Good luck! My mate does some software development(not videogames sadly, he's getting there though) and the frustration is killer! I wish you all the best!

Well yeah good luck, games Dev can be a pain in the ass job at times and the fluctuation can be kinda high at times.

My wife saw all of that at Red Storm years ago--I'm all-too familiar with the 'shower in the bathroom' setup. Actually, having seen just how difficult it is to put a title together (and pray that it succeeds without bankrupting the company) is one of the reasons I have never pirated a game. Nor will I.

The work those folks do demands respect.

I was like, "Oh that's so about EOD"

Then I was like
"oh games. Lol"


I bet that pays good. :V

EOD? I have a really hard time imagining that as a dream job :D. Besides the fact that you are disarming/removing bombs, you're also doing it in a active war zone. It suspect it gets your adrenaline pumping real good thou.

Yar.

Eh, I bet it is for some people.

For me though, I'll gladly go into light infantry. :V


At least I don't put my face into a bomb.

I rather be a fighter pilot, then you get to put bombs in other peoples faces :P
Dreamed of being a fighter pilot when I was younger, then all but broke my back in a motorbike crash at age 16, and that was the end of that career oppertunity :(

D:


Balls yo.


I could get disqualified to enlist if my eye isn't in acceptable condition D:

im actually looking around for colleges for game design/art ^^ but i hope things will lighten up a little for you =3

A quick tip. A education is not always enough. Be active in the community, work on mods and do side projects while you're studying. Try to befriend someone who's working as a developer already. It's so much about contacts and who you know in this business. You will have an easier time getting a internship and with friends who are developers , you'll have an easier time wedging you metaphorical foot in the metaphorical door. I had no education what so ever in game development ( I'm a automotive engineer ), but I had plenty of friends, and a huge amount of community work to show off.

hope the pressure gets better for you sir...not so bad too often
hope everything else is going ok for you

I'd rather be a game developer than a data conversion operator.

I thought about it then I realized that I'd probably have more fun playing than making.

Given that I have no girlfriend or pet, an enthusiasm for video games that lends itself into the AMs of the next day, and I have endured 16 hour shifts in a warzone, I could handle that job.

Congratulations on landing it, and good luck with the future.

Did game development for 10 years as an artist. (Both as staff artist, Art Director, and freelance) yeah, great job, but massive stress. Actually, it took me years to want to do art after I left.. the job sucked ALL of the creative energy I had. It SUCKS to be creative on a schedule for months and years at a time.

Amen, scheduled creativity really drains you.

No problem RL and the job comes first
I was beginning to wonder if something happened to you
Yeah jobs can get very stressful and when you have deadlines even more so

I was on the beta testing end of software development for 10 years. When you mention projects yanked from your desk while you're still working on them... oh, gods does that bring back memories. I was once told that as "Quality Assurance" I had veto power to prevent something going out the door if it wasn't up to standards. I soon found out that was a lie. I would explain to project managers that the project was not ready to go and that it needed x amount of time and y amount of resources and z things needed to change.

When the people who produce content - writers, artists - and the programmers who make the code work don't have enough time, the product is a fail. I would tell them that they needed more programmers to work on all the parts of the program: my co-tester and I had a backlog of over 500 detailed bug reports. Did they get the extra programmer, or even pay overtime for those we had? No, they did not.

How does your testing (or QA) department work with you?

As for "scheduled creativity"... what you say there is what kept me from going to art school. It takes something I don't have to create on a schedule. So, tho it may drain you, kudos for being able to do it.

I know I would be excellent at game testing, but just like doing art for work, I'm sure gaming for work would suck fun out of it. Still... sometimes finding and detailing a bug is fun in its own right.

Most of our QA is outsourced to a different studio. We do however keep quite a large QA staff. But they hardly do any real gametesting at all, and would better be described as QA leads. They are there to support us in the art and media department when we have issues with new engines and software. They also act as support staff for all and any event we attend ( lucky bastards get to go to tokyo game show :D ) The only thing I've heard them gripe about is the pay, which is somewhere around 2000$-2200$ US a month after taxes are paid.