Is marketing a practical major like computer science and buisiness?

The world needs marketers. It is a viable career for many people.

Is it something you want to do?

In my personal opinion, it's a terrible policy to pick a career path based solely on whether or not you can get a job in that field.

Yes, employability is a factor, but it's hardly everything. As frob hinted at, actually wanting to do the job is worth far more than just the prospects of landing the job.

You can get a job as a marketer. You can even get a job in the games industry as a marketer. So what? You can get a job as a janitor for a game studio, too.

What do you want to do in the games industry? If you want to make games, marketing is an utter waste of your time and educational investment. If you just want to be physically proximal to people who make games, consider that being a janitor in the building is just as effective and requires a lot less money to earn a degree. If, as a third possibility, you want to market games, then this should be a no-brainer.

If you want to make games, marketing is an utter waste of your time and educational investment.

Not necessarily. Marketing could be an entry path into the game industry, from which one could become a producer or executive (decision-maker, one who can decide which games should be made).

" actually wanting to do the job is worth far more than just the prospects of landing the job."

I don't know -- I've spent my professional life wanting to be a good software engineer. In general, that's only ever led to tears because although they always say they want good software engineers, almost all employers actually want;

• software engineers willing to do a bodge job in half the sensible time
• engineers willing to avoid the actual useful tools or the right way of doing things for what amount to religious reasons. (Eg; here's a copy of Excel. Please implement a database system in it... because we don't want to buy a database system because it'll be too complicated)
• engineers who are willing to put up with using substandard components "because they're already written" which is kind of like asking people to design aircraft around engines which are known not to work but have already been assembled or purchased...
• engineers who are willing to "program down" to the level of the least skilled person the company hypothesises they might hire.[1]
• engineers who are willing to actually lie to clients about the safety, security or correctness of software
• Some or all of the above in combination.

It's dull constantly being asked to under-perform, especially when you're actually good. To be honest there are days (often many of them) when I wish I'd become a lawyer or an accountant. I'd never be brilliant at a career like that, but at least I'd only be as mediocre as people expected me to behave rather than constantly having to tone down something I enjoy being good at to a 4 or a 5 on the dial.

[1] You would be AMAZED at the kind of companies that do that.

• engineers who are willing to "program down" to the level of the least skilled person the company hypothesises they might hire.[1]
• 
  

[1] You would be AMAZED at the kind of companies that do that.

To be fair, I've worked with code at the other end of the scale, and I can see why they do it. My last company had an ex-programmer who wrote some of the most complex template meta-programming I'd ever seen in production code, stuff to make Alexandrescu proud. Eventually he left to work elsewhere and nobody could understand the many levels of abstraction he'd been allowed to code in, so the code was essentially unmaintainable. I wouldn't have wanted him to program to the level of the least skilled person, but he should have had to 'program down' a bit. Part of being good is creating stuff that others can work with.

Let's not steer the conversation off the OP's question: about marketing (not engineering).

The world needs marketers. It is a viable career for many people.

Is it something you want to do?

In my personal opinion, it's a terrible policy to pick a career path based solely on whether or not you can get a job in that field.

Yes, employability is a factor, but it's hardly everything. As frob hinted at, actually wanting to do the job is worth far more than just the prospects of landing the job.


You can get a job as a marketer. You can even get a job in the games industry as a marketer. So what? You can get a job as a janitor for a game studio, too.


What do you want to do in the games industry? If you want to make games, marketing is an utter waste of your time and educational investment. If you just want to be physically proximal to people who make games, consider that being a janitor in the building is just as effective and requires a lot less money to earn a degree. If, as a third possibility, you want to market games, then this should be a no-brainer.

If you want to make games, marketing is an utter waste of your time and educational investment.

Not necessarily. Marketing could be an entry path into the game industry, from which one could become a producer or executive (decision-maker, one who can decide which games should be made).

My point isn't so much that you can't get into the industry via marketing positions. My point is that you should be considering what exactly "being in the industry" means to you. Tom is completely correct that you can break in via marketing and move on to production or executive-type positions, but that's not the same as being in the guts of a game creating art for it.

