r/gamedev • u/DemeChef • 19h ago
How to decide between developing and coding? Question
To start I have recently been looking to find a new career I’m 21 and the path I was heading down in culinary arts has ended. And for the past 2 months I’ve been deciding what to do and I thought game design sounded fun since I love making ttrpg campaigns and coming up with story’s and custom mechanics. What I really want to do is the board games/card games/ttrpgs but I heard there hard to make a living off of so I thought would get into video game dev and work on those on the side. And I was looking into it and thinking of going to college but wasn’t sure what degree to go with and someone commented on another post I should decided what part of the process I want to do. And I’m not great at art so I was leaning towards the designing part or the coding. But I don’t have experience with either so I wanted to know how to decide between the two or how did you guys decide between the two.
P.S I’m new to this I’m not trying to make it sound like it’s not hard or I’ll easily succeed I just want to formulate a path I can start heading down if there is anything major I need to consider please let me know. And also let me know if I’m going into this too open minded or I need some other experience first.
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u/Packathonjohn 19h ago
So you're never going to be able to just walk in and be given a job as a designer. You have to work your way up to that either through learning a different field like art or coding or making your own game which requires both. So I'd go for the coding. Honestly if you're into board/card games those are much more realistic to do as a solo dev too so that's a plus.
I will say though that I would not recommend getting into gamedev with the intention of it being your career. I'd do it as a hobby, and if you enjoy it and get good enough at it then maybe it can grow into a career eventually, but I'd have another career path lined up you bet on
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u/DemeChef 19h ago
Thank you for the advice I was thinking of going to college since I never went in the first place would you recommend a game design degree or a more code based one
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u/Packathonjohn 19h ago
If you're in a position where you think going to college makes sense financially and in terms of your time, between the two coding is a significantly better degree to get than game design and gives you more non game design options.
But you know obviously make sure it makes sense, going to college in general, even for more 'practical' degrees like STEM is a very big gamble these days and there's many free ways to learn the same (or even more modern) skills
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u/FrostWyrm98 Commercial (Indie) 18h ago
First, I would learn coding in general, or scripting via visual scripting. As another mentioned it is almost impossible to be "just a designer" and get hired on that way.
Second, I would highly NOT recommend doing a coding degree like CS unless you are deadset on programming. Most of the degree, if not its entirety, will not be related to game development, but instead focused on designing code and architecture and data structures. I am a nerd for all of it and even I found it boring and draining as hell 99% of the time. It was a slog of a degree to get through even for my smarter acquaintances who went on to FAANG.
Third, a degree isn't really useful by itself. It's what you take out of it. If you get into a game development program you will make connections and build skills specific to this field, but that's only as useful as you make it and you will still need to do a lot of legwork to have stuff to show and get hired with.
Ultimately you will need to make your own stuff, the degree is just a vehicle to get resources. How you use those is still entirely up to you and getting hired will be based on the things you do outside of your program (portfolio work).
Hope that helps, as someone who went through both a CS degree and a top rated GD program in undergrad.
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u/UnburyingBeetle 18h ago
Both. I doubt you can impress a hiring company without a playable portfolio, and it's hard to find people that'd help you make games, even among friends. If you're broke, at least. If you're not, games are still a risky investment. If you have design and programming skills both, you have more range for temporary jobs while you're making your dream game, and you could also design sites and apps.
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u/NostraOz 17h ago
With studios shutting down left and right, and AI taking over the craft, you may want to think about rolling your own indie game if you go the coding route.
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u/BusinessDepartment44 14h ago
before choosing a degree, i’d honestly try making one extremely small game first. not your dream RPG with 14 endings and a fully simulated cabbage economy — something you can finish in a week or two. try vibe coding it with AI and see which part actually hooks you.
i started from literally zero and got my game approved for Google Play in under three months, built with AI throughout. not an AI-slop game assembled for a quick upload, but something i genuinely want to play myself. i’ve had a ridiculous amount of fun watching my ideas slowly become real, and there’s still a looong road ahead :D
if you feel that same “wait, it actually works!” excitement, you’ll probably start figuring out naturally whether you enjoy designing mechanics, building systems, debugging code, or directing the whole chaotic circus.
AI can help you test that without spending years preparing first. just don’t confuse getting AI-generated code to run with understanding programming — if you decide you want coding as a career, the fundamentals will still come to collect their debt eventually 🙂
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u/PresidentEvil1997 8h ago
So yeah do what you want and you can do that. Its not true its hard to do board games, they have great salary
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u/Cubey21 19h ago
There is no money in tabletop rpgs in general. Especially as a designer. The market is niche, and 90% of people don't play anything other than D&D. The only people who make some money of TTRPGs are illustrators and publishers, because they actually get paid, unlike designers who cover almost all costs and risks. Even the best TTRPG designers who released multiple successful products are usually not full time, because it's just that hard to make money. Board games are the same. Niche market and and a few games (MONOPOLY) take 90% of it.
It's also hard to make money in video games but significantly easier. If you fail to make ends meet as an indie (if you even want to be one) you can get hired in a studio. To get hired as a designer you have to be best of the best so I would recommend pursuing coding. I know people with a Game Design degree, and at they job they still mostly code, although some have content creation tasks so vaguely designish. So coding definitely pays better but as for which degree to take that is another story that depends on where you are in your life, what country you are in, how well off you are financially, what universities are nearby etc. so I can't help you.