What would be a good lifetime want/goal for someone entering the engineering side of the gaming career? Would it be money? Chess Legend? Something unrelated? How about a particular University want such as three degrees, perfect GPA, or max influence with all groups?
What have you done that you felt was successful?

Err, what gaming career? If you mean the Video Developer job from Uni, you just need to be a level 10 Nerd. And IIRC, the only skill required that helps in game is your video game skill. You don't even get a bonus for having a college degree for that one, so if your sim gets to level 10 nerd in their hood as a teen, the job offer pops up right on aging up to YA. No college even required.

As to LTW, go with whatever you want, as none will impact their career in any positive or negative manner (assuming they didn't want to be a world renowned surgeon, CEO, or leader of the free world, because then they'll never fulfill that LTW you promised them before sending them off on YOUR dream career to live out vicariously through them, disregarding that goal held on to so tightly since childhood).

Actually, the Engineering branch does require skills other than gaming. For the first half of the branch, Logic is a metric, and then Writing takes over as a metric. So a LTW involving any of those skills would be good.

So...Chess champion, maybe? Or novelist?


I wondered what other people did, if anyone followed this career path. I know there's no right answer, I was looking more for a creative one.

Well, if you take the creative branch, painting and writing become important, so the Master of the Arts, mastering painting and writing (that's the right one, isn't it?) could be an option.

TBH, as it's a RH job, and I don't find it overly attractive. And you have to make sure you keep your nerd level high throughout your career. So maybe for your artistic, bookworm, computer whiz sims, it might work out, but in truth, if they max those skills out, they could be a painter or a writer, and have a more interesting lifestyle without being tied to a RH for the day. And make a helluva lot more money.

One of the Uni jobs I do occasionally use is Art Appraiser. I find my artistic sims like getting the avant garde thing going, and once they get to a high level in their career, the hours are really mellow. So they end up making most of their income off their painting and sculpting in their free time, but still have somewhere to hang out at for a few hours a day, which works when you don't want all your grown up sims in the household tripping over each other all day, working at home. I guess you could play the video career the same way, having them write and paint in their downtime for real money. And if you go the engineering route, I guess having them as computer whiz's could let you supplement their income by hacking.

I could try the hacking bit, maybe. I wanted to have my sim try the engineering side of game development. What is RH? It sucks that you have to keep up the whole Nerd status thing. Thanks for the heads up, that's very helpful. Some of the job requirements in general in Sims 3 really rot that way with ongoing requirements. I had a Sim who wanted to become a private investigator and when she maxed it, she still had to keep up with reports about people. That would be fine if the reports could be done while she was at work, but no! To keep on top of her job, she had to constantly be interviewing people when she got out of work. She never enjoyed a party or a day off, she was just always looking for someone to interview and then she'd stay up all night writing a report. The whole thing was stupid and ruined the fun of reaching the top of the career.

Maybe I'll have him want to be talented in body & logic or logic & charisma, or perhaps he'll have wish to do street art or guitar on the side. It would have helped if the game developers had lined up a want to go with the career or at least made it part of the "head of a business" want. Oh well!

Thanks, everyone, for your input.

Rh is a rabbit hole. In the case of the video game developer, it's based out of the office building. They go in and come out, you're not involved in their work activity, except for choosing the work tone for the shift. They're not like an Ambitions profession, where you actually have to do stuff with them. And yes, keeping the nerd level high is necessary, but it's not all that hard, either.

Surely once you have the nerd influence high enough to be offered the job and accept it, you don't have to keep it that high? Like, if it drops, you don't end up losing your job, right?

...Right?

As it's part of the job performance losing only one point in nerd status will already turn the respective performance emoticon from green to red if you're level 10 in the career. So, unless your mood is impeccable and the other requirements, too, losing nerd status can quickly lead to negative work performance and a demotion.

At least it's just a demotion and not a full blown insta-sack.

Don't panic. Read a couple of comic books, and you're back at the top of your game in no time. Literally. As it seems my sims can read a new comic in like 2 sim minutes. It's the ones they've already read that take forever. I guess they really check out the pictures on those rereads.

You could also just buy the influence. By the time a Sim has lived long enough to reach lv 10 of a career, 2,000 Lifetime points is nothing.

The LTW of Video Game Developer career? How about to reach the top level of that career?

I'm just kidding. Don't use that mod yet. >_>

My Sim is still a teen, so I've been trying to decide which direction to take him. I finally let him go for "Renaissance Sim" since he seems to have a few interests and I could see his pursuing them both in the course of getting through college and in his free time. I'm sort of modeling him after my real life son who is in the technical field. I think keeping up the nerd influence won't be so bad since I see my son still enjoys game night with friends as well as time gaming on the computer. All in all, I think it will work. Now I just need to decide what skills he'll master. Logic is a given. He's been building charisma, but I'm also drawn towards art. Plus, he's met a couple of Rebels and likes them, so he might explore that a bit. If he were like my son, he'd max out cooking and have an interest (but not full blown) in physical activity and art. Hard to say which way to go. I might have to wait until he gets to college to figure out the rest of the way to play him.

*Update* The wish to gain top level in skills turns out to be very compatible with this degree and career choice. Engineering students get a "brain enhancing" machine that allows them to level up many of the game's skills (but not all, logic was missing) by one point each day. It reminds me very much of the knowledge sim path in Sims 2. Anyway, my sim is very happy as he's already maxed out his handiness skills and is close to finishing up cooking. Logic will have to be worked at over time.

As for the group influence part, he started to lose a level while in the course of focusing on his job and skills. One conversation with a fellow nerd, doing a few nerdy interactions, and he was back up to the top level. It was really not a big deal at all and it's probably good that the game forced me to have his socialize.

He has to stay current on games to keep on top of his career, but he can also do that at work. All in all, it's a cool career and I'm enjoying having him in it.