On envy of success and hardwork

I was just thinking (out loud now) about a certain game. I won't name it, but I applaud it and its dev because it looks really cool.

It isn't new news to me but that dev is being featured for his game at a conference. I admit that I felt a bit of jealousy when I heard about it the second time. I try to stay away from emotions like that, but I got to thinking on that note. I always look on the bright side of (these) things thinking something like "They did the work and got featured. Lots of people are jealous only of success but don't want to put the work in".

I then had the thought "But because of Unity, UE4, and a few newer engines not many of us would be making games. At the same time there are so many of us its hard to get noticed or even make money. We're all in this to make games too, this is hard work and I don't think many of us do this purely out of the goodness of our hearts"

What I'm saying is yeah some lucky people get their games featured, yet the other 99% of us don't and we all put hard work in to this. I think "the system" to use a cliche term is (kinda) unfair.

Unity makes this engine and millions of people make games with it. Its in their interest (and their business model) to bring barriers to entry down. I think there's a subtle (but legitimate) argument that if you want to do something enough you won't let anything stop you, and if you don't, then you shouldn't be able to. I'm saying that though the majority of those people making games are actually doing so, in an alternate reality they wouldn't and probably shouldn't. Leave it to the people who actually put the work in to learn this thing. If you don't have the skills (or the will to learn them) to do this, then why should anyone morally enable you?

Every day we see people unwilling to learn. "Make script for me pl0x"

I think making this game dev business easier to get in to (is in a way) contributing to the toxicity of the industry.

Just some thoughts.

 

You've got to get it out of your head that hard work and success are linked.

Success comes from doing the right things. Sometimes that involves hard work. But just as often it involves doing the right thing in the right place at the right time.

There is the old adage about working smarter instead of harder.

 

Opinion: hard work is overrated. If you put enough effort into something, it doesn't mean that you will succeed or get recognized or earn anything. It is about working smart, being lucky and doing the right thing at the right time.

Assume that you will fail, concentrate on your own project and don't get distracted by other people and theier achievements. Then maybe you will be able to make something yourself.

 

It's not unfair. Sorry to be blunt, but no one asked you to do any work at all. If i spend a year carefully stacking thousands of pennies in neat little stacks, should I pissed because no will pay me for my time? I put a lot of work in to it, surely my time is worth something right?

No, it doesn't work like that. You are making a product in a creative industry. Your time and effort has no value to anyone except you. What you produce is what has (or has not) value to others. If your goal is to get a return on your investment, make something others are willing to pay for and that you get it in front of them.

As to envying others (I assume we know who you are talking about), look at their work as an example of the bar you need to achieve.

 

<sarcasm>
Vote for Drumpf! He is going to build a wall around Unity and make game dev great again!
</sarcasm>

PS: Seriously, don't vote for Drumpf. Unity is leveling the playing field so more people have a shot at making games. Deal with it.
PPS: I just remembered Manny Calavera is Mexican. Damn you Drumpf!

 

I cant believe my penny stacking business went bankrupt.

 

I can, which is why I went into the dime-stacking business instead. It's ten times better.

--Eric

 

If had a nickel for every time said that....

 

You could probably buy a candy bar or something.

 

Most games don't get featured because:
1. Not up to scratch
2. They are not on the radar of the people who make the call.
3. they don't meet a criteria, almost always companies have a criteria for getting featured, if a new phone comes out with a new feature that's being heavily advertised support that stuff! Recently we had that and people just didn't do it.

There's absolutely no random chance with features, think about when you release and make sure to think about why you should be featured... what can your game do for Apple or Google or Valve or who ever.

This so ridiculous... everyone who is making good games would be doing it anyway. No one who is getting featured on the App Store are people who would not be making games. They are the people who go the extra mile, and sure sometimes something happens and someone gets a feature by luck but that's so insignificant that it's irrelevant.

No.


This GDC talk is IMO one of the best(The best, I think but I'm not willing to commit to that statement ):

Before I saw that video I went to an event in about May-June 2014. While I was at that event I met Alexander Bruce and showed him a game I was working on at the time. The quality of feedback he gave is totally unparalleled and he was totally awesome, it was during that time that I learnt just how much effort goes into making a game and the amount of stress and harm that it can do.
Making sure to make the most of every opportunity and give every opportunity you can is so important.

A friend of mine has a great games job, how he got it was literally we met a developer of a really successful game. I was like "cool now I won't ever talk to that guy again", my friend however just sent them a email saying that he'd love a job and if they needed anything and got a reply saying that they were actually looking for a QA guy and offered him the job. My friend always says that he was lucky but that's just not the case. If he didn't take the time to make the most of those opportunities then of course nothing will happen.

 

I just feel like the challenge has moved from a product development problem to a marketing problem. Now that "anyone" can make a game, where it used to take a large amount of money to enter, that money must now be spent on your marketing effort.

 

Generally I agree, marketing has become more critical because the size of the marketplace. But marketing can only get people to a game. If premium, the game itself has to compelling to make a sale, and good enough to have those sales leave positive reviews to continue momentum. If free to play, the game has to be good enough that players are willing to keep playing and eventually spend.

