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Games Entertainment

How Do You Become A Console Game Programmer? 64

Posted by simoniker from the give-me-crunch-mode-please dept.
sknja writes "I am currently a junior in college and am about to begin the last 2 years of a 5-year electrical engineering program. I have a concentration in computer engineering, and a minor in Japanese. Right now, my life revolves around classes, video games, and learning Japanese. Since I am passionate about all three, I want to try and combine the three, my goal being to become an engineer working on game consoles. Since the end of school is drawing near, what steps should I take toward achieving this goal? Do gaming companies ever have co-op or internship positions open?" Is Japanese a practical or useful skill in this context, and how should/do game companies value internships and programming degrees vs. practical experience on game mods?
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How Do You Become A Console Game Programmer? More

How Do You Become A Console Game Programmer?

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  • lame subject line cuz I need one (Score:3, Interesting)

    by spectral ( 158121 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @02:51AM (#5934997)
    Hopefully the original asker will answer this question, but from what I read, it seems like he's more towards the hardware end of things (working on designing the consoles) than on the software (working on games for them). There's some crossover, but he's in computer engineering: hardware with a bit of software. Nowhere does he mention programming.

    So, is it really wanting to be a programmer, or is it wanting to be a designer of the hardware?
    • Yes. Yet again the Slashdot editors misread the story submission and give it an inaccurate or misleading subject title.

    • Re:lame subject line cuz I need one (Score:4, Interesting)

      by spectral ( 158121 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @03:29AM (#5935079)
      That question being posed, and assuming the answer to be you want to work on hardware: Good luck getting in to the center of a large Japanese corporation if you're a foreigner. I'm not saying it's impossible, but highly unlikely. Especially if you don't have a perfect command of the language. Foreigners over here are useful for a few things: Teaching drunken businessmen english, staring at, making fun of when they think we can't understand them, and scaring little children.

      The best part is when they're talking about you on the train, sitting right next to you, thinking you can't understand what they're saying.. then you say something in japanese to your friend sitting next to you and they shut up for the rest of the train ride. *grin*

      I hate to admit it, but you might have a better chance getting in to Microsoft to work on X-Box. Especially if you're doing an internship.. but good luck even for that. I have no personal experience, but I doubt something like X-Box hardware design would use interns much at all. At least there (if you can get in), you get some experience in your native language, and then maybe make the switch to a Japanese company.

      Anyway, nan nen kan nihongo benkyou shita? ore.. san nen kan, demo, zenzen benyou shinakatta kara, amari jouzu ja arahen-n ya.. ^_^ Ima, kansai gaikokugo daigaku no gakusei, demo roku gatsu (getsu? I can never remember) no futsuka ni amerika ni kaeru to omoimasu..

      Wow romaji is ugly as hell. Especially when you mix in kansai-ben. Bleh. :P
      • Nihongo zen zen shaberarehen daiyo!
      • I graduated with a similar degree and a minor in Japanese. To be honest, I never expected much out of the Japanese part; I had started studying Japanese on a whim when a friend convinced me to take Japanese 101 with him. He dropped the course later that semester, but I decided to stick with it since I thought it was a piece of cake compared to my regular coursework, I was learning something interesting, and there were several hot girls in my class. I managed to get a couple of scholarships thanks to my Japa
        • yeah, I can never remember which is length and which is specific.. and I knew the no was superfluous when I re-read it, the parenthesis had screwed me up. *sigh*

          Too bad I can't get off with such simple sentences in my tests. I have two finals next week, and I'm probably going to fail both. Fun :)
      • Taihensou da yo...

        I really relate with the poster of this Ask Slashdot (college student, 3 years of Japanese, studying in Japan) except I personally am on the software side of the coin. But I have heard about the amount of xenophobia and racism present in Japan, and frankly it scares me. I feel like I might be throwing lots of time and energy on study in vain, because of the language, culture, and acceptance barrier. I suppose at least I could comfort myself in the fact that learning Japanese is neat fo
      • Uh...Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi! Tonari no Totoro! Mononoke Hime! Yeah, that's the ticket!

  • On becoming a games programmer... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jouni ( 178730 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @03:01AM (#5935009)
    Just start doing it by yourself. Games companies tend to (wisely) hire only game programmers for game programming jobs; as a rule you need to demonstrate both passion and ability before you are considered a serious applicant.

