Anyone work in the computer game industry in any form?

Spuds said:
Why? Because we can't protect people from their own stupidity?

We've put in several mechanisms to protect peoples items if the complete stranger they happily gave their password too surprisingly turns around and steals their account. We've even prosecuted the people stealing accounts, but there is only some much you can do to protect people from themselves. And no, it isn't as easy as simply giving people their items back.
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Phising isn't the same.
You don't work for Jagex.
Fail.
 
It never hurts to have some basic programming experience - even if its just the core concepts - as this will give you a much better idea as a level designer or artist what is and isn't practical and allow you to do minor scripting, etc. without having to run to the programmer every 2 minutes.

Having a basic grounding with light physics (refraction, specular, diffusion, etc.), color, etc. doesn't hurt either but I'm not sure exactly what courses would cover that.
 
used to work as a games dev. It was fairly relaxed, but all the dev programming was ad hoc. none of it was 'designed' or reviewed code-wise. There were consistently late nights (e.g. 8pm, 9pm...) when deadlines/releases were coming.

I left after 9 months for other reasons, netting me a £6k pay-rise in the process.
 
Tefal said:
phising relies on you being dumb/greedy enough to put your details into an obviously fake site.

Your own fault tbh.
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Has no one read where it wasn't me?
I'd given it to my GF's brother.
Point being, He was devestated lol, Jagex could have easily replaced items.
 
Martini1991 said:
I was level 102 with 57 mil (Not loads), but I'd given my account to my GF's brother, he got the account phised within an hour (He was hit with one of the "Join my clan" scams).
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Martini1991 said:
Has no one read where it wasn't me?
I'd given it to my GF's brother.
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who was a moron who go phised his own fault tbh.


Point being, He was devestated lol, Jagex could have easily replaced items.
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opens it up to abuse loads of people get paid to get their account "hacked" the items get sold off and they get them all back.

oh and spuds does work for jagex or if he doesn't he's gone to some pretty extreme lengths to make it look like he does.
 
Lol, I'm really not going to get into this.
At the end of the day, the game's engineered to take a ridiculous amount of time, then to be taken away within a minute, rendering the account useless.
It's fail. Enough said.
 
Yeah I mean damn them shoddy devs making you give your password out to random people!

Next you'll be saying it's the ISP's fault your "gf brother" invested heavily in a business deal with the king of Nigeria that went south.
 
Tefal said:
Yeah I mean damn them shoddy devs making you give your password out to random people!

Next you'll be saying it's the ISP's fault your "gf brother" invested heavily in a business deal with the king of Nigeria that went south.
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Agh, now I get your arrogance, you believe it was me.
No, I'm not stupid enough to fall for one, the point being, he was.
He didn't know he was giving his password away, same as the many who fall victim to Steam scams ;).
He was a kid, why would he need to fear about putting a password into a site that looked like the site he always put his password into? :rolleyes:
 
Guys please try and keep this on topic, me and I'm guessing a few others are interested in peoples experiences and feedback.

Try and keep it friendly.
 
Teki187 said:
So what type of courses would you take to help you in the direction?

Thanks
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As Rroff says having some programming experience can't hurt as having some sympathy for what each part of the whole needs to do is worthwhile. If you want to go on an official course then look to the links they have with industry e.g. if they've got any affiliated studios or where their graduates end up on qualification.

I'm not so sure about game design and level building courses, either in whether they are of use in gaining a job or indeed if there are any good ones. Have you already tried creating levels for mods? That is the way that the majority of level designers I know got their jobs, having a portfolio of suitable examples that they'd built up over time - that's not to say it is the only way to do it but it may well be of more use than a course if it is not well respected.
 
If you're going into game dev then the first logical step is just a plain computer science degree course in a place with a good name. After that I'd say go for a masters in the specific area you want. Even better find a course that goes down general CS for 2 years and then lets you branch off into a specific area.

Experience is crucial, get involved with a decent mod project. They're not going to want to hear about a project that flopped, atleast not unless it got a long way before flopping. Try and find a mod team that is well established and experienced and start helping them out with mapping, artwork etc. Once you get some programming knowledge then include some scripting work and some SDK programming.

When you get your degree/masters and some mod experience then make up a portfolio CD with your work, a website always impresses as well even if it's basically just a bunch of youtube videos of your work. If you've had your website going for a while then all the better.
 
Very good advice from the last couple of posters, I too would suggest working for an internet based mod as the best way into the industry, its what I did almost 10 years ago and I'm still creating games! There are an awful lot of games design degrees popping up at the moment, as previously mentioned, be careful and do research about those that will teach you the essential skills. For what its worth, as a games designer, I wish I had a computer science degree!
 
Experience with creative writing is also quite useful if you are looking to create plot lines as well as level design.
 
Mods are a good way to break into the industry... but also a good way to pickup bad habits :D

Finding a good mod to work on is pretty hard these days tho... the big name teams are almost as picky about who they take on as the commercial studios - and way too many smaller/new teams are badly run with not enough dedication from key members... quite often its a case of someone with lots of ideas but no idea of what is and isn't practical just mass recruiting anybody and everybody and also wants their kid brother to do some of the artwork... in ms paint... unsuprisingly it all falls apart.

There are some mods around tho that look promising, have a few good core members and recruiting - theres a space mod on the crysis engine in the PC Games forum here who are looking for new members.
 
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