Despite having a degree, which shows that you can do the job, employers still ignore your application, or reject you.
Now, college students have a thing called loans. Whether or not you have a job, those loan providers still want to be paid.
If the student can’t pay the loans, and their family cosigned the loans, but they can’t pay it, then thats a LOT of pressure from family, and everyone involved is going to have a bad time.
My degree is in game programming. I rolled a nat 1, I guess, cause all the gaming jobs are abruptly disappearing this year, and I just graduated last year. I’ve given up on pursuing a job for a game company, for now.
I’ve been in the red a couple times. I’m barely afloat as it is. During December and January, I was thinking about either suicide, or abandoning my life. Going on the road.
But I didn’t have the strength to really do it.
I’m at about $130,000 in debt. I am working minimum wage. And entry level for my field is 60-90k.
You can imagine how gutwrenching it might be to be that close to having a liveable income, when you were raised poor, and you’ve only had minimum wage jobs your whole life. Now I’m back at a minimum wage job, and I have to pay ~$1000 a month in just school loans.
In the USA, make sure you fill out a SAVE Plan, if you’re really working minimum wage then you probably qualify for $0 Repayment and in 10 years it will be cancelled under the contract terms.
I am not at home to check more into this, but have you looked in the Industrial Automation industry? A lot of game devs ended up being a good fit. While I am hesitant to recommend my old employer, the software guys make good money and I still have a few friends over there. My reasons for quitting had nothing to do with the software department. Check out Dematic and some similar companies. Dematic was at least good for getting experience and I learned plenty.
It may not seem super glamorous at a glance, but it is worth a shot.
Had a very similar experience, even with game dev. You should honestly just avoid game dev jobs but yeah, right now it’s impossible to pivot out of game dev anyways. I wish I could say it gets better, and it will, but the game Dev job market will never be good. I graduated 4 years ago and still don’t have a job in the field. They want you to be working on personal projects while working 40+ hours a week, probably because they will be working you 60 hours a week, lmao. We picked the worse major, I wish I wasn’t scammed into serfdom at 19.
Game dev is extremely hard to break into. I’ve been in and out of the industry for some time now.
If you’re dead set on working in the industry I’d strongly advise going the platform integrations route.
Gain experince working with API services and creating some C++/C# integration wrappers for UE and Unity (GoDot potentially too).
Pick up some contract work doing API development outside the games industry to strengthen your knowledge and experince developing solutions.
Find a game team that needs a platform(s) integration engineering role or a central publishing engineering role.
Develop a host of solutions professionally for a year or two.
Make the jump into the role you actually want.
This also gives you a ton of job flexibility in an industry that values knowledge breadth and has waves of job stability. Automation & tooling engineering, API development, services engineering, etc.
TMI , did you ever have any experience to go with the degree? Did you not work at all during college? why don’t you start making some games that are worth two fucks and the money will flow champagne like at Gatsby’s homie, back in the black!
You are right, they should just give up and make coffee or hamburgers or something… What do they have to lose? If anything they hone their skills and get practice for when they find a job… and can show a portfolio of some projects worked on.Knowhatimsayin?
The problem in America is that more and more skilled workers are having to settle for making hamburgers because of shit like this. Good luck getting any “portfolio” shit done when you’re working 2 unskilled labor jobs and still not making your monthly bills.
This also doesn’t address the fact that employers give zero fucks about that stuff. Portfolios. Gimme a fucking break. It doesn’t matter if you singlehandedly made an entire Linux distro, no one’s going to care.
Prior to Covid, I worked part time. During college, I worked on personal projects. It’s hard to have industry experience if you haven’t yet entered the industry.
That’s tough, I was lucky to get a foot in the door through some different organizations I participate in personally. It pays about the same as flipping burgers but from those I’ve seen succeed, experience is equally as important as the education. I was ready to manipulate and lie to get experience. Keep trying and don’t be afraid to overstate your accomplishments and projects. Have you looked for any volunteer projects?