    Ability is best demonstrated with a showcase of a playable game or at least a prototype that shows you "get it". If you specifically aim for the consoles, then Game Boy Advance is a good place to start as it has a healthy and active indie/hobbyist developer community.

    Game companies often find interns who have no skills to be a mere distraction, they rarely train people to become games programmers although I've seen this happen too! Not many remain with that company today.

    As for Japanese, the skill is handy in the first months of development on new platforms when technical documentation is scarce and most of it in the original Japanese form. While this would make platforms like PlayStation 3 theoretically applicable, you'd also have to have serious PlayStation 2 experience to be useful in such teams.

    You can program any of the current generation consoles without knowing a word of Japanese. Also for most games localization into other languages is generally done with language experts and little to no specific programming is involved in making each of the language versions.

    Perhaps there are opportunities to look into for translating existing Japanese games to the American market. As the popularity of the manga culture seems to be on a constant rise, it's very likely that we will see more of the older Japanese games which were originally never planned to be localized. The code and comments for these are likely to be Japanese, or Engrish at best.

    The one advantage you have from your lingual ability is that you can play rare Japanese games and thus expand your knowledge and understanding of the art. Play those games, and make sure you mention it on your resume!

    Jouni

    • Here's a UK site which you might find useful, its specifically geared toward getting into the games industry.

      http://www.blitzgames.com/gameon
    • You read the headline, but not the actual posted question. If you had you'd realize the headline was wrong. (Listen up /. editors, this applies to you too)

      This guy doesn't wan't to be a game programmer. He's an engineer and he wants to work on game consoles. Big difference people!
      • No, I read them both but took "engineer" to mean "software engineer". However, thanks for taking the time to post your smartass reply.
        • Quote: ...of a 5-year electrical engineering program.

          Good to know that electrical is synonymous with software, learn something new every day don't we?
          • Quote "gaming companies" Quote "programming degrees" Quote "experience on game mods" *sigh*
            • OK, out come the guns. Fuck are you ever a dense idiot.

              No wait, the correct term I believe is fuckwit.

              Two of your three quotes were written by the editor, simoniker, and do NOT exist in the question submitted by sknja.

              Your other quote, "gaming companies", you are using totally out of context. Do these so called "gaming companies" only program? No possibility of any "gaming companies" that deal with hardware as well?

              Dude, you have royally stuck your foot in your mouth, give up already.

              (He's trolling isn
              • Ooops... my bad, you're quite right. Perhaps you'd like to take the time to correct everyone else who also 'misread' this? I assuming that you're a teenager and thus can't help being a smartass. Please try and resist the urge to post another foul mouthed "put-down", thanks.
                • Do I really have to explain why I'd reply to yours and not all the rest as well?

                  Visibility my friend. Kill many birds with 1 stone.
                  Your comment happened to have been, totally wrongly, modded to 5 and thus appears at the top. Thus the hope is that more readers than not would see the problem.

                  I'm to assume then that you are a mature adult because mature adults take at least 3 obvious contradictions to admit that they are wrong? Then complain about the other being a child? You are a very funny person, sure ho
            • All of which were non-italic and thus the words of the slashdotter and not the original poster.
  • On becoming a game programmer -

    Programming for consoles ranges from very easy to very hard. Some manufacturers (only Sony so far) provide specific platforms to aid in game developers. Sony's PS2-Linux kit is basically the same as their $10k professional TOOL product, but it's missing support, printed manuals and one of he others (and your games only run on other Linux kits). Others (for nintendo consoles I think) need to be bought from stores like Lik Sang. Finally, there are companies like MS who force
    • The hardware side

      I can talk from experience about hardware:
      You'd need to get into one of the semiconductor houses that do design work for the gaming companies in order to be a part of this. Not sure who does what for Sony, Nintendo and M$, but you can bet that whoever did the design work (and whoever has a manufacturing contract) has a place to work overseas, quite possibly in China or Japan.

      Good luck.

      • I think MS had it easy for this though - Take a PC and wrap it in a new case.

        But since the XBox is the only semi-large console to come out of somewhere other than asia, it would make sense that the design process it probably done more in-house (ie. what the need and the basics of how to achieve it) and the rest is handled by the 7-year olds working 32-hour days.
        • But since the XBox is the only semi-large console to come out of somewhere other than asia


          In recent years. Back when my Colecovision was wowing my Atari 2600-owning mates, 'twas not the case.

