"Hey you know why the dark elves to be blue? Because I wanted them to be blue." What a badass way of introducing yourself.

"Do you know why the dark elves are blue? Because I wanted them to be blue." Best. Quote. Evar!

even tho a education is important, the best way to start is by figuring out what kind of field you want to work with (coding, animation, grapics, music) and start doing it as a hoby, if you like working with it, it will become natural to you to fool around with after a while. and you'll learn alot by just having fun and exploring your ideas :) by the time you are able to go to the school you want to go to, you may allready have learned half of it by yourself! never doubt yourself :D

I once had a job with a boss who played WoW with me. He was a total nerd into comics, games, movies, it was awesome. That was the best job I ever had.

Well... she seems happy.

passion, always a great & attractive thing to see in a person

I work as a game developer. I do both programming and artwork. People think it's a glamorous job where you get paid a ton of money, but it's basically like any other job in IT, except a bit more creative and longer hours sometimes. But it's a lot of fun. It has been my dream since I was a kid to create my own games.

I love her enthusiasm. Totally makes the movie!

Right now I'm at the point in my life where it's like I love video games and want to design them but what if I fail or what if this isn't what I want it's so hard because the thought of failing and being a nobody with no job or money scares me and while my mom says I'm too young to worry about it I'm still looking at the fact that I'll be in college in a few more years (which goes by very fast) another thing that worries me is when I get out of college what will I do college is all fine and dandy but after college where do I go how do I officially become a game designer *sigh* man I'm just worried about a lot of stuff right now for my future

I started when I was 12 and now I'm 17, START. RIGHT. NOW. There's a lot of good people, lots of talented kids. I suggest knowing what to expect before you even go to college because things are going to get competitive and they'll start weeding out kids who don't know what they're doing.

Lol who doesnt want to become a game designer/developer after watching this vid.

Most video game designers have bachelor's degrees in English, art, computer science, or related areas. In addition, many colleges offer video game specific degrees (such as ITT Tech, DeVry or The Art Institute, and many others). Good luck with your career pursuits!

My Dream Job Right Here

That's so inspiring.

"Do you know why the dark elves are blue?" "Uh, no." "Because I wanted them to be blue." *Sound of my jaw hitting the desk

this is really inspiring, at first I was scared of pursing video game development because I heard it was a bit difficult finding a job in that area but watching this video, I feel like I should go and follow this path because I love playing video games like everyone else out there

I am currently going to college to be a Video game designer and graphic designer and came across this video while looking for resources for a term paper. I just wanted to say thank you for your story. It helped me out quite a bit actually.

So, I'm a 13 year old girl, keen to become a game dev. How can I gain experience and start learning? I have a laptop although my parents don't want me downloading stuff on it since I got a virus -_- it's gone now, but they won't let me. How can I learn to code and create games??

Ahh, Morrowind... Brings back memories.

Actually designing a game is more than just loving to play video games. You have to have a deep understanding of human psychology to develop engaging and fun games.You're not just designing something to work in your head or that works on a computer. You also have to design it to run on the human computer of the brain. If you want to take a course in the hopes of being a video game designer, I would recommend psychology over anything

I remember around 5 years ago when i wanted to start doing game dev i thought it is super fun. Now as a game dev, not a professional one right now but still a game dev, i realized that game dev is a huge commitment a really competitive industry and really hard work. But for people who are passionate about games it is nothing, i know it can get really hard but when u have fun at work you never have to work.

This video inspired me. I already had a dream to design games before watching this, and now that desire has "leveled up" to a passion. Thank you for this video, and thank you Lord for letting me find it!

Hmm. I'm not saying that the video game industry is a horrible place to work, but it's not the flower filled sunshine of fun that she seems to be addressing. I'm not saying you shouldn't go for it, but just don't hop into your office expecting an amazing work enviroment

i want to make a game like sims... but with a bit more violent and gore

I currently left my old high school and joined ITT Technical Institute to learn how to program and design, my dream job is to become a game programmer, designer, or developer, I know it will be hard, but I've spent almost all my life playing games and I would love to spend the rest of it making them, their is no better job than making something you're compassionate about

I do like video games, and I think I would want to be a designer, but I don't know what games I would strive to make. I like sandbox games, but I would also like to make games that have a storyline and/or a purpose. Sims and Minecraft are great examples of games where you strive to get the best stuff and it never ends, but I am also fascinated with games that reach the player at an emotional level. Portal 2 for example is long, requires thought process, and keeps the gamer engaged because you feel like you are Chell the whole time (First person). I just have one question... Do I have to be an amazing artist to be a game designer? I am not the best at drawing, but am fascinated about creating games.

*turns to boss in-game* "Hey boss, do you mind if I'm late to work tomorrow?" "Nah, it's alright :D" This is my future job....seriously....

