Possibility of doing a games design course at Doncaster College

[Anthracite]

I can't really comment on the course (good luck though!) but I live right on the border of Doncaster and Rotherham and I used to go to Doncaster College! Loved it there, had a great class and some "interesting" tutors

 

[Misery]

Whether it's worth it or not comes down to whether or not you enjoy it, because if you do it's not really work and if you make money it's a bonus. I made a few games in the 1980s that sold a little and personally I had great fun making them, in fact I absolutely loved it, but sadly I reached 18 years old a bit too late to make a lot of money on my own because AAA games were starting to be made by larger teams in the latter part of the decade. There is now some opportunity again for single developers or small teams with Steam making it easier than ever to publicise and sell indie games and a lot of people are appreciating simpler and more playable games again, but I agree the market is saturated. Back in my day there was no Internet however so you had to totally rely on a software publishing company to be interested and then agree to publish your games at their up front expense on the gamble that they'd sell enough copies to make a profit back, because of this gamble they were very fussy as to what they'd accept and I even had to modify my games to their specification in order to get them finally accepted. I only got a measly 20% in royalties which was drawn up in a formal contract and you had the choice of take it or get nothing because there was no effective way to publish a game on your own in those days. That said if your game was good enough I suppose there's nothing stopping you from sending it off to indie games publishers that are fairly well known even today, if they did accept it you'd lose a lot of money in royalties, but having a known name publishing your game is bound to greatly increase sales compared to if you got the green light to sell it on Steam and sold it in your own totally unknown name.

PS: Before I was 18 no software company would touch me, I started sending games off in the very early 1980s at 11 years old and I got nothing but letters back saying how impressed they were, but come back when you're 18 years old, but as I said earlier, by then I'd missed the opportunity to make a lot of money alone.

Aye, this is in fact very true. The developer I contract with would say the same thing: It's not really "work" to him (with exceptions).

However, he's always been very "transparent" and blunt with both me and the inner circle, so to speak. As much as he likes what he does, it's still INCREDIBLY stressful. The guy works 12-hour days sometimes. And he has to manage a team that's really rather screwy much of the time.

But the bad part has been the financial trouble. These guys have made some bloody incredible games (AI War being their core game... best strategy game I've ever seen, and it did so well that it got like 6 expansions, all of which were bloody huge) but like a huge number of developers now, they started having nasty financial troubles. The stuff they make is still high quality and always well-received, but with it getting harder and harder to make people aware of the games in the first place, it's taken it's toll. Nobody will buy a game if they dont even know it exists. I've known these people for a few years now, and it's kinda obvious that this is sucking alot of the enjoyment out of what they do. There's this constant threat of having to completely stop making games if it keeps up too long, and that's exactly one of the reasons why I brought all that up: Because ALOT of devs are facing this right now. I keep having to watch soooooo many devs that I think are really great totally collapse because in the chaotic flood of games, nobody even sees what they are doing. They cant make a living these days, and so the dream job falls apart and cant be put back together.

Wheras others, the ones that work for the Big Guys, dont have any fun, because the nature of the job is VERY different. They arent "creating". They arent making decisions, coming up with ideas, having visions for what they want the game to be. They're following orders. They still have the long work day, but the satisfaction often isnt there, yet the stress sure as hell is. Burnout and overload are common with work done with the Big Guys.

I hate to sound so negative with a post like the one I made, but... I'll put it this way: I went to college myself to learn the things needed to jump into the industry (this being back when I actually needed to work). This didnt end up happening. Over the next few years, after college ended, I learned ALOT, and I realized, I'd pretty much dodged a bullet there. Game design is a passion of mine and a special interest, but I would have been utterly freaking miserable working in what the industry has become. It's THAT bad now. True, making indie stuff is very different, but the stability isnt there. Doing that, you're taking a major risk with a job that could end at any time, and that doesnt even pay a BIT until you actually release something.