          And obligatory anti-Xbox jibe: whaddya mean semi-large? It is teh chunky!

          - Chris
    • The reason why console development kits are so expensive (20K and up) is that they don't want an indie development scene of any kind.

      1) It would produce a lot of bad games and apps, which would diminish the brand of the console. Related to that is that they wouldn't be able to control the content. This was especially true earlier when some manufacturers wanted only kid friendly stuff.

      2) They make their money off of the games that are sold, so an indie scene is seen as a parasite on the profits.

      There are
      • But Sony doesn't seem concerned as they promote their Linux kit (and previously the Yaroze) as a good kit to get started. It helps to bring people into their console (which they don't really need) and since the playability of the games are limited to other Linux/Yaroze users there is no big threat of "contamination" as a bad gaming brand.

        They also don't seem to care about the profits because the Linux kit costs about as much as the PS2 itself (over here at least) and it helps to increase the developer pool
  • in terms of internships, i know ea [ea.com] does summer internships and allows people to do their masters (and i think maybe their ph.d.) thesis with them. no on else that i know of really does that. from what i've heard, your best bet into getting into the industry is to do in house testing. the thing is though, i don't think that'll help much with programming. sorry i don't have a direct link to the ea internships page for ya. i gotta run and just saw this.
  • There's this thing that goes "the games industry is hard to get into". You know, get yourself a good degree, maybe a masters, start as a tester and maybe after a few years scraping by... etc etc. Does anyone's experience actually tally up with this? In my experience its easy to get into the industry, provided you can show some basic ability (via a game or tech demo) and have a demonstrable love of games. If you've got a solid academic background, then its even easier. My advice: don't sweat it, just go f

    • Re:Debunking the greatest game industry myth? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by amorita ( 172978 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @07:43AM (#5935656)
      It's hard to get into because there are so many bad programmers out there. As a console programmer who used to work as a programmer outside of the games industry, I've seen that the video game companies do tend to screen harder for competent programmers. This doesn't mean that there aren't any bad games programmers, just fewer on average.

      My recommendation would be to first keep up with game development web-sites, like gamasutra and flipcode (two of my favorites). Also, you should be able to demonstrate your interest in doing video games by having done some of your own at home.

      Making video games comprises of several fields of expertise from a programmer's standpoint. Graphics, physics/collision, AI, tools, etc. You should know a little about each one and perhaps know alot about one of them.
      • Actually, it's hard to get in because the market is saturated. I've been a game programmer for four years now, and luckily I haven't been out of a job. But I have multiple friends with game development experience who are unemployed after being layed off. Since people with experience are looking for jobs, they are going to snap up open positions before someone fresh out of school will, which is why it's harder to get game programming jobs nowadays.

        With the industry in a slump (not a financial slump, mo
        • Also, just to clarify, that assumes a job programming console games for a western company. I can't speak for japanese companies because obviously, I'm not japanese nor have I worked there. But from what I've heard, it's a lot more corporate in Japan, where games are a business, not a hobby. I'd imagine you'd just have to get in on the bottom rung and climb the ladder in that case.
    • I am a games programmer (admittedly, not a console programmer) and I found it fairly easy to get into the industry. Most people that I know in the industry say the same thing. However, I think that this is because I/they were suitable people to work in this industry. There are alot of people, employed as "programmers" in other sectors who are not suitable to be game programmers, and they don't get the jobs. I think that it's more accurate to say "Not everyone can work in the games industry".

      I'm not trying
    • It has been said that 99% of all applicants into the industry have no value whatsoever. Good programmers, dedicated testers, artists with demonstratable talents at low-poly modeling, and others with skills committed to disk can get in without more trouble than into any other industry, if not less. People without demonstrated skills have as hard of a time as those lost souls wandering the streets of ventura boulevard desperate to become famous actors and models but who never actually do any acting or model
    • I'm a console programmer and I have to say that it wasn't that easy to get into. I had over 12 years of real-time and low level graphics experience before that. I also knew and had previously worked with several of the people that worked there. I still felt like I really had to work to convince them I was the right person for the job.
    • Just for general information, from what Ive witnessed and know (I've only been working in the games industry for 2 years) is that Testers tend to go onto design/producing or art(bit rarer) rather than programming.

