Are people in denial about how hard it is to be a game dev?

Well the same happened with the music industry in the past. The tool companies are the ones that make the money, while selling everyone their dream.

And if you want to make money making games, you need to be good at making skinner boxes apparently.

 

Who really benefits are gamers (all else being equal of course, such as game stores with a modicum of quality control). Because things that are easy, should never be made artificially hard. That is what propels change, improvement, the evolution of games and even of what a game is.

That's why whenever I see something like shovelware and asset flips, after I get over my initial reaction I say:

• Do customers really want this stuff?
• If yes, it's not on me to tell someone what they should or shouldn't like.
  
• If not, why are stores offering it to them?

The question of who gave the person the art assets and the code templates, or who created such a damnably easy tool for making games such as Unity has done, is not worth asking, in my opinion. If someone is careening down the highway on some trashy home-made go kart and getting in everyone's way, you don't ask who gave them the materials and tools for it. The hardware store and the power tool manufacturers are not responsible for this scene. Because that kart would have been perfectly fine in that persons backyard. The question is, who let them out onto the street, and whose responsibility is it to take them off it?

The real problem is that marketplaces are not filtering out the crap from the wheat. Either customers don't care, in which case there is nothing to do as they are the ones who this whole game development thing is for - or there is lack of competition in the business of selling games. I hope that the Unreal store proves at least that there is a desire for quality-controlled games, and exposes a weakness in Steam's business model that changes the indie game market for the better.

 

I agree... but to play Devil's Advocate, "the real problem" is that they're not filtering out the chaff from the wheat using our preferred method.

They do perform this filtering. However, they do it by exposing everything to consumers and letting stuff sink or float on its own merits. People who are confident of overcoming barriers to entry would naturally prefer to have those barriers, because then life is better for the limited number of people who get through.

That happens to coincide with also providing the kind of experience I prefer as a customer. I can't tell if Steam's success indicates that I'm in a minority, or is despite the fact that I'm not. (Though there definitely seem to exist cases where more choice is bad. See this talk.)

 

Objectively speaking, from an aggregate perspective? Everyone.

• For people who want to make stuff, it's cheaper and more accessible.
  • People who couldn't make stuff before now can.
  • People who could have done it anyway can now do more, as they start further ahead than they otherwise would have.
• For people who want to buy stuff, there's more potential variety because more people can make stuff, so your specific niche is more likley to be addressed.
• For people selling tools it's also better, because there's a larger and more sustainable market for those tools.

Commercially speaking, it does generally mean more competition which definitely has its downsides for the early comers.

 

That's not filtering, that's passing on the burden!

But yeah, I'm still not certain if customers want quality control. If not, then there's nothing to be done. But if they do, then we'll only really know by the success or failure of a business based on that idea.

 

I don't agree. I don't think it's the marketplace's responsibility to filter out. I don't expect the bookstore to weed out the trash novels. I don't expect the movie place to filter out the bad romantic trash. I don't expect the grocery store to filter out the worse or the better produce (although sometimes they do that anyway).
If someone enjoys such things who am I to judge them or even make it impossible for them to get their enjoyment?
I'm grown up enough to judge what I enjoy in general (with occasional misstep like Call of Cthulhu botch), I know what I'm looking for and I can look for it. Their job is to provide tools for my search.

 

Really?

Even the biggest bookstore or library I've ever been in has room for only a fraction of the world's written works. If I went there and they only had poor examples of any particular category of work, I wouldn't go back. Whether it's an explicit expectation or not, if they can't present me with quality products then I'm not going to shop there again.

The more consistently they can do that, the more likely they are to get repeat business from me.

There's an important distinction to be made between quality and category. I don't expect a book store to stop carrying romance novels just because they don't interest me. However, it's in their customers best interests (and thus their own) to stock quality romance novels.

Furthermore, "quality" doesn't mean "suits the store owners taste". It means "meets the customer's expectations", whatever they may be. Subject matter aside, I suspect that what makes a good romance novel to people who read them is going to be very different to what makes good speculative fiction to me.

 

You're probably thinking of 'trash' as in 'low quality stuff I see in my local bookstore'. If you go to a local writers meetup you will see what is really trash!

