Hi, My name is Francisco , I'm from South America , I live in Peru and I love videogames (please forgive me if I write wrong something or my grammar skills are not quite good ) .I'm 16 years old and I just finished school so righ now I'm in a moment of my life when i have to decide what to study , All I know is that I want to be a video game designer , I want to create the same form of entretaintment that other created years ago and brought me all the moments of joy in my childhood.

The thing is that here in Peru there is not a single university that has video game design as a carrer , The only thing that comes close to that is Sistems Engineering and Software Engineering , Righ now im planing to study one of them and then take extra clases of game design and so on so that I can be a game designer some day in the future . There is also a institute called Digital Arts School they have a kind of union whith Autodesk and if you study there at the end of your studies they give you an Autodesk Certification , they teach Video Game Designing and 3D animation and modeling.My plan is to mix up the collage clases and the institute clases and then try to find a job in the U.S

My other option is to apply for a scholarship and go to study to the U.S where i know there are some universities that teach the game desing carrear study there and then apply for a job , but it is going to be very expensive and i dont know if my parents can afford that SO here are my questions and i hope you can answer it
1)If i cant apply for the Scholarship in the U.S ¿What carrear should i choose System or Sotware Engineering?
2)If i can apply for the Scholarship in the U.S ¿What Collages offer this kind of studies or what institutes do the same thing?

Again sorry for my bad english but this is all that i can do only learning english from videogames (I'm not making that up , I really learned English Form Videogames)

Hello Francisco,
Your English is much better than my Spanish! You wrote:

Quote: a. I want to be a video game designer ... here in Peru there is not a single university that has video game design
b. The only thing that comes close to that is Sistems Engineering and Software Engineering ,
c. There is also a institute called Digital Arts School
d. My plan is to mix up the collage clases and the institute clases
e. and then try to find a job in the U.S
f. My other option is to apply for a scholarship and go to study to the U.S where i know there are some universities that teach the game desing carrear study there and then apply for a job , but it is going to be very expensive and i dont know if my parents can afford that
1)If i cant apply for the Scholarship in the U.S ¿What carrear should i choose System or Sotware Engineering?
2)If i can apply for the Scholarship in the U.S ¿What Collages offer this kind of studies or what institutes do the same thing?

a. But you don't need a "game design university." Read the FAQs (scroll up and click the hard-to-find tiny "View Forum FAQ" link).
b. So you're saying you want to be a game programmer, not a designer.
c. So you're saying you want to be a game artist, not a designer. You're confused! You should read the FAQs and choose your game career.
d. That'll be difficult, I'd imagine -- you'll have to be both a great programmer and a great artist, and few people have great talent in both areas. But if you want to take classes in both areas, that's surely a fine idea.
e. That'll be very difficult! See the FAQs.
f. You should make a decision grid. See the FAQs.
1. You should make a decision grid.
2. See the FAQs.

Just to make everything clearer
a.Here in my head the only word that comes to my mind is video game designing but ... english is dificult.. but I want to be a programer (i mean i have math skills and logic skills and my drawing skills are like the skills that a 5 year old boy has)
B.Yep i wanna be a programer
C. Again i said design instead of programing , they have a class called video game design but they teach you things like scripting and AI and all that stuff
D.Yeah i want to take classes in both areas but my mind is set in one thing and one thing only and thats become a video game PROGRAMER
E.I know is difficult , at least there is a development studio called immersion games in colombia that created games and then sold them in the U.S that would be a good start
F. Im working on It
1.Im working on It too but i think Software Engineering would be the right pick , Am i right?What do you think?
2.i am sure as hell that i will be reading them for the next couple of years

If you want to be a programmer, then Software Engineering is a good pick.

Software Engineering is what I majored in (here in the USA), and I'm currently working as a game programmer at a company of 70+ people.

Software Engineering also has another benefit: If, for some reason you can't find a job at a game-specific company, you can get a job at a variety of other software-related jobs (as a backup plan until you can find a game programming job). For example, after I graduated I couldn't find any game programming jobs for a few years, so I worked on database optimizations for a couple companies.


At game companies I've worked with, the people are usually separated into departments:

0. Management
1. Programmers - Responsible for the C++ engine code and tools used to package the game content.
2. Artists - Responsible for making the 3D models, 2D textures, and other various types of content.
3. Designers - They make the map layout, place things in maps, write scripts, and adjust "tuning values" such as monster health or speed, jumping height, etc.
4. Audio engineers - They create music and sound effects and sometimes make the changes that put them in the game.
5. Testers (Quality Assurance - "QA") - They test the game, try to find problems, and write detailed reports of problems to give to the other departments so that the problems can be fixed..

*Sometimes* the programmers do the Design job as well, and there are no separate "Designers". This is easier in some ways - A feature needed in the game's scripts will often need someone to modify the C++ source code as well, and only programmers are allowed to do that. So if a programmer does both the C++ and the script, they can deal with it as a single task and don't need to explain how it works to another person.


As far as the Autodesk 3D stuff goes: It's very useful to understand if you want to be a game programmer, but if you're not planning on becoming an Artist, you don't really need to take classes for it - you can learn by searching online, or asking on these forums!


I'm not sure how hard it is to get a scholarship in the U.S. if you're an international student, but I definitely think it's possible.


Also, your English is good. We can understand you very well! :)

Hi see thats what i needed , i needed people to give me advice like Nypyren and Mr. Tom Sloper people that told me their experiences and stories , how the get into the business thank you very much i really appreciate it you were really helpfull but please dont stop telling me your stories and tales i need all the information that i can have I WILL NEVER GIVE UP ON MY DREAM

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE