Elysian Shadows

Are there any famous game development polymaths? I've seen so many different roles/occupations in developing games. A person could spend thier life learning new things about Game development. Which sounds awesome to me. Someday game development will be in high schools. Hopefully when I'm 40 or 50 (so I can teach it).

I could spend years just learning these: http://www.bungie.net/inside/content_vi ... ut_careers

Give me your thoughts, guys. Hopefully I'm not late to the discussion.

Oh of course there are. John Carmack for example builds rockets. He's known as saying that the challenges encountered in his role at iD software are orders of magnitude more difficult than the ones he encounters sending rockets into space.

Game development is really a form of engineering. You start from nothing and design a solution that works. In this case it's a game. As engineers, you are trained to be very diverse in many fields of expertise. You'll acquire more and more as you move along as well. Game development spans many fields of study and is branching into some very interesting areas. Streaming gaming. Real 3D vision. VR. You name it. When you dig deep into any area here you'll find an overwhelming amount of information and a lot of "ah-ha" moments where you find out that those things that you said "When the hell will I ever use THIS?!".....well, that's where you use them. The process of learning how to learn is the single most important thing of value here.

Get yourself a solid base. Don't be satisfied at a cursory glance of things. There's always something to be done better. I always say that when I feel "comfortable" is when I begin to worry. It means I'm not challenging myself. Step out there and learn all you can.

That was a brilliant response. Thanks so much.

Give me some of your ideas/opinions please. After I learn/study for a few years, I want my first big project to be a platform game.