How much of game development is learnable skill vs ability?

There are some aspects of game development where I have fairly little difficulty getting good and then there are other aspects where I feel must claw my through the challenge with extreme difficulty in order to make even just modest progress. During times like this, it makes me wonder how much of being able to make games by yourself is hard work vs lucky talent.

Obviously what constitutes "talent" is subjective and depends on each person's definition, but for the sake of argument I'm going to merely define it as the ability to actually finish your game and being satisfied with the end result. Millions of people have downloaded Unity yet not that many games ever get finished. In fact even talented developers probably don't actually finish most of their projects. We have all had our share of moments where we start playing around with an idea only to throw it away. Or just not finish it. Been there done that.

I'm personally of the view that some elements of game dev are more learnable than other ones. Programming is hard to learn but doable with enough patience since it largely just boils down to obtaining enough knowledge. Graphics creation is probably the toughest part since some aspects of graphical creation may require certain artistic skills that can be very tough to pick up.

How much of game dev do you feel is a learnable skill vs talent? Can anybody become a good dev with enough experience?

 

Everything is a learnable skill. But everybody learns at a different rate, and some things are harder or easier for some people. In my case, I have always learned engineering and programming tasks extremely quickly, but I learn artistic skills very slowly. I have met some people that are the opposite, where they rapidly learn art skills but slowly learn programming skills. What people refer to as talent might be as simple as a specific person's learning rate in a given knowledge domain.

 

'Lucky talent' doesn't really exist, that idea has been sold to us by the entertainment industry to make their 'stars' look like other worldly creatures who can achieve things we cannot. This allows them to charge us massive sums of money to see these amazing people.

The reality is it all comes down to hard work, which is often done early in life before people notice it happening. 'Experts' reckon it takes around 10,000 hours to become an 'expert' in what ever field - so roughly 5 years of a full time job at 40 hours a week. If you can do this by age 18, everyone around you will assume you have an amazing natural talent.

There's nothing that can't be learnt if you put your mind to it but most people give up when the going gets tough. Single minded determination is probably more important than anything. Be stubborn, don't give up - that's the tricky stuff.

But don't not do something because you're worried about the time it will take - that time is going to pass anyway.

 

I would say all of it.

Practice beats talent, in my experience. What shiloh said about learning rate is also true.

 

This is something you have to decide for yourself. Everybody is equipped with a different set of tools, which to some extent can be modified. Only you know where you are at, and what you are capable of changing.

The real challenge that is faced when learning something that you find difficult is that in part you are fighting your nature and disposition. For an artist, for example, I think the number one prerequisite is impressibility - that is to say that things that most people simply ignore catch your attention and impress you emotionally. This disposition makes it easy for you to sit there and modify the shape of some monster or other, using your own intense reaction to it to feel when it conveys the intended emotion most efficiently.

Technically, anyone can learn how to make that monster, but such a disposition is what makes it satisfying to do so. And what we find instinctively satisfying will always come more naturally to us, and with greater ease, than that which we have to pick apart consciously to comprehend.

In this regard, it is more useful to learn to enjoy something than it is to learn how to do it well, because without the first one the second will be a constant uphill battle. I believe that people, through their life experiences, can learn to expand parts of their nature that make specific things enjoyable - but at this point most people are simply not willing to do so because they aren't really interested in the thing to begin with, because it is not part of their nature. This is a sort of circuitous control loop that is very hard to break out of.

Sometimes, you will find that you can enjoy something that you always thought you wouldn't. Programming was like that for me, I thought it was an utterly boring activity and avoided it until I tried it one day at university and it stuck. But when I think about it, the foundation was already there - I was always attracted to engineering and logic. So I don't know if I really changed anything at all.

Regardless, in the end I think the key to being successful at something is to ensure that the majority of the task aligns with your nature, your disposition, and your instinct. Then you can find ways to achieve the rest within a reasonable amount of effort. There are many things to do in the world that are aligned with different characters and natures and dispositions. There is really no point forcing yourself to do something that you don't enjoy - but first you have to give yourself the best possible chance of success.

 

70 procent is DNA and 30 procent is environment. I guess that 70% could be called "talent" its semantics
Everybody needs to hone their skills even those that comes from the best part of the DNA pool

 

It is said that humans share half of their dna with a potato, though.

 

Yeah, most humans did not have luck with their talent

 

They didn't inherit enough potato genes.

