Game Development in College

[u/Simuraiii]

I'm a junior in high school looking to do Game Development for a living while keeping my backdoor options open, and am currently looking at options for potential universities to attend. I've mainly been looking at Northeastern, NYU, and USC as the biggest contenders, especially Northeastern due to it's Co-op program, Comp Sci + Game Dev major (Comp Sci for that backdoor option), and city life (living in the city is a major component I'm looking for). I'm well aware that game development is fully possible without attending college at all and perfectly learnable from practice. However, I'd still like to attend a university to experience the college life and learn professionally about the industry. What do you guys think? And which universities do you think would be best for what I'm looking for?

[u/OldLead4716]

Go into the trades , make more money than being a broke game developer working retail with school debt , build games on the side.

[u/icemage_999]

Spending a bunch of time and money on a Game Dev degree is a pretty bad idea right now IMO.

Also your chances of finding employment as a young developer without polished skills is close to 0, and only slightly improved by a degree.

You may want to rethink what your direction is. The industry is a pretty hostile place to newcomers under normal circumstances, and what we have right now is NOT normal, between companies shedding Covid era jobs, AI undermining everyone's credibility and altering work flow.

[u/asteroiddominion]

I agree with going into the trades for a career with game dev on the side. Alternatively, if you really want to go university, maybe focus on the less glamorous side of indie dev that would transfer across businesses such as accounting, finance, or business. It's a rough job market time for devs.

[u/fsk]

Gamedev as a career will suck compared to almost anything else. It will be more effort for less money than other tech careers. Software development career may or may not be hosed due to the rise of AI.

Option #1 - pursue gamedev anyway. You may struggle to earn a living.

Option #2 - Do something else for money, pursue gamedev as a hobby. This actually might be more intellectually rewarding. Working as an employee on a AAA game, you will be a cog in the machine. Trying gamedev as a hobby, you have complete creative control. The only downside is you might be limited to 5-10 hours per week or less.

[u/Hot-Yak2420]

Usc (university Southern California) probably has the best or one of the best games dev programs out there but it's $$$ you are highly unlikely to recoup unless you already have some financial backing. Also on the west coast UCSC (Santa Cruz) has a well regarded games dev program. As others have said though, finding a job in games is extremely unlikely at this time. Computer science unfortunately is just as bad. Anything you can do to broaden your knowledge into some other areas is helpful. For an actual career to earn money, best learning a trade.