Life Changing or Career Building?

Hm, looks to be a challenging one. It’d seem to me that technical ability is surely a benefit so somebody who has done a degree should have the advantage over somebody diving into the industry on purely art-based credentials. After completing a degree you would have learned various skills and abilities that will save the company you’re entering time and money which they would otherwise have to spend on training. But surely you can have technically competent liberally minded arty people? That should be indisputably better than one or the other.

After having a wander ‘round the internets, it seems that having a “Relevant Degree” is desirable but not essential but pretty much everywhere seems to want good 3D and technical skills, there seems to be a worrying lack of desire for creative and art based skills.

I really think that a combination of technical/3D skills and traditional artistic ability would be the best way forward as the industry won’t move anywhere if there’s no creativity in what people are producing, and I think at where gaming is currently, creativity is lacking so this is a definite issue.

It’s a bit of a tricky situation as it seems that many developers don’t really care for the creative side of things, relying more on hyper-technical skills to get the jobs done faster and more efficiently, but “efficiency” isn’t just technical stuff in an industry that requires fresh ideas and artistic ability. Anyway I’m confusing myself a bit now so I think I’ll wrap it up here, but it was an interesting subject to have a think about, even if I've gone off the point a bit.