Long gone are the days when video game enthusiasts were game developers. So now parents could pay their kids to be a game developer. Parents could say: “Hey son if you want to be a game developer, you don’t have to play videogames, I can just pay some money to put you in an animation school, then you’ll be a game developer!”. Son would say: “Sure, dad! Whatever you say, it’s your money. I’m top student at my high school, I can get 4.0 GPA anywhere in anything! ”

Enrolls into University of California: Los Angeles Game and Design school
Tuition fees – $30 000 USD per year (Dad: Don’t worry, that’s cheap son! I can pay for you. Just focus on your studies)

Graduated.

Employer: “Oh, wow, this kid got 4.0 GPA, he must be really good at gaming, he must know how to develop games like Hideo Kojima!

Me: Yeah right.

There is a difference between college graduates and talents…

Back then game companies and game developers used to come out, out of nowhere.
Hideo Kojima is one of those guys that came out of nowhere back in the 90s. He made these games when he was just starting out…

Before he made this

Did you know that the videogame industry today was actually an industry that’s born out of film and television? Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid, the two biggest name the whole world of videogaming were made by individuals who got involved in a career in filmmaking. Where else do you think the extraordinary storylines that you have enjoyed with your mouth and jaw dropped to the floor came from?

The thing is, back then, there were little or almost no undergraduate or graduate schools for animations or game design that could take students directly into the industry. But people were making videogames BETTER THAN NOW!

Hironobu Sakaguchi ( Final Fantasy Series ) dropped out from university and had a long time career as a film director at first before setting his foot into the gaming industry.  Back in the 1980s he was studying electrical engineering at Yokohama University before becoming a part-time employee of SquareSoft. Now you guys tell me, if any game company today would hire a non-game non-animation school college drop out for their company? Heck no, they would probably think the guy wouldn’t even go anywhere with his ideas. Yeah right, to them.

Hideo Kojima was studying economics in university, was making 8mm films with his friends and wanted to be an artist and an illustrator at first. But he ended up working for the home computer division of Konami early in his career.

There was no American Dream in Japan, but these guys sure had a dream. We can clearly see that this unique filmmaking aspect of the Japanese videogame industry is the primary driving force behind the amazing story-telling of Japanese video games. Parasite Eve and Xenogears  are also an example .

Amy Hennig, creator of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver was also an example of a film graduate working in the videogame industry. She graduated from University of California Berkeley in English Literature (Take that game industry air heads!) and also enrolled herself into San Francisco State University Film School before getting hired by Atari to develop the game ElectroCop.

Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 2

ElectroCop

I guess her English lit major did influence the middle age environment and situation that Raziel, our lead character for Legacy of Kain: Soul Revear, is in.

Here’s something interesting…

Me: So tell me if 4.0 GPA in film or economics have anything to do with videogames?

Employer: Errr…..aaaaa…..I’m only looking for 4.0 GPA college graduates that studied in Game Design School.

Me: Yeah right. Like you even know what you’re talking about.

Yeah, so nowadays there are numerous schools, almost every university has an animation and design course that can take people directly into the game industry.

But what happened here? What’s with all the extensive resources nowadays but these new graduate guys nowadays are only making videogames that were made by guys from before? L.M.A.O.

So here’s for you guys to figure out, if these film graduates back then were making videogames with cool storylines like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid.

What kind of storylines could our straight-to-the-industry graduate boys come up with?

Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City

Heh. The storyline nowadays
You guys know what it tastes like? It tastes like this

Chrysanthemum Tea, the worst drink you could ever find in South East Asia
They sell it for cheap so that at least some kids could get a drink at a school carnival
Yuck!

Another issue that we would like to tackle is:

Recycling of Senior Game Developers

Hey, just because the guy made a few hit games or made 20 games before doesn’t mean that he can make another 5 hit games in the future? The situation’s changed by then.

That’s probably the reason why we have so many first-person shooters nowadays.

Because every game company are trying to use the same formula developed by someone else for their own success. Have these guys ever thought that the one formula might have worked exclusively for that person or that game only? It’s like trying to put a formula one racing car tyre on a family car. Just because it’s proven for racing doesn’t mean that it can fit into a family car. A formula one tyre doesn’t fit into a family car, HELLO!!!

What we need in the game industry is fresh people with fresh ideas! Screw game design school, screw resumes! Game companies should take in the best people!

It’s not that these game design school guys don’t have the talent, but most of these guys don’t have talent for game developing, they just have a lot of money to go to a game school!

So games, until we can see some talents, we are never ever ever ever, getting back together.

PS: same goes to the movie industry as well, they just want the completed scripts from mainly film school graduates even though its sucky. 10 pages of a blockbuster hit movie, or 100 pages of a crappy movie guys??