SKills Shortage Hits Games Firms

Discussion in 'The Lounge - Off Topic' started by GiddyG, Jun 21, 2008.

  1. dmarsh
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    dmarsh Petabyte Poster

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    Totally agree, its like saying watching a movie makes you qualified to be a director.

    Generally playing a game provides very little insight as to how it was created.

    Games are designed as entertainment, they do not necessarilly develop useful traits. Maybe persistence at moving a cursor or hand eye co-ordination, neither are much use as a games programmer or designer.

    I have to disagree, testers and programmers are generally two different beasts. Programmers are like engineers, they have a deep interest in how things work, and making them work more efficiently. They would up the polygons per frame or frames per second regardless of whether it was a game or not.
     
  2. BosonMichael
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    BosonMichael Yottabyte Poster

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    Never said it did. However, it also doesn't mean that gamers lack intelligence, patience, and persistence.

    I didn't say testing was like programming. The point I was trying to get across was this: people who like to game might THINK they want to test, but most really don't: they like to game, not test. Similarly, people who like to game might THINK they want to program games, but most really don't... they really just wanna game. Only those who love testing and programming for what they really are - not an easy escape to PlayGamesVille - will truly enjoy it.
     
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  3. supernova

    supernova Gigabyte Poster

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    I wish :D

    No its Visual Data Flex (in my sig) a OO database development language, apart from we did'nt use the IDE we used vi, CVS and the likes on linux, only used windows to compile and test. This third party text based tool was used to create GUIs based on "standards".

    The nearest i have been to gaming is 3d graphics, which i did at uni ie built a basic wire frame engine, then more advanced stuff using opengl


    Andi
     
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  4. supernova

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    depends a lot of places train people up from scratch hence maths graduates etc.
    You have to be good in certain disciplines often shared by people that excel in those areas of study.

    Like my friend who is a mobile developer for Microsoft at Redmond, he got the job after he left Cambridge reading physics.

    Andi
     
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  5. Mathematix

    Mathematix Megabyte Poster

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    Interesting thread! :blink

    To say that gamers lack these qualities is ridiculous. Games are actually designed to test these very qualities in the player! :biggrin

    Absolutely spot-on! Testing is a job where you are told what to do and when to do it. A tester will be told which sections of the game to play to look for bugs, or maybe told to 'regress a bug' (attempt to reproduce it after a fix has been applied) in order to check if the fix has been sucessful. Gamers just play the game at their leisure.

    Not in my own personal experience, nor that of fellow programmers. Those who make their way into games as programmers tend to be those who are interested in both programming and gaming, but specifically enjoy the challenge of creating a game as a programming task. The games that we normally come up with in our own time tend to be sub-standard because of the lack of an artistic eye, but the underlying work taken to create it is very satisfying. :biggrin
     
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  6. Mathematix

    Mathematix Megabyte Poster

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    Nice! :biggrin
     
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