 

This is a really taboo topic, everyone has this notion of what they want to hear, and those giving advice also want to be seen as a benevolent, humble teacher. So there is some fuzziness clouding the truth, but here's another random take:

Do what you enjoy, and what you enjoy generally follows what your brain is good at or will eventually be good at.

A hard worker who takes on a job and learns from the best of the best will outperform someone who's talented EVERY TIME if the "talented" person stays in their bubble, so it's best to be humble and work hard like everyone else if you fancy yourself "talented. Talent is a liability. People want to work with others who adhere to universal pipelines and standards. Don't try to be better than everyone else, try to be the best at creating solid, readable, easily plugged in code and art and you'll go far.

If you want to be a truly valuable team member, start thinking of learning as a skill in itself. Being good at finding the best places to learn something, learning to network with the right people who can help you, learning to put yourself in a state of mind where you can work at getting better every day without pushing too had and burning out.

The sooner you practice practicing, the sooner you start maximizing your gains as you push forward. Take notes, organize the practices that you are still learning so yo u can quickly reference things you are still learning. Make backups of your hotkeys and take these files with you so you are maximizing your work output wherever you go.

Teams are made up of mostly people that need to get a job done. If you just want to be a part of a team, follow the above advice. If you want to be the next tiny indie hit, then you need a lot of overlap between skills, which means you have to be a bit better at picking things up faster, have a bit of an aptitude for both art AND code. This is where unique talent starts being a necessity. And just because you have an aptitude for it, doesn't mean you should.

Watch the indie game movie, this path is painful and full of failure and there are elements of luck involved. For instance, if you started your project 10 years ago, your odds of success would be many times what it is now. Posting this thread today means you are inherently very unlucky right out of the gate. Not only are there less successful indie games today, there are FAR MORE being made every year. Failure rate is on an exponential rise. 3 years from now when you finish your project, it might be a better or worse climate to release an indie game. It's a gamble outside of your control.

If you want to make your own successful game, lead a team effectively, innovate, make the next big technical marvel, that's next level, that's pushing the boundaries. There is no reference for this, there is no copying, so unless you can get results from taking ideas in your head and turning them into functional, stable creations, then you wont be successful, but this should become obvious very quickly if you attempt this so there's no point asking. Just try, you will find out if this is for you if you decide that you want to attempt th is.

A lot of people work in too broad a strokes, so they greatly delay finding out if they have the grit to make their own game. They kinda learn terrain, they kinda make a wonky character controller, they build a S***ty UI, etc. They constantly move on to the next thing when their brain starts saying "Hey this is hard to learn, if we want to push this forward we're going to have to hunker down and push hard".

Don't move on. Come up with a small set of things you want to do, and prove to yourself that you can make something polished and fun. If you can make a polished input controller and add some fancy bells and whistles to that, then you can pretty much do anything in Unity. Same with art, if you can model a great 3d horse, or character, you can do pretty much anything.

So in a big way, a lot of this is having a fairly high pain tolerance for doing hard things. And learning to learn applies a lot here. Don't' think just because you have no idea how to do something it's impossible. Start small, make a small tiny fraction of the system work, and once you do that, you will be surprised how quickly the rest starts opening itself to you.

Some day you may finish a polished fun game. And even then you will likely fail. So really think hard about all this before you make the jump.

Your best bet is to approach projects as potential portfolio pieces that focus on one aspect of a game for a job where you will learn a great deal more on a team. Heck challenge yourself to make something that you can put on the asset store. You can make money and get a benchmark for if your assets are worth anything.

I may have overstressed the notion that you need to learn from others. The most successful people are able to trudge through when there are no resources at hand. Learning to put your head down and feel things out is probably the most important thing you can do. If you only learn what is readily available to you, you will always be as good as everyone else. Good games aren't made by average developers. So push hard, try new things, find what works for you, and push that while also developing the core standards that will let you understand tools and workflows and be able to work well with others to make great (or not so great) games.

 

Science strongly disagrees with your rosy vision of the world, sorry. Some people learn faster, other people learn slower. Some people learn so slow, that acquiring certain set of skills may be well outside of their expected lifetime. Some people have learning disabilities and will never be able to acquire certain skills and knowledge, no matter how hard they try.
On the other hand, some people have lighting-fast learning abilities and can master in weeks what would take years for an average person. And no, this is not some entertainment industry conspiracy. This is what hard science tells us, based on centuries of data coming from academic studies and educational institutions.

