Does more affordable college = more degrees = less value?

[Jairo]

You seriously never heard of studios laying off their paid by the hour employees to gain bigger profits for themselves?

yes, which is why I'm asking you in your infinite knowledge to please help me learn of it

it might sway my future's direction

[Ad Bot]

[Lord Tony®]

It's pretty obvious once a big triple AAA game gets released you no longer need 100 people paid by the hour to maintain it.

Most of the staff gets cut off leaving down to 20 people working on bug fixing and server balancing and that's about it.


If anything he's lucky he is working at TT games because lego games are so recycled and easy to make that don't even require a detailed storyboard process that they are constantly putting out new lego games so when one game gets released they immediately start working on the next recycled asset lego game.

They won't need to lay him off because most game studios need long breaks in between to figure out on just a story.

Lego games just imitate an already made story based off whatever movie IP they are imitating. So you don't need a long ass hiatus to write the story of the year here.

[Jairo]

tony, I'm asking for cited instances of this happening

I can't just take your word for it that studios do this

[McJob]

I forgot to say;

It's more expensive to fire someone in the short-term. The reason companies lay off employees is because either their position is redundant and there's no work for them to do, or because the business doesn't believe they're worth the future cost.

Companies wouldn't see additional profit from firing employees before a big game release. It'd be more debt in the short term, although they could maybe have better endurance in the long-term.

It's pretty obvious once a big triple AAA game gets released you no longer need 100 people paid by the hour to maintain it.

Most of the staff gets cut off leaving down to 20 people working on bug fixing and server balancing and that's about it.

Completely incorrect and an absolutely disgusting attitude.

So, that company will never work on another game at all, right? And they don't need to produce additional content for that game, and 20 people are really all you need to keep a large-scale title like GTA V and GTA V Online, right?

You're a loving idiot, mate. The whole point of AAA studios is to perpetuate their existence and make bigger, better games. They need to keep hiring more people, not downsizing, in order to achieve this. If a company doesn't make more games, they won't make more money, and they eventually collapse. What a lovely future.

Not even gonna grace the rest of the post with a response, because it's clear you're a moron.

[Lord Tony®]

There are game studios that can only afford to work on 1 game at a time.

So they make their game. Now they have to make a sequel. It takes years just to write a decent story for a game and get all the artwork done before they even move into 3D development. Years of which they don't need 3D modelers or animators for until they are ready to work on that stuff.

So you are paying this team of 3D modelers and animators to do absolutely nothing for years at a time until you're ready for the next phase.

It's common knowledge that they have to go.

[Alkatjo]

I just feel bad for anyone with a computer science degree. Its a 50:1 ratio on how many people actually have the degree vs the jobs hiring in that field.

Get a degree in something that a society needs to function and you should be set.

[e-maxx]

1.There are game studios that can only afford to work on 1 game at a time.

2. So they make their game. Now they have to make a sequel. It takes years just to write a decent story for a game and get all the artwork done before they even move into 3D development. Years of which they don't need 3D modelers or animators for until they are ready to work on that stuff.

So you are paying this team of 3D modelers and animators to do absolutely nothing for years at a time until you're ready for the next phase.

1. Not a AAA company in this year, which may I remind you is what we're talking about here
2. Why can they only work on one part at a time? What's stopping them from writing the story and modeling/animating at the same time? I mean that's the main thing concept art is for.

[McJob]

There are game studios that can only afford to work on 1 game at a time.

So they make their game. Now they have to make a sequel. It takes years just to write a decent story for a game and get all the artwork done before they even move into 3D development. Years of which they don't need 3D modelers or animators for until they are ready to work on that stuff.

So you are paying this team of 3D modelers and animators to do absolutely nothing for years at a time until you're ready for the next phase.

Again, this is completely incorrect. Aside from the fact that I don't know a single studio in the last 10 years that worked on one game at a time for long periods of time, there's also a bit of naivety here. Pre-production is about gearing up and getting ready. New team members are hired at this point and trained. Current team members are usually given new tools to practice with and/or asked to contribute to the pre-production process (such as building concept art or helping out making a vertical slice).

Just because in your mind they have nothing to do doesn't mean they actually have nothing to do.

[Lord Tony®]

Well let me know how your friend does in TT games in the future.

After Lego Dimensions they technically don't need to release standalone lego games again. They may even only release expansion packs for Lego Dimensions which requires a shorter development team, easier to make and potentially more profits.

[Clownfish]

ok I feel like people who get degrees in video games are setting themselves up to fail
but like general programmers are still needed because everybody wants to be the guy who made doom, but nobody cares about the guy who made photoshop, everybody seems to want to make games anymore so people who know how to do more useful things still have openings

[Lord Tony®]

People seem to forget that the big name video game companies we know today started off in some guy's basement and that guy had little to no knowledge for it or a degree to show for it.

[otto-san]

ok I feel like people who get degrees in video games are setting themselves up to fail
but like general programmers are still needed because everybody wants to be the guy who made doom, but nobody cares about the guy who made photoshop, everybody seems to want to make games anymore so people who know how to do more useful things still have openings

it's been said before in the topic, i think the main thing about a video game degree is making connections and actually having something to show at the end

the guys at digipen that make these awesome games/prototypes absolutely get attention after they leave. if you got somethin to show that's attractive in the industry. i had a guy at curse (their hq is in a city nearby) say they'd be interested in giving me an internship just after seeing an incredibly basic game i made for a booth at a robotics competition. if you can bring something like dig n rig or nitronic rush to the table, i'm sure you could go pretty far

[sir dooble]

Just like to remind you guys that you're arguing business/education/employment with a guy who admits to dropping out of uni and then got fired from Walmart.

[e-maxx]

IMHO I think the biggest problem with colleges are that schools tend to push kids too hard and make them sign up for a career they're not 100% sure about.
There's really nothing wrong with waiting a year or two and experimenting to find the career right for you. I mean my sister knew what she wanted to do and went to college and now she's working in a restaurant at a five star hotel in NC.

it's been said before in the topic, i think the main thing about a video game degree is making connections and actually having something to show at the end

the guys at digipen that make these awesome games/prototypes absolutely get attention after they leave. if you got somethin to show that's attractive in the industry. i had a guy at curse (their hq is in a city nearby) say they'd be interested in giving me an internship just after seeing an incredibly basic game i made for a booth at a robotics competition. if you can bring something like dig n rig or nitronic rush to the table, i'm sure you could go pretty far

i still play dig n rig sometimes

[McJob]

but nobody cares about the guy who made photoshop, everybody seems to want to make games anymore so people who know how to do more useful things still have openings

Well, that's incorrect.

There's a hell of a lot of programming communities with people who want to do application or web programming. I'm always reading through CS50's page with a ton of people who want to build non-gaming apps.

You're in a gaming community, so your view of the world is going to be skewed and biased. There's more, and always will be more, general programmers than games programmers.

People seem to forget that the big name video game companies we know today started off in some guy's basement and that guy had little to no knowledge for it or a degree to show for it.

People seem to forget that the industry of yester-year and the industry of today are two entirely separate things, and thanks to the market being flooded with terrible games and publishing costs going through the roof, it's impossible to do what studios like id or Bungie did.