I asked 100 gamedevs if a degree is worth it

do you have a game development related degree yes I know yes no I do but I didn't finish my degree personally I don't I have a masters in game development and business management uh no I do not yes none at all should you get one yes or no and why you think so I don't think so I think it's a waste of money for myself personally I really think that the degree the specific degree that I have really helped me it it depends heavily on where you go you do not need a degree to get a publisher and to be successful I definitely enjoyed the three years of learning learning learning Lots about Game Dev hey everyone a lot of you guys reach out to me either through these YouTube comments or by sending me an email with a very heavy and loaded question usually it goes something like this hey my name is blah blah blah I am like 18 years old and I'm considering going into college for Game Dev should I do it it costs a lot of money or my parents think it's a bad idea or I don't really know what to do and to be honest I never felt comfortable answering this question because I never went to like college or university for game development I studied regular computer science I worked in a completely different field for three years and then one day I woke up and I was like I'm becoming a Game Dev so I feel like I never really beautiful like story what's good about college what's bad about it and I was always scared of answering this question now last week this changed a bit because I wanted the Gamescom with One Singular goal in mind not to talk to Publishers not to like talk to investors or anything or showcase our game but to answer this question for you guys do you have a game development related degree do you think it was worth it would you do it all over again or are you like you know absolute waste of money and time what is your opinion on it and for three days all I did really was just talk to developers talk to Publishers talk to anyone really related in the Game Dev industry to hear about what they had to say about it and the result of that is this video as well as like another one because I spoke to more than 100 people most likely but I only record about 65 if you're interested and you after watching this video you're like I still need a bit more information what are the pro sword accounts there's a video linked down below with all of the like unedited so to say answers where people just speak their mind we have like some big short CEOs or Publishers and we also have like the smaller solo devs it's a very broad range we also talked to some like schools themselves why they think that you should get a degree because of course they're biased and I think it's gonna be really interesting this video is if you have a little bit less time and you just want to hear me like talk about it and what are my key takeaways from it maybe first what's my opinion I think in general going to University to get a game development degree isn't worth it that's my opinion there are a few exceptions to it and the main exception here is cost this is also one of the biggest biases that you could say I have is I live in Belgium and here it's incredibly cheap to go to university it costs about 1 000 Euros every year for us to go and study which is in the grand scheme of things it's not like nothing and on top of that we have I think I don't do their marketing pitch but it's like either the best or the second best game development like University or college in the world by like some official ranking that's pretty solid it's much easier for us to get high quality education and very cheap education the only thing you really have to spend when you're here in Belgium is your time and if you can like work on student projects and like make your own games on the side that's perfect but it's an entirely different story when I'm talking to some developer developers who had to pay like 15 000 Euros every single year so forty five thousand Euros that's never gonna be worth it especially not when you go into a by default less earning Fields such as game development compared to traditional computer science another way that like this bias shows through is in the super cut video you'll notice that a lot of people do say like yes it's worth it but keep in mind that most of us people because I know them so it's like easier for me to approach them first of all live in Belgium so they had to pay 1 000 Euros for their degree and second of all they had access well basically all of them went to that Dae School of Digital Arts and entertainment I have a degree in digital arts and entertainment I've graduated Digital Arts entertainment back in 2011. I have a degree of independent game production at the Digital Arts and entertainment Mitch Larson entertainment which is one of the best in the world so for them it's gonna be an easy yes not only for their skills and knowledge she will build up but also for the people you work with personally I would do it all over again because I think it's good to have one so my opinion is you don't need degree to get into Game Dev but I do suggest you get a degree get a degree in something that is maybe a bit more broad than what you're doing but that is still usable so the clear obvious one is that instead of studying to become a game programmer get a computer science degree you'll learn like 80 of the same things like coding wise and you'll also just learn how to learn so that once you decide to pick up an engine you know how to improve upon it you know some of the Core Concepts and you can very quickly like learn new things this also goes with art don't study just art in general like study art for film as well or something that is more broad that gives you more of a safety net as well and I think that there is True Value in degrees that way I just don't think there's that much value in getting a degree specifically for game development yeah of course you can like do all the cool stuff and their marketing material for those universities is really cool as well because some are like we have full motion capture rakes and like our University but I don't really feel like that is worth it I think it's a waste of money and some other key takeaways is that no publisher cares at all if you have a Game Dev degree or not all any publisher cares about is how good is your demo how good is your pitch you know honestly experience as well as a really for us it's uh the fact that they show us that they know how to develop games it's because most people most developers we work with don't have any any kind of degree related to the gaming industry generally it's going to be I.T but there's quite a lot that are like just Architects or just artists or whatever that's the spirit of India I think I think we only care about what you can do and if you require that skills from going to college that's great but if you acquire those skills by just working on games it's probably the better way to get into the industry and I think that's pretty logical I don't think anyone was truly expecting that having a Game Dev degree was gonna get you instant publisher funding it's nice if you have one but nobody really cares about it when I speak to Publishers some of them are also like yeah we've seen people come in with that Game Dev degree but they make war stuff than it's just someone who's self-taught and who has actually put in the hard work you need to make sure that if you do get a Game Dev degree it's not like a free entrance to anywhere you're still competing with all of the self-taught people because they're not that much further behind you especially technically and I think this is a good segue to why should you and like what are the general reasons that people say that yeah you should or it's not really worth it and I feel like