Determining whether a game design degree is worth it or not has been a common question among myself and students. With college being so expensive, I know that many are a bit hesitant whether it can truly help them or not. I sought out to find if a game design degree might actually be worthwhile.
The average cost of tuition for a bachelor’s degree in game design is $40,940, including tuition, room and board, books and supplies, transportation, and other miscellaneous expenses. The median income of a game developer is $50,923 per year.
A bachelor’s degree, in order to be worthwhile monetarily, would need to improve your salary by the same amount over roughly 40 years. This is an estimated average length of a career.
Clearly, there are other ways to benefit whether a degree may be worthwhile, instead of just monetarily. I want to provide some information on who may benefit, and who may not.
When a Game Design Degree May Make Sense
It makes sense when the ideal job with the ideal company requests a degree.
Most students I have walk through my doors that truly want to be in the industry have already done some research. They often times have a company in mind that they would really want to work for. One good way to determine if a degree will help you is to either look at employees for that company and see what type of qualifications they have or look at job descriptions.
If you are still a bit confused on whether you should get a degree or not, I’ve tried to list a few reasons why you may benefit and a few reasons why you may not.
Who Benefits:
If the ideal job with the ideal company requests a degree
It is not uncommon for someone to have some goals of where they may want to eventually work. Several companies, such as Blizzard, Rockstar, or Bethesda are some fairly common ones. My recommendation is that you take a bit of time, look at what those job requirements have listed. You may find some details on what their requirements are.
Secondly, I recommend looking up some people who work at your ideal company on LinkedIn. Many will have profiles about where they graduated from and what jobs they have held in the past. What this can do for you is to see a path that someone else has taken to land where they currently on.
One word of caution, some people have some very interesting paths. Examples might include degrees in areas that are entirely unrelated. Just keep this in perspective. What you may find in contrast though are potential college pipelines that the company likes to pull from. In my own experience in education, I have found companies that like to hire my students because they understand what they know coming in. Each time they need to hire someone, they will reach out to me to see if I have students I can recommend.
If you want to broaden your opportunities
One thing I tell my students early on is that the white piece of paper you get from a college is worth quite a bit to quite a few employers. There are clearly jobs out there that will require it.
If you want to broaden your opportunities, I would recommend getting a bit more of a broad degree such as Computer Science. This will allow you to work in many different industries, but it still relates back to game development as well.
I am well aware of several game developers that do not have game design degrees. Instead, they have something like an art degree or a computer science degree. My recommendation is actually to go this route in place of a game design degree unless you just absolutely know that you don’t want to do anything outside of that.
On the opposite, I’m aware of people who work as programmers who have game development degrees as well. It just doesn’t work out quite as well in many instances.
If advancement is currently slow (Broaden your skills)
If you feel a bit stuck, that there just isn’t anywhere to go or no advancement opportunity, then college may be a good fit. This is particularly the case if you have some time you think you can invest or a company you are working for pays for education. I would highly recommend taking advantage of it.
There are times where it simply makes sense to broaden your skills. If this is you, education is a great resource for this. You will be exposed to a variety of different issues and often technology.
I recommend that you evaluate the college you might be going to. It can be hit and miss. I am familiar with one local college that is using up to date technology, but there is another with a similar titled degree that is far behind the times, in my opinion.
If you need networking opportunities
One thing that I really like about college is an opportunity for networking. To put it simply, in education, colleges, professors, and students often attract people much like themselves. If you are looking around and can’t find people that love games as much as you do, then college will likely be a good place to find them.
The relationships you develop in college will often be lifelong. I still speak with people that I went to school with about work. This is 20 years after graduating!
Also, as new job opportunities are made available, I have asked some of those same individuals if they would consider the job. It’s fairly amazing that those relationships have actually landed me in my current position. It is not uncommon that the people you work with later on will be the person sitting next to you in one of your college classes.
If you need structure for your learning
I have met several people that simply need some structure in their learning. There are a ton of resources online, but if you have struggled with finding time to be able to follow through on learning some of the skills you feel you need, then college will help you.
There is something to be said for the motivation of a letter grade going on your transcript and the price you pay that will make sure you follow through. I think as you get older, the easier this process is.
One word of warning about college education: I’m not the biggest fan of the way the system is currently in place. You will need to take some classes that you know will never be applicable to the job you eventually want in game design. Still, the structure does help when you get to those classes that you do find applicable.
