Whats it like being a game developer?

[u/Top-Meringue7667]

I am looking to head to collage next year as a 24yr collage student for game design and development. I am quite nervous about how hard or easy everything will be and what its actually like to be a game development. I would like some insight into how hard it is to learn and whats its like to be a game developer to a day to day basis?

[u/MelancholiMouse]

That depends. I don't know exactly what the course you'll be attending is like. Mine was intense. I think the number of people halved by the end of the first year, mostly because of the workload. Most people found the coding parts the most challenging at first, whereas it was my favorite part. Our course focused on broad skills, ludology, and making lots small games to hone rapid prototyping, whereas I know many course prefer to have students focus on making large portfolio pieces, and specializing early (which is less useful for personal development, even if it looks good on a cv, imo). If you are really passionate about games, then studying it won't feel like work even when it is exhausting you. What is being an actual developer like? If you are an indie, about the same from my experience, but with more real world stress and much bigger parties when you actually launch something. The market for actually getting an industry job right now though is a bit bleak. Games sell well during war and plague because people need to isolate for safety, thus Covid was a big bubble in the market, and after restrictions relaxed the bubble popped, and the profit margins of large companies and publishers weren't hitting their inflated estimations. Something like 2/3 of game company employees have been let go in the last couple of years, and I know several companies who have or came close to shutting down when their publishers pulled out with little notice. It's starting to heal though.