As to "10,000 hours to become an expert"...

https://thehardestscience.com/2014/...dwell-actually-say-about-the-10000-hour-rule/

"10,000 hours to become an expert" is an Internet meme, based on taking a quote from Malcolm Gladwell's book out of context. Malcolm Gladwell never denied existence of natural talent and admitted that it does matter for acquiring skills and success. Moreover, he emphasized the importance of sheer random luck, which also contributes a lot to success. But if somebody wants their natural talent and random luck to materialize into some kind of professional competence and success, yes, they must invest at least 10,000 hours of hard practice into it. That's what was actually said in the book. Some people on the Internet just quote the "10,000 hours" part to imply that it's all you need to become an expert on anything, which is not true.

 

In socialistic countries like my own (Sweden) they have choosen to ignore this fact because it goes against their ideologi that not all are equal.

 

Great well thought out reply thanks!

Sweden is actually a mixed economy but I see your point.

Yea I agree with what many others here have said that success is talent+hard work and that it's not mutually exclusive.

 

this is all much ado over nothing. Plenty of dopes have already made winning games, and plenty of braniacs have failed miserably.

If you wanna do a thing you do it, or you don't. Yoda already gave all the advice you need there.

There is plenty of room in game dev for even the slowest dummy to make a game that others might enjoy. If you determine that you are slower than others, that's just an obstacle you overcome. You tailor your work to fit the team as it is, that's all. I'm not particularly smart

The real question is always trying to figure out where to put the time. Everything in game dev takes too much time. Got to figure out how to make that time pay back. Humility and evaluation skills come in more handy than cleverness for that IMO.

 

Contains uncomfortable reality

Spoiler

I disagree with the idea that the majority of development is learnable. A lot of game development is creative, outside the box problem solving, where the rules of your work are constantly changing. Low IQ individuals will find this extremely difficult, and half the world's population has a below average IQ. I don't like this situation at all, but facts are facts. You cannot learn your way out of a below average IQ.

 

However, High IQ does not guarantee business success, and those below average intelligence are 15% and not 50, while impaired are 6%.

The way I see it, in the end it is not clear cut and the game's not over as long as you're conscious and capable of thinking. While one cannot work their way out of vegetative state, giving up too early might not be a good idea.
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Basically, there are limits of what you can do or achieve. However you don't know what your limits are, and to learn them you need to try.

 

IQ doesn't really mean anything because it's a fundamentally flawed testing system that has a very narrow definition of intelligence in the first place. Its entire methodology relies on a lot of assumptions that don't translate well (if at all) socially or culturally.

 

Traditional IQ usually measures logical thinking. Mostly. I believe game development usually use more creative thinking than logical (minus coding, that is as logical as it gets, obviously).

 

Traditional IQ is used to check if a child is disabled.

 

i do not think some things are learnable. For example, i do not think i will be artist. you should learn to delegate tasks and plan accordingly. Spend more time making instead of chit chatting as well i feel.

 

Average means there are just as many people above and below that mark. 50% above and 50% below. Skill at business and skill at creative problem solving are not interchangeable, and I never suggested there are any kind of guarantees for anyone.

 

The point is that IQ is a bell curve and not flat line. Majority is in the middle, and while there differences, majority of people below 50% mark are not that far away from majority of people above it, while statement like "half of the people of the world has less than average" implies that half of the globe are intelligence-impaired and are completely hopeless.

Unless we're talking about vegetative state, you can apply effort to learn things. Might take slightly more time, or slightly less time, but the thing is we aren't talking about building hadron colliders here either.

 

No, this doesn't factor in standard deviation at all.

 

I honestly believe nearly everything can be learned. Some things will take an extremely long time for some people to learn, but those things can still be learned given enough time and effort. I agree that learning game dev skills will be a lot easier for a person with a high IQ, though.

 

I wasn't implying that below average meant impaired. The issue is software development as an occupation selects for high IQ. The average software developer has an IQ higher than a standard deviation above the population average. Anyone can learn to solve a problem, but learning to figure out what problem they need to solve is far more difficult, and a lot of software development is the later and coincidentally what IQ individuals are naturally very good at.

 

I wasn't using the word average to refer to a range in the context of my comment. I understand that is how @neginfinity and you understood it, and I apologize for the confusion.

 

It's specifically how you're supposed to take IQ levels into account and by ignoring it, you're ignoring a fundamental part of how a system that is already flawed works by making it even more flawed.

 

What you're saying is just incorrect. There's lots of cases where the absolute IQ number is used, and not grouping people into ranges. There's no rule book as you imply. This is all irrelevant to my point though.

edit:
My actual point is software development favors high IQ. Probably due to the types of problem solving which the job entails. Increasing IQ via learning is not a thing, and the majority of the population has an IQ significantly below the average software developer. So my answer to the OP's question favors ability over learning.

