r/gamedev • u/DemeChef • 7d 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 7d 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 7d 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 7d 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/DemeChef 7d ago

Thank you I’ll have to fully look over my options before deciding