Engineering Student + Game Developer?

So, the million-dollar question: do you need to study engineering to be a game developer? Short answer, NO. Still here? Let’s discuss why.

I mean what I say when I say that anybody can be a game developer. It doesn’t matter what background you’re from. It doesn’t matter what you have or haven’t studied. As long as you keep your focus and keep working hard, you’ll soon have some pretty slick games under your belt.

But what if you already are an engineer? Or you have already enrolled yourself in a college? Now don’t get me wrong, having a degree is a good and necessary thing for many things in life and having one can help open many doors for you. With that said, let’s see how an engineering degree can help you with your games.

For the purpose of this article, I’m going to be talking about computer engineering, or computer science engineering, CSE for short, since it is the closest to what you want to do. What do you want to do? Develop games, of course!

Many subjects in the course of your CSE can help answer unwarranted questions. For example, we have a subject called Compiler Design, CD for short, in which you learn what happens to all the code that you write, how it gets converted in a form that is easily understandable for and executable by your processor. You learn how compilers handle the errors in your code.

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A subject called Computer Networks, or CN, introduces you to the mechanics behind the common networks that you use every day, such as Wi-Fi. It also includes the common principles behind our online activities, such as sending emails and playing online multiplayer games, like PUBG, Fortnite or CS GO.

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Another subject, Operating Systems, or OS, teaches you in what way different OSs differ and handle data, which helps you understand why you can do certain things when building your game for the PC but are restricted from doing those things when building for mobile devices such as Android or iOS. The same thing goes for Microprocessing and Interfacing, or MPI, which allows you to understand the different architectures of different processors – and also how different processors handle data differently. This is something that you also need to keep in mind, especially when you want to publish your game to the Google Play Store.

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These are only a handful of subjects, of course. Now, neither am I suggesting that you should drop everything and get admitted to your nearest engineering college nor am I suggesting that you should drop your engineering degree and do this instead. All I am trying to say is that your understanding of the subjects in CSE can help make you a better game developer. Of course, to learn all of these things, you don’t necessarily need to study CSE, you can find all the knowledge on YouTube and other such platforms, so there is that.

But hold on, what if you took up BSc instead? Well, your knowledge and the work you have done in physics can translate very well into your games – since the physics behind most games is based on real-life (I’m not talking about you, Just Cause).

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Okay, enough about science. I took up commerce as a child and want to know what I can do. Well, I can’t tell you what to do, I can only tell you how to do what you want to do – that is to make games, of course!

Your understanding of business studies and the market can help you decide what type of game to make, what to and what not to include in the game itself. You can even look at different business models of different studios and see how they make their money – or how they lost their money! You can make better executive decisions by analysing the market!

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Even having studied psychology can help, as you can understand why particular features of games make people react the way they do. You can then make sure to include features that trigger positive reactions – and exclude features that trigger negative reactions.

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Having said all this, you need to know just one thing: this is what I feel about different backgrounds and courses. You may have different experiences, so let’s do one thing; write down in the comments below if you think differently. Also, let me know if you enjoyed this article.

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