 

Well you are both sort of right and wrong. While 100 is the "average" IQ it doesn't really make sense to say that "50% of humans are below average intelligence". My IQ is "only" 98 which is technically 2 points below 100 yet this hasn't prevented me from picking up various coding and artistic skills which lots of people would find impossible to get any good at.

I think the real "average" is probably around 94-106, and that "below average" or "above average" doesn't really start until you get below or above those numbers. The IQ isn't really a linear staircase either, in that IQ differences that differ from the average aren't really that meaningful unless you are very considerably above (120+) or below (80's or less) the average.

 

That's because

• IQ is not a concept worth considering because of its fundamental limitations
• Even if it was, the standard deviation is 15 points

No. The standard deviation is 15 points for almost every single test.

 

The IQ matters but it's overrated. I also feel like there is a big difference between working in a recreational and professional setting. I would never be able to compete against other people with 160 IQ in an actual professional setting, but this hasn't stopped me from learning new skills and doing things at home where there is no massive pressure to finish things within a strict deadline as would be the case in a more professional setting.

 

Or maybe you can learn your way out of it. IQ isn't as constant as you think.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/memory-medic/201805/no-your-iq-is-not-constant

 

This kind of quora debate is not very useful. Everybody knows when they are limited to some degree in some aspect. It doesn't matter how many people tell you that you can do anything you want, you still have to determine if the required investment is worth it, based on your estimations.

I generally think that it's better to have someone believe that they are slightly more capable than they are, to account for errors in our understanding of ability as well as to buffer raw ability against factors such as state of mind, lack of motivation etc. We need to believe that we are not operating at full potential in order to grow.

But it's not useful to prop someone up against reality. Which is why I suggest that people look back at the time and effort they have spent in something, compare it to something they are reasonably good at, and ask themselves if it's a worthy use of the limited time they have on this earth given the multitude of other choices available.

The decision about what is meaningful for you will never come from someone else, and the only one who can tell you 'no' in a way that you can fully accept is yourself.

 

The question is if you want to be operated by a surgeon that took 25 years to pass med school

 

Sure, but that doesn't mean everyone within 15 points is identical. If two people are within one standard deviation of median human height that does not mean they are the same height.

 

All of game dev is learnable skill!
Or did you see someone who can code or do a 3d model from birth?

There are many succesful indie games but not many solo devs.
That is because there is so much into game dev like art, code, writing, marketing...
When you want to learn game dev then start with the thing which matches your talent most! For example if you are good at logical thinking learn to code, if you have great imagination what about some level designing?

And about the IQ:
Many smart people have a very hard time in life and are not successful because their brain works different...
What is more important than IQ is hard work and persistence.
When I was in university (which I didn't finish btw) I thought that being intelligent with a high IQ is important. Also my parents teached me to think that way. Now some years later I know better!
Just forget the IQ , follow your dreams and passion.

 

If you replace the term talent with IQ then I think you would find a good correlation between how good people are at programming and their IQ scores. Programming after all is dealing with abstract problems and IQ is a good indicator of this ability in people.



A lot of game programming is also just learning languages, technology, design patterns, API's, animation, modelling, sound and textures. So anyone with dedication can learn new things and become good at game development.

So in theory IQ could be a limiting factor in how amazing you are at developing games or it could just be how creative and imaginative you are.

Arguably game engines like Unity should reduce the problem space of game development down to a much more manageable level. So maybe your Creativity Quota becomes more important than IQ?

Side Note: It seems that DOTS is trying to reverse the Keep It Simple Silly, What You See Is What You Get model that Unity got right early on instead creating a more complex abstract DOTS problem domain you need to learn just to do basic programming.

 

This is a huge myth. The idea that modern game engines have made things easier to do isn't really true except maybe only to a limited extent. Yes some things are easier to do now compared to before but for the most part this is still a pretty hardcore hobby. Even engines like Unity still require that you know coding, and things like asset creation doesn't even take place inside Unity but rather requires third party software which itself is very hard to learn in it's own right.

Tbh I think the whole meme of game development having become more accessible is a false narrative. It's just that actual learning material for coding and 3D modeling has massively increased over the past 10 or so years in addition to there now being free software alternatives to stuff like Maya/Max such as Blender, and as a result it's easier to get started than before. Game dev did not become easier, it merely became more easier/cheaper to get started which is why there are now more people doing it.