In the UK, it more or less reflects what Promit has mentioned. Almost job in the in industry (both in and out of games) will have a degree requirement as filter.

With more sites like HackerRank popping up to demonstrate skills first rather then education, this requirement may start to shift over the next few years.

I haven't seen Hacker(Wank) or Codility being used in that way. In my experience a Degree is the minimum requirement to get past HR or a Recruiter. The next step is the HW test to filter out candidates followed by either a face to face or another programming test devised by the team.

The hacker rank tests are just being used as another filter. Also in my experience they are a waste of time and don't actually provide the best candidates. The guys who are good at HackerRank tests tend to be the guys that spend all their time doing these kind of online puzzle but once you get them on your team they don't actually have a clue about how to find a bug, architect a solution or do anything that a half decent coder should be able to do. They also tend to spend all day not actually getting any work done because they are trying to optimize silly fizz buzz programs to maintain their hackerwank score instead of their job.

That's very interesting to hear from someone who has interviewed a few people from the HackerRank site.

As a side question, how do you feel choosing/finding someone that generally live streams coding sessions on sites like Twitch and Live Coding?

Somebody live streaming coding sessions probably wouldn't have much impact on if I hired them or not. Obviously its a plus point that they take the time to do stuff in their spare time and that would go in their favour but, the chance of me actually watching one of their sessions is very slim.

Somebody live streaming coding sessions probably wouldn't have much impact on if I hired them or not. Obviously its a plus point that they take the time to do stuff in their spare time and that would go in their favour but, the chance of me actually watching one of their sessions is very slim.

I was thinking more that you can see/watch/replay how they worked, how they approach problems, structure their code, explanations to the viewers, etc.

Thats all well and good but the recruitment process is usually very costly in term of senior developer man hours lost reading CV. Watching / playing demos, interviewing candidates. In most companies they want this as streamlined as possible.
CV and Demo -> Coding Test -> F2F Interview.

To answer your original question, if you intend to work in another country, doing so without a four year degree complicates matters significantly.

It is possible, but generally, you need to either demonstrate a long professional career (such that it is deemed equivalent expertise) or be so far above the norm that you qualify for a given country's exception for exceptional individuals. The only exception I can think off the top of my head is Ireland -- if someone wanted to hire you as a game developer in Ireland for more than 40,000 Euros/year, I believe that would automatically qualify you for a work visa.

Col. Nathan R. Jessep: "You want answers? You? Want? Answers? You can't handle the truth!"

I know I will get down-voted for saying this but that's okay (I'm trying to get my rep down to an even 100 for my OCD :P)

I wouldn't want anybody to be too discouraged from pursuing their dream career but I cannot deny that unemployment world-wide has certainly made things much more difficult (more people look for work each week than there are jobs posted). The youth live in their own modern-day catch-22; they can't get a job without having experience but they can't get experience without having a job. I suppose one could offer to work for free :unsure:

It is also true that University education will mean the difference between having your CV getting looked at or being ignored for white-collar professions.

I'm strongly opposed to this "corporate" nonsense. If it means being shallow, having no spare time and having no free speech then I'll go my own way... I forgot to mention publishers... If it weren't for a small handful of people who think for themselves, then the games industry would become meaningless and have no guidance. It has got near that point already. I owned a PS4 for about 18 months and only had maybe 6 games before I became bored and sold the console.

Are you sure this is the right path for you? You've already built-up quite a strong resentment for the industry you intend to break into.

Whatever you decide, keep studying anyway and try to look at the positive side of the industry.

Are you sure this is the right path for you? You've already built-up quite a strong resentment for the industry you intend to break into.

Whatever you decide, keep studying anyway and try to look at the positive side of the industry.

There, gave you a +1 :P

But on a more serious note, I am with BrianRhineHeart here, I would strongly encourage the TO to question his goals.

1. If you want to do game development dodging ALL corporate BS, there is basically only the Indie route. Question is, if you want to go that direction, why even strive for a diploma? You don't need any degree or diploma to do your own thing. University can teach you a lot, but its usually not the best place to actually learn, you know how to program or draw or all that stuff. That is something that comes from tons of practice and repetition... something universities don't waste time with, because they try to cram as many topics into their curriculum as possible.

If you do study, you do it for the "broadness of education", getting insights into as many different topics as possible, while learning indepth about what catches your interest on your own time..

Of course, you will need a TON of luck to survive on your own in the Indie world. Entering that route without a safety parachute in form of a proper education and a backup career you can return to should you fail, or even having a day job you can work on to pay the bills, is highly suicidal IMO. Given you can live from ramen noodles and live in your parents basement or only have to pay a really cheap rent you might be able to survive until you find enough success to pay for your bills...

Other than that, you can try to find employment in the smaller Indie Shops. You will most probably face less Corporate BS, but lower pay, more uncertainity, and less security. And again, you are in the rat race for jobs. You might have a higher chance to get a job without a degree... but all other things equal, your missing degree might make you loose out against a similar candidate with a degree.

2. If you want to work in bigger Studios or the AAA ones, you gotta play by the rules. Nobody is waiting for you, and nobody needs you. You need to sell yourself as hard as you can. Going on a rant against how much studying sucks is not going to help you there...

IF you want the best chance of getting a job, get a degree. IF you cannot because of whatever reason, find a GOOD reason to tell people why you couldn't be arsed to get one. And work your ass off to create a portfolio that blows people away and get all the skills you can.

You will loose out to less skilled people WITH a degree in the first round in enough situations when you will apply for a job, you want to be able to really impress your potential new boss when you finally manage to pass the HR filter in spite of your missing degree.

Maybe a few words about your loathing of universities:

I have no expierience with the situation in NZ, I just guess its similar to Switzerland. Yes, there are the posh and highly overrated "elite unis"... yes, there are the elitist students that like the sound of their own voice above all else.

But even these elite universities CAN actually be good places to learn SOMETHING, even though clearly they are nowhere as superior as their marketing make SOME people believe. And you will find non-elitist students even on these elite institutes... I actually would bet most are jolly good blokes you would enjoy having a beer with and talk about normal stuff... you know, if batman is better than superman, if the new star wars film sucked, if they think there will ever be a new C&C.... not just listen to them brag about their scores, talk about science bullshit they do not completly understand themselves and stuff like that.

I rarely met annoying students in my time. We had a pretty cool gang of people who shared similar interests and helped each others out, not only with preparing for exams and stuff like that. Besides all the exams and studying and stuff it was a fun time. And while I do have to say I learned little in detail there, and a lot of the stuff we skimmed never really helped me in my current career as a software developer, I did get introduced to a wide range of topics I wouldn't have looked into otherwise.

I would bet if you would look around for the right university in your area and would really look into it, you would be surprised to find a lot of nice people studying there.

My 2 cents