So this past week I had a very sobering conversation on path of my career with a fantastic instructor of mine who has a ton of industry experience, Net-net, I need to decide whether I’ll be a coder or an artist. Not because I was good at one or the other, but simply the fact of time to learn the plethora of tools, technologies and game engines out there just doesn’t exist. He also illuminated that the program I’m in isn’t geared toward creating game developers, but rather environment artists and game asset creators. Yikes! I wanted to learn everything so I could be in super demand after I graduated but now it seems I have to focus more on the modeling front. I don’t have a huge problem with this.
Here’s the kicker though – I’m in the one year certificate program and he let me know that’s just not enough time to create a kick-ass demo reel. THIS I have a problem with. Now I need to re-evaluate not only my focus, but my graduation date and hence, the date I get a job. Not cool given I have a family.
I think I barely scratched the surface in my convo with my instructor and need to dive more deeply into it, working out every little painstaking detail. Yeah, this is where sweating the small stuff really counts. You can throw you’re own cliche’ in here too.
I’m also having a great discussion on what is a game designer versus a game developer and who’s the one that gets final say on what gets put into a game. Check it out here.
Take the poll below and make a stand – game dev or game designer?
mark pincus Said:
on November 27, 2009 at 3:21 pm
rob,
i saw your recent tweet on zynga games. i hope you will seek out all the facts about our company in forming your opinion on us. you can see recent posts on my blog (http://markpincus.typepad.com) which provide more facts than seem to be picked up by the blogging press.
the issue of protecting users from bad ads has been a challenge to the whole web industry. you can see free ringtones and zwinky toolbar ads on google today. zynga’s business has been driven by users purchasing virtual goods in our games.
perhaps it is just hard for journalists, especially from the game industry to believe that people spend real money on virutal goods. we recently shared that over 1m peeps a month purchase with us.
we believe that social gaming represents the opportunity for gaming to go mainstream. we are working on many fronts to make sure users find a safe and trustworthy environment and have removed all ads from our games until we can ensure their consumer value.
we have also worked to innovate around offering virtual goods for social gains which are users have loved. over 250,000 people have participated this year in programs supporting the sf spca and haiti.
i you will seek out the facts and that we can earn your trust as a user and fellow game developer.
thx for opportunity to repond via your blog.
best,
mark pincus
ceo, zynga
missingbullet Said:
on April 13, 2010 at 10:18 am
The facts? DIdn’t you see what Mark said? He didn’t care how he makes money, just as long as he does it. Business without ethics is not business, said Ghandi.