To be fair, I would say that not every job I've had was really all that bad. In fact, only 2 of them fell into the category I mentioned, and a third one was sort of a draw. The longest job I've ever had, for about 8 years or so, was my second job (I basically quit Li'l Caesars right away) working at a water treatment facility. Everyone was really nice, there. You'd think the work was gross, but it allowed me to put some of those high school science classes to work (my favorite subject in HS, easily). I spent most of the time washing laboratory equipment and autoclaving stuff, though, but they never complained about my thoroughness. In fact, I was really missed when I finally moved on. Easily the best job I've ever had, including the game and animation jobs I've had since. That doesn't sound like it makes sense, does it?
Most people in the game industry don't expect to work in it all their lives, either, as when they get older, they realistically can't keep up what with all the other obligations. That's fine by me, I'd seriously like to do more to help people in need when I get to that point. Plus, I'm already old enough to not be so naive about the game industry as it is.
Helping others does satisfy the soul, in your words, yes. :D Having said that, I'm not so sure I'd agree about the same when it comes to volunteering to work in a daycare-like facility. Sometimes those little children can be bad. D: It's not like any of them were sick (and if they were, yikes, you did your best to keep away without being distant), the only favor I guess we were doing was giving the parents who had day jobs peace of mind.
I don't really know the exact position of what I want to do next in video games. I can only give you what I'd like to do ideally, and then what I don't want to do based off of experience. Prior to coming to this school (or working my first gaming job), I was only really aware of 4 positions: Artist, Programmer, Musician, and Tester. Everyone else was upper management, and I was never really sure who wrote the story. I can't say I've learned about a whole lot of new positions from my job experience, being a low level grunt, but I know that from those initial four, that I:
- am not a programmer. In fact, I'm terrible at math and abstract problem solving.
- am not a musician, simple as that.
- want to stay as far away from asset creation/character animation as possible. Most artists who go into this position may enjoy it. I did not.
- probably don't want to be a permanant tester because it is very monotenous.
Since being here, I've learned a few other positions, even from other students who were well more versed on this stuff than I was (truth be told, I wanted to be a traditional animator while in undergrad, so I focused more on the positions and terminology of things on that side, which is why I had less knowledge of the game industry. Long story slightly longer, I actually wanted to do games before that, but ran out of funds for that initial school, and switched over to animation). It would seem like something fitting for me would be:
-High level designer: I like to get the big picture out there. Present the overall ideas and concepts of the story, maybe the artstyle and imagery needed. That, or...
-Middle level designer: Thumbnailing, some concept sketches for clarity. hammering out a few of the vague details that a higher level position would set up. Conceptualizing the character designs, all that.
I'm not sure if there's a such thing as a low-level designer. There probably is, but even then that guy probably becomes the art director or something, but that focuses strictly on the art, whereas the designer also handles level design, setting and story.
I've always been more of a story type of guy, anyway. I also wouldn't mind learning about positions in upper managment, because honestly I've always wanted to work on the business end of things. I want to know what needs to be done to get that game to ship. I feel like everything on the development side is rainbows and sunshine until crunch time, but it's removed from the real world. You never know what's going on to have this project become sucessful. Just like I want to know how any business runs, it's no different for video games. I'd love to own my own business at some point as well. I'd've probably gone to business or medical school if I didn't go here, and since this degree focuses on leadership in video games, I felt like I was getting the best of both worlds (managment skills, and it's related to something I actually care about, versus being a banker or something).
I don't know if that clears anything up, but I'm still sort of vague. I want to see what my classes teach me before reaching a final conclusion. I just know designer or something in managment.
And no, I'm definitely not a Modern Warfare kind of guy. In fact, I just don't care for FPSes, certain action titles, or, as I put it, any game that aims for realism (which to me always seems fake or reaches the uncanny valley, which is why I'm even doing my thesis in the first place). I've only ever liked the colorful games, usually from Japan, that the 3rd generation of consoles have come out with from Super Mario Bros. to just about anything Nintendo had a hand in since then. That's why I'm probably best suited working for Nintendo of America, if not something like Disney Interactive, because I'm going to be unhappy working on "Gritty Realistic Texture Adventure starring Stiff Guy in Armor", and it's amazing how all of these games have guns in them. I think I saw something related to Sun Wukong (Monkey King), and even that game had enemies shooting at you. Why?
I'll work on the next Tetris if I must. I also wouldn't mind doing indy games, but I've got undergrad student loans to pay off, on top of graduate loans after this. Trying to make an artsy game for art's sake'll have to wait. XP
