Game Design

I'm probably going to go into software engineering because the field pays more and is easier to get in to. Ideally I would like to be a game designer because my dream is to create games and game designers actually create the concepts instead of just writing the code.Illinois pays well for it, but I want to move out of the state no matter what career I choose. Washington pays well so right now that is a running idea. I want to work for either Bethesda, From Software or Ubisoft.