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Originally Posted by photon
I did mention to him that there's not that many game dev jobs in Calgary either so he'd probably have to either work remote or move somewhere, and he didn't much like that idea. But yeah that's a super good point. I'd rather like my job rather than like the idea of my job.
Crunch culture for devs does exist outside of video games too but I've managed to avoid it for the most part. But I've known people and seen it on other teams. No thanks.
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Game dev is sort of like the out-of-work Hollywood actor version of software development. A lot of people go into fashionable game dev programs at small schools trying to grow their revenue, all whilst pursuing what they think will be glamor, glitz, and fun but the reality is rarely like that at all. There is indeed the crunch and a high level of job competition from creatives that are trying to turn their hobbies into a career.
There are a lot of people going into game dev because they are interested in it as a hobby and that's possibly the wrong reason to get into software development.
I have relatives at Bioware up in Edmonton and I work in IT management here in Calgary. I would advise people to become more a full stack developer who can ply their trade in any business around the world because that demand and variety will always be there.
I would stress again that software dev/dev ops is only a fraction of what IT is. There is a whole world of operational IT like infrastructure, networking, databases, cybersecurity, business systems, business intelligence, cloud architecture, tech sales & marketing, etc. I guess step one is define what you mean by "computer career".