Career & Life - Game Industry

Am I ready for the games industry? To ask of us to get to a professional standard in 2 years is near impossible, you need to be industry standard for the 3rd year of this course to give yourself a good chance to land a job in the games industry. So hell naw I ain't ready, there is so much i want to learn and improve and I have such a short period of time to do it in. I want my last year on this course to be so awesome because I am going to push the box as far as I can with every project to make it fun for me. I am just afraid I wont be able to execute it to the standard I would want it at. So for this I need to practice, after all deadlines I will make myself just do 3D and 2D not because I want praise but so I am good enough to pull of my visions for next year.

I’ve been looking at companies recently and what jobs are available out there. Right now all that’s going are lead positions nowhere seems to want junior game artists. This is distressing cause I want to get into the games industry and keep improving myself but it’s going to be hard if I have to get a generic job and work on my portfolio in the evenings waiting for a position to pop up. But there is hope, Canada is losing it’s tax breaks and Britain is gaining them. It’s only took I don’t know how long but its nice to be recognised as a viable industry that does produce a lot of income. We have huge titles being worked on in Britian at the moment like the new Lara Croft and the new DMC. Two huge franchised being made by Crystal Dynamics and Ninja Theory.

I have knowing about Ninja theory for a while and they are pretty much my dream company to work in. They do awesomely colourful and different games. I want to be part of something that will be remembered not just a generic crap and I love the genre and style Ninja Theory does. And just to fill in space I’m gonna add in some awesome videos 

Two games with completly different styles and it is something I want to do for next year. For the games industry you have to be flexible and so must show you can do high and low poly modelling but also different stylistic. we wont all be doing realistic games in the future.

Reading an article from gamasutra about the tax breaks provided some insight;

"A number of panelists speaking today voiced their concerns over the potential blocking of the tax relief plans by the European Commission in Brussels. A communication from the Commission earlier this month stated that not all games qualify as audiovisual or cultural works, and therefore should not receive state aid in Europe.In fact, the draft from the Commission went as far as to say that aid for games should be considered "on a case-by-case basis" -- compare this to aid for film, which is not subject to this rigmarole "

In some ways I can see what they mean but we accommodate many different gaming platforms in the UK games sector and would a games company that works for flash be more viable than a games company just starting their production of a 4 year PS3 title? If is hard to know but this would decrease the amount of jobs and cause more restrictions and even more clearances to go through. Not like we have enough as it is. It is unfair that we would be asked to do this and the film industry not, why are we always compared to the film industry when they should be compared to us? We out gross them bringing in more money every year even with the economical decline and closing of companies. Games are still mostly not seen as an art form yet the film industry is, do I even have to talk about Journey again? It just seems like they are very biased for the film industry which is older and hate the new young hip games industry."There were a number of resounding key points that were brought up time and time again throughout the day. The first, of course, was the tax breaks which are due to be put in place early next year."

At least there is good news that companies might start to expand and more jobs reach us before graduation next year. I hope Ninja theory take one people.....PLUEASE 

""I am the dinosaur Nick is referring to," laughed David Braben. He admitted "Nick is right," given that digital video game sales are set to engulf boxed game sales over the coming years, but also made the point that sales of boxed games are still estimated to grow over the next years, and that completely ruling them out is not the right thing to do."

The digital market is expanding but I buy all my games on disc. I think they really need to think about the market, you have to facilitate more money into the right areas and target your audience. They could reduce the amount of money that goes into publishing discs but I think you'll find people get angry. Personally i like the disc format, i can look after it and play it anytime I want with no hassle, on the other hand digital stuff can always corrupt or be hacked. But I will just have to accept whatever I'm given