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[zoidganesh]

I saw this forum and it looked both helpful and interesting, so I thought I would give it a shot! Now I am pretty green when it comes to developing games, and was just wondering what would be the best language to code in? I've seen a lot of people saying C# and C++ but I'd like to make my first game with unity, so would the obvious choice be going with C# at that point? I'm just not sure and any help is much appreciated.

[fluffrabbit]

If you want to make your first game with/in Unity, C# is not your best choice, it's your only choice. You can learn C++ afterwards. Someone was asking similar questions the other day. Must be the time of year or something.

[zoidganesh]

Hey! thank you I appreciate the input!

[Ordnas]

At the end you will need to learn as much as possible, so you will need to learn also C++ if you want a solid knowledge of programming and you want to work professionally in a software house. Unity is a good starting point, next you could take a look at Unreal Engine 4, and I suggest you C++ using SDL or SFML library.

[fluffrabbit]

I think C++ won't be a strict requirement in "software house" in 5 years. We've got other languages with other features. C may have more longevity. I could list all the hot 21st century languages that fill similar roles to C++ (and to a lesser extent C#) but I think OP can find them on his own. Eventually he'll find a language he really likes, maybe it will be Python or something, and he can work on projects that use his language of choice.

[michaelplzno]

You can do Unity with just c#, but if you want to make games you are gonna have to be the driving force: there is a lot of bandwidth that has been spilled talking about which language is the best, etc. You can even get a sense of a lot of this from wikipedia and then check the reference pages and so on.

It may seem cynical, but looking up information is a big part of writing code so you gotta start somewhere.

[Ordnas]

From my personal experience every AAA "gamedev" studios ask you C++ knowledge. Some small studios may ask you instead C# because they use Unity.

[fluffrabbit]

From my personal experience every AAA "gamedev" studios ask you C++ knowledge. Some small studios may ask you instead C# because they use Unity.

Sounds about right. Thing is, getting a job at any studio is a challenge. Maybe OP just wants to make a game independently, or maybe OP wants to work at one of these places. But IMHO if he has to ask on TIG it's already too late for the latter case.

[Ordnas]

Why is it too late? I do not know how old zoidganesh is, but it is never too late to learn and apply to big studios, as long as you have solid skills and made some nice games (even at home) as your portfolio. For example, I am a self-taught, I do not have a degree and I approached programming very late (in comparison with others), but I succeeded in working in the industry.

[fluffrabbit]

Well, I guess it depends on where you are. In the US I've made a lot of shit and I don't sugar-coat it, and as for studios, I stopped applying 5 years ago.

[Ordnas]

Yes, my experiences come from Europe, but I always thought that ut can be applied to any game dev studio (apart from Japan, where I understood that it is very hard if you don't choose the right college).

[fluffrabbit]

America may not be the hardest place to get a job. I walked right into Zynga one day and had a nice chat with one of the guys. The deal with studios the size of Zynga and smaller is that they have to carve out a niche for themselves, so the old school of game development/marketing that you see with EA is only sustainable in major cities with corporate bureacracy etc. Any place worth less than $100M probably can't hire a lot of people.

[Ordnas]

Of course, also if the team is small they prefer to take a senior instead. But also the big studios that hires a lot of people (like EA for example) it's easier to get in, but they tend to offer a less competitive salary.

[fluffrabbit]

Of course, to be eligible for a senior position I'd have to have earlier non-senior positions at similar companies on my resume, which I do not. When it comes to the salary bit, $10/hr is competitive enough for me in most cases, except that it won't cover anything in the cities where the big companies are hiring, so it's a pointless endeavor.

[Ordnas]

I think with 10$/hr you can still manage to live in big cities, you just need to do keep attention to save money.

[fluffrabbit]

$10/hour for 30 hours/week gets you $1,200 before taxes. Rent in one of those cities is probably at least $850, telecom is at least another $50, then factor in other utilities and groceries and you're spending more than you take in.

[Ordnas]

In Europe full-time job is almost always 40 hours/week, so expect 1800$ /hr (usually you can expect a little more than 10$/hr also for junior). Most of my colleagues share an apartment with other people. I prefer to live by myself, sharing is something I experienced in the past and I do not like very much (you know, after work you can use the kitchen as you like, you do not have to care about the cleaning and the music at high volume etc.).

[fluffrabbit]

Back in Oregon they gave people as few hours as possible, not specifically games, but everywhere. It's a matter of factoring in wages, hours, and expenses on a case-by-case basis I suppose.

So, just for a brief overview of my experiences: I have applied to between 1,000 and 10,000 jobs in my life and had at most 10 out of those, so my success rate is 0.1% - 1%. I think I'm going to make an open source resume builder suite since this process has not been fun and it has consumed so much of my time.

[mcoorlim]

I live in Chicago and no, you're not going to be able to live on $10/hr unless you have a lot of roommates.

The thing you need to know about the US is that the minimum wage does not automatically scale with cost of living or inflation; it takes an act of congress to increase the national minimum wage, and that happens fairly rarely.

Some states have higher minimum wages, but none of them approach either a living wage or the increase in corporate earnings workers have been generating.

[fluffrabbit]

While that is generally true, I think the situation is not so dire. You did make a game about it (get back on it!) and I have heard the argument before, but $10/hour 40 hours/week would provide a relatively comfortable income for one person in most US cities.