UNITY 3D CERTIFICATION COMING TO SOUTH AFRICA IN SEPTEMBER!
Hey, Game Dev's and designers.
So I am basically just here to check with you guys who would be interested in writing the Unity 3D exam to be certified. The current price will be 75$, but if numbers make sense, the organizer is willing to consider reducing the fee. Also understanding some of you will be coming from various cities. Feel free to also tell me if the set amount for the exam will be affordable for you.
See this as some sort of a survey.
So I am basically just here to check with you guys who would be interested in writing the Unity 3D exam to be certified. The current price will be 75$, but if numbers make sense, the organizer is willing to consider reducing the fee. Also understanding some of you will be coming from various cities. Feel free to also tell me if the set amount for the exam will be affordable for you.
See this as some sort of a survey.
Comments
@critic: I assume it's the official Unity one: https://certification.unity.com/
(My opinion hasn't changed from what I posted in that other thread. The hyperbolic marketing speak completely puts me off: "Unlock the ultimate perk for your career in game development", "stand out from the crowd", all that to me is BS. Of all the skills I want in the people I work with or have a hand in hiring, how well they know Unity is one of the least of them because, imo, pretty much all of the interesting problems that need solving that are worth hiring someone for have nothing to do with game-engine-specific things.)
Every tom dick and herry with the bs certificate will think that because they have this certificate, they're capable of doing games. This certificate is really gonna turn game development into mediocre career. Kind of reminds me of Microsoft office certificate.
If you would like more information on how to be prepared for this, you can check this: https://certification.unity.com/courseware
@Elyaradine: Thank you for sharing the link to the thread. and I understand your opinion on this. The reality is that we can't fault Unity as a company for what they choose as their marketing strategy when it comes to this. Lots of companies do whatever or say whatever as long as it makes sense to their strategy and what they expect from it. Thus far, it seems as if an additional document to some companies ( this certificate ), is giving more credit to an individual for employment when it comes to using Unity as a software. But we all know that, where we stand, we would usually rely on what the individual can do practically and most of the small companies do not usually see a certificate or a paper as the determining factor to be employed. At this point in time, the certificate is beneficial in the case someone would like to give Unity training or tutoring... as per their requirement, they would like to have anyone who will be involved in formally educating other on Unity should be certified. This at least proves that you have the minimum requirement to teach someone about the software.
@SkinnyBoy: I hear you, but this certificate doesn't now mean you should now hire anyone that presents it to you. It is still up to you or any company to hire those they feel competent to do the work and produce the quality they want for their game. without the certificate, they are already some people who think they can make games, and I have heard other developers even complaining that people shouldn't call themselves game developers because Unity or other software make things easy for them. So I think at the end of the day, great games will stand out and will make business sense with or without a certificate. But for those intending to be certified educator should consider as it will help them be recognized.
I am just hoping this will be helpful to get a good pricing range for those who are interested in writing the exam.
Also, certificates for things aren't automatically evil or bad. This Unity one may actually require a deep understanding of the engine, and we probably can't judge it without seeing actual course work etc.
@kimardamina, to answer your question - I would possibly be interested in it if I knew that companies trusted it. But at this point I feel it might be too new for anyone to even know what it is. Also, not looking to be hired, so I'm not your target market.
What I think can be cool, is that the courseware (which you don't have to do to take the test, but which they recommend) is a bunch of video tutorials walking you through making a game. Which is stuff that's freely available elsewhere, but where, if you haven't been making use of the free material, doing a course knowing you'll be tested on it, might be some motivation for sitting down and working through the material in the first place.
I also recognise some need for certification/standardisation, especially amongst those who teach. I just strongly believe in being honest about what your course/certification will and will not do.
Fist off, WHERE is this exam set to take place? In Cape Town where it is as far as humanly possible from the most people in the entirely of South Africa... or at Unisa / some other place in PTA or Joburg area? Furthest corner of the country, more central or multiple sites? I would definitely want to get certified but I definitely do not want to fly all the way down to Cape Town to spend a R1000 to have someone tell me "Congratulations! After 9 years of using Unity you can finally say you know how to use it! After 6 years of working as a full time Unity freelance developer as your only source of income, working for clients from all around the world and building them entire games single handedly, from scratch... starting today you can now tell people you know how to use Unity. Hooray!" Waste of money to go waste more money... Definitely needs to be close and a lot cheaper than R1000
As for the use of these certificates I must say that I am super surprised by what I have read here so far. On Unity Connect there are job listings galore ranging from "Work for free but I promise to give you $millions when my game makes me a millionaire" right up to Sega and Zynga and Capcom offering jobs. If you are using Unity as a source of income other than just making games as a hobby then surely you must know about Unity connect....? And you MUST have seen the job listings that reads "This position available. Unity certification preferred" or "This position available. Unity certification required".
Personally, I think my 9 years of experience, customer references and all the stuff I've made makes me qualified enough and makes this certification thing completely useless... but nevertheless, it's here, employers look for it so we don't have a choice... Pay Unity whatever stupid amount they suck out of their thumbs to tell me I know how the engine I use every single day works. Either that or make games and never look at making a living as a freelancer. So, make games all alone or find someone to help you and hope and pray you can somehow verify their competency beforehand, some other way. Showreels for artists and testimonials / running demos for programmers is what I would personally look for in that event.
Finally, as to the course material... I had 3 months access to the videos and I can tell you this much: I struggled like hell to work through the course material. It was brutal. And this was just section 1... I never even made it to the end of section 1.