And there is a lot of marketing that can be done at no cost (just time). And the practical reality is that a positive review, and or positive viral word of mouth will dive sales better than ads.

 

I would like to say they are linked, just not the only factor as some might say.

I like to think there's a share of 3 things: luck, hard work, and smart work.

[RAMBLING]
Success (at least for many people) is financial success, right? So when people ask themselves "how to be successful" they really ask either one of two questions
Question 1) "how can I make loads money fast without much hassle"
Question 2) "what can I offer people so they exchange their hard earned money for it?".

And OF COURSE there's a big difference, think of when YOU are going to buy, hire or spend any money ... you always look for best value for your money, don't you??? (and often with a tendency to go for what's cheaper).

So, why should anyone give you a different treatment?

But problem is usually the start point to Question 2 (and 1) is.... is "NOTHING" ... NOTHING of value to offer right off the bat that'll give you loads of money.
EVEN if you work very hard, there's no guarantee you're coming up with something other people want and care about. If only plan is to work hard, join the line! Same goes for relying on just on luck, OR waiting for a big idea that'll make you rich without much effort.

The harder and smarter you work, the luckier you'll be.

[/RAMBLING]

 

There is some connection. But not as much as you think. It often comes more down to market factors like supply and demand.

Its more obvious in my home area of manufacturing. The guy stacking cans onto the pallet at the end of the line is working harder then anyone else. He'll often move several tonnes of product by hand over the course of the day. Yet he is the lowest paid employee in the company. Working conditions also are poor, its shift work, long hours, and there is little security. Why is this hard working guy the lowest paid? Because there are dozens more like him. His skills are in high supply.

Contrast this to the engineer in the same factory. He can take an afternoon off to go watch the kids recital and no one bats an eyelid. There is no supervisor keeping track of how long he takes on lunch breaks. He works gentleman's hours most of the time. By all measures he works nowhere near as hard as the laborer. But he gets paid twice as much. The skills an engineer brings are in much shorter supply then the laborer.

There was that famous guy that said if he had one hour to cut down a tree, he would spend 45 minutes sharpening the axe. This is very much true. Working smarter beats working harder every time.

Of course working smart and hard is what produces those rare giants that dominate their fields for decades.

 

I'm not going to discuss what's the ratio of importance between smart & hard work. It's so subjective it's pointless.

But I disagree that hard work is of no importance, or that's a minor thing.

It's like saying wind is a minor thing when sailing, and say all it matters that you set the sails in the right direction. You need both wind and sailing skills. Only one will not do, or at least make it much more unlikely you reach destination.

 

I think you have that backwards. Wind is luck. No amount of hard work will bring a better wind. But no wind? Pull out a paddle and paddle. Or, the "work smarter way", pull out a little engine and let it do the work!

 

Never experienced envy as an emotion, weird I know. When I see someone obviously better than me I just feel competition and it's fun.

Raise your game

 

Ok I suck at analogies. It doesn't work if you take it literal.

If it's literal, the boat engine is a very good analogy to Unity as engine, though.

It's not an advantage if everyone has it.

It's smart to use Unity instead of trying to make your own engine from scratch... but the market is quickly flooded with games.

 

Au contraire, it's a great analogy. Just the other way around.

 

Wind is a minor thing, when your ship is a steamboat.

It works like this: through hard work you may become good at something.
Does that mean you'll get rich/famous/whatever? No. The world may not care about you, your skill, your projects, or the amount of work you did.

 

Perhaps I can phrase it another way.

In games hard work doesn't sell. Products sell. So when you see something successful, stop thinking about how hard the devs worked. And start thinking about what they did to make it a great product.

Hard work is sometimes what is needed to make a product great. But sometimes its not. Knowing the difference is what separates the successful products from the failed ones.

 

Luck is a major factor because you don't and can't know everything. You don't know that a release date will coincide with your launch date and ruin the all-important launch window for you. You don't know you'll encounter a showstopper bug. You don't know if there will be a disaster that day on the news, or if people simply flat out aren't in the mood for your title on that month but would've been in the mood in another month (hint: really big boys do forecasting of some kind).

So luck, yeah. Needed.

It's ok wishing for a streamboat or even nuclear powered carrier, but you can't ever afford it, or the marketing, or the production values.

 

Unity is a tool that makes it easier for everyone, be they skilled or unskilled, hard working or lazy, to make games. Many more people are now able to make games.

But few people are able to make games which a significant amount of people actually want to play.

Unity takes away some of the technical difficulty but the challenge to create a compelling experience has only risen with the amount of competition.

 

"I just wanted to make computer games, but all I got is this nuclear submarine."

 

You could always start a live action game of Missile Command.

 

If you look at shower with your dad simulator that's working smarter, but if you look at goat simulator that's working smarter and harder there's actually meat on it to sell at a higher price point and make some real money off it.

 

Fixed it.

