Video Game Developer as a Mathematician

HI! I have a master full of advances courses in Mathematics. I have honors and all that stuff that are not very important. Right now Im finishing my 2nd year of phd. Finishing my Phd is not a problem but I dont know if I want to be a scientist. I love video games but I dont know how to开发者_如何学Go program. Suppose that I decide to quit the scientist carrier and starting learning programming. How hard is to know the proper knowledge to work in a game company? Is hard to get a job in those places? Since I dont know what to do with my life, any kind of advise could be perfect, experience or what ever is well accepted.

You are obviously an intelligent person so I have little doubt that if you put your mind to it you will be able to grasp just about any programming language/concept necessary. In addition to that having a solid foundation in mathematics will stand you in good stead for game development. Game development is not, as some people think, all about designing orcs and intergalatic battle cruisers. It is all about the 'engine' that the game runs on, this is everything. The engine drives game physics and that is supported by mathematics.

I am sure there are exceptions to this, but it is probably a safe bet that at some point in their lives just about every developer has wanted to get into games development. Some have made it some have not. It is an industry that is to some extent highly romaticised and as a result of that there are a lot more people wanting to get in than there are positions available. So you need to stand out and your background in mathematics will help with that.

If I were you I would continue on the road you are on now. Complete your PHD and in your spare time learn a programming language or two, buy some books, put together more than a few mini games yourself. Doing this will give you an introduction to the development process and from there you can decide if this is a career path you want to pursue.

All this said, I wish you all the best and sincerly hope you find a career that meets your needs and keeps you interested.

I'd say for video games you have two paths you could take :

• Programmer : I suggest to you start right now to build some little games with whatever programming language you have at hand (no idea, try Python for example). Programming, whatever your intelligence, isn't an easy task and the more experience you get building games, the more easily you'll build them. That advice is valid whatever your background. I don't have any diploma and I worked in the game industry and I'm making games at all. So it's not relative to your diploma in this industry, it's more about experience and passion (because it's not easy task). Makes games and show them and you'll have a place somewhere if youd don't want to go indie.
• Game Designer : this isn't contradictory with being programmer (you can be both, for example if you go indie it's often the case - but in a game company you'll have one or the other role on your contract), but as mathematician you have an advantage in game design when talking about statistics, economy, abstract modelisation, etc. So it might be a good idea to read a bit about game designer's maths because it's often there that mathematics becomes a powerfull tool in game developpement.

People with math degress alone can find jobs in the games industry. (For proof there was a speech from last year's co-founder of Blizzard asking for Math majors to apply to Blizzard for jobs).

Things that you could/would do with out direct programming knowledge would be system development for combat, interactions, match making, probabilities and the like.

If you directly wanted to get into development then the above would still hold true but then you would also know better ways to implement them and the tricks of math that can be accomplished within a finite counting system (I wonder if there are any game programmers out there worth their salt that have not found a good use for over/underflow of bits yet :))

Just remember that video games are about making it Look real while not being real... Euler integration removing alot of the pesky mathematical operations that slow computers down.. Though I did read an 'article' the other day that things have progressed well beyond this and with the speed of systems prefers incremental step processing.

Anywho, as said before, Yes, there are plenty of opportunities for people with a math background in the games industry... What might sour the moment though is that the game industry is only very slowly if at all getting out of the economical funk of the last few years (Another few (400-500) hundred developers were let go within the last month and there is still alot of people with in-industry experience trying to find a new job in the industry).