Maaan. If only you knew how many of those positions I worked in just a single year 😂 2024 was an absolute whirlwind for me. I have a long, personal story to tell. But I hope you'll find it worth while reading. Before 2024, I had worked at a VR arcade as a host for 5 years, and for about a year had been self teaching myself how to code in Unreal Engine in my spare time. When 2024 came, the business suddenly got bought out and we got new owners. The new owners were nice and wanted to get to know the employees. So I of course told them that I was into game development, and ended up showing them some of the game projects I had been working on. One of them was a VR game and they liked it so much that they said "Tell you what...Finish your game and we'll buy it from you to offer it here at the store." Needless to say, I was shocked that they'd even consider it and I quickly hopped on it and began working hardcore on the game. A couple months pass and the owners decide they wanted to produce more games for the business. So they recruit an established local development company to develop new games and they asked me to stop working as a host and start a new job assisting them and creating game assets and animations, since that's what my degree is in. So I started my first official video game related job working with two other developers who were the owners of the outsourced company (which will not be named...for reasons I will get to) All the while I would continue developing my own game in tandem. I'm sure the developers were confused as to why I'd be joining them, and probably thought they'd be babysitting me, but they quickly realized that I was actually worth my salt when it comes to 3D modeling and animation. 3 months pass and things are going well, then out of nowhere I get called into a meeting and get told that the new owners have decided to officially start a partnership a create a new game development studio with the outsourced company. I was offered a percentage ownership of the company below the two dudes I had been working with and being excited at the prospect, I accepted. The trade for my position in the company was my own game that I was developing. Things seemed great for the first couple months and they began recruiting a bunch of unpaid interns to help produce games, but something happened that would set off a whole string of events. I had finally gotten to a point in developing my own game that I was able to present a demo of it to the owners and everyone at the company, and immediately the tone in the room shifted. The two developers I had been working with creating their games knew I was a good animator, but they didn't know how competent I was at game development, and it quickly became apparent that they felt threatened by me. They had been working on these really short single player pick up and play experiences, and I had been working on a story driven, co-op multiplayer, horror, shooter, with voiced NPC's, complete with motion capture and performance capture. Shortly after the demo they began treating me like shit and tried to bully me and make up lies about me. From my perspective, it didn't make sense to me that an established company would be threated by one single dude, and it felt like a betrayal. It got so bad that I got fed up and decided to really look into what they had been developing and I found....something surprising. I ended up finding the exact 2 game templates they had used to make the games with. One was a free template released by Meta and the other was a $13 archery asset off the Unity asset store, and literally all they had done is taken the assets that I had created and plopped them into the template. Even though I work in Unreal, I decided to try and see for myself just how easy it would be to implement. So I purchased the assets they had used and put my assets into it and it took me no more that 3 hours worth of work.....They had been working on the game for 6 months...So yeah. It all started to make sense about now. I completely stopped working with them and presented the owners the information I had found out. I could tell that they believed me, but they were in denial because they had spent thousands of dollars paying these clowns and had gone into a contract with them. It took a little while, but they eventually came to their senses and decided to part ways with them. Then they came back to me and made me a new offer. They offered me the lead position of the studio and partial ownership of not just the studio, but the VR arcade as well. I went from being a minimum wage host, self teaching myself how to develop games in my spare time, to a 3D modeler and Animator, to a co-owner and lead of a game development studio in just one year, at the age of 35 🤷...and somehow, against all odds, I managed to finish and launch my game. My brain is still reeling to be honest, and I have a metric crap ton of work ahead of me. So please wish me luck as I try to carve out my career and turn us into a respectable studio. We're called Lynx Studio and my game is called Lock Down. It's on Steam in early access if anyone is interested. I also have three games of my own that I'm developing. CRISPR, Path Of The Ancients and MechaBall Arena. Here are my dev YT channels. CRISPRVideoGameOfficial, MechaBallArenaOfficial, and LetsMakeSomeGames where I cover the development of a Souls-like combat system that I'm creating for other UE developers to use. Great video by the way! Just subscribed.
@@PopFlipCatchStickRol Wow thats an amazing story! Very unorthodox way of getting in the industry. Glad that they actually listened to you in the end. That’s awesome! People have to read this. I’m pinning it !
