If you're in the UK and you've got fair qualifications in maths, computing and physics then your choices are as follows:
- Finance - 60,000 pounds per year. Insane hours. Very little job satisfaction.
- Consulting - 50,000 pounds per year. Long hours. Moderate job satisfication.
- Film post processing - 40,000 pounds per year. Long hours. See your own work at the cinema.
- Application programmer - 30,000 pounds per year.
- Teacher - One year training course, possibility of 40,000 pounds in five years if you can handle unruly kids. (Many don't make it.)
- Games programmer - Insane hours. Project may require porting code or using a legacy engine. Awful third party libraries licensed to shorten development cycle. Pay depends on previous success. May require beginning as a game tester at minimum wage.
- Startup Programmer - Theorectical average salary of 100,000 pounds per year. Large control of project specification. Good chance of recognition and job satisfaction.
> game development now lends to larger teams, less individualism...
In the summer of 1996, I got some work experience testing a game at Bullfrog. In 1996, Bullfrog games were taking between 20-22 man years to develop. As a lead programmer, the latter phase of the project would consist of 12-15 hour days of bug fixes and build failures. In the subsequent 12 years, I haven't had the inclination to apply for a job in the games industry.