To begin with, I wonder how many self-published books are sold at your local book store? Having to get published already provides a barrier to entry that gets rid of probably upward of 80% of the stuff that has ever been written by anyone.

Or to put it another way, imagine if your local music store sold recordings by that one mate of yours who thinks he knows how to sing but really, really just can't..?

My opinion is that quality control is in the best interests of stores, especially with the lowering of the barrier to entry over time. I think they will do it when it is profitable to do so - and maybe the Unreal store is going to show the way.

 

My word of choice 'trash' was direct and intentional and was about movies. There are a ton of trash romance movies was made lately. I don't expect movie places to weed them out and leave only the 'quality ones'. It's not about genre or my liking, it's about quality.

But same thing in every other genre, it was just an example.

I was part of one such thing. At least it was similar to that. We picked a subject for every month, we wrote short stories, then we met and we judged each other's writing and provided criticism. I know all high and low. And I'm not particularly good at writing myself.

---

I usually don't like other people's opinion when it comes to buy or not to buy something. I don't read or watch critique pieces, nor opinion pieces about stuff. So I really don't like when the default is to show me what I may like based on other people's opinion. I know what I might like, I will look for what I might like, thank you. I don't like pre-chewed food either.

 

Lol I get that. Long ago my brother, my friends and I got to a point with movies for example where if we read a review from one of the so called authorities/ experts who rated it poorly the odds were very high it was a movie we would greatly enjoy. And it is that way with games for me as well. It's actually silly to think of any one or even dozen people deciding what is and is not good for millions of people. They go by their own criteria which may be completely different from mine and other people.

 

Not to mention the high chance of manipulation by money or other business interests.

 

But these 'trash' movies are still in the top 5-10% of their genres or higher. The difference between a bad indie game and a AAA game is much larger than the difference between a B-grade movie and a blockbuster.

My mum used to go to these and send me some choice excerpts of work that was always preciously regarded by the authors as a masterpiece. We had a good laugh sometimes. We've all got to start somewhere but sometimes points of view can get a bit skewed.

I can see that point of view - and maybe some good search filtering algorithms are enough. Ultimately it's up to gamers to decide.

Another thing that may be a good thing is the way that people such as youtube influencers are really the ones that are filtering in stuff that is fun for one reason or another. It's not just one, and that makes for a very distributed filtering system - and perhaps that's a good thing.

Overall, I'm going to hold onto my horses on this topic until I release my game and see for myself the way things are.

 

Haha, that show's great.

 

I feel the same. I've never subscribed to the scuttlebutt about games, movies, anything really. I will decide for myself. I've honestly enjoyed things that others would just decry as terrible because everyone else said it was terrible. Its foolish and you are stupid to let others make those decisions for you. So long as the quality exists (no game ending bugs) I think you can find enjoyment in things. The worst movie ever made continues to have a cult following, because it is the worst movie ever made. B-movies have a place because of this.

These are the reasons I don't agree with public opinions about particular topics. You guys gave me hell for saying NMS wasn't as bad as everyone said, and I still stand with that position. I don't care what you have to say, NMS wasn't terrible and the bad rap it got wasn't fair or accurate. Everyone and their grandma wanted to do something like that game. It was jealousy (among other things) on a massive scale. Funnily enough, there's a lot of games out there accomplishing the same now. I don't believe Sean Murray lied about MP. There was so much press about that particular feature, and yes, people and dev teams are allowed to change their minds or pursue a different direction. False advertising my ass!

 

Not typically three days before release they don't.

 

OOOh. So FIESTY.

 

I'm not biting the no man's sky bait again, do I?

 

You already did

 

that's the joke

 

The joke is that the only challenge in making a game like NMS is getting the online 'persistent universe' working / in a functional state.

And when someone says "Everyone and their grandma wanted to do something like that game." pretty sure they were focusing in its online aspect. Which surprise, surprise: No Man Sky totally blew it up.

 

You mean they blew their budget? because the game is totally online now and the multiplayer update put them back on the chart of most played game. Also unturned by a 16years old is still going strong, it's online.

 

It was more of a time constraint.

Nothing to do with budget.

The game sold well enough to keep them afloat for a decade and it still took them 2 years to implement. I'd go as far as saying there were no concrete multiplayer plans on the table until the game sold as well as it did allowing to expand the networking staff.