Kelly Bailey from valve is an example, exept he also did music production all in the same project, insane when you think about the fact he worked the job of 3 people in a company that could definitly hire more
Yeah that is nice. Valve is so profitable so I can’t fault their hiring procedures haha. Personally sound is like my favourite aspect of games. It’s an excellent secondary skill to have. Especially when working on your own projects. Just unfortunate there’s little working opportunity’s.
@@moresah you need to become proficent at both sound design music production and programming, thats why its so goated, you need a lot of balls to do it
@@moresah I'm not a musician but may be this will help. When designing sounds create sounds that represent physical process, size of object, speed of movement, if it something mechanical add mechanic sounds, if there is gas movement make appropriate sound. A lot of monster roars made out of slowed down door screech or baloon wheezle, that boring and overused, that why godzilla was so great at time and still because his roar was made from some instrument wire screech. Half-life 1 gluon gun sound i LOVE it deafening reving up engine like mechanism with some futuristic torrent very suitable for particle accelerator. Black mesa fan made game rejected that and made bland transformator hum i hate it. Same for tau cannon, original sound simulating high speed spinning magnetic mechanism, shot is high voltage electric again deafening and sharp, in black mesa when you pick up there is sound of HYDRAULIC DOOR then some hum, spinning sound is like lathe shot is weaker than original, don't like it at all. HL1 composer tried to make cool sounds and he did a great job. Check older games. Compare sounds for similar purpose and try to understand why something better. Many futuristic guns and devices suffer from "piu" "piu" and phaser effect and absolutly forget about other parts that can be real. i want to write more but don't know what else to talk about. You can watch how composers react to music and sounds, or comparisons.
music composer and sound design have no job posting, since there's way too much competition. So employers usually look for the talent or hire within their own way. Composers who usually make the most money usually are freelancers and do different things
8:23 - This is definitely the painful truth of it all. I got laid off a while ago from my game programming job, now I'm just looking for anything outside the industry that won't make me suffer too much
I see why games are flopping like a floppy bird. Good concept and design are crucial to a game. Same for music guys, if composer can make not generic music he can carry a game to next level.
As a UI/UX designer, i'm glad to be mid lol In terms of opportunities it can be a bit annoying as this field is quite volatile due to a few factors: - UI designers are mostly hired/used at the end of a production cycle (UX designers can be there for entire project length due to them presenting research and player data) - Small teams for both UX and UI designers. We have to compete with a lot of people (usually at AAA companies there are only be 5-8 UI or UX designers) Best direction i'd say is to go for a Technical UI/UX role - basically the same as a sound designer up-skilling/blending to a UI programmer. Technical roles are almost always more favorable.
I'd put Environment artist/Level designer at "MID" and Concept art at "Trash but has some potential" based on AI and job postings. I would also put marketing up a tier as that's tied into being a publisher.
We can all tell when some art is created using AI, as in games like Call of Duty Black Ops 6, and we HATE it. But just imagine in the future when AI is indistinguishable and becomes the industry standard. I can definitely see why you put them in higher categories but it makes me so sad to see :(
I think the low portion of Sound Designer and Music Composer in the jobs maket opportunity is more because big studios all call the same renowned peoples and small studio use freelancing than anything else.
I worked as manual qa for about 4 years and it came to me that despite that I love games I would have more time to play them and have fun if I leave gamedev and find normal job where I get paid more and work less. So I am trying to switch to automation qa rn
@@0sac Yes, many managers also designate 3D generalists to import and fix 3d models in game engines, and implement them with InGame logic, So for a managerx 3d generalist means everything tied to 3d, including level design, as you do it with grey boxing in 3d...
@@0sac Yes, many managers also designate 3D generalists to import and fix 3d models in game engines, and implement them with InGame logic, So for a managerx 3d generalist means everything tied to 3d, including level design, as you do it with grey boxing in 3d...
i dont think its as cut and dry as your making things out to be. its much more complex. all this can change depending on the company your looking at working for. how big is the company whats its funding sources and how big is the project they are trying to tackle. next i would suggest some of your goats are going to be automated faster than your mids or lowers. rigging is definitely an area automation is already taking over in houdini or even blender riggify and other 3d party programs that make rigging place the dots here and then match to the anims in the library already there. heck animation is ripe for automation. it will change the animators job dramatically. make it more directing animations. uvs are now handled by automatic mapping almost now. render meshes can be made by using quad remesher then some tweaks but invidia is working on that now too with its ai tools. not much cant be automated in the future. even the head of microsoft says saas software as a service can go away with ai agents now. see you all on the govt dole.....or under the bridge if your lucky or drafted into ww3...yeah the future with tech so cool.
