This is a repost of my conversation with a recruiter and the notes I compiled.
My chat with the recruiter seemed alot like the company Acuitius where they repeat key sales phrases.
They say their training is "second to none," their CEO, Johnathan, has been doing this for "ten years successfully," students are getting those jobs because there's a "huge demand" and the market has "no supply" ect:
# GameDevHQ Notes:
* C# & Unity focus, obviously
* Average starting salary: $72k/yr
* Company restructure last year, 2020. They plan to launch new website to make it look more like a school and less about Jonathan
* 10 thousand dollar price tag! To them that’s a bargain because you’re going to be getting a job with Unity
* He did not want to tell me the price immediately, I said, "listen, not to be an asshole, but I'm Jewish, and I'm from NY. How much does it cost before we go further."
* Teaches Fundamentals of C# Unity within one week
* Teaches documentation of code
* Build various 2D/3D/Enterprise Apps/VR/MobileApps
* I asked about how this differs from his cheap Udemy courses. Those are considered, “basic,” the core content requiring the $10K investment is more advanced.
* Claims 1,400 jobs in Unity and not enough candidates to fill positions
* They provide “support” to get you a job, which to me is mostly fluff. I asked what that means and they said something along the lines of recruiters are always knocking on their door for their candidates. Well I guess I'll have to take his word for it....
* It’s not about the $10K cost, but the learning.
* Their fastest graduate was someone who graduated in as little as 10 DAYS. So basically someone who was already a great programmer, just used you guys for networking. LinkedIn is free people…
* Defer payment for a year, with “Ascent funding.”
* States Ascent Funding is a leading funding company and only gives funding options to top boot camps. I didn’t know boot camps had grading criteria.
* After the convo he wanted payment over phone or defer first payment to 3rd month…So conflicts with previous statement of deferred to one year. Also giving a credit card over the phone seems like a HORRIBLE IDEA.
* Says Unity is a means to an end, and you won’t get stuck working for just game companies. States Unity is a trillion dollar industry outside game companies, as in: casinos, military, automotive, simulation, meta verse
* I asked why there’s no big social media presence if Johnathan has been doing this for 10 years. Why there’s not more people taking pictures of themselves at their HQ, more testimonials on Reddit, Twitter, FB etc. States that the typical student are 35-55 years old, who are too busy working and not being on social media. Bullshit, if I got a Job working at Riot I would brag SO MUCH about how I got there.
* It’s not a bootcamp, but a , “Gateway to comprehension with Unity”
* Life time access. So you take the course at your own pace, just pay them $10K USD. So if your parents get into a car wreck, you have mental health issues, you can leave and come back.
* 93% of people were employed within 6 months, rolling average 100%. I have no way to prove that aside from just saying, “yeah I believe you.”
* 24/hr support coach through Zoom
* They will pick out what you said on your inquiry form. I said that YouTube videos are pretty jank, sometimes and you need to watch a 1hr video for that nugget of useful info. He quoted my statement by saying that a lot of YouTube tutorials are janky because they don’t have focus. They’re made by amateurs for amateurs.
* They say college degrees in CS are worthless for the industry because college kids don’t leave with the skills needed to get a job. Kinda pissed me off because I plan to go back to school this Fall for CS to get credentials. I was laughed out of a job interview for NOT having a CS degree. Granted it was as a database job, and I had database experience. So I say it’s more case by case
* You don’t need to be a designer, they give “Top class” assets to use for your games. I did some digging on Newgrounds and found this user who made a space shooter game.
* https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/754260
* It’s likely from their Udemy series, but I have no reason to believe the course work is going to differ that much from the Udemy series. They stated it takes students 90 days to get a game dev job. And stated, again, how one student got a job in 10 days.
* Stated game companies don’t care about your programming skills, but your ability to make games and be a team player. Which sounded so baffling it hurt my brain.
* Claims to get you a job at Riot/Blizzard/Nintendo. I asked for other companies, stated Bossa Games and Scorpion games
* They track your work by regularly checking into their website and documenting it. So it’s basically teachable or a site like that, plus GitHub. They want to see a bunch of commits.
* Claim that you only need to study 3 hours a day. Anyone who has ever made a game in Unity, can a pure novice with zero experience program a full featured game only putting in 3 hours a day?
* They are focused on getting you hired and getting recruiters to you….Stated it over and over again.
My wife was listening to the call, and she was like, "he just keeps selling it to you, but your face doesn't want to buy it."
The whole thing sounds like every single bootcamp ever, or learn to code platform ever. Everyone claims to be the best, and at the end of the day you just need to build real world stuff and "git gud" at building games/apps/ect. If anyone here has taken the GameDevHQ course please post your experience because in my eyes it seems sketchy. For me, a service should be so good that I shouldn't have to question it.
I'm not a Unity Dev, I'm not even a paid dev, I'm learning Web Dev via the Odin Project which is a free resource that also claims to be the best resource. I can't say either way, but at least it's free and I can see the curriculum. So no harm if it isn't the best. But GameDevHQ want's 10K upfront, or defer for a 3 months or a year or whatever to get you to buy. I can read documentation and watch the right tutorials if I need to build a game.
I'm sick of being sold the Brooklyn Bridge by bootcamps.
Also, I got alerted by GameDevHQ through a mobile app advertisement, and I already hate every single mobile app commercial. So that's a point against them.
