Nineteen Year Old Indian Student Lands Rs. 2 Crore Job at Rockstar Games

Yogesh Boppana, a nineteen year old second year engineering student of GITAM has taken up a $360,000 (Rs. 2.2 crore) job at Rockstar Games, makers of games such as Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne and Red Dead Redemption (to name a few).

Sure, the Indian society brainwashes their young minds into slogging it off to get into the IITs for a top notch job, but that’s not the end of options the kids have these days. A knack of creativity and conviction is all that’s needed.

Take Yogesh Boppana for example. This nineteen year old engineering student loved playing video games when in school. He then self-taught gave development and started making them. “I used to play all kinds of games and also keep a lookout for what’s the latest development in the gaming sector,” he says.

At 17, he released his first game titled ‘Avoid Blades‘ – an all-ages appealing casual game. “The game is simple and has unlimited levels in which the gamer has to protect rings from the blades to get the highest score,” he says. Later, he went on to develop ‘The Sky Flight.’ Making The Sky Flight took Yogesh seven months.

This was all done as a side project apart from his studies, which tipped off Rockstar Games to approach him for a top-pay job. Boppana is working on a third ‘story based 3D game’ which he plans to complete by fall-2016. Long term planning for the win! Yogesh touts this game as a ‘special highlight’ of his works so far. “The programming part is done but designing and developing the animation takes a lot of time. I am working on it now,” he adds.

Yogesh also runs his own enterprise called ‘YNations’ with a small young team. The team’s first project is on a unique product called ‘Digital Complaint Box’. “We have applied for patent for this. It is a gadget wherein complaints can be registered by the vocal medium as well,” says Bopanna.

A tip for wannabe Game Designers

Now that you’ve read Yogesh’s story, what do you think he did right and what can you learn from it? What do you do if you want to land a job in a company like Rockstar Games on a similar pay scale. If you’re really serious about game development and designing as a career, doing a related course from a reputable university surely will help, but it’s nowhere close to what making, or to phrase it better, creating something yourself. If you have the passion and conviction, you can self-teach yourself game development. Most top-notch game designers are self-taught. There are countless free resources available on the internet to help you out. When we interviewed Anshumani Ruddra, Studio Head at Tiny Mogul, he said the same thing. It’s not the degree they look for, but the creativity and ‘knack’ for games that really counts.

Source: The Hindu