Not true. Depending on what you're rigging it doesn't matter how much tedium you can cut out of the workflow using automation or third party tools, that's a very technical area that still requires a high level of manual input especially from experienced riggers if you want a fluid puppet. Same goes for animation. There are areas where you can cut corners but they are very limited. When it comes to brass tax you still have to manually define your shape keys and breakdowns because in the end thats gonna determine the quality of the work.
Hello, i am from russia, and its very tough to get a job at any gamedev related company as due to sanctions, many outsorce-oriented companies like Larian Studios (based in St Petersburg) or Activision have left, and the other type of companies remaining make some 3d appstore/googlePlay games youd see in 15sec Unskippable ADs on YT, and those companies require like having 3+ years of experience and being 3d artist, C# mid+unity dev and team lead at the same time for under 700$ per months, So, I dont even know what to do, HR dont even look at portfolio at all, if you have
Dang! Yeah the industry in Russia sounds tough. Sorry to hear that many studios have left. I spoke to a Polish guy in my discord and he said it’s really bad there too. Low pay mixed with no opportunities. Funny how you go one country down from Russia to china and you see far more. My recommendation is find work outside of game dev and continue it on the side. But keep applying every so often in case something hits. Desperation ruins people.
Gonna second what @spalatobros said at the end. Don't expect doing game dev full time from the beginning. Keep it as a hobby, expand your skills, work on your own game, get a release when you can, even if it takes 2 years to complete. The important thing is not to release a game just for the sake of having it out there, let that game showcase your skills that you've acquired all that time so you can show potential recruiters your talents. Companies want you to learn on your own time, not on their time. It is what it is.
Nowadays the only real option is getting some experience and moving out of the country to somewhere like Serbia or Poland, or Germany if you can manage it. There's a bunch of outsource studios there with devs who moved out of Moscow/St. Petersburg still working in a similar environment, but with better salaries. If you're a complete beginner, try to do personal projects and move onto freelance if you're able to get some sort of payment option to work, since Paypal is blocked. If not, there's still ways, but yeah it's pretty difficult. I know a lot of freelance artists are now living in Georgia or Turkey since getting paid there is easier.
Yeah it’s tough, as manual QA I searched for a new job for half a year twice in the past few years. And you get paid shit so I had very little savings for those periods. I think the best thing to do is to leave both and make games as a hobby, it’s not like you have much creative freedom working in the big company anyway
@@spalatobros idk, i feel like you should've had an "old school level designer" card. Point being that level desing has become so neutered in the industry now, it basically amounts to nothing nowadays. Especially since now you're starting to see even more specialization in some companies. Open world games have gotten so streamlined now that there's barely anything to design. You can just reuse whole concepts from a previous game with new assets and have it work well. idk this is kinda the reason i'm not really looking for AAA gamedev jobs anymore so maybe i'm not the best person to talk about this. veteran designer radiatoryang has a "level design book" where he goes over a lot of this stuff. The page on The History of Level Design is where you can see what i mean. It's basically the idea that what level design is now pales in comparison to the role as it was in the 90s and early 2000s, mainly because level designers had more autonomy and therefore levels felt more cohesive. You could see a designers way of thinking as represented by things like their geometry, lighting and how they approached mechanics. That's pretty much gone now. anyway i hope that made some sense. i'm gona stop rambling now.
@@kitastro Little to no marketing. I showcased it at PAX and a few other conventions. And then I recognised it was a problem. Marketing super important. So I started the TH-cam channel. So now Making content that I’ve always wanted to make. Then eventually, start my studio, hire people and introduce new games I make here and there.