You said you want to make art for games: cool! Be more specific. Is drawing box art and advertisements the kind of thing you're interested in, or are you talking about a more classical "game art" position? They will be very different jobs, likely for very different leadership and possibly even different companies (and certainly different departments).

You said you want to make art for games: cool! Be more specific. Is drawing box art and advertisements the kind of thing you're interested in, or are you talking about a more classical "game art" position? They will be very different jobs, likely for very different leadership and possibly even different companies (and certainly different departments).

I am more leaning towards concept art as i have been doing fanart with Sonic characters for awhile.

The number of concept artist positions in the industry as a whole is miniscule. You may need a dedicated concept artist, you will need lots of content creation artists.

So, as a good rule of thumb, if you are not so successful in another medium that a game company is licensing your IP or your name/fan-base, you will need to be a successful production artist before you can get a job as a concept artist.

I happen to have a degree in marketing, along with 6 years of experience in the field before I switched to gamedev. Theoretical marketing (also known as a marketing degree) is actually a cheap shit. No matter how good the school that gave you the diploma is, there are just millions of people with this degree already. What counts is the actual experience.

In the game industry, marketing experience can help you land a job in sales or marketing. Marketing combined with art degree could help you out much more, for example in DTP, Art Direction, Webdesign - although these jobs are usually more like 90% art, 10% marketing as there is a separate marketing person anyway and what's mostly expected of you is art.

I just asked 4 of our producers if a marketing degree can help to land a job in game production. One said "no", two just gave me pitiful looks, not thinking the question is even worth answering and one ridiculed the concept for at least 5 minutes. The same question about marketing skills met answers ranging from "maybe" to "not really".

I guess it just all comes down to what you want to do in the industry. If a path of sales/marketing employee --> marketing/sales manager --> sales executive appeals to you then marketing can be a good bet. However, if you wanna go more into actual development, marketing won't be that helpful.

Hey there! Small disclaimer: I'm just trying to give my opinion and advice and hopefully not offend you. If I do, sorry 'bout that.

In my experience, marketing is an essential part of any game development team, but a marketing degree... maybe no?

"Triple A" games will double their budget just in advertising but will sometimes outsource the advert work to a firm. If you want to do marketing for games, maybe look to join a good firm in a city with a strong game dev industry like Seattle? But this path probably won't get you into a studio to make games very quickly.

"Indie" games and studios tend to work on a shoe-string budget when it comes to advertising; usually having the game artist(s) double as a promo-artist(s) and everyone on the team running around the internet to show off their game. If this is where you wanna be, then do as much art work for indie teams as you can. Get stuff done and get paid!

So it really depends on where you want to be, but when it comes to a marketing or even an art degree; the degree itself just means that you understand the meaning behind what you're doing and you've been able to tough out some book learnin'. What's really important is a highly polished portfolio with creative ideas, original work, and some previously published works. You need to show you can do what your degree suggests you can do; to show that you have been able to put your education into action and that you have the skills needed. Because that's a big part of it. You need skill and knowledge. Knowledge is something anyone can get where as skill takes a boat-load of time and practice, some innate ability or leaning toward the subject, and then some more time and practice.

Also, avoid fan-art like a plague. When I see fan art, I think "great, this kid can copy what they see." It doesn't show skill to copy a design and if you can't show skill, then you won't get hired. When you're drawing fan-art in their original style, what does that really show potential employers? Only that you aren't creative enough to come up with your own ideas. Sure, once you get to be more recognized, you can draw your take on others characters and show them off, but if I were you, I would definitely avoid drawing in other peoples style.

But those are just my suggestions...

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Also, avoid fan-art like a plague. When I see fan art, I think "great, this kid can copy what they see." It doesn't show skill to copy a design and if you can't show skill, then you won't get hired. When you're drawing fan-art in their original style, what does that really show potential employers? Only that you aren't creative enough to come up with your own ideas. Sure, once you get to be more recognized, you can draw your take on others characters and show them off, but if I were you, I would definitely avoid drawing in other peoples style.

Also, avoid fan-art like a plague. When I see fan art, I think "great, this kid can copy what they see." It doesn't show skill to copy a design and if you can't show skill, then you won't get hired. When you're drawing fan-art in their original style, what does that really show potential employers? Only that you aren't creative enough to come up with your own ideas. Sure, once you get to be more recognized, you can draw your take on others characters and show them off, but if I were you, I would definitely avoid drawing in other peoples style.

