Si Donbavand - wrkflw Development Director

This week Si Donbavand, an industry veteran of 17+ years working in places like the BBC and even becoming a governor of an academy/school dedicated to gaming and digital media, talked to us about his experience and his advice for developers looking to get their foot in the industry door.

This report will expand on his comments about university degrees and their importance in the game development industry. While I touched on this subject in my report on Jon Reilly, I will branch out a little and talk more about a degree’s worth rather than supplementing it.

Degree or not Degree?

To start things off, I found a great quote from one of the many industry veterans talking in an article about getting into the industry (Stuart, 2014):

“The reality is, a degree is effectively gravy compared to an actual portfolio. If I’m hiring you for a job I’m not interested in whether you did three years at University and were judged good enough to get a certificate by someone else, I’m interested in you being able to show me practical application of your skill.”

I pulled this out just before the sub-heading explicitly about degrees, since this speaker was the only one who mentioned anything about the subject - this in itself shows that degrees aren’t something they would really look for when hiring fresh faces. Regardless, I find myself agreeing that the BSc next to my name could essentially be “gravy” compared to hard evidence of work.

However, at the end of the same year that this article was released, another was posted showing a 50% increase in US colleges and universities that offer video game design courses (Valentine, 2014). The demand of prospective developers wanting to get into the games industry is pushing the education that comes with it, so while I can see it not holding much merit right now, maybe in the future it would be seen as a great way to get your foot in the door.

Coming back to the earlier article (Stuart, 2014), the developers were asked if a degree in either programming or design is a necessity. The feedback to this question became a total unanimous answer – it’s nice for newcomers to break into the industry, but ultimately employers are looking for solid proof of what you can do. A good portfolio will trump a university degree 100% of the time.

In conclusion, I have found that my own degree in game design won’t get me a job in the future. But it was a great way to dip my toe into this industry, making contacts and getting advice from experienced developers on building a portfolio. Learning the tools of the trade was also very useful. To me this degree is worth it, but I can’t use it as a fast-track into a job.

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References:

Stuart, Keith. (2014) How to get into the game industry [Online]. Available from: <http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/20/how-to-get-into-the-games-industry-an-insiders-guide> [Accessed 7 March 2015].

Valentine, Robin. (2014) Video game degrees in the US increase by 50% in 5 years [Online]. Available from: <http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-09-11-video-game-degrees-in-the-us-have-increased-by-50-percent-over-the-last-five-years> [Accessed 7 March 2015].