Path: chuka.playstation.co.uk!macsuppor From: macsuppor@a1.nl (DEnnis Brinkhuis) Newsgroups: scee.yaroze.freetalk.english Subject: Re: Advice needed! Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 17:13:19 +0100 Organization: Debri Productions Lines: 74 Message-ID: <1ddck26.ynzmt2nhihvdN@a1-88-104.a1.nl> References: <35C8656E.EC8288B0@nospam.easynet.co.uk> <35C88521.2DCE3E9@scee.sony.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: a1-88-104.a1.nl Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: MacSOUP 2.3 (unregistered) James Russell wrote: > Well, the best advice I ever heard was "Find a job you love, and you'll > never work again for the rest of your life." which is certainly true > (but it doesn't mean I don't do any work here at Sony!:O) ). > Most people dream of doing their hobby for a > living, so if you program the Yaroze for fun, > imagine doing it and getting PAID for it too! Easy said for you, you already work at sony ;-) Any job-offers for games-designers or analists? ;-) > > There's about 5 or 6 professional PSX developers on this site, > and I'm sure they'd concur the following: > > The Bad News about the games industry: > o Remuneration (i.e, pay) isn't fantastic _in_comparison_ to some of the jobs > you can get in IT. Not everyone will be creating the next Tomb Raider. > On the other hand, you can get £100/hr programming Lotus Notes, but your > life will suck for 8 hours every weekday. Total agreement! > o You can spend years honing your skills on a platform (say, Saturn) > which dies a horrible (and not very lingering) death. Woops... when does the PSX II hit the shops?? Dreamcast is getting close and for you being a SCEE-employee... ;-) (Not that I think the DC will make it) > The Good News about the games industry: > o The job is intellectually stimulating and challenging. You're always > learning something new. That's something many IT jobs don't offer. > o You get the chance of worldwide fame! > o The demand for programmers is huge. Well, that last point doesn't count for me (although I do have an original Programmer shirt ;-) And I personally think that the big demand realy counts for the best! Some companies put an advert in Edge every month but only occasionally hire a new programmer. When they do, they just want to be sure that they really have the best programmers and we can't all be the best. > The fact is, you'll probably be working in the computer industry for > the rest of your working life. Once you learn one language or skill, > its very simple to pick up another. So by learning C, you can pick up > C++ and Java very easily. From there its a simple step to Visual Basic > and many other languages. Similarly, once you learn Yaroze and the > 3D concepts that go with it, it's very easy to pick up Saturn & Nintendo > operating systems, because they're all quite similar in many respects. It > all snowballs after a while. Once you've hit a 'critical mass' of > knowledge about computers and operating systems, you'll find that it's > very very easy to learn new systems, so don't worry about painting > yourself into a niche career. Having good low-level knowledge of > computers is even better, because knowing those fundamentals > in turn increases your knowledge of how OS's, languages and applications work. A littile more info for the few designers under us... please.. > As for the degree, some employers consider it gives you a lot of credibility. > Not only does it mean that you know the fundamentals, it also shows that you > can stick out 3/4 years at university, which many people don't/can't. I would > say that most people who went to university believe that most of what they > were taught was out of date and impractical, but that it did give them a good > grounding in the fundamentals of the software engineering process and the > linear algebra required for 3D work. In Holland a degree will get you better paid for the job. Only there is just very little gamesindustry in Holland, so I probably won't find my luck in Holland.. Later DEnnis..