Bagless Vacuum Inventor Wants More Engineers, Less Game Devs

[A_Parked_Car]

I didn't know there was a shortage of engineers in the UK?

Over here (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), we have the exact opposite problem. So many people are getting undergraduate degrees in various types of engineering (and business) that they have pretty much been reduced to useless pieces of paper. If you want to take getting a career in engineering, accounting etc. seriously, you either have to go to graduate school or get a ton of work experience before you finish your degree.

Now, since I'm a military history major this is largely outside of my knowledge area, but... Is there really a lot of overlap between something like engineering, hard science and video game design? I would assume there is some, but not necessarily enough to say "we should have less of x, so we have more y."

Besides, I'm a staunch supporter of the idea that if you aren't doing what you love (or at least are interested in) in university, you're doing it wrong. One thing various university admissions staff, administrators, etc. keep trying to drill into people's heads is that university is not, I repeat, not job training. Except for nursing, education and engineering (There are more at a graduate and post-graduate level.).

University is simply a place of higher learning, which may help your chances of getting hired somewhere, but does not guarantee that you will get to work in your field. If you really want to just get practical job training to get a well-paying job fast, go to a technical school like SAIT(The technical institution where I live.). SAIT is actually having a lot of problems keeping people from certain programs around long enough to finish their diplomas/degrees, because companies keep hiring students out from under them.

In short, just study what you love. Don't let some guy that invents overpriced vacuum cleaners (or anyone for that matter) tell you what you should and should not study.

 

[tangoprime]

On the subject of rubbish vacuum jokes; at uni one day the lecturer was discussing the cleverness of marketing adverts that can affect you, and asked the class, "For example, why are Dyson so successful?"

I pipe up, "Because they suck."

(I feel an odd mixture of shame and pride at that one)

Was the answer "because Dyson are the only vacuum cleaner company that bothers to advertise vacuums in the first place, and then when people actually buy their overly-complicated, over priced vacuums, they have to sink more money into the damn thing on repairs when it inevitably breaks down to justify spending so much money on it in the first place"?

I've had a Dyson DC25 for 4 years now with zero problems. It's extremely efficient, easy to use, easy to disassemble to clean, and does such a nice job cleaning and filtering the air that you'd be hard pressed to realize we have 3 dogs. Best $280 I've ever spent on house care. Are you actually speaking from personal experience, or did you just make that up because it sounded good?

 

[Ruley]

I'm not suggesting you choose one or the other, i'm urging people to choose scientific subjects over videogame design. My point is that a more general scientific degree like Maths, Physics, Engineering and computer science can still get you into the videogames industry (See Bungie, Treyarch, Lionhead Studios - all have people with physics degrees). By specializing in videogame design, i believe you are hurting you future job prospects by specializing too early. If you still want to do some form of education in videogame design, my advice would be to do a science degree then a one year conversion course of videogame coding (for example).

unless you want to do 3d modelling/animation

I kind of get what your saying, I actually know very little about the ACTUAL jobs people do in the game industry aside from the 3d modeling/animation/adding pretty effects stuff (even then I'm sketchy..was that a pun?...no probably not)

Indeed, you're on the right lines here. Their are other applications of a videogame design degree, dependent on what you've studied (also these courses generally tend to be 2 years long rather than 3). The issue is that many focus on the theory of game design, as in story development, level design, beta testing, etc... Along with coding modules that have other applications as you've mentioned. But again, its still a very narrowing of opportunities. And theirs not much work in the IT services industry these days (3d modeling with movie studios or animation departments. RnD test engines for projects, etc...), more jobs are appearing in IT hardware / server support in the UK (NHS, MOD, etc...).

A gaming company generally has these job areas within it:

Coding
Test (* and test and test and test - worst job in the industry)
Art
Sound
Design

Many of these categories have other applications elsewhere beyond gaming but again, i come back to my point of all current games designers have degrees such as computer science, something with a much wider reaching application than just game design coding.

I just really think the government haven't done a good enough job of keeping the sciences in the foreground as the primary further study option that can then lead into videogame design afterwards. People are just seeing these degrees and going "Ooh, i wana design games!" and jump straight in with no other messages trying to steer them elsewhere and their futures can be hurt because of it.


(no pun might have been intended but you got a chuckle from me! ^_^)

I didn't know there was a shortage of engineers in the UK?

Over here (Calgary, Alberta, Canada), we have the exact opposite problem. So many people are getting undergraduate degrees in various types of engineering (and business) that they have pretty much been reduced to useless pieces of paper. If you want to take getting a career in engineering, accounting etc. seriously, you either have to go to graduate school or get a ton of work experience before you finish your degree.

