Hi, I'm a 28 years old university student living in Seoul, Korea. Yes, I'm a Korean and I am currently going through a late soul-searching period. I think I'm slowly but surely reaching the conclusion that I have to give a shot at becoming a game developer before it's too late. My major is Chinese language and literature, but I have no interest in the field, and as a result I have only finished my freshmen year until now. I am planning to drop out of school and start studying programming, computer science and math while enrolling for a private job training institution to get a low tier job in any Korean game company by next year.
I lived in Luxemburg for 2 years and 6 months when I was a kid and also in Michigan, US for a year when I was in middle school. I also went to a high school in Korea that prepares it's students for foreign studies. Whenever I'm playing a non-Korean game I always play it in English, I communicate with other game users in English, spend many hours reading game wikis and forum posts in English, watch English speaking youtubers, etc, so despite having been away from English speaking environment for over 10 years now, I think I can, with about 2 years of rigorous training, acquire sufficient English communication skill to work at a foreign company. In short, language, probably, isn't my problem.
The real problem is my lack of knowledge and experience in game development itself. Since I received a liberal-arts type of education, I had never thought that programming could be a realistic career path for me. However, after some research, I came to the conclusion that, in order to gain real, empirical understanding of how games operate, I need to learn programming and computer science. I've spent the past few weeks doing everything I can to gather information by googling, watching developer youtube videos, using a mentor searching app to ask questions to people in the industry, searching job offers from various game companies to see what the requirements are, reading developer blog posts, etc etc. There were a lot of very helpful advice, but one thing I still have no clue is how to land a job in a foreign strategy game company like Paradox Interactive as a South Korean male who's choosing a new career path in a somewhat late age.
As I've said, the current plan is to acquire the necessary skills to become a true game dev by utilizing online materials (both free and payed) and to gain experience in the game industry via working at any Korean game company that would hire me. However, my concern is that the path might actually confine me to this country, because I've heard that foreign companies are very reluctant on hiring non-native foreigner due to visa costs and language barrier. So I am wondering if I should go to a Canadian college and receive a computer science or game development diploma in order to have a chance at becoming a game developer of the genre of game that I love the most (Korean games are mostly mmos or mobile p2w). If it's even a realistic possibility, that is.
I have a lot at stake here. I'm still contemplating on compromising with reality and choosing a safer path. Encouragement is greatly appreciated, but what I really need is realistic, straightforward advice. Thank you for reading this, sorry if this isn't the right place, wish you all happiness.
I lived in Luxemburg for 2 years and 6 months when I was a kid and also in Michigan, US for a year when I was in middle school. I also went to a high school in Korea that prepares it's students for foreign studies. Whenever I'm playing a non-Korean game I always play it in English, I communicate with other game users in English, spend many hours reading game wikis and forum posts in English, watch English speaking youtubers, etc, so despite having been away from English speaking environment for over 10 years now, I think I can, with about 2 years of rigorous training, acquire sufficient English communication skill to work at a foreign company. In short, language, probably, isn't my problem.
The real problem is my lack of knowledge and experience in game development itself. Since I received a liberal-arts type of education, I had never thought that programming could be a realistic career path for me. However, after some research, I came to the conclusion that, in order to gain real, empirical understanding of how games operate, I need to learn programming and computer science. I've spent the past few weeks doing everything I can to gather information by googling, watching developer youtube videos, using a mentor searching app to ask questions to people in the industry, searching job offers from various game companies to see what the requirements are, reading developer blog posts, etc etc. There were a lot of very helpful advice, but one thing I still have no clue is how to land a job in a foreign strategy game company like Paradox Interactive as a South Korean male who's choosing a new career path in a somewhat late age.
As I've said, the current plan is to acquire the necessary skills to become a true game dev by utilizing online materials (both free and payed) and to gain experience in the game industry via working at any Korean game company that would hire me. However, my concern is that the path might actually confine me to this country, because I've heard that foreign companies are very reluctant on hiring non-native foreigner due to visa costs and language barrier. So I am wondering if I should go to a Canadian college and receive a computer science or game development diploma in order to have a chance at becoming a game developer of the genre of game that I love the most (Korean games are mostly mmos or mobile p2w). If it's even a realistic possibility, that is.
I have a lot at stake here. I'm still contemplating on compromising with reality and choosing a safer path. Encouragement is greatly appreciated, but what I really need is realistic, straightforward advice. Thank you for reading this, sorry if this isn't the right place, wish you all happiness.
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