart]

if you dont find anyone, I am a sql dev but there are quite a few devs in my company, and I am sure we will all be willing to help.
also, based in centurion so it would be the least effort.

Thanks. I just fear the two of you will chat about other stuff(card games) and not get to anything job related.

 

[Baxteen]

Thanks. I just fear the two of you will chat about other stuff(card games) and not get to anything job related.

Lol that is what work is supposed to be isn't it?

But nah, been out of magic for long enough. Also I studied teaching (to use the bursary to study Bsc it) so I know a thing or two about showing someone the ropes

But it's pretty far removed from game design so again use me as a last resort

 

[Lord Farquart]

But nah, been out of magic for long enough.

Pretty sure you were at ICON at Gallagher a few months ago? And not just to check out the displays.

 

[Baxteen]

Pretty sure you were at ICON at Gallagher a few months ago? And not just to check out the displays.

I was and I played for the first time in years. And that served to remind me how much I dislike the game now

 

[Lord Farquart]

I was and I played for the first time in years. And that served to remind me how much I dislike the game now

 

[cguy]

Not meaning to be a Negative Nancy, but the game industry anywhere in the world is pretty brutal (a lot of competition, long hours, poor pay, toxic culture, low job security). It may make sense to try figure out what it is about game development your son likes to do - the odds are that it's not something unique to game development, which may open more doors. In my experience, "I like games, therefore I will like game development", almost always tends to be a falsehood established in teenage years that only gets realized much later.

 

[Lord Farquart]

Not meaning to be a Negative Nancy, but the game industry anywhere in the world is pretty brutal (a lot of competition, long hours, poor pay, toxic culture, low job security). It may make sense to try figure out what it is about game development your son likes to do - the odds are that it's not something unique to game development, which may open more doors. In my experience, "I like games, therefore I will like game development", almost always tends to be a falsehood established in teenage years that only gets realized much later.

True. He likes playing games, but also likes coding and is pretty good at it, compared to his classmates in IT. Personally I think he will end up doing graphics for games.

I'm with you on the industry itself, but I am not going to force him into one of the mainstream fields just because of that. I will pay for his studies, and if he then does not make it afterwards, he will have to go man a til or something. Hopefully his studies will give him a few skill-sets to be able to branch into something else. His sister is already studying 3D design, which is also not mainstream compared to what I knew about jobs and study fields.

He's got another year to make up his mind. Maybe shadowing someone in the industry will open his eyes, good or bad. Maybe I will in any case send him to Baxsteen. I know those SQL Devs roll in the money.

 

[maumau]

I have a family member in animation if that will help.

Based in bryanston.

Pse PM if you're interested.

 

[Splinter]

if you dont find anyone, I am a sql dev but there are quite a few devs in my company, and I am sure we will all be willing to help.
also, based in centurion so it would be the least effort.

Thanks. I just fear the two of you will chat about other stuff(card games) and not get to anything job related.

Lol that is what work is supposed to be isn't it?

But nah, been out of magic for long enough. Also I studied teaching (to use the bursary to study Bsc it) so I know a thing or two about showing someone the ropes

But it's pretty far removed from game design so again use me as a last resort

Was going to say. SQL, as far as I know, is very, very far removed from gaming?

 

[cguy]

True. He likes playing games, but also likes coding and is pretty good at it, compared to his classmates in IT. Personally I think he will end up doing graphics for games.

BTW, there is a huge graphics (programming/algorithms) industry that goes well beyond games, and doesn't tend to have the drawbacks of the game industry (visualization, CAD, medical imaging, simulation, rendering, etc.). In fact, due the convergence of technology into game engines, the trend is to have far fewer graphics developers and for graphics to become a much smaller part of what most game (programming) developers do.

I'm with you on the industry itself, but I am not going to force him into one of the mainstream fields just because of that. I will pay for his studies, and if he then does not make it afterwards, he will have to go man a til or something. Hopefully his studies will give him a few skill-sets to be able to branch into something else. His sister is already studying 3D design, which is also not mainstream compared to what I knew about jobs and study fields.

He's got another year to make up his mind. Maybe shadowing someone in the industry will open his eyes, good or bad. Maybe I will in any case send him to Baxsteen. I know those SQL Devs roll in the money.

This really isn't about mainstream vs. non-mainstream - the vast majority of work done by a game programmer is mainstream work - it's debugging, it's coding, client-server interaction, maths, hooking up e-commerce, integrating advertising, customizing the art pipeline, porting the codebase to different platforms, etc. The only difference is that the application happens to be a game, and perhaps a developer may get the opportunity to add a few features to the design.

What I'm getting at is that very often the fact that a game is attached to what one does has very little bearing on the type of work being done (in fact, I think there are far more interesting things one can do), yet this has a severe negative consequences on quality of life, while the advantages are largely illusory.

Anyway, enough of Negative Nancy. Best of luck.

 

[Lord Farquart]

Anyway, enough of Negative Nancy. Best of luck.

Nope, I am with you. What I mean by "mainstream" is accountant, engineer, doctor, vet, architect, lawyer etc. You have a valid point, but me being mainstream, I don't have the insight into these other branches. He needs to get out there and explore all avenues. The only way to do that is to get exposed to the dark side of career choices, so to speak.

 

[Batista]

Not meaning to be a Negative Nancy, but the game industry anywhere in the world is pretty brutal (a lot of competition, long hours, poor pay, toxic culture, low job security). It may make sense to try figure out what it is about game development your son likes to do - the odds are that it's not something unique to game development, which may open more doors. In my experience, "I like games, therefore I will like game development", almost always tends to be a falsehood established in teenage years that only gets realized much later.

I fear that this statement is true.Game devs are probably the worst treated when compared to devs that sit in other companies that are not game dev companies.

 

[animal531]

Not meaning to be a Negative Nancy, but the game industry anywhere in the world is pretty brutal (a lot of competition, long hours, poor pay, toxic culture, low job security). It may make sense to try figure out what it is about game development your son likes to do - the odds are that it's not something unique to game development, which may open more doors. In my experience, "I like games, therefore I will like game development", almost always tends to be a falsehood established in teenage years that only gets realized much later.

Yeah, big game companies chew employees up and spit them out, they're some of the worst dev companies in the world to work for.

But currently the indie scene is pretty doable. The main issue with it is that you need a LOT of different skills to succeed. As a solo indie you need to cover and know all the fields from graphics dev, general dev, algorithms, artist, animator, knowing tools, engine, audio, music etc. (you can e.g. spend money for certain elements, but its still up to you to put it all together).

The trick also for a kid is that right out of school/univ that they don't have (in general) the drive necessary to make their game dev startup succeed. Games takes a lot of work, and as with all startups the idea is near worthless. It all comes down to putting the hours in and keeping on plugging away.

In the same vein, game design as a job in SA is terrible; there's almost nowhere to apply the skills after you graduate. So the trick is to figure out if they're really into any of the parts of game dev, e.g. coding, art, 3d, animation etc. They can then learn those skills while (as cguy says) applying them in other fields. After that the best bet is to apply the skills part time on your own projects (but that's also tricky; e.g. if you're writing code 8 hours a day at work then it's really hard to come home and put in hours doing the same thing on your own project).