Not sure if I should finish college...

[AcetheSuperVillain]

I find there's not a lot of people I can talk to about this. I'm not sure I want to finish my college degree.

So right now, I'm studying for a 3D animation degree. I'm pretty much finished, there are I think 4 or 5 more months/classes and they all have to do with portfolio creation. I cannot blow them off and rely on my existing GPA. I take one online class a month and if I fail it, I have to retake it. I value the chance practice, and getting feedback from my instructors, but I'm dead sure I want to make porn games for a living when I've finished school, and the final classes aren't going to prepare me for that, they're going to prepare me for being a cog in a gigantic film studio. Also, working for myself, I'd be using Blender, while the school wants us to use Maya, so practicing with the school is still kinda the wrong sort of practice.

The uncertainty is definitely starting to affect the quality of my work. Both school work, and working on porn games.

So should I keep putting my dream on hold for the next 4 or 5 months or just quit school and begin my career? I really need someone's opinion on that.

[Ungawa]

Taking an economic perspective, you should probably ask other developers and artists about what they do. The degree can get you in doors, but with regards to America, you get a LOT of debt to go with it.

If you want to make porn games, I'd suggest looking at it as titles that also have sex. The main thing you should learn is how to code, program, and get your ideas out. It's not like you can't go back to them but you should learn other languages. Also, I'd highly suggest taking some history and liberal arts by yourself. Personal bias, sure, but the thing is, if you make a game, you can really set people's biases to zero to learn about things in a unique way. Playing Breath of Fire teaches you about religion and dogma in a whole new light, just as an example. I'd say don't go into debt for college, but do it so that it gets you where you want to be.

In regards to the porn gaming industry, it's smaller and far more creative the more I look into it. But it's far more volatile and it'll be harder to break in as time goes on. Do you want to be a team? What about working by yourself? How do you plan to support yourself?

I do think it's hasty to just quit right at the finish line. Remember that there were people that went into the industry in some form, got new knowledge and contacts, then got out. Supergiant was a part of EA before making Bastion. Likewise a new game I follow is Future Fragments where one of the programmers was in the gaming industry (AAA) before going to smut.

Then there's Sexums whose more of a vagabond who does better writing. I mean, the path is yours to follow. I'm just saying there's plenty of ways to go about it.

[musical74]

I would say stick it out. I know the feeling of *is this really important?* the closer I get to finishing college (I have a little over a year left) and while you want to be creating porn games for a living, I'd still say stick it out because lots of places will REQUIRE a degree before they will even look at you - at least, that's the way here in the US

[AcetheSuperVillain]

I've always heard that with an art career, the portfolio is the most important thing.

[Ungawa]

You kinda have two options: Degree or portfolio

Obviously, if you have a degree, it opens doors faster. They'll teach you what they want you to know and you never stop learning.

But if you have a ton of experience in game creation, with a great portfolio of things you've done, you can be hired.

In one, you're showing that you have the fundamentals.

In the other, you're showing your passion and drive.

Both are viable.

[GoRepeat]

Finish school. My answer might be different if you were only in your second term or something, but 5 months is nothing. Eventually you might want to finish and it will take a hell of a lot more than 5 months to get it back then. Again, 5 months is nothing. Suck it up, buttercup.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

I agree that if it were just a matter of spending 5 months to finish school, that's not that long. But it's also 5 months that I'm not working and 5 months of not making money. 5 months that I'll have to catch up on later, and there is a time limit on how long I'm allowed to "play around" with an animation job.

And for what? A portfolio, for finding jobs, which is redundant because I'll either work for myself, or just say "hey, I can make boobs in 3D!" and have plenty of offers. If I were allowed to make a pornographic porfolio in school, that would be different, but "we live next door to Disney and Universal" has made it clear that everything is supposed to be G-rated.

And at this point, they're basically training me to do the wrong thing. They are basically training me to be one of the 1000 names you see in the credits of a modern animated movie, super specializing in one particular aspect, which for the moment is animating, and putting a lot of hours into every second of screen time. Working on my own or in a small team, I would be responsible for a broader field of artwork, animation, character modeling, environment modeling, fluid simulation, not to mention the actual decision-making parts of game development, directing, writing, story boarding, etc, and I'll most likely need to avoid spending too much time on every little detail. Plus they want me to use the "industry standard" Maya, though I'm pretty sure 3DSMax is as common or more common, and working on my own, Blender is the best of all of them and FREE, so that would be the program I actually use.



So far, I agree with the idea that I might as well graduate now, since I can't do it later. But I am seriously worried that it's a waste of time that I can't afford.

[Zeus Kabob]

School's not stopping you from making your portfolio. If you think about it, you'll probably spend at least 5 months sharpening your skills before finding the job that's your real flame, so why don't you work on your skills independently from school and see where that brings you?

Finish up your degree while working on what you really want to do. If you end up wanting to or having to work with the other 999 animators in a movie (a respectable and more approachable career, albeit without much glory), that slip of paper will be very valuable. If you want to make your dreams reality by being the one-man animation team for a small game studio, then you'd better start practicing now. The thing is, there's no downside to having more options, and that's what a degree gives you.

[Ungawa]

Dude... You have a pretty good idea of what you want to do, but don't forget that you're in a room with 999 other devs who might or might not have the same goals as you. Connections with other devs can help you do far more things than what you're doing now. I think that Future Fragments has a dev that was in the AAA industry as well as there being PLENTY of areas of work for you in the porn industry if you just polish off the 5 months. I know that some of the larger games want programmers.

Don't think of it as hindering you, just a stepping stone that's far larger than the one you have now.

It's like when you play Phoenix Wright and he says think outside the box at the issues in front of you. You have to see it from another angle and then you can find a different solution to the problem.