I agree. All you can achieve in drawing in someone's style is make a perfect copy or get criticized for making worse copies of someone's stuff. But if you take someone's character and draw it in your own style (like this guy for example: http://j-scott-campbell.deviantart.com ) you are producing an added value, showing your interpretation of characters. And it's still fanart, just a better one.

On the other hand, you would be surprised how often concept artists are required to draw something "exactly like..." There are gaming companies that would hire someone that can skillfully copy someone's style.

Also, avoid fan-art like a plague. When I see fan art, I think "great, this kid can copy what they see." It doesn't show skill to copy a design and if you can't show skill, then you won't get hired. When you're drawing fan-art in their original style, what does that really show potential employers? Only that you aren't creative enough to come up with your own ideas. Sure, once you get to be more recognized, you can draw your take on others characters and show them off, but if I were you, I would definitely avoid drawing in other peoples style.

I agree. All you can achieve in drawing in someone's style is make a perfect copy or get criticized for making worse copies of someone's stuff. But if you take someone's character and draw it in your own style (like this guy for example: http://j-scott-campbell.deviantart.com ) you are producing an added value, showing your interpretation of characters. And it's still fanart, just a better one.

On the other hand, you would be surprised how often concept artists are required to draw something "exactly like..." There are gaming companies that would hire someone that can skillfully copy someone's style.

Hmmm... Judging from the posts here, it seems like marketing may not be one of those " practical "majors at all.

again that goes back to what you consider by "practical"....if you're just looking for a "backup career" then marketing might not be a bad choice...I'm a hobby game developer (having been a professional non-game developer in the past) and professionally I now manage a team of Product Managers. My peers in Product Marketing do hire college grads with marketing degrees and honestly someone with an art background would get a leg up (and moreso in our UXD team). And then you can look at the statistics that say the majority of CEOs in the world have a marketing background, etc, etc.... so yes marketing can be a very PRATICAL career path....

BUT I don't think from what I've read here that marketing enterprise software is something you want to go do. Nor does it sound like going down (up) the management path is really what you are after right now either.

My advice...just follow whatever your real passion is right now...give it a go and put all you can into it. As a college age "kid" the impacts of failure are smaller (I assume you're not married and supporting six kids :)) And the upside...(landing a carear you love) is worth it....

(on a side note you also mentioned a general business degree...IMO not a lot of value there, generally if someone is looking to hire a BA they want a MBA, not a BBA...I think it would be better to pick a specialization [marketing, operations, etc] unless you are thinking about going into sales)

(on a side note you also mentioned a general business degree...IMO not a lot of value there, generally if someone is looking to hire a BA they want a MBA, not a BBA...I think it would be better to pick a specialization [marketing, operations, etc] unless you are thinking about going into sales)

This one.

Marketing is absolutely a practical major, especially if you are an outgoing social individual who loves talking with strangers, creating presentations, and making cold calls.

Business administration is absolutely a practical major, especially if you are an outgoing individual who loves working with schedules, planning, and understand terms like RP, DAU, and ARPPU, sell-through and sell-in, and such.

Art is absolutely a practical major, especially for those who enjoy creating and critiquing their own art, and who have invested countless hours developing their own talents at creating compelling images.

But an artistic/marketing/business administrator .... meh, not so much.

In my personal opinion, it's a terrible policy to pick a career path based solely on whether or not you can get a job in that field.

Yes, employability is a factor, but it's hardly everything. As frob hinted at, actually wanting to do the job is worth far more than just the prospects of landing the job.

You can get a job as a marketer. You can even get a job in the games industry as a marketer. So what? You can get a job as a janitor for a game studio, too.

What do you want to do in the games industry? If you want to make games, marketing is an utter waste of your time and educational investment. If you just want to be physically proximal to people who make games, consider that being a janitor in the building is just as effective and requires a lot less money to earn a degree. If, as a third possibility, you want to market games, then this should be a no-brainer.

Sorry, going to disagree employability is an extremely important factor times have changed drastically especially for college graduates.