@@spalatobros Many "game designers" get stuck in the position of CMM or "writer" for item or level descriptions. This is not real "designer" - it's just called a "designer" The funny thing is that many studios don’t really need “game designers” - these are the creators of mobile games that copy rady designs from each other or AAA studios that copy a design that was once created 10+ years ago over and over again (ubisoft or bethesda) Real designer is someone who can create a GDD and give a full description based on which a programmer can make mechanics. Becoming such a developer today is difficult. Usually this is the way of true indie Many famous game designers started their careers in small teams If you start with a large company, then most likely you will become a producer, a level designer, a writer, a technical script programmer, but not a “designer,” although you will have a job title. But you won't have the opportunity to design games And of course, “game designers” at the start of their careers receive less than even artists
Maaan. If only you knew how many of those positions I worked in just a single year 😂 2024 was an absolute whirlwind for me. I have a long, personal story to tell. But I hope you'll find it worth while reading.
Before 2024, I had worked at a VR arcade as a host for 5 years, and for about a year had been self teaching myself how to code in Unreal Engine in my spare time. When 2024 came, the business suddenly got bought out and we got new owners. The new owners were nice and wanted to get to know the employees. So I of course told them that I was into game development, and ended up showing them some of the game projects I had been working on. One of them was a VR game and they liked it so much that they said "Tell you what...Finish your game and we'll buy it from you to offer it here at the store." Needless to say, I was shocked that they'd even consider it and I quickly hopped on it and began working hardcore on the game.
A couple months pass and the owners decide they wanted to produce more games for the business. So they recruit an established local development company to develop new games and they asked me to stop working as a host and start a new job assisting them and creating game assets and animations, since that's what my degree is in. So I started my first official video game related job working with two other developers who were the owners of the outsourced company (which will not be named...for reasons I will get to) All the while I would continue developing my own game in tandem.
I'm sure the developers were confused as to why I'd be joining them, and probably thought they'd be babysitting me, but they quickly realized that I was actually worth my salt when it comes to 3D modeling and animation. 3 months pass and things are going well, then out of nowhere I get called into a meeting and get told that the new owners have decided to officially start a partnership a create a new game development studio with the outsourced company. I was offered a percentage ownership of the company below the two dudes I had been working with and being excited at the prospect, I accepted. The trade for my position in the company was my own game that I was developing.
Things seemed great for the first couple months and they began recruiting a bunch of unpaid interns to help produce games, but something happened that would set off a whole string of events. I had finally gotten to a point in developing my own game that I was able to present a demo of it to the owners and everyone at the company, and immediately the tone in the room shifted. The two developers I had been working with creating their games knew I was a good animator, but they didn't know how competent I was at game development, and it quickly became apparent that they felt threatened by me. They had been working on these really short single player pick up and play experiences, and I had been working on a story driven, co-op multiplayer, horror, shooter, with voiced NPC's, complete with motion capture and performance capture.
Shortly after the demo they began treating me like shit and tried to bully me and make up lies about me. From my perspective, it didn't make sense to me that an established company would be threated by one single dude, and it felt like a betrayal. It got so bad that I got fed up and decided to really look into what they had been developing and I found....something surprising. I ended up finding the exact 2 game templates they had used to make the games with. One was a free template released by Meta and the other was a $13 archery asset off the Unity asset store, and literally all they had done is taken the assets that I had created and plopped them into the template.
Even though I work in Unreal, I decided to try and see for myself just how easy it would be to implement. So I purchased the assets they had used and put my assets into it and it took me no more that 3 hours worth of work.....They had been working on the game for 6 months...So yeah. It all started to make sense about now. I completely stopped working with them and presented the owners the information I had found out. I could tell that they believed me, but they were in denial because they had spent thousands of dollars paying these clowns and had gone into a contract with them. It took a little while, but they eventually came to their senses and decided to part ways with them. Then they came back to me and made me a new offer. They offered me the lead position of the studio and partial ownership of not just the studio, but the VR arcade as well.