 

Excuse you, what did I do?

 

It wasn't response to your post.

 

Citation needed

My source (among other) is here at 51:30

Assumption is how fake news are born, stick to the fact not the myth.

I mostly studied nms's case because pcg is one of my interest and goal. But it's kinda disheartening to see smart people falling prey to basic mistakes.

 

When you say "I mostly studied nms's case because pcg is one of my interest and goal." no one is saying there is anything wrong or defective with PCG. I am saying all the contrary: the challenge with NMS was never PCG. It was the persistent Universe. How do you transmit quintillions of planets that have been terraformed by terrain deformation and basebuilding to any user randomly coming across one.
Every dev was beating their heads wondering how they would handle something like that.
And to no one surprise's: they didn't find a way to handle it at release.

Hence I say it wasn't a budget constraint but a time constraint: if they had never set such an ambitious goal, they would have been able to deliver it on time.

They ran out of budget trying to create something that to this day isn't the feature as it was promised: you must upload bases if you want them to be visible to other players. Which means everyone isn't playing on the same Universe, only 'the same session' no different to fixed server instances and a few visual tricks here and there to give the impression the whole thing is interconnected.

The only mistake of No Man Sky was selling itself as a full priced finished game instead of an early access one.

 

Let me put it another way:
Pretty sure they had to design the game around networking.
And in the end, had nothing to show for it.
If they had never spend time on that networking aspect and designed it as a single player game with limited networking capabilities like the Dark Souls games, they would have had a much more simple/easy development time.
They 'blew up at least half of their budget' in a feature that to this day isn't still present.
The gain from not trying to implement said absurd feature in the first place would have been a 2x-3x production output: more resources dedicated to the core gameplay, not having to develop an engine with networking at its base/core and thanks to that a much more simplified R&D process.

It is the difference between an MMO (with terraforming features) and a single player game basically. Think about it.

 

I think we aren't talking about the same thing, base building was never planed for the original vision/released, it was added because that's what people wanted, the original plan was to planet hop, hence why there is only one biomes, so that people don't stay too much on one planet. The networking was always about the discovery and uploading of data to share, and seeing how other player named thing, I mean it's in all interview they gave (assuming you read the sources and not the quote). They did ran of budget because some feature that were actually planned as per the original vision where compromise, though it wasn't the feature people used to discussed because it was not what player cared for. In fact said features are still not in the game.

When I say I mostly study nms for the pcg, I mean my familiarity with the details of the happenstance of whatever myth or reality that is shared online, I know about it because of that said interest, that is indirectly. As such I'm able to find source to bake my claim quite easily.

Anyway I'm out.

 

One of the hardest way to make a living. But probably one of the easiest ways of becoming a millionaire.

 

I dunno where you got these details... unsubstantiated claims.

 

I always looked at game dev same way I looked at MMA (Mixed martial arts) where the difficulty in it is that it's not only 1 discipline to master (ex, art or boxing only) it's a mix of all which brings whole lot of different variables to the table

 

You can do anything if you believe in yourself.

 

Sure, as long you got time, where to sleep and what to eat. Specifically relevant to game dev. Which as we know, for many is not feasible, no matter how much you believe in your dream.

 

which is why penguins aren't making any games. They are still fighting the winter.

so what? it's feasible for me, and it's probably feasible for anybody moseying around these boards. If your passion is for saving the children, maybe forget game development and volunteer for UNICEF. Or maybe you can do both. Or you can get involved in your local politics. Or give to charities. Whatever. Social inequality isn't the biggest bear in anybodies life here, I can almost guarantee that. The only thing getting in your way is yourself (figurative "you", not anybody specifically). Even if that's not objectively true, what do you think is the better use of your energy? Stressing over things in which you have no control or changing things well within your control? Does a three legged dog complain that she can't run as fast as the others, or does she just go all out -- stumbling, crashing -- and enjoy herself completely? By all means, if you can create a prosthetic leg for the poor thing, do so. But pointing and saying, "that dog has it rough, I might as well quit for pity!" doesn't make sense at all. Help as much as you can, but live your best life too.