Kim should know she is my inspiration, Thank You! I didn't know where to start until I found this video.

Im a game designer of 6+ years on AAA games, and this video should be titled "Day in the Life: Video Game Level Designer. As a "Game Designer" for 3 different AAA studios the video game designers and I were first and foremost Scripters. You'd come in sit down grab the latest build files from P4, build code and art assets, then get to work in a script editor like SlickEdit, Crimson Editor, Notepad++, or some studio-created script editor. And you start writing script code. Level Designers either build BSP maps like Hammer Editor or Unreal Editor, or work with Environment Artist to build levels based on a modular toolset with pre-built art assets that piece together to make a level. If you want to become a "Video Game Designer" please for the love of God learn to code in C++. And for college please for the love of God get a Computer Science degree from a state U and not from Full Sail.

I'm 15 and in high school. I plan to go into video game design myself. In fact, I have already picked next hour courses in video design at my high school. I'm also thinking about colleges. Any colleges you recommend me checking out for this field.

"My mom was so sad!" Big Laugh!!!

She is so correct when she says its best to start out on paper. I have been designing for years small levels and yes I can say from personal experience drawing out a sketch on paper is a really great start.

i want to be a level designer so bad :)

There are general Computer Science programs that, depending on the school, will go into game programming or place you in teams for "real life" development projects, which can be a lot of fun. There are some schools that offer focused Game Programming courses, but as always, look carefully into the school's reputation, faculty, and try to talk to the students if you can. But yeah, for a programmer, the usual route is going for a Bachelor's in Computer Science.

When going to college would you take a "game designer" course or would it be programming or what?

Thanks for this. Really helpful to our online foundation diploma students:)

im 15 and im working on getting into the industrial design field (concept art) and i will tell you it took me about 2 years to decide on the field...what you really need to do is look at the video game industry and the jobs in it and see what you are good at...if you are an artist then go into industrial design or illustration, if you are a writer then become a story scripter, if you just wanna play video games then become a tester (which is a lot harder than it looks. just watch the psn series)

this video helps. I'm doing a end of six weeks project and the career i chose is video game designer.

im 15, tbh i'm more interested in computer science and software engineer and the like but this has given me a spark of dedication. I don't really care much about my classes and so i have only an 80+ average, I took the pre-requisite for AP/IB Computer Science and it's regents freshman year, so now i'm in IB CSII, but i've realized that if i really want to do this i should take better care of my normal core classes. ive still got the majority of 3 yrs to get it right so thank you.

Is there any jobs to do with character creation/design as I really love sketching characters and then detailing the work I create and I would love to get a good quality computer and start making 3D versions of characters 😃

The title game designer can cover many jobs, for instance: Programming, script writing, level designers, sound engineers. So a game designer doesn't necessarily just mean story writer but it does cover it...so if you are going into story writing you might want to make sure you're doing the right course.

Hi, I need a quick help in (game design)? If you can please send me , Thanks

So cool. I really love her enthusiasm!

I am currently in my sophomore year of Game Design, this video was really good. Is there any way I would be able to contact Kim? I searched for her on LinkedIn but was unable to find her. Having the chance to talk to someone on the other side of my degree would be really helpful to me.

Nice. I play a lot of WoW and it really inspires me to become a video game designer. For those of you who want to do level making / map designing, warcraft 3 world editor is a good start.

I can't afford another school loan. I have a full time job now and I plan to try to get my hands on Hammer editor because I like fps games. I have 3DS Max and Photoshop 6 which was a doozy to pay off my credit card. Home ed will be my make or bust. Relocation is a no go.

I want to be a video game designer. I already have tons of ideas for games.

@packsfan36 The ones in the video was an in-house editor written by our programmers. There are tons of editors out there though, and many of them get released with the games. Skyrim has the Creation Set, Portal has Source, Quake has Radient, Starcraft 2 has an editor, Unreal Ed is free to download.

@saeklin 3. Again, depends on your skills and the company. My first job in the industry was at a company so small, they had everyone designing gameplay. Also decades is a bit of a "misnomer" in that most people in the industry don't have decades of experience. The average burnout is 8 years. At 5 years/5 shipped titles you are generally considered a senior designer.

I am 13 years old with a guru's understanding of c# and my mom tells me that im perhaps the best programmer in the neighborhood with titles under my belt such as call of duty civil war and Tiger Woods tomorrow never dies.

It really depends, if your working for a smaller company, or at least on small projects you will have some say in the story making. You might even be assigned to be head story developer. But larger games have its own story writers.

Take a look at the extras on games that show how the game was made. And see all the different positions, what they typically do and work out where you want to be. I think they only pick the best so I think you have to be a really great artist or programmer. The programmer guy on GoW's, said he had to get used to the PS3 system and create his own scripts and such. They seemed really time constrained too, stressing out to get it done in time.