It took so many cups of coffee, so much effort and sheer determination and force of will to not fall asleep every 3 minutes. My goodness! If you hate someone very much and you know they know how to use Unity, let them watch that course material and place a loaded gun next to them... either you will need a new computer of you will never hear from THAT person ever again.
I eventually gave up trying to watch those insanely boring and ever so repetitive videos and just skipped to the exam portion of each section directly. Between 80 min and 100% usually... those were my scores. Granted, though, I did learn 3 new things about the editor, only 1 of which can be useful some day but I personally have never needed it due to my workflow.
Say, did you guys know you can actually search for content on the Asset Store by doing a search in the Projects tab? No need to open the store, just search right there. You get an icon, the name and absolutely nothing else but THEN you can go to the store from there... Wow. How super useful. Thank you for teaching me that. I also learned that while I usually create objects in one of 2 or 3 ways... there are MORE ways! Multiple ways are not enough, there needs to be more! Well golly geez Luise.
For people who have never touched Unity the courseware is gonna be a GodSend but these people should not get certified right after going through the courseware. That is the difference between people leaving college and people who have done the work for 20 years. One knows what the books say and the other knows how to do the job. The certification would have meant something if it proved your skills and competence as a developer. Instead it only tells people "I know how the Unity editor works". It is truly meaningless and anyone who DOES know how Unity works and who deserve the certification, they will want to gouge out their eyes or deafen themselves while going through the courseware...
After you have clicked on an object you will see these three arrows appear on it. As you can see, they are red, yellow and of course the last one is blue, as you can see. You can now move the object in the direction of the blue arrow by clicking on the blue arrow and dragging your mouse. You can also move in the direction of the red arrow by clicking on the red arrow and moving your mouse. And finally, you can move the object in the direction of the green arrow by clicking on the green arrow and moving your mouse. In contrast, these tools here that work on the camera, if you select the zoom tool and you click and drag the mouse, it zooms the camera in and out. If you click on the move tool and you click and drag it move the camera around the scene. So to repeat, you can move the object in the direction of the blue arrow by clicking on the blue arrow and dragging the blue arrow or move the object in the direction of the red or yellow arrows by clicking on the arrow and dragging your mouse... but when you click on the camera move tool and you click and drag, your camera will move around the scene. So, stop the video here and test this for yourself. Welcome back. So to recap, you have learned that you can move an object in the direction of the red arrow by clicking on the red arrow and.....
One down, many, many more to go.... Kill me now!!!!!! But this is the kind of absolute cr*p that clients want so it really boils down to 1 simple choice:
Do I care to be marketable or not?
If you want to be eligible for job postings that say they WANT this certificate then you are just gonna have to fork out whatever sum they say and get that meaningless certification behind your name. If you don't care about being marketable and prepared to take your chances based solely on your skill and experience... then this certification is as useful as 5 flat tires on a tricycle and makes just as much sense to have.
Well, I personally would rather have it than not so now the questions remain: Where exactly, when exactly and how much exactly? R1000 is daylight robbery but I am prepared to flush R500 for this if it is near enough to me to make it sensible to attend. If it involves 2 days travel or Airfare then the exams need to be free. Plain and simple. If it is close by then R500 is the max I am prepared to spend. I guess that maks it around $35 to $40. $250+ on airfare, tollgates, taxis/car rentals and airport parking just to go spend another $75 on being told I know what I've been doing for nearly a decade is really not sensible at all, is it? If I am stupid enough to spend all that cash then I don't deserve to get certified even with a 100% score because nobody should ever be subjected to having to work with a programmer that is THAT... I don't think I even need to finish that sentence...
Nuff said.
From the Unity FAQ:
Thank you
Even if it is basic and engine specific, at least it creates a benchmark for employers to use. If someone completes the certification, then the employer can assume the employee's minimum knowledge of the engine.
I think what Unity and @kimardaminakimardamina are doing are great. @kimardaminakimardamina if it's in the Johannesburg/PTA area, then I will be interested :)
I know I am good at what I do and if someone is going to pass me over for someone less good but who paid for the certificate to attest to what my work can show in itself... I see it as their loss.
It seems my detailed post that delved into some of the questions I read / criticism I saw at the top might have come across as TLDR or like just more complaints. Let me thus now say: thank you for bringing this info to us. I appreciate your efforts and even more so due to being subscribed to the mailing list for info on when they do the exams in South Africa and yet you are the first and only person to give me any kind of info on this... even though it is via a 3rd party forum that I was linked to by a 4th party... You did what Unity promised to do months ago so thank you.
I had my issues with the certification (can read about it above if interested) but felt it was something that I had no choice but to get, useless as it might be. Just another way Unity is forcing me out of my heard earned cash... but somehow I missed the 2 years thing and that is a deal breaker for me. I don't think I'll be attending after all. Now if I can just find that unsubscribe link on the Unity website....
Thanks once again
https://unity3d.com/events/unity-certified-developer-exam-maze-johannesburg-2017
We could not get a final fee on time, I tried to assist with that but they had to move from the Unity side. I hope that those who can afford will be able to make it and attend. See how it will benefit you and make the most of it.
(Yes, cost of getting there/staying there/etc is not factored into the above as that'll be different for everybody)
Hope those that participate get a lot of benefit from it! It would be rad if this helps some South African developers land profitable projects.