Despite having a degree, which shows that you can do the job, employers still ignore your application, or reject you.
Now, college students have a thing called loans. Whether or not you have a job, those loan providers still want to be paid.
If the student can’t pay the loans, and their family cosigned the loans, but they can’t pay it, then thats a LOT of pressure from family, and everyone involved is going to have a bad time.
My degree is in game programming. I rolled a nat 1, I guess, cause all the gaming jobs are abruptly disappearing this year, and I just graduated last year. I’ve given up on pursuing a job for a game company, for now.
I’ve been in the red a couple times. I’m barely afloat as it is. During December and January, I was thinking about either suicide, or abandoning my life. Going on the road.
But I didn’t have the strength to really do it.
I’m at about $130,000 in debt. I am working minimum wage. And entry level for my field is 60-90k.
You can imagine how gutwrenching it might be to be that close to having a liveable income, when you were raised poor, and you’ve only had minimum wage jobs your whole life. Now I’m back at a minimum wage job, and I have to pay ~$1000 a month in just school loans.
So…I can relate.
In the USA, make sure you fill out a SAVE Plan, if you’re really working minimum wage then you probably qualify for $0 Repayment and in 10 years it will be cancelled under the contract terms.
https://studentaid.gov/announcements-events/save-plan
I did, but it only applies to federal loans. I’m currently paying “personal loans” which are student loans from other lenders.
Having a degree does not mean you can do the job!
I am not at home to check more into this, but have you looked in the Industrial Automation industry? A lot of game devs ended up being a good fit. While I am hesitant to recommend my old employer, the software guys make good money and I still have a few friends over there. My reasons for quitting had nothing to do with the software department. Check out Dematic and some similar companies. Dematic was at least good for getting experience and I learned plenty.
It may not seem super glamorous at a glance, but it is worth a shot.
Had a very similar experience, even with game dev. You should honestly just avoid game dev jobs but yeah, right now it’s impossible to pivot out of game dev anyways. I wish I could say it gets better, and it will, but the game Dev job market will never be good. I graduated 4 years ago and still don’t have a job in the field. They want you to be working on personal projects while working 40+ hours a week, probably because they will be working you 60 hours a week, lmao. We picked the worse major, I wish I wasn’t scammed into serfdom at 19.
Game dev is extremely hard to break into. I’ve been in and out of the industry for some time now.
If you’re dead set on working in the industry I’d strongly advise going the platform integrations route.
This also gives you a ton of job flexibility in an industry that values knowledge breadth and has waves of job stability. Automation & tooling engineering, API development, services engineering, etc.
TMI , did you ever have any experience to go with the degree? Did you not work at all during college? why don’t you start making some games that are worth two fucks and the money will flow champagne like at Gatsby’s homie, back in the black!
Making your own indie games when you already have the skills and don’t have college debt is a thing that already generally doesn’t work out.
You are right, they should just give up and make coffee or hamburgers or something… What do they have to lose? If anything they hone their skills and get practice for when they find a job… and can show a portfolio of some projects worked on.Knowhatimsayin?
The problem in America is that more and more skilled workers are having to settle for making hamburgers because of shit like this. Good luck getting any “portfolio” shit done when you’re working 2 unskilled labor jobs and still not making your monthly bills.
This also doesn’t address the fact that employers give zero fucks about that stuff. Portfolios. Gimme a fucking break. It doesn’t matter if you singlehandedly made an entire Linux distro, no one’s going to care.
Shit like what? Are all the employers the same in your area? Are you working two dead end jobs right now?
/s?
No
Prior to Covid, I worked part time. During college, I worked on personal projects. It’s hard to have industry experience if you haven’t yet entered the industry.
That’s tough, I was lucky to get a foot in the door through some different organizations I participate in personally. It pays about the same as flipping burgers but from those I’ve seen succeed, experience is equally as important as the education. I was ready to manipulate and lie to get experience. Keep trying and don’t be afraid to overstate your accomplishments and projects. Have you looked for any volunteer projects?