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Which of these subjects is better if I'm pursuing a career in Game Development

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2 comments, last by frob 6 years, 7 months ago

I wasn't sure about this being the most appropiate place to ask this question but hopefully somone can help me out! :D

I'm at the middle of my Computer Science/Informatics Engineering degree (is it the same? :/) and I'd like to work in the videogame industry, I'm open about working in other fields as well but I'd like to work there. 

Considering this, I'd like to know which of these subjects should I take/would be more appropiate. I'm not talking about writing in my CV "hey I did this subject instead of this other one, please hire me!", I'm just wondering which one will be more "useful". If one of these was "Robotics", for example, then I guess it wouldn't be of much use when working on videogames, at least compared with something like "Physics of Realistic Modelling and Animation", which is another subject I'm going to take the next year.

The next semester I must choose two of the following subjects, which do you think are more suitable for someone pursuing a career in the game industry? Their respective pages are linked if you want to read a little introduction about them, I've done so myself but I still don't see which ones could be "useful".

Thx for your time and have a nice day! And btw sorry if I did any english mistakes, feel free to correct any of them! Please! :D

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This is personal opinion, as every game programmer will have a different set of experiences and ambitions. My opinion is that they are, from "very useful, almost mandatory" at the top to "almost irrelevant" at the bottom:

  • Numerical Computation
  • Advanced Algorithmics
  • Compilers
  • Distributed intelligent systems
  • Machine Learning
  • Searching And Analysis
  • Operations research

If I had to pick 2, I'd pick Numerical Computation and Machine Learning. The first is going to be very useful for game dev, the second is hardly used in gamedev but is a MASSIVE growth area and will help you if you want to work in other fields.

Everyone is different and you should pick the ones you want.

 

 

2 hours ago, disis9gagnotFB pls said:

Computer Science/Informatics Engineering degree (is it the same? )

Not usually, but with translation to other languages they might be.

The typical programmer degree program is Computer Science.  Various "informatics" degrees tend to be less appropriate for games and technical work.

2 hours ago, disis9gagnotFB pls said:

which do you think are more suitable for someone pursuing a career in the game industry?

You've got a good mix of options.  Ultimately each field uses different elements. There are people who work in generic database processing or web pages that never use the science side of their degrees.

* Advanced Algorithmics  -- Good, but you need your fundamentals covered first.
* Machine Learning -- Useful outside of games. Machine learning is often a bad fit for games because they are difficult to manipulate.
* Searching and Analysis of Massive Information -- Useful outside of games. While games have high volumes of textures and similar data, simple data structures and algorithms are sufficient.
* Compilers -- Very useful concepts both inside and outside games.
* Numerical Computation -- Very useful inside games. Generally useful outside.
* Operations research -- Somewhat useful inside and outside games.
* Distributed Intelligent Systems -- Less useful generally, except places that use it specifically.  Still interesting topic.

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