I went from being a minimum wage host, self teaching myself how to develop games in my spare time, to a 3D modeler and Animator, to a co-owner and lead of a game development studio in just one year, at the age of 35 🤷...and somehow, against all odds, I managed to finish and launch my game. My brain is still reeling to be honest, and I have a metric crap ton of work ahead of me. So please wish me luck as I try to carve out my career and turn us into a respectable studio. We're called Lynx Studio and my game is called Lock Down. It's on Steam in early access if anyone is interested. I also have three games of my own that I'm developing. CRISPR, Path Of The Ancients and MechaBall Arena. Here are my dev YT channels. CRISPRVideoGameOfficial, MechaBallArenaOfficial, and LetsMakeSomeGames where I cover the development of a Souls-like combat system that I'm creating for other UE developers to use.
Great video by the way! Just subscribed.
@@PopFlipCatchStickRol Wow thats an amazing story! Very unorthodox way of getting in the industry. Glad that they actually listened to you in the end. That’s awesome! People have to read this. I’m pinning it !
The real goat is the Sound Designer and Sound Programmer combo
Kelly Bailey from valve is an example, exept he also did music production all in the same project, insane when you think about the fact he worked the job of 3 people in a company that could definitly hire more
Yeah that is nice. Valve is so profitable so I can’t fault their hiring procedures haha. Personally sound is like my favourite aspect of games. It’s an excellent secondary skill to have. Especially when working on your own projects. Just unfortunate there’s little working opportunity’s.
Hi I would like to learn these skills. Can you recommend me anything? I am from Europe and I know coding but I don't play instruments.
@@moresah you need to become proficent at both sound design music production and programming, thats why its so goated, you need a lot of balls to do it
@@moresah I'm not a musician but may be this will help.
When designing sounds create sounds that represent physical process, size of object, speed of movement, if it something mechanical add mechanic sounds, if there is gas movement make appropriate sound.
A lot of monster roars made out of slowed down door screech or baloon wheezle, that boring and overused, that why godzilla was so great at time and still because his roar was made from some instrument wire screech.
Half-life 1 gluon gun sound i LOVE it deafening reving up engine like mechanism with some futuristic torrent very suitable for particle accelerator. Black mesa fan made game rejected that and made bland transformator hum i hate it. Same for tau cannon, original sound simulating high speed spinning magnetic mechanism, shot is high voltage electric again deafening and sharp, in black mesa when you pick up there is sound of HYDRAULIC DOOR then some hum, spinning sound is like lathe shot is weaker than original, don't like it at all.
HL1 composer tried to make cool sounds and he did a great job.
Check older games. Compare sounds for similar purpose and try to understand why something better.
Many futuristic guns and devices suffer from "piu" "piu" and phaser effect and absolutly forget about other parts that can be real.
i want to write more but don't know what else to talk about. You can watch how composers react to music and sounds, or comparisons.
music composer and sound design have no job posting, since there's way too much competition.
So employers usually look for the talent or hire within their own way. Composers who usually make the most money usually are freelancers and do different things
@@lostimpanis very true. Much respect! I see you use fl studio. Awesome, so do I. Will check out your stuff
Meanwhile indie solo devs:
All of it
I feel called out lol
8:23 - This is definitely the painful truth of it all. I got laid off a while ago from my game programming job, now I'm just looking for anything outside the industry that won't make me suffer too much
@@Jamie-MrJam Damn. Hope you’re doing okay. Yeah shouldn’t be too hard to land a non industry job. Depends where you live
I'm really loving this channel. Great job guys
@@leeoiou7295 Thank you so much legend!
Coffee guy is S tier
Interesting, especially your take on level/environment jobs
I see why games are flopping like a floppy bird.
Good concept and design are crucial to a game. Same for music guys, if composer can make not generic music he can carry a game to next level.
@@gendalfgray7889 agreed ! 👍 for some reason not valued in job market. But should be
the editor zooming out with the thumbs up was funny
@vodkawhisperer3923 absolute chad
As a UI/UX designer, i'm glad to be mid lol
In terms of opportunities it can be a bit annoying as this field is quite volatile due to a few factors:
- UI designers are mostly hired/used at the end of a production cycle (UX designers can be there for entire project length due to them presenting research and player data)
- Small teams for both UX and UI designers. We have to compete with a lot of people (usually at AAA companies there are only be 5-8 UI or UX designers)
Best direction i'd say is to go for a Technical UI/UX role - basically the same as a sound designer up-skilling/blending to a UI programmer. Technical roles are almost always more favorable.
