So You Want to be a Game Developer? (XNA Game Studio 4.0 Programming)

We’ve worked in what you would call the "game industry" for years, and during our time, we’ve met many people and developers. They almost universally share a similar trait in that they either have been or at some time wanted to be a game developer. Games are everywhere—in movies, television, and the Internet. The audience of people playing games has expanded, too, with the popularity of online social media sites such as Face-book.

Much like a book or a movie, games can be a journey. They can tell a story and put the person experiencing it into a whole new world. Unlike a book or a movie, though, games are interactive. The player actually has an effect on the world. People can get immersed in these worlds, and once they are, a natural extension of that is the desire to create other (even better) worlds for others to get immersed in.With this desire to create other worlds, we have a budding game developer.

You may find this surprising, but writing a game is hard work, or, writing a good game is hard work. First, you need to have a good idea, and hopefully, that idea is fun.After you have the idea, though (even if it is the best idea ever), you still have to write the actual core game play and mechanics.After that, there is a ton of work to get something that looks polished. Finishing developing a game is probably one of the most difficult things for someone to do, particularly if he or she isn’t aware of how much work is required.


It isn’t easy to become a professional game developer.Times are changing, however, with platforms that allow self-publishing (such as XNA Game Studio on Xbox or for Windows Phone 7).Anyone can publish a game and actually charge for it to make money.

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