      But still its a step in, if you cant get in straight to programming routes, this is at least one way to get your foot into the industry
  • There are programs at many universities that will help you get into the gaming industry. Guidehall [smu.edu] is one of them. Check it out.

  • Keep reading and doing (Score:5, Informative)

    by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @07:54AM (#5935709)
    Jouni already posted some great tips, but if I may add:

    Don't forget to keep learning! i.e. Subscribe to the Game Dev Algorithm Mailing List [sourceforge.net] Pick up the "Game Programming Gems", volumes 1 thru 3.

    Put your knowledge into practise. Write demos. Pick up the Linux PS2 kit, and start learning how the hardware works. Each successive console builds upon the previous one.

    Don't forget the general comp. sci. knowledge. Master C++. View the assembly code the compiler(s) generates. Learn STL, specifically what it's strengths and weaknesses are.

    Best of luck!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Nobody seems to have mentioned... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by i0wnzj005uck4 ( 603384 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @08:30AM (#5935869) Homepage

    Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of devkit advance [sourceforge.net] and start hacking. Many, many success stories of breaking into the industry have been heard from hobbyist hackers who produced a tiny demo showing promise, even on the GBA. You'd be surprised how many 2D game programming techniques translate almost unchanged into the 3D realm. If you're interested in 3D console programming, tho, pick up a dreamcast and get the devkit for that.

    On hardware design: I have no idea.

    On Japanese: Another big move in the industry is to have localised versions of games come out closer and closer together. Wouldn't it be nice if a game could hit a Japanese market at the same time it hits the American and European ones? This requires knowledge of internationalization practices. Japanese is one of the harder languages to support, programmatically, so building support for it into your games will give you a good grounding and excellent experience. Release a demo that parses and displays UTF8 strings on the gameboy advance. You'll be hired, I guarantee it.*

    (* not a guarantee.)

    • Hacking a Dremcast is an excellent idea.
      1) Its easy to program for.
      B) It uses produceable media (CDs)
      iii) There are a ton of sites that talk about it and have how-tos (google it, I'm not your Mom)
      delta) The Dreamcast has a ton of hardware you can practice supporting.
      and lastly, its an established system that has produced some awesome games (Shenmue?)
      I'm cutting my teeth on it as a hobby now.

      Hell, its worth a try.
    • I can internationalize!

      Someone set us up the bomb!

      It is you!

      All your base are belong to us!

  • My Story (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I was in a situation very much like the asker, when I started college.

    I spent a lot of my free time writing my own version of a certain game which will remain nameless, since I don't feel like plugging my project. Once I had something I was happy with, I decided, on a whim, to send it to the creators of the original game, in hopes that they might enjoy it.

    At the end of my email, I decided I might as well ask if they had an internship program, and how I might apply to it. They responded saying that they've
  • I think it's essential to know how to program games before you think about hardware design. Get a PS2-Linux kit so you can see the intricacies of a real-world console, make a few programs for it, and think about why they designed it that way.

    To sum up the PS2 in short, they were going for high performance, high throughput, and most importantly (to Sony anyway), low cost. If you're going to make 40 million of these things, you've got to make it so that it'll be cheap eventually!

    With that in mind, think abo

    • Re: PS2 hard to program Yes, the PS2 exposes much more 'bare metal' than either say the XBox or GameCube, however this is exactly what developers asked for! Unfortunately, in the early years of the console, official code/libraries were hard to come by because the Sony guys were having as hard a time getting their heads round the hardware as the developers were.
    • Agreed, the needs of games applications drove the design of PS2, although I don't think you need any deeper understanding of games programming other than that games are data driven applications.

  • The flip side... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Shaheen ( 313 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @09:18AM (#5936197) Homepage
    I'm not a console programmer, but I am (well, will be) a developer doing dev tools and kernel stuff for Xbox.

    I personally just went the "obvious" route: gave my resume to my closest Microsoft recruiter and interviewed, etc. I do consider myself the luckiest SOB ever in terms of positions I got to interview for, however.

    If you feel you have an awesome game idea, Microsoft actually does make it tons easier to become an Xbox developer than it is to become a developer for other consoles. MS has the Xbox Incubator Program, which takes what MS feels are very good ideas and basically becomes your publisher. They will buy the dev kits and resources you need to finish your game.