Don't get caught in the useless loop of blaming boogie bears for problems that you can easily solve another way. So long as nobody here is living in a war zone or suffering from life-threatening illness they have the power to accomplish their dreams so long as they are willing to change themselves however is necessary.

Don't have money? If you are smart enough to even think about making a game, you can get money. No excuses. Just apply yourself. Maybe getting significant money will take up all your time, for a time. Well, you do what you got to do. In life, you must learn to suffer. The good times don't come for free. Things have a way of balancing out. Even people born "with it all" pay a price for it. There is really nothing to envy. With experience, you younger people will come to learn that the joy in life is in the doing, not the results. Things that come easy are quickly forgotten. When you learn to enjoy the struggles in life, you'll be happier than any king ever was. When you summit your first mountain, if you are honest with yourself, you'll realize that the real magic was in the climbing, not standing on the peak.

"Take away the Glories and the Honors
The granite palaces of this vain world
And only give me the smile of Pain
The tear of Joy and I will erect
a thousand palaces in me in which to live."
Stavro's Melissino's

So understand that sometimes you must sacrifice and live hard for awhile so that you can get what you need in the future. That's just the way it is.

If having the time to make a game seems like an impossibility, you need to make a plan. You need to develop the right habits to save money and buy yourself time. You got to develop discipline to reduce your consumption, recycle everything you can, and live well within your means. Do you really need a cell phone? To eat out? To eat expensive food? To drive a new car? Or even own a car? To live in a nice apartment? Could you feasibly live in a van? In a cheap place in the country? Could you brush your teeth with baking soda instead of toothpaste, and also do a lot of your cleaning with baking soda as well, rather than buy a million different specialty cleaners? Do you need alcohol, cigarettes, new clothes, etc etc? If you think you do, fine, but understand the cost of this stuff. Add all this stuff up. Do the math. Most poor people in developed countries waste a significant amount of their income of stuff like this. Not because they are dumb -- they just don't think about it because culture is constantly telling them the opposite. Rich people waste their money on dumb crap too. Like expensive wine. It's hilarious. But poor people who want to become richer can't do this nonsense. They have to be smarter.

I think nowadays this is what people call "adulting." It doesn't take any special genius. Even chimpanzee's do this well. You just have to break free from all the advertising culture and think for yourself. Define your goals, figure out how to achieve them. You are the master. The Big Time Master.


*** and for anybody living in america, here's a pro-tip if you are struggling to make ends meet. Join the reserves. Suck it up and get through boot camp, choose some easy, no-brainer occupation, and get yourself that GI bill. They'll pay you to go to school. Get an actual degree. Not some liberal arts nonsense. Our hobbies are where we express ourselves. When it comes to making money, there is no reason to take chances. A tiger doesn't change the way it hunts because it's bored. It does whatever works, period. Because eating dinner is more important than absolutely anything else.

So get yourself a decent, reliable job. A trade. Plumber, electrician, business/finance stuff, healthcare. You know, actual work that needs to get done. You don't have to love it. But if you are wise, you will learn everything you can from it. What you learn on the job as a carpenter or a nurse is going to give you the soft skills you need to accomplish your game development goals. The principles of professionalism are the same across occupations. If you learn what it takes to be the best accountant or the best heavy equipment operator, you'll know what it takes to be the best at anything.

Live cheap. Save your money. How cheap? Cheaper. However cheap you are now, go cheaper. In the army they say, "ounces equal pounds and pounds equal pain." So you shred every little tiny thing you can to make your load as light as possible. Same principle. Turn all your lights off, take cold showers, eat rice and beans, ride a bike, fast one day a week, only drink water....you get the idea. You don't have to live like this forever. And you'll only hate it at first. After just a little bit, you'll revel in your "dirt-baggishness." You'll build character, become a more interesting person, and have greater appreciation for things which will make you feel happier a lot of the time.

If you still need more time and money, start figuring some side hustles. If you are too dumb to make good decisions, focus on getting smarter. Educate yourself. There is more information available online than you could ever learn in any school. Read books. Develop broad interest. Maximize yourself. Even if you were born dumb, you can get purty dang smart by doing a lot of reading and broadening your work experience.