there's two main things you shouldn't go to university for technical skills at all nobody really has said that oh yeah I wouldn't have been able to learn any of these things on my own The Only Exception is if you're just someone who learns better in classrooms but all of the information to become a like talented 3D artist or to become a talented programmer are available for free on the internet or truths like some udemy courses very low cost very easy to enter I most of the time like the courage to do something really through so I thought getting a degree might help me to get the skills and then maybe get off the contact in the industry yeah I think it's very hard for me to stay motivated but going to school is a very good framework for me so if you have a hard time getting motivated and I like learning by yourself I think a school degree is really worth it and I agree with that as well I know that I am someone who does learn better through like a sit down and learn School approach than like true online so that's also why I prefer to learn through books instead of video courses that's something that depends on you as the person but I know plenty of developers and like people in the industry also prefer learning through online courses that's for example Jamie and our team William and our team and Thomas and our team all prefer just sitting at home and like going through at their own pace because as I say pace that's another problem is if you're a really good student you're still going to be brought back by the rest of the class in most of these universities so you're actually slowing down how much work you can do in three years and especially if you're paying money for that I'm paying a lot of money for it it's definitely not I paid a lot of money I'm still paying it back that one can suck as well now why you should go and I think this is the number one reason that people do go is the network because of the connections of the um of our professors and teachers our teachers and especially at just other students they are helping me and it's a great community and I can ask questions and get help from everyone and it's really fun it's a whole Community yeah I think one of the big advantages of doing a school or education is that you'll build up a network of co-workers you'll get to work with the industry you'll get to work on actual projects when I talk to people who've gone they never really approached getting a Game Dev degree with the idea of I want to build that Network first and then learn the technical skills later but they all realized through their studies that the network they get through going to a university is really strong what do I mean with the network well you're gonna be surrounded by like-minded individuals I think problem that a lot of solo developers and people like us also had is we don't know any other game developers and it can be much harder to get into game development if you don't know anyone else you can talk to or who maybe is also like interested and you can like bundle your skills and start something together by going to a school they often like force you to participate in things like the game jams or in like longer term group projects where you work together with a team on making a game and it's infinitely harder to do this with a like non-game Dev degree we studied computer science at my University and I like coached some people there sometimes and only like one student group of three people like actually went into game development out of the like hundreds of students because and even in computer science there's a pretty high overlap still between like Game Dev and computer science of like interests even there it's a lot harder to find like-minded people and also the second one maybe not as applicable to Indie developers but also just to people who want to get into Game Dev in general is the profession Network for like other companies for example especially again this in Belgium because we are quite good is like in your second year already all of companies come to Belgium to start Scouting For like Talent once they graduate so people like EA Bohemia interactive or like RSI all like come to the school to find the most talented people so they can already give them job offers this is amazing of course because it's really nice speaking from experience to not really have to apply anywhere and be like oh I hope they accept me instead I can just blanket statements send out my resume and 90 of the time a company will accept me this is something again that's harder to do although in Game Dev the credentials don't matter as much as the portfolio does so before like I kill onto like a way too long rant because I've just been speaking about this this for three days basically I can just go unhinged about it at this point I do not think that if you're like on the fence and you truly believe that I have the answers and that like you're coming up to me for like the response I don't think you should go to a Game Dev like specific degree The Only Exception is if it's really cheap and all it costs you basically is your time then I would consider it for example I think also Switzerland also has like fully free Game Dev degrees from pretty decent schools then it's worth it if it's something like you have to go to a private school for it it's not gonna be worth it no way just stick to self learning and get out there yourself you don't have access to the network that the school provides you but you can still go to game jams you can still hang out in discords and all of those things do make use of them if you're still not really certain again I don't hate degrees in general I do see there's a lot of value in it I'm not saying that you should just not study anything but I wouldn't go for a game that specifically agree if you are also on the fence and you want to hear some like actual industry people and not just some guy like sitting on this couch talk about it watch the video I'm not expecting any views on it but I do think that it can be very interesting if you want to truly get a deep dive into the minds of a lot of people who have gone before you and their opinions on the game they have to create because I've only like summarized it there's a lot more depth that this whole like question goes into and yeah that's about all I really have to say if you have a question and you feel like you know your situation is different send me an email I do want to help you guys out I do know like quite a bit at this point about game development degrees and like how they work I don't mind helping you guys send an email here and I'll see if I can get back to you and help you a bit more apart from that if you're new here we're game developers without a degree and we make our own games we make videos about game development if that's something that you're interested into watching be sure to go ahead down below give us a like and maybe subscribe as we upload these videos twice a week and also I'm just gonna like quickly plug this because you know this video was a pain to make because I think I had like four hours of raw footage to go through if you want to support us we also have a Unity affiliate link so if you're Unity deaf and you're in need of some cool assets and you want to support your favorite developers or whatever use that one it costs you nothing and we get like a small percentage of whatever you've paid goes to us and that funds us a bit as well anyways thanks for watching and I'll see you guys in the next one bye

Channel: BiteMe Games

Views: 9,832

Keywords: gamedev, indie, indie developer, game development, unity, c#, blender, game design, game studio, devlog, development, startup, forge industry, flega, steam

Id: VyabBp-QbqE

Length: 14min 9sec (849 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 01 2023