    Unfortunately, I don't have time to finish my thoughts at the moment... Perhaps later.
    • "MS has the Xbox Incubator Program, which takes what MS feels are very good ideas and basically becomes your publisher"

      This is a change from previous years where they stole your ideas, bought out your company, and made their own product....Without asking you first. ;)
    • "If you feel you have an awesome game idea, Microsoft actually does make it tons easier to become an Xbox developer than it is to become a developer for other consoles. MS has the Xbox Incubator Program, which takes what MS feels are very good ideas and basically becomes your publisher. They will buy the dev kits and resources you need to finish your game."

      I wonder if Nintendos program that is much like what you describe is easy or hard to get into.

  • Japanese & the industry (Score:5, Informative)

    by waka0831 ( 672729 ) on Monday May 12, 2003 @10:08AM (#5936528)
    I was in almost the exact same situation about two years ago. I graduated with degrees in both CS and Japanese and headed straight for the game industry.

    Most of the important stuff has already been said, but I'll add a few more comments. First of all, you must start writing games during your free time. A GBA demo is great, but a PC demo is fine too. If you do a PC demo, your work will probably be more impressive if you minimize your reliance on 3rd party APIs like DirectX and OpenGL. On the other hand, if you can demonstrate a knack for quality game design, good AI, and/or good character handling, writing a demo in DirectX won't be detrimental.

    Secondly, pick up some books (somebody mentioned the Game Programming Gems series, which are great) about game development and familiarize yourself with common methods and algorithms. This will help you at interview time when they ask you to implement A* on paper or to explain how you would write a 3D renderer on a platform that does not support floating point (like the GBA).

    You've missed the Game Developers Conference [gdconf.com] this year, but if you are still looking next year it is a great place to hand our resumes and make contacts. You can apply to be a volunteer, and they'll give you full access to the conference in exchange for about 20 hours worth of work.

    Finally, there is your Japanese skills. If you are interested in working in Japan as a programmer, I should warn you that you'll face lower pay, the annoying Japanese seniority system, and possibly even longer hours than here in the states. However, it can be done, even by foreigners with very little Japanese under their belt. I'd suggest checking out this article [greggman.com] (especially the last 1/3rd or so) concerning (among other things) a professional console developer went to work for Sega in Japan. Also, Tokyopia [tokyopia.com] is a great forum run by foreigners with gaming interests in Japan.

    One other thing to consider: Many Japanese game companies have American offices, but most of them only localize and distribute games developed in Japan. Do you want to write code, or perform translation/localization? If your goal is code and you end up working in the States, I am sorry to say that you probably won't have many chances to use Japanese professionally.

    waka
    • Working the conference is a great way to see it for free. You get to meet the people whose session you're working, and if you're working a fully seated room where you'd normally get kicked out, you get to stay. You get a copy of the lecture notes, though they're not always that good or complete. The round table discussions are a more intimate place to hear people speak and to ask questions. One of my former coworkers cornered 3 publisher reps after one last year. Um, and ya get cool Maryland schwag. The
  • On actually doing the Japanese thing, I have actually spoken with one of the lead recruiters from Nintendo's Redmond headquarters. Her comment was that they don't hire Americans in Japan. Maybe here in America.. in their 1 office... but that's it. I would focus more on North America, Europe and the growing player, Australia.

    -KenixKil

  • I've seen one intern position so far posted at EA, so they are available.

    Console and PC games are developed with many programmers, as you can tell from credits in them. Each developer puts forth effort into a specific aspect of the game, based on what the game designers intend the game to be.

    My guess is that you are primarily interested in the actual physics of the game. Physics may play an important part within a game, but there are needs for interface programming, as well.

    Also, console games are b

  • My advice is to have a backup plan. More than likely, you won't be able to land a job for a while or after two or three years in the system you'll be so burned out you'll be looking for a new job.

    The game industry isn't for the timid. You won't be paid well, you'll work insane hours, there's no social life to speak of - but you'll have fun doing it. It's like being on crack. It's the highest of highs and there are plenty of lows. I usually steer people away from getting jobs in the game industry, but

  • Damn right you should atleast speak Japanese. I don't know a whole lot about gaming industry(I just play games) but chances are I'd guess you'd spend some time in Japan, or maybe you visit there. How else are you going to hit on those hot hot Japanese women? Hell it would make getting a Japanese prostitute just that much easier... Oh wait, I wasn't much help was I?

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