Is my kid a Game Designer?
As parents watch their kids spend an ungodly amount of time playing video games, it’s natural for those little gamers to eventually express interest in following a path of game design as a career.
What are some questions parents should ask? What can you do to encourage a career in game design? If nothing else, how can you expose your child to actual game design enough to decide if it is in fact something they were made to do?
Should I encourage it at all?
If you are reading this, it is possible that you have come to a place where you have grown concerned about the amount of time your child is spending playing video games. Maybe it is a severe Roblox addiction, or Minecraft mania. Whatever it might be, if your kid is showing dedication to playing video games, it is very likely they are developing a strong interest in making them one day.
Young kids are capable of making their own games and becoming indie devs (independent developers), but more than likely, they would eventually join a company and add their talents to the larger pool of skilled artists and engineers.
And there is another option, which I’ll talk about more in a minute.
The fact is, encouraging your child to start learning to code, or create 3d assets now very well might be the most productive way to redirect all that video game energy.
So, how do you know if you should open the door to a career in game design, or just allow them to just enjoy games as a form of entertainment?
Do they thoroughly enjoy solving problems?
There is really no more fundamental question that answers the real question of should my kid go into game design than this one. As a programmer, I solve problems every day, and if solving problems wasn’t something I was passionate about, I would be VERY miserable.
“Can you figure out a way to….”
“Is it possible to make…”
“How would you…”
If these kinds of questions spark a flame behind those bluescreen ridden eyes, it’s likely that you have something to explore with them!
I also recommend Kiwico for affordable STEM based projects and crafts to further explore the innovative side of your kid.
Are they able to stay focused on a task for an extended period of time?
Game design is software design. Software design takes time. You start out with a concept and slowly iterate through that idea making advancements little by little. Eventually you get to a place where you have something to actually test, and then BOOM! you realize, you need to redo a significant portion of your work because the client hated what they saw, or it simply wasn’t fun to play, or any number of other issues will arise.
This means that your kid will need to be able to stick with a task over the course of days and possibly weeks. Will that be okay for them? Will they need more or less task turn-over? What I mean by that is do you think they would flourish needing to stick with a single task for two weeks, or would they be happier if there was a direct payoff daily?
Sometimes software developers/game designers don’t see the fruits of their labor right away. If your kid won’t do well with that, they probably won’t do well with game design.
Are they interested in computers?
If they play video games, odds are they are at least comfortable with hand held devices or game consoles, but how do they feel about getting behind a keyboard? Do they show some innate interest in using the computer as a tool? Is the computer just a means to end for them, or do they seem generally comfortable on it?
Game design takes place on computers, just like building houses takes place outside, in the dirt, with metal and wood. If the environment of the work isn’t interesting to them, it is going to be very hard to be successful in that field.
Game Art or Game Programming?
When I was Program Chair of Game Design at a local college, I was brought prospective students all the time and had to sell them on why they would do great in my program. The fact is, 80% of the students I saw never should have signed up. The degree program was geared more towards the art side of game design, which as it should be obvious, means that the student should be …..wait for it….an artist. Yet 20% or less actually were, or had any artistic interest at all. As fate would have it, the non-artists would quit long before graduation because it didn’t fit who they were. They came in with the idea that, “well I love playing video games, so that means I’ll do great making them!”, but of course that isn’t reality.
If your kid is an artist, and they are also fitting the description laid out here so far, I would encourage them to start with learning how to create 3d art assets, and also pick up the programing side of things.
If your kid is not an artist, please don’t waste anyone’s time seeing if they can pick it up. You are either born an artist, or you’re not. Careers in game design, or computer related art and design are profitable and successful because the artist inside the child bloomed.
Of course this is fine, not everyone is an artist, just like not everyone is an interior designer, or a baker, or a mathematician; if your kid can’t draw a stick figure, and hates the thought of trying, just send them directly to the code!
One other option
Earlier I mentioned that there is another option for your kid that isn’t becoming an indie developer, or trying to score a job with an actual game company; that option is government contract work. There are tons of opportunities out there for your kid to find very lucrative work using their skills, way more in fact than actual gaming related job opportunities. All of the same skillsets apply across the board, they only need to be open to the idea of not working at Epic Games, or EA Sports in order to have a successful career.
Game Design
Before I go, let me leave you with a challenge. Remember when you were a kid playing outside with friends, it only took a second to come up with a new game to play; explore that with your kids.
A game requires 4 essential elements:
- Rules (what can you do, and not do)
- Goal (what needs to happen in order to win)
- Chance (no one should always be able to win)
- Competition (some reason to play at all )
A great way to see if game design is more than just entertainment is to see if there is some genuine talent, and interest in coming up with game ideas!
Final Thoughts
Hopefully by now you have some idea if your little bundle of joy, who has been glued to a tablet for the past 3 years, has what it takes to pursue a career in the digital design field. The earlier you can spark their interest, the better they will ultimately be in what they are actually passionate about.
I know most parents are concerned about their kids and their college days, but to be very honest with you, it is no longer something absolutely required in order to make great money. I get paid as a software developer, but have zero degrees in this field. I was self taught, and produced a portfolio that spoke for itself. That is what companies really look for; can your kid perform? Of course there are some fields that will require that credential that a college degree offers, but I think you would be surprised how little it matters — especially in game design, or software design.
Artists have portfolios that prove the caliber of art able to be created:
Artstation
And programmers have repositories that can easily be viewed to determine the same:
Github
If a company is looking for someone to do X, Y, and Z, all they need to do is match required skills and there is no better way to do that than to view actual work. Resumes can be deceiving, portfolios are not.
One time, a boss showed me a couple of resumes for a position he wanted to fill working under me, and within seconds I passed them all back to him, with a very clear, “nope”. He couldn’t believe I was able to dismiss them that fast, but that is simply how it is. I don’t need to read your resume, I only need to look at your work to know if there is a fit.
Resources
I want to leave you with a couple of simple resources that you will find useful if you decide to explore things further with your child. I don’t want to inundate you here, simply offer very simple and direct places to start.
Unity is a very friendly game engine that both indie developers and large companies use alike. There are tons of free assets on their Asset Store that developers can use to get started right away making games.
Udemy is a site where you can buy very affordable courses and learn just about anything in just about any of the digital design fields. The secret is that if the course you want to buy is priced very high, wait a couple of days, it’ll drop down to like $20. This particular link takes you to their free game design courses.
VSCode is software that you use to actually write code. From web design, to game design, VSCode is an industry standard so getting comfortable with it now, is only going to get them off on the right foot, which let’s face it, is what this has all been about.