I really like playing the game destiny. I love the design and feel of it. I would love to work at bungie. Anyone know what I should aim for. I want to build character models and stuff like that

ahh my dream!!! :D wonder where i can study this stuff in the philippines. . .

either game developing courses, or go into a specific field e.g. programming (computer science, programming, software engineering), artist (art courses, modelling, 3d modelling), writer (english courses and stuff)

What education exactly do you need to have this job? Please help, I'm so lost. :/

whoa, mind opening. We never know where life would take us ? can multimedia student be a video game designer ?

I have a question though, did Kim have any special drawing skills before integrating the Guildhall design program? Because I'm really thinking of going next year for the same program but I'm not a special artsy guy.

Great Work! I am also a level designer and I am thinking eventually I will find a job :D At the second I am only 14 though but I will try to get the best grades I can :D Also I can program but I am an average at Javascript and know a bit about c++ and c# But this realy inspired me to continue =D Thanks for sharing!

wonderful video!! make me wanna get into the industry so much more.....but slowly im learnin the difficulties of getting into the industry!!

I'm an aspiring game/art designer! I'm only fifteen, and here's a list of problems I'm so hoping someone can address for me. 1) Expensive. I used to have an interest in culinary arts, but found that to be too expensive and much of a commitment. I'm looking at these videos and seeing all the programs and computers and fancy electronics they are using. Is this an expensive career path? I don't have a lot of money, and can barely afford a $9.99/month payment to keep Photoshop. 2) Skills. Game and art design. You'd think that all you need are drawing skills and a love for games, right? I'm not sure about that. Looking at job descriptions, a lot of them tend to be very broad or vague. You don't just draw. You don't just design or make concepts. There are game and art/graphic designers who CODE -- and a lot of other technological/IT stuff and I feel like my desired career path is way too specific, and that I won't be able to develop the necessary abilities to fit job requirements. 3) Employment. One of my family members used to be a game designer, he lives in California, but was unemployed for long periods of time due to him not being able to find a job. I hear this career path is a dead end, even with the growing level of gaming these days. Is it true it's hard to find a job, one that could even pay well? Maybe even decent jobs would take years to form a sustainable wage, and even then you could end up being a starving artist. 4) Age. I'm fifteen. I don't have that many artistic skills. I can barely draw a duck. But I love designing. I want to be a game/art/graphic designer. I WANT to be able to draw. I draw in my mind e.g. "It'd look so cool if this looked like that, or if this went that way and this did that..." I'm so scared I'm not going to develop the necessary skills I need, and I'm dedicating my entire high school lifetime to developing skills as early as possible. My Junior and Senior years are all art and digital classes, coding classes, basically me scrambling to get as much experience as possible. (I can't code or draw yet but I'm hope I can learn.)"

Not necessarily. It sort of works like TV shows, where you have writers and scripters who make up the story and then designers "translate" that into the game. For example, for Black Ops 2 they had the guy responsible for Batman write the story, which the game designers will later after a long process of discussion (in which the original story often changes) make up levels, cutscenes, puzzles, etc. So designers can change the game, but the esential storyline is still written by an actual writer.

@TheNetau It depends on the company. Even there, while I do mostly level design, a good half of my job on the project was game design.

@MarckMabimods I know several people who worked on Skyrim too. The great thing about the game industry is that it is super small. So chances are, you are going to run into and talk to people who worked on games you geek out over.

Learning coding language C, then C++, it seems to go far nowadays, I'm going to be taking a course in University next year and they've said they're teaching C++. I'm in the same boat as you as I'm also trying to become a games developer :')

may also consider playing around with unity with c# or javascript. lots of good script references and tutorials out there, and pretty easy to whip together a prototype

You're just like me! I want to make stories and characters and art and want to be super successful! I'm already practicing and I managed to get on the phone to a recruitment manager for a big company, who gave me lots of details. I can't wait! I'm super excited to start learning more, and I'm 14 next month :P

Try checking out Extra Credits on Penny-Arcade's website. They get into some of the nitty gritty details, and the main writer for them is a free lance game designer, professor for Digipen, and runs a consulting company for game studios, and other affiliated groups.

