Identify the companiesHello guys,
I live in London and i was wondering how it is possible to get into the computer games industry?
I want to do programing or graphics design if i can work in the industry.
Isn't a lot of it in the States now? (Thinking of Electronic Arts and the ilk)Learn Japanese
I could be wrong but I don't think Sony or Nintendo do game development in the US or the UK - it's too expensive.Isn't a lot of it in the States now? (Thinking of Electronic Arts and the ilk)
Dave
Not so much Sony and Nintendo, who do both hardware and software development, but more the likes of Electronic Arts, Codemaster etc, who focus primarily on software development of particular gaming brands.I could be wrong but I don't think Sony or Nintendo do game development in the US or the UK - it's too expensive.
Dave at the moment the only program language i have learnt is Pascal and Visual Basic, and i'm sure you can't make computer game out of that. I'm going to be doing C++ next year on my course.I couldn't comment specifically, but I would say that the competition for positions in the industry is pretty intense given the nature of that line of business.
Speaking from a personal level, if I were looking for someone to work for me designing and programming games I would look for someone with a portfolio, i.e. someone with experience (not always the case) or someone who has designed games of their own possibly in their spare time. I would suggest that you look into what you have to offer and if possible get into programming some (simple) games of your own - this shows that you have not only programming skills, but also imagination. With the range of tools available on the net there is no reason you cannot start doing this to help your case.
As for where someone would pick you up, you could look out for Fairs taylored towards the computer games industry, most probably hosted at your local (or not so local as the case may be) University. As with all things like this, its a case of putting yourself out there.
Dave
That is dependant on the types of games you wish to work on. If you are looking at the lower end of the market - i.e. simple web/mobile-based games, then you would be advise to look at C++ and Java as your best options. For Java, you could look at Eclipse as a dev tool for programming, and get a good book to teach you the rudiments. As for the more advanced games - i.e. 3-D games, then there is more a case of matrix manipulation therefore you are more likely to be using lower-level languages such as C. I can't be sure for certain, but this would be my take on it.Dave at the moment the only program language i have learnt is Pascal and Visual Basic, and i'm sure you can't make computer game out of that. I'm going to be doing C++ next year on my course.
Which tools/software on the net should i be looking to use to program some of my own games?
If that is the case, then I personally recommend you look at Java due to its cross-platform capabilities (other may disagree here). You need to get some experience with Java (or any other language you wish to work with), so would recommend that you get you programming skills up to scratch. For Java, I recommend you look at Objects First with Java - A Practical Introduction using BlueJ. This book will give you a good grounding and if I recall has a couple of game examples that you can develop yourself (don't quote me on that one). BlueJ is a development environment for Java developed at some Danish University (available as a free download), which in the past used to be a little buggy though the last version I tried was pretty stable. As you get more comfortable you will probably want to get into using Eclipse, which is for serious devs.Because i would like to start in the lower end of things like simple mobile gaming, so i can develop my programming skills and when i start getting better maybe start working on advanced games.
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