Now, since I'm a military history major this is largely outside of my knowledge area, but... Is there really a lot of overlap between something like engineering, hard science and video game design? I would assume there is some, but not necessarily enough to say "we should have less of x, so we have more y."

Big shortage. government are offering HUGE grants to anyone who wants to be a physics or maths teacher ontop of that their are many schemes in place for graduate jobs in the field of engineering. near enough guaranteed a job.

The basic gist of a university degree is to show you're a hard worker. 70% of what you learn, you'll never use again. in the case of a physics degree, you use maths every day, but you study modules like quantum mechanics and material sciences, useless in every day life (job dependent, obviously). in videogame design coding, code is a language built ontop of mathematics, specifically algebra. a simple analogy is:

if x=y

set z=60

where say x is a player position and z is the number of enemies spawned. a very basic example but you see what i mean in terms of videogame code being dependent on juggling factors around.

basically, anyone with a good understanding of maths can learn code easily. so employers are more interested in seeing people with A) skills in mathematics and B) Proven then are hard working to achieve a good degree in a hard 3-4 year course (maths, physics, computer science). Since its of little expense to them to teach a new employee the specific code they use so long as they know it will be picked up and not only used but expanded upon by their new employee.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

The UK government recently announced plans for a 25 percent tax break for "video games, animation and high-end television industries" that pass a "cultural test" proving their Britishness.

OK, I know this is going off-topic, but for fuck's sake this pisses me off...

"Britishness" is not a thing! Our culture is not an easily definable entity that can be measured by a test; and even if it could, I can't be the only one who thinks that art that can 'prove' it's 'Britishness' (aka. Art that is patriotic and supports the notion of whatever the hell our government seems to think "Britishness" is) being given preferential treatment is pretty fucking creepy. This isn't all that far away from what Iran is doing with it's game industry, because who needs honest artistic expression when you can have propaganda right? This shit would not fly in the British film industry that's for sure.

Britain is historically one of the most multi-cultural places on Earth. If there's anything about British culture that we should be celebrating, it's how malleable we are. The sort of skin-head, flag-touting bigots who like to make such a big deal about what it means to be truly 'British', don't seem to realise that to be 'British' is to be, ethnically speaking, equal parts Italian, German, Danish and French, at least! Asking anyone or anything to 'prove Britishness' is nothing more than empty, xenophobic, nationalistic wank-speak to appease clueless Daily Mail readers!

Right, I'm done. I'll get off my soapbox now.

Before you jump to conclusions about how the Government is a jingoistic racist propaganda-promoting machine, perhaps you should do more research beyond looking at the word "Britishness" and ranting about it.

Unlike you, I actually did some research on what this "Cultural test" is. Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/383106/uk-tax-breaks-video-games-cultural-test-revealed/

To summerize, very little of the test is even British. In fact, almost all games likely qualify, and it is closer to a European Economic Area test.

You need to get 16 points across the following categories:
Location, depending on % of the game set in specific locations. Max 4 if you set it in the EEA, Max 3 if the location is entirely unspecified.
Characters, Max of four points if leads are from EEA or an unspecified location.
Story, 4 points for relating to any EEA state
Language, up to 4 points based on use of regional dialects
Contribution, up to 4 points based on development of british culture (basically, monty python references will get you 4 points)
Where the work is carried out, up to 3 points for developing the game in the UK
Up to 8 points for the people working on the video game actually living in the UK.

So lets see how far we can stretch this point system. Imagine the following scenario:
I am an Indie developer in the UK making a game about sentient floating boxes in a void. I get 3 points for the 100% unspecified location. 4 points for the unspecified character's homeplace. 4 points considering I am using British English as the games dialogue. 3 points for the game being entirely developed in the UK, and 8 points since I technically fulfil every job position as a 1-man indie dev team. That comes to a total of 22 points.

A game about sentient floating boxes in a void is sufficiently British to pass the test.

Basically any game being developed in the UK by UK citizens will get 15 of the 16 needed points simply from development location, hired staff and language.

Well if it's really so innocuous as that, then why not just dispense with the whole 'cultural test' part? Just provide tax breaks for any video game developer that creates employment in the UK and have done with it. It may not be twisting and stifling creativity, but I still dislike some of the sentiment behind it.

 

[maninahat]

On the subject of rubbish vacuum jokes; at uni one day the lecturer was discussing the cleverness of marketing adverts that can affect you, and asked the class, "For example, why are Dyson so successful?"

I pipe up, "Because they suck."

(I feel an odd mixture of shame and pride at that one)

Was the answer "because Dyson are the only vacuum cleaner company that bothers to advertise vacuums in the first place, and then when people actually buy their overly-complicated, over priced vacuums, they have to sink more money into the damn thing on repairs when it inevitably breaks down to justify spending so much money on it in the first place"?

