Knowing the path and walking the path

After i graduated my SPM, there is 2 path for me:
Choose a popular course that I am not interested or to pick the one that I am interested.

The path to popular courses such as software engineering, ISE is a wide street. There was believe that this is the path that lead people to multinational companies' doorstep. This is the path that promise them for stable income and stable life. Alot of ppl taking this path, nearly 90%. Some of them success , some of them fail.

On the other hand, the course that I interested in is a small alley. It is the course named Game Design. People told me that there is no promise here, how many game company you have in Malaysia?? you will definately be jobless!

At last, I decided to take the second path: to do something that I enjoy doing it as I like both art and programming; game design course in MMU is just a prefect combination for me. Other than that, i got other reasons too: I am not good in scramble with people. I do not like driving mainly because I hate finding parking and queuing up. Game development is the place where I can have some peaceful mind. After all, I might still have chances to get a job even I din't do well here because the amount of people studying it is small :P

It is a long path and I have been walking on for around 4 years. It is definately not a path that is easy to walk through. In the process, I faced alots of obstacles and nearly give up. Sometime I get look down by my relatives. I faced pressure from the study as well as external factors.

Luckly, I meet nice people here and make friend with them and they acompany me throughout my journey. They walked with me and they teached me alot of things. The career itself is not bad because by the time I graudating, Intel is looking for game developers in MMU. As the industry itself is still new and small, we see lots of oppurtunity in everywhere.

By the end, I have discover a very important fact: knowing the path and walking the path are different. That is why things that fortune teller told us sound true but it always din't ended up in that way.

I know game development could make me rich (interm of money and knowledge). But if I don't walk through the path, how can I acquire them and reach it at the end of the road?

Now, I facing another junction in my life. To join a multinational company for a stable life or to startup my own company for an adventruous life...?

Myths about game developer

"Game Developers is only for those people who are very good in programming, but I am not."

"We prefer the word developments than developers because we are not qualify as game developers yet."

Some of the members in my Game Developers Club voice up their opinion to me as I am one of the founders.

Most of them facing problem with programming lesson in class. Some of them are not from the IT faculty and don't know any thing about game programming but good in other things such as graphic and game design.

To answer their question, I would first like to clarify it is not true that only programmer can be a game developer. The reason is simple: a game is not only made by the programmer. Generally, the team consists of artist, composer, story teller, game designer, project manager and of course, programmer. People from various field gather together, involve in the development process and create their targeted game. These people label themselve as game developers.

Everyone that involve in the game development process is the game developer. The name of "Game developers club" was choosen because we believe people is the most important factor in game development. It is a club for the people but not the process.

Do not worry if you are not good in programming. You do not have to be excellent to be label as game developer. Any person that has the interest and willing to put effort in game development is a game developer.

Some said, a good programmer could be a good game developer and this is true. However, a good game developer need to do more than just the skill (programming, designing...). At the basic requirement, a good game developer must have self discipline to meet the project deadline. In fact, Very often, programmers fail to meet the project deadline and therefore fail to release their game in time.

A programmer that wants to become a good game developers first need to beable to control himself. He should control his "feature-creep" behavior and focus on his given responsibility. Likes others developers(film, music...), a game developer must also control his emotion. Being an emotional person could affect the development process. Next, he also need to have good time management to avoid last minute rush that is not always works. From marketing perspective, all these factors are much more important than just the skill: nobody will buy and play your game if you can't push it to the market in time, no matter how good you are.

Of course, there are odd in the industry who do not follow the rule. For example, Blizzard Entertainment. However, they make sure each game they produced is the best selling game. If you like to enjoy this privilege, first ask yourself how good you are in compare to them?