I got very, very, VERY lucky to have been able to take part in development as I did. The planets all aligned on Friday the 13th during a blue super bloodmoon, causing a luck cascade that resulted in my joining with them. It was the sort of situation that would NOT happen with most developers (it would never, ever, ever happen with the "big" sort. Impossible. They dont work in the way that did).

But right now, most people are not getting lucky. It's extremely irritating to watch. So, I usually try to warn people as to what the state of all of this is right now (and what the work is ACTUALLY like) since most people dive in expecting constant fun and games. When in reality, you'll have so much to do that despite working in the game industry, you might not have time to play any yourself. Along with all the stress.

And that all is without going into the utter hell that is "crunch time", something that all devs will experience sooner or later. I dont even want to talk about it in detail. I had to do that ONCE. For two weeks. I like to just pretend it never happened and not think about it. That should tell you all you need to know.

 

[scrp14]

You could just go stream games on services like twitch or youtube, rack up some viewers, you may not get the audience you expect, if you are good at talking or have above average personality and are quite articulate its a big help as thats what people seem to be into nowadays. Personally i can't find what would interest people and what I would be able to do because it requires some setup fees like camera equipment, microphone and my current living situation isn't ideal for streaming as it could be a nuisance for people living with me.

 

[Mr Allen]

You could just go stream games on services like twitch or youtube, rack up some viewers, you may not get the audience you expect, if you are good at talking or have above average personality and are quite articulate its a big help as thats what people seem to be into nowadays. Personally i can't find what would interest people and what I would be able to do because it requires some setup fees like camera equipment, microphone and my current living situation isn't ideal for streaming as it could be a nuisance for people living with me.

I live alone in a 1 Bedroom Flat, I do stream stuff all the time on my own YouTube account, although the upload process is annoyingly long now that they removed the ability to upload direct from the YouTube app on Xbox.

What you have to do, is upload the footage from your Xbox to your OneDrive account, and then download it from there to your Google Drive, and from the Google Drive, upload it to your YouTube account.

I did it for some Sea of Thieves footage last week, and it worked.

 

[pjcnet]

You could just go stream games on services like twitch or youtube, rack up some viewers, you may not get the audience you expect, if you are good at talking or have above average personality and are quite articulate its a big help as thats what people seem to be into nowadays. Personally i can't find what would interest people and what I would be able to do because it requires some setup fees like camera equipment, microphone and my current living situation isn't ideal for streaming as it could be a nuisance for people living with me.

Well if you are a nice looking young woman it would massively help on Twitch since the vast majority of viewers are men, yes it is sexist against men, but nevertheless being a "sexy" women most definitely gets both viewers and donations flooding in whether we like it or not, especially if you're a women with a bubbly personality, I can't understand why so many males hang around such channels myself and give donations to such women, they have more chance of getting run over by a bus than getting anywhere with them lol!

If you aren't an attractive woman, then knowing someone who is already a well known streamer would be another way to get quickly known if they are good enough to advertise you on their channel, but you'd have to be very lucky to have that type of contact. Otherwise you would have to join in with the thousands of streamers who are struggling to get known on Twitch. I suspect that around 95% of both viewers and donations go to only to a small percent of streamers who are well known and everyone else is lucky to get anything for hours of work, but again it's not work if you enjoy it and I would also say persevere. I understand a lot of people give up too much soon when they don't get any viewers or donations, unless you are very lucky you apparently may have to keep at it for ages before you even start to get noticed. It would also help if you have something unique and rememberable about your appearance and/or personality and/or to make your channel and content unique in some way so you don't just blend in with all the other failing streamers if you do get any viewers, but be very careful to stick to all of Twitch's rules and read them very carefully.

PS: There are some Twitch streamers who do well even without using a camera, perhaps I should use a voice changer and pretend I'm a "sexy" woman, I don't mind taking a minimum of $5 a time (often a lot more) to say thank you and mention their name lol!