If you are someone who just wants to get their foot in the door
At larger companies, such as Blizzard, they often do take on internships. One area that you might be surprised in though is that they do often require that you are pursuing a related degree. As I was looking through possible internships for students, I found that many of my own students would not qualify until they were enrolled in a bachelor’s program of some kind.
In addition, I found that many of the internships were geared towards potential candidates from around the area. I think it would be difficult for a student to move out to California for a summer to intern. It seems a bit unreasonable, although the payoff may be great. I just don’t foresee this being a great option for many of my own students.
I believe the reason a lot of the companies are requiring that you be in college before you can intern is for two reasons: 1) You have a vested interest in the topics and 2) you have base-level knowledge. I would imagine that they receive a lot of applications for internships from students who really do not have any base-level knowledge and may not be able to contribute.
When a Game Design Degree Does Not Make Sense
Who Does Not Benefit:
If you already have 3-5 years experience
If you already have a few years of experience, this often is considered to be equivalent to a bachelor’s degree in most industries, including game development. This can often look many different ways, but it is important that you show it as a truly professional experience.
As an example, if you have been a freelance game developer for 3-5 years, you should have some commercially released games that show for it. You cannot say you have been a freelancer, but have no completed games in your portfolio. I believe the completion of games is what separates someone from a hobbyist.
If the ideal job you want doesn’t require a degree
There are many jobs out there and some companies that are quite well known that simply do not care anything about your education, but really do rely more heavily on your portfolio. In this case, you may be better served not going to college, and instead of jumping straight to portfolio work.
In the end, the result will be roughly the same as if you went to college or not. You will need an extensive portfolio to get your foot in the door. College typically will not help you with this area much.
If you have an extensive portfolio that represents your ability for the job you want
My students a few years back won a national award for game development. To their credit, they were just naturally really good at what they did. One was a programmer, the other was a 3D artist. There were several recognizable companies in attendance. Multiple times they were told, “if you would put this work in a portfolio and present it to companies, I believe you could easily be hired”.
Both students were on the track to college, and I still believe they will be very successful. They currently are finishing up their 3rd year. I believe those individuals when they said that. The students had great work they could show. They could have landed a job pretty easily, I believe.
If you are very self-driven
I still believe that someone who has a very self-driven mentality will be more successful and expedite their time getting into the industry without college. Simply put, college is a fairly slow process for someone who is quite passionate about the industry.
Consider this, in most 3D modeling classes you will spend about 16 weeks, each week learning a new concept. In the end, you will still have relatively basic knowledge unless you take it and do something else with it. I can promise that if you spend 16 weeks working every day on 3D modeling, you would learn far more from that than you would in a college class. The difference here though is that someone who is not self-driven will have a difficult time applying themselves for that long of a period of time to learning.
If you are going for a useless degree
I believe that we have entered an era where there are a lot of degrees colleges are offering that are not very applicable. I believe game development degrees have their place when done properly. Unfortunately, there are a lot of colleges that simply do not do it the right way. This concerns me for those students. If you’re not truly learning a skill, it’s going to be difficult to land a job in that industry.
My recommendation to this day is still for game developers to go for a more broad degree such as computer science or a multimedia degree if you want to be on the art side. These degrees often lend themselves to other industries as well, but still can be used for game development too.
Do game design jobs require a degree?
I went out and did a bit of research on my own to help determine if game development companies, particularly those that are fairly popular, actually do require a degree.
Blizzard
They are seeking someone who is at least enrolled in a college (starts out as an intern). A game designer intern positions require someone with team experience, software experience, familiar with their games already.
Verdict: Yes, you should pursue a degree to get your foot in the door as an intern at Blizzard.
ZeniMax
ZeniMax on their jobs listings for a game programmer say they want someone with at least 5+ years experience. They are looking for someone with credit as a programmer for a shipped title. You must have excellent math skills.
Verdict: Yes, I would consider pursuing a degree as this job may require a math test of some kind before being hired at ZeniMax. Keep in mind that you will need to have that experience in addition though, so it may depend on where you are currently at.
Rockstar Games
For a modeler position, they want you to have an extensive portfolio showcasing your work with 3DS Max. It is also required to know about Photoshop. They mention game development experience as a plus as well as education or certification courses in 3D art production as a plus as well. Their job listing appears to be more focused on passion than education.
Verdict: No, education appears to have no benefit to pursuing a job at Rockstar Games. I would advise anyone who wants to work for that company to work heavily on their portfolio and learn the software that they expect you to know coming in.