Not sure, i randomly found a senior high school program called "game design" that i will most likely attend. Not sure how much of the programming parts will be there though

This video inspires me even more now to be a game designer. because I love playing video games

im currently in a university studying computer sciences aspiring to be a programmer. i really think designing video games is a very cool profession

Start small, like making games with Game Maker. Then make stuff with mapping engines or what you branch you want to do. (I'm studying to become a World/Level Designer)

when i sit down to make the sketches and design-documents for games i hope to make in the future, i always make sure that the gameplay, story and characters are as anti-cliche, original, weird and unusual as much as possible, before proceeding on with writing a novel-like manuscript for the game. For the games i CAN make NOW, by myself without coding, i always make sure the control-layout and design is unusual. This originality is something i have by instinct, it is not exhausting or a pain

also what i was getting at is do research, talk to people in the industry, etc

That probably still holds true for simpler games, or older style ones where it's more of a computerized puzzle or timing challenge. If you can pick it up for five minutes, you'll have a good feel for the game. Whereas the newer full immersion games, five minutes doesn't even let you setup a character. There's a lot more aspects that need to fit together that can't be smoothed out on paper and calculators alone. i.e. A doorway that looks awesome but isn't easily passable.

"Do you know why the Dark Elves are blue?" "No?" "Because i wanted them to be" that... just made me smile XD

I love her personality!

Not usually, computer science mostly is concerned with IT stuff and especially programming. But if you want to get into animation and game design it's not a bad class to take, considering things like programming play heavily into the field.

@TomRomeneesha It is true, the college doesn't matter. Neither does your degree, unless you want to be a programmer. BUT you do have to have an *awesome* portfolio. The Guildhall helped me make that. If I didn't have the skills, my degree wouldn't matter and I would never have gotten hired. I do have alot of debt, but I am paying it off fast and I wouldn't change a thing.

what a cool video, awesome to see feminity in a realm/field of study that rarely shows such. breath of fresh air, and a kick ass instruction video as well...

@TotalJargon C++ is the BEST way to get into the industry. My degree, even from the Guildhall, it still took me 8 months to find a job. In our class, every programmer, regardless of skill level was hired BEFORE graduation.

This is my all time dream as a child to work with games to play a game and to tell someone that i helped in making that game become a reality it would bring a tear to my eye knowing my long time dream coming true. If anyone has any tips or good schools that would help it would be really great

A lot of functions in programming, many steps to get a program to work right! I like books with good example programs that make programming easier! Then it's about trying to memorize

How long does it takes to make a completely video game? I learned by myself with C, C++, Python, and now I learned a little bit of Unreal Engine 4 to make games..... but it take like forever to get to the "video game" level =(

Best bet is to make a simple game or a demo. I'd recommend downloading Visual Studio Express and XNA. This will get you making Windows & XBox games in the C# language (tutorials @ microsoft site). If you have a DVD recorder, record footage of your game and upload it to youtube. After that, include the youtube link and your game/demo with your job applications. Also, don't let people tell you that you can't do it or that you're crap. Listen to the people you're applying to for a job instead.

OMG THATS VECTOR CITY RACERS… LOVED THAT GAME!

I so badly want to work in the video games industry, but I'm terrified. There are so many things you can be but so many levels and courses you have to take to become them. I have no idea where to start and I'm only 14!

@saeklin All of this is spot on for the most part. 1. I have worked on 4 games, and I only really liked one of them. Only that one was a game I would have played. 2. It depends on the company. At a now closed studio we had a 3 month deathmarch (7 day work weeks, 12 hours a day, for 3 months.) However at my current job, we haven't crunched a single day, despite having shipped a game during that time. It's all about the producers.

But then again, a gamer sees all aspects inside of multiple games, giving them a better reference of what works as opposed to creating something that risks not being played. Being as original as possible, with dedication that is accentuated with creativity almost always pays off.

I wanna be a video game programmer, what courses do i need to take?. Please reply..(I wanna be a video game programmer so bad)...

Great video! What a joy to watch.

Im in sooo in love with her.. she speaks her heart

I thought of getting into game designing, but it's hard right now because of supporting myself with rent and car payments. Plus of all, it takes to long to graduate from Associate, Bachleor, Master Degrees. I heard they got a online certificate like program at Academy Art Institute. The thing is, will it get me in the doors? Send some info please?

@anonymouscitizen0101 Nope. Just enough to get your point across. I am a stick figure drawer, but it works.

I really want to be a game designer! i just love games! and i would love being a video game designer

I have to admit, i'm fairly the same. However a good place to start is either learn a coding language or do what i'm going to try do and get a job as a game tester. Maybe one day i'll work my way from there higher and higher ... who knows? You should check out game tester (It sounds and looks horrifically boring to some, but those who really have an interest should overcome boredom). Hope I helped.

Funny that the beginning of the video tells you that you can't design video games unless you game while mario is playing in the background, the creater of mario didn't play video games >.>

Im a senior about to begin college this fall and I really want to be a video game designer :) But I dont understand why alot of college reps keep telling me to major in computer science...

Im doing a school project on video game designing. For it i need to do an interview. (My teachers say i can't do that subject unless i have someone to interview beforehand) Anyway, would you mind having me interview someone from where you work?

i'm an amatuer game developer, and I would suggest C++, but I also use GM alot.