Another benefit to being a regular working human before you become an artsy-fartsy creator is that you'll have a much greater depth of experience to draw inspiration from. Like Stavro's Mellisino's, the poet-sandal maker of Athens say's, "A writer who does nothing but write is like the moon, which gives off some light, but borrowed from the sun. A writer needs first-hand experience, which only working in another field can give him. Otherwise he is rewriting what he has read in other books."

 

Your discussion completely ignores social and family aspects. And your proposal, can lead easily to person mental exaiety and.other mental, health problems. For example, Is not an usual in academic environment, where people focus and sacrifice so.much, they cant handle anymore.

 

As should you, normie

But they already have a perfect answer to that.

By all means, pull away if you can't stand the heat but don't blame it on anyone but yourself.

 

Seconded.

 

I used to be a vfx artist and salary was about $100,000/annual. Same as everybody else I worked with, more or less. I don't know any visual artists making less than that. That's my anecdotal experience.

 

Not sure if I understood fully your meaning. Do you suggest I should drop any form of relation, to pursue a dream?
What if a dream is both family and super AAA game solo (in this case)? Is that even realistic?

Don't get me wrong, I am for dreaming big. I do that as well. But often need step down, to our realm and look what actually is feasible for person. That is big difference, between just dreamers and successful individuals.

Again, having answer is completely different from reality. Unless you have been in such environment, random person will never fully understand.

 

If your relationships are preventing you from pursuing your goals, then yes, that is my suggestion.

I already answered this. If you can't do it then don't blame anyone else. It's your dream and your effort.

Only one way to find out.

There's "person" and then there's "you".

 

I think general suggestions like dropping the relationship are stupid... @FMark92 I bet you are not married and have no children so you can't really know how a person feels with them and that they can't just drop the relationship. So don't give such advices which are only suitable for your current life situation.

 

Sorry there was a typo, I meant "NOT contract (or salaried) work", obviously many, many people make money from graphic design, doing creative visual work in game or movie studios, etc.

What I meant was painters who sell their paintings. Musicians who play concerts and sell albums. Game dev's who create their own games. Creative people doing their own work with complete creative control.

Obviously its not an apples-to-apples comparison, as they are all very different beasts. Was just a musing based on my own little window of the world.

 

Hold up now, sophist!
He said relationships, not responsibilities. Children are not just a relationship.

 

So you you think kids are just things and responsibility? But they are not related to you?
Person can have good relation with kids, parents, friends, GF/BF etc. And this is exactly what call relationship. Individual can have responsibilities, with and without personal relationships.
I thought this no need for expansion explanation.
This is exactly what I meant.

 

Right, that makes more sense.

I've been in the entertainment industry for a long time now and I've known a lot of indie artists who did succeed at their craft, but it never stays that way. They end up having to hire somebody (like a manager) or ramp up studio space, etc. Eventually, they become the one everyone else is working for and the cycle continues.

I don't know anyone who chose to stay independent and is still successful. Except for Harry, but he lives on toast.

 

Nice Cathy Newman you pulled there. That isn't at all what I said.

Other than children, none of those come with responsibilities and can be discarded at any time.

what?

 

I can assume, you leave alone, or very young. No parents, no grand parents, no other links, which may be depended on you, which can be making you responsible. Of course, you can stop carrying about them. Same as about children. Let them loose on street and be "happy".

 

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.
You do realize child protection laws exist, correct? What you described is a good way to end up in jail. That makes children a legal responsibility.

Short answer: No.

 

Maybe I missed it, didn't see anyone placing blame in this thread in the first place. No need for the straw man arguments.

It's just a fact that most Indies make crap money, that's not a statement blaming anyone.

 

You're getting a screw loose man, you need to pull yourself together. This is just like in the other thread, you're just awkwardly starting static again. But a little manic here.

And it's pretty obvious things take sacrifice, meaning you're kinda wrong, but it doesn't mean people need to abandon their kids. Can you really not envision a middle ground because that would be something a doctor should look at. The more you talk, the sadder the picture of you in my head gets. $50 says you're divorced.

Edit: or balding. *Insert picture of Carl here*. Dude is literally like "anything except a kid can be shirked a bit" and then you're like, "oh you want to kill kids?". After you already skewed his words, just like you did mine in the other thread. You're a joke. I would fire you.