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My dad didn’t want me to be an artist either, but I was good at it, so he financed my near worthless associates degree in art. Then I decided I want to be a cartoon animator, which was another three years of schooling. Then he said, no fucking way. This was back in the late 80’s, there were only a handful of places an animator could find employment. So I went to the cheapest animation school I could find.
I’ve been an animator for video games for over 30 years. I have a nephew that wants to be a video game designer now, and I want to support him, but the industry has turned to shit. I spend half my time supporting his dream and the other half kinda trying to steer him away. He’s getting the 50 percent support my old man gave me.
Is he interested in photo editing or general programming? There are a lot of good jobs in Computer Sci out there still. If he's more into soldering, a solid ECE/EE degree can lead to all kinds of good stuff (factory design, power plants, hell even designing alarm clocks cause someone has to do it). Find what he loves and find careers that are going strong and not total crap and you can usually steer them towards interests.
I did the same with my nephew. I made a VERY BIG DEAL about not going into debt and how you get out of any program what you put into it. He avoided the big name schools, went to a smaller 4 year university he could afford with his parents help, and now has a Ruby job, wife and 1 year old with a second on the way. He owns a house too, although his sister and her husband live with them for the time being to pay the mortgage.
That's pretty cool man. Without risking possibly doxxing yourself, can you name one of the games that you worked on?
If I named a title, my name would be right there in the credits as an animator The games industry is now a woke hellscape of vindictive internet detectives. I’ve done way too much Hitler praising online to risk a doxxing.
I wanted to get into video game design. The competition is rough. However lots of independent designers are making good games nowadays. Maybe guide him to do something independent and see how it goes. Stardew valley is one of the games I speak of. Binding of Isaac another.
He got into a magnate school this year. It’s like a high school you have to audition for. He got in with a game he made himself. He’s doing well in their games program. I was asked to be a mentor at the school and I accepted. My nephew is on a team of six kids and 4 of them are gender confused. I don’t want to be a bigot, but it’s these fellows that are ruining the games industry. My nephew wants to make strategy games about herding cattle or fighting the government, the other 4 want to make sim games about converting to being a woman. I’d like to do the cow herding game.
4 Years, 10 hour days, 7 days a week with your girlfriend earning big bucks with a degree for stardew apparently. I've never played it but I can't imagine there being anything healthy about that lifestyle. You don't hear about solo devs like that in their 30s and 40s cause they aren't that fucking stupid and unbalanced
You've got a point there. I used Stardew as an example because he did eventually wind up making a decent amount of it. However, it's like lightning striking on whether you'll make it or not. In your 20's putting in that kind of time is one thing, but if you are still working on that in your 30's then everyone else is passing you up in the game of life.
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