I've had a Dyson DC25 for 4 years now with zero problems. It's extremely efficient, easy to use, easy to disassemble to clean, and does such a nice job cleaning and filtering the air that you'd be hard pressed to realize we have 3 dogs. Best $280 I've ever spent on house care. Are you actually speaking from personal experience, or did you just make that up because it sounded good?

Why, did it sound good?

Personal experience, not with a dyson I own (I don't have one), but from friends who have owned them and had them break. In fairness, the one at the restaurant I worked at only broke because people kept sucking up burning ashes from the fireplace, causing a flame tornado to appear inside the vacuum. Fun to watch.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

To summerize, very little of the test is even British. In fact, almost all games likely qualify, and it is closer to a European Economic Area test.

You need to get 16 points across the following categories:
Location, depending on % of the game set in specific locations. Max 4 if you set it in the EEA, Max 3 if the location is entirely unspecified.
Characters, Max of four points if leads are from EEA or an unspecified location.
Story, 4 points for relating to any EEA state
Language, up to 4 points based on use of regional dialects
Contribution, up to 4 points based on development of british culture (basically, monty python references will get you 4 points)
Where the work is carried out, up to 3 points for developing the game in the UK
Up to 8 points for the people working on the video game actually living in the UK.

Well if it's really so innocuous as that, then why not just dispense with the whole 'cultural test' part? Just provide tax breaks for any video game developer that creates employment in the UK and have done with it. It may not be twisting and stifling creativity, but I still dislike some of the sentiment behind it.

I'd say it's stifling creativity. They're conservatives, meaning they don't like too much change. Creating employment is one thing, but to them, doing that AND keeping things more or less as they are, with the same arrangements that have (obviously) advantaged the politicians in power and their families, is another.

To them "British" would be more something like Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas Goes On Holiday [http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog/wp-content/K/briggs23.jpg] than The Amazing Spiderman [http://www.4thletter.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/asm02.jpg]. Putting aside one is by a British and the other an American writer, there's nothing particularly un-British in that Spiderman page. But would old, crusty and white politicians approve of a black guy quoting lines like "get your butt kicked" over and above a book featuring a Christian based character and involving tea and lines like "blooming awful"? No.

So getting writers/developers to throw in traditional "British" elements to earn some more cash does not produce genuinely great British works. Briggs didn't need this policy to create his.

To summerize, very little of the test is even British. In fact, almost all games likely qualify, and it is closer to a European Economic Area test.

You need to get 16 points across the following categories:
Location, depending on % of the game set in specific locations. Max 4 if you set it in the EEA, Max 3 if the location is entirely unspecified.
Characters, Max of four points if leads are from EEA or an unspecified location.
Story, 4 points for relating to any EEA state
Language, up to 4 points based on use of regional dialects
Contribution, up to 4 points based on development of british culture (basically, monty python references will get you 4 points)

You don't find all of those British? Like I said above, a test like this involves a lot of judgement calls. What the judges consider British Culture is up to them, but it's likely to be highly circumscribed by their politics.

 

[Jessta]

The solution isn't to make it so engineers get paid more, every game designer ever already knows they would make more money working as a engineer you hear it a million times from councilors, colleges, websites, surveys, street performers fucking everywhere! The starving artist icon is even more omnipresent than the starving college student stereotype. The reason people choose game design and all of it's multi-faceted goodness is that it's just funner, it's by no means Glamourous, every one knows that the vast majority of game designers are low wage workers posted out of their mothers basement (Or similarly crappy residence) hoping to hit it big. People flock to it because they ENJOY IT, not because they think they are going to be some sort of art house super star with billions of dollars and a flock of fans.
It stands to reason then that the best course of action to make engineering more popular wouldn't be to make it more rewarding financially but more rewarding creatively, to make it more fun.
Market it to the children, make it a hobby for them like Video games are now, shit like Lego's and lincoln logs are well and good but why not go a bit further? I suggest they make an easy to use engineering emulator, essentially something with a really indepth physics engine and a bunch of different materials they could customize and slam together to create various things. They could market this game at like 5 dollars a pop then make a sleuth of other games that lets you load the stuff you make in it to accomplish various things from puzzle games to rpgs to firt person shooters to whatever, it would be a creation tool for an entire genre of games.
use games to make other things more popular.

 

[darksakul]

"Sir James Dyson"? Holy shit Batman they would knight anyone these days....

Does the Queen hands out knighting like party favors? What happen to being actually worth a shit to the whole that is the UK or to the world. First Judy Drench now James Dyson, who is next Mr Bean?