Can you tell me about video game design?

I’d be very weary of any for-profit degrees. This article is worth a read My College Degree is Worthless.
As someone who is involved in the hiring of employees for our practice, we don’t look favorably on those programs. And as someone who is a self-taught programmer currently working on a game, I’d never hire someone with a game design degree from a for-profit degree mill.

List includes a lot of “for profit” art, painting and graphic design. Go find a school where you are face to face with your instructors. Mail order / on-line classes for non-degrees are for the school to make money and the students to pay and pay.

As has already been pointed out, you should really get an actual education as opposed to just pay for a degree and hope for the best. I have friends who have gone for degrees in the game design field, and it wasn’t glamorous. Sure, video games may be fun to play, but making them is real work.

If you are serious about wanting to get into video game design, then you need to specify one aspect; coding, storyline/world design, and graphics design being the major areas. I cannot think of many people who are good enough at all aspects to make a commercially successful game; there is a reason 99% of your games are made by teams.

Regardless of which way you go, you will need more than a diploma/degree to get a job though. You’ll need to prove yourself. Now, if you have a degree from an accredited school then you’ll have an easier time of it as those schools require demonstrated proficiency before you can get your degree rather than just be able to shell out money you probably don’t have.

Now, this list of top college programs for video game design lists some actual schools that I think @gorillapaws would hire someone from. Schools like USC and MIT. Funny how so many seem to be in Massachusetts. There are also a ton of colleges with less prestige but just as much legitimacy; schools that are not “diploma mills”.

If you really want to get what you need, go to a real college for an education rather than a “career institute” for what amounts to a receipt that you paid them rather than any sort of certification of competence/education. And be warned that it is real school, and that college isn’t like those frat parties they showed in all those ‘80s movies. If you can’t keep your grades up, usually at least a 2.0 or C-, it generally will not count as a prerequisite for other classes or allow you to graduate.

More about ‘diploma mills’.