@@ZahhibbDev Yep 100%! The UI point makes sense. And yeah nothing wrong with Mid, it’s decent compared to other roles.
Noted. There is always like 1 designer and 10 programmers.
It's not the recruiters who are choosing Midjourney over illustrators, it's the directors.
@@AlexKolakowski Good point!
I'd put Environment artist/Level designer at "MID" and Concept art at "Trash but has some potential" based on AI and job postings.
I would also put marketing up a tier as that's tied into being a publisher.
@DevLancelot Fair points and well within reason.
We can all tell when some art is created using AI, as in games like Call of Duty Black Ops 6, and we HATE it. But just imagine in the future when AI is indistinguishable and becomes the industry standard. I can definitely see why you put them in higher categories but it makes me so sad to see :(
@@heny_official Yeah exactly!
Good job Spalato Bras!
I think the low portion of Sound Designer and Music Composer in the jobs maket opportunity is more because big studios all call the same renowned peoples and small studio use freelancing than anything else.
@@skave7228 Based! Totally makes sense. Great point.
I worked as manual qa for about 4 years and it came to me that despite that I love games I would have more time to play them and have fun if I leave gamedev and find normal job where I get paid more and work less. So I am trying to switch to automation qa rn
@@magnusequus Smart Choice! I wish you the wish in that endeavour!
Can't really fault the list honestly.
Well, shit.. guess I'll have to look for a CEO job to become a writer then
@@CriminalCalico 😂😂😂
I was more expecting the GD position to be 80/20 to be honest. But recently every post feel like a 80/20 so...
Companies expect the 3D generalist to do level design?? Heresy!
Yep! that’s why it’s ranked higher. Nothing wrong with it I guess, so long as it’s paid and not thrown in for free…
@@spalatobros (for context im a level designer lol)
@@0sac Yes, many managers also designate 3D generalists to import and fix 3d models in game engines, and implement them with InGame logic,
So for a managerx 3d generalist means everything tied to 3d, including level design, as you do it with grey boxing in 3d...
@@0sac Yes, many managers also designate 3D generalists to import and fix 3d models in game engines, and implement them with InGame logic,
So for a managerx 3d generalist means everything tied to 3d, including level design, as you do it with grey boxing in 3d...
what tier for the TH-camr?
@@lxve491 Trash with potential. There’s too many failed TH-camrs. Maybe like 2-3% actually make something out of it
i dont think its as cut and dry as your making things out to be. its much more complex. all this can change depending on the company your looking at working for. how big is the company whats its funding sources and how big is the project they are trying to tackle. next i would suggest some of your goats are going to be automated faster than your mids or lowers.
rigging is definitely an area automation is already taking over in houdini or even blender riggify and other 3d party programs that make rigging place the dots here and then match to the anims in the library already there.
heck animation is ripe for automation. it will change the animators job dramatically. make it more directing animations. uvs are now handled by automatic mapping almost now.
render meshes can be made by using quad remesher then some tweaks but invidia is working on that now too with its ai tools. not much cant be automated in the future.
even the head of microsoft says saas software as a service can go away with ai agents now. see you all on the govt dole.....or under the bridge if your lucky or drafted into ww3...yeah the future with tech so cool.
Not true. Depending on what you're rigging it doesn't matter how much tedium you can cut out of the workflow using automation or third party tools, that's a very technical area that still requires a high level of manual input especially from experienced riggers if you want a fluid puppet. Same goes for animation. There are areas where you can cut corners but they are very limited. When it comes to brass tax you still have to manually define your shape keys and breakdowns because in the end thats gonna determine the quality of the work.
Hard Surface 3D artist lands under 3D generalist position right?
@@Igor369 yep it does
Hello, i am from russia, and its very tough to get a job at any gamedev related company as due to sanctions, many outsorce-oriented companies like Larian Studios (based in St Petersburg) or Activision have left, and the other type of companies remaining make some 3d appstore/googlePlay games youd see in 15sec Unskippable ADs on YT, and those companies require like having 3+ years of experience and being 3d artist, C# mid+unity dev and team lead at the same time for under 700$ per months,
So, I dont even know what to do, HR dont even look at portfolio at all, if you have
Dang! Yeah the industry in Russia sounds tough. Sorry to hear that many studios have left. I spoke to a Polish guy in my discord and he said it’s really bad there too.
Low pay mixed with no opportunities. Funny how you go one country down from Russia to china and you see far more.
My recommendation is find work outside of game dev and continue it on the side. But keep applying every so often in case something hits. Desperation ruins people.
Gonna second what @spalatobros said at the end. Don't expect doing game dev full time from the beginning. Keep it as a hobby, expand your skills, work on your own game, get a release when you can, even if it takes 2 years to complete. The important thing is not to release a game just for the sake of having it out there, let that game showcase your skills that you've acquired all that time so you can show potential recruiters your talents. Companies want you to learn on your own time, not on their time. It is what it is.
Nowadays the only real option is getting some experience and moving out of the country to somewhere like Serbia or Poland, or Germany if you can manage it. There's a bunch of outsource studios there with devs who moved out of Moscow/St. Petersburg still working in a similar environment, but with better salaries. If you're a complete beginner, try to do personal projects and move onto freelance if you're able to get some sort of payment option to work, since Paypal is blocked. If not, there's still ways, but yeah it's pretty difficult. I know a lot of freelance artists are now living in Georgia or Turkey since getting paid there is easier.
Yeah it’s tough, as manual QA I searched for a new job for half a year twice in the past few years. And you get paid shit so I had very little savings for those periods. I think the best thing to do is to leave both and make games as a hobby, it’s not like you have much creative freedom working in the big company anyway
AI 3D modeling has been figured out already
@@kainannicotari941 Yeah but it’s very mid. No where near good enough for wide adoption
haven't watched yet, let me guess: he's gonna say level design is munted. He should at least
@@defectivenull Haha. Sorta-ish. What do you think about where I put it ?
@@spalatobros idk, i feel like you should've had an "old school level designer" card. Point being that level desing has become so neutered in the industry now, it basically amounts to nothing nowadays. Especially since now you're starting to see even more specialization in some companies. Open world games have gotten so streamlined now that there's barely anything to design. You can just reuse whole concepts from a previous game with new assets and have it work well.
idk this is kinda the reason i'm not really looking for AAA gamedev jobs anymore so maybe i'm not the best person to talk about this.
veteran designer radiatoryang has a "level design book" where he goes over a lot of this stuff. The page on The History of Level Design is where you can see what i mean.
It's basically the idea that what level design is now pales in comparison to the role as it was in the 90s and early 2000s, mainly because level designers had more autonomy and therefore levels felt more cohesive. You could see a designers way of thinking as represented by things like their geometry, lighting and how they approached mechanics. That's pretty much gone now.
anyway i hope that made some sense. i'm gona stop rambling now.
How did you market your game?
@@kitastro Little to no marketing. I showcased it at PAX and a few other conventions. And then I recognised it was a problem. Marketing super important. So I started the TH-cam channel. So now Making content that I’ve always wanted to make. Then eventually, start my studio, hire people and introduce new games I make here and there.
what do you think about a technical designer?
@@sufifrank not a very common job. But it’s decent. Maybe Mid. Similar to an engine programmer
im making indie game of my own by solo
Am i Goated ?
@@BISHOP666 Haha yeah! Could even argue that would be a category above goated. Super goated!
damn :(
Ooo What’s wrong ?
hmm gamedesigner are trash with potential in a lot of company
@@YarGolubev Can see how you would rate it lower. For me if they don’t know how to code then yeah they are ranked lower
@@spalatobros Many "game designers" get stuck in the position of CMM or "writer" for item or level descriptions.
This is not real "designer" - it's just called a "designer"
The funny thing is that many studios don’t really need “game designers” - these are the creators of mobile games that copy rady designs from each other or AAA studios that copy a design that was once created 10+ years ago over and over again (ubisoft or bethesda)
Real designer is someone who can create a GDD and give a full description based on which a programmer can make mechanics.
Becoming such a developer today is difficult. Usually this is the way of true indie
Many famous game designers started their careers in small teams
If you start with a large company, then most likely you will become a producer, a level designer, a writer, a technical script programmer, but not a “designer,” although you will have a job title.
But you won't have the opportunity to design games
And of course, “game designers” at the start of their careers receive less than even artists
@ Based asf!