 

Like @hippocoder I've never felt envy or jealousy over games or anything else for that matter. When I see someone more skilled than me in some areas I just think "hey they are really good!". However, it has no meaning for me personally. Why? Because it is them... not me.

Now It could have some meaning if I hired them to do some work for me or otherwise collaborate. Otherwise, I have my own ambitions, experience and skills and after a brief time of recognizing their skills I get back to my own goals and such. My "world" so to speak. And also because I know there is way more to success than just being highly skilled at something. There is way more to success than making superior products.

 

Best let this guy know.

 

For me there's a distinction to make. There should be a barrier of entry, but it should in theory be based entirely on game design ability. Artificially creating barriers by making the implementation of game design ideas tedious and complicated when they don't need to be is wasting everyone's time. At the moment, there are a lot of artificial barriers that we haven't found a way around, such as programming ability and art creation ability, but better engines, development interfaces and art creation tools can and should reduce those barriers where possible.

Blaming a flooded market is chasing a red herring. If making games as such can be easy, it should be, and there's nothing wrong with the market being flooded. It would simply present opportunities for game vendors to implement quality standards and raise expectations. If they don't, and game quality is important to gamers, they are not helping themselves or their customers. If game quality is unimportant to gamers, well who are you making games for anyway?

And minor detail, it takes 1 year + to make any substantial game such as an fps or rpg, from start to finish, even on mobile. If working away on something for several years, on top of learning programming and 3D modelling on your own, with no remuneration and little chance of success sounds like a low barrier to entry, I'd hate to see what a high one is. The only thing that actually has a low barrier of entry is getting the FPSController to walk around on a terrain, but that hardly makes for a marketable product.

 

It's ok shifting the burden of responsibility to the storefront, I agree with this. Stores should clearly display premium titles separately from the masses. If it means there's a fee to pay, I'd pay it. I'd want it quite high, something like 5k at minimum though.

Why so high?

1. if you're investing thousands into your title, then you want it seen
2. if you're doing some 1 week mobile app, and that generates 5k, then you can move it over. Or not.

But if you encourage a flat market with everyone equal spotlight, then you end up with developers not choosing to invest thousands because there might not be a return on it. So you get crappier games. That's the danger of a fully open market, and it's clear from mobile that it's pretty true.

You can basically make GTA V - even similar graphically - on a high end mobile now. Nobody will in a marketplace like that because you know, there's not a premium section to justify the expense.

AAA still have retail and strong markets of their own, but once retail dies (it is dying), they are going to be concerned about bottom line enough to pull premium titles out of the markets you're used to like steam. In fact some already have.

 

I agree. I would like to have the market separated into different 'leagues'. As a beginner, I want to be able to put my first games out there as easily and cheaply as possible, without it rubbing shoulders with games that are at a totally different level in terms of depth and quality. Obviously this 'league' would be saturated, nothing wrong with that. I wouldn't be expecting too much success at this point anyway.

But as I get better, I would want to be able to sell at a place where the standard of quality was a reflection of my skills as a game developer, or that at least had some method of attracting only a certain quality of games. Something where you could use the fact that you got your game approved there as a badge of honor. And it would be a place where gamers go to find stuff they know will have a certain standard of quality.

That's the whole point, it shouldn't be flat - or rather it should be flat only in the lowest league.

It's been shown time and again in software and technology that quality means something to consumers, but it remains for someone to actually open a game shop based on that premise. I don't really know, but I imagine that the people running game stores simply haven't found that the market for games is mature enough to warrant limiting their own stock. It's up to gamers really to change that, and all we can do is watch. But if anything I'm more inclined to support practices that would burst the bubble, so to speak, rather than try to keep it in a permanent state of limbo by propping things up with artificial barriers of entry.

 

I also agree. It happens on physical store shelves anyway. Companies pay for better visibility on those 4 foot sections or endcaps, or large displays, let alone into the store itself.

 

I believe I tried.

 

This whole subject is project based, without any real context none of it is applicable to anything. Things I have noticed, every "indie" in an extremely loose sense that releases a game tarted up in a AAA (large game) not mobile etc. frock either sells amazingly / gets noticed and spread everywhere and generally they all do well for themselves.

I've yet to see an instance where it doesn't happen, that ain't "luck" and it requires so much "hard" work to achieve plus it's a risky venture.

Multiple reasons for this, AAA can't have "all" the money anymore so they're loosing interest. Many went bankrupt or got hit hard by the credit crunch, they lost a lot of marketing prowess when steam became an open door. Many won't even take the risk on high budget / high risk ventures anymore as Hippo said.

Compared to the Xbox 360 / PS3 release titles, it's a ghost town and it's not exactly suprising either. So it's logical, there's a market for it, people want it and therefore it'll sell..

Luck? Yeah in some instances more today than it ever has been, you may make the best 2.5D platformer that ever existed. Amongst the metric ton of other 2.5D Platformers, most people won't give a crap. Although for reasons unknown, you could be the exception to the rule although every day it becomes more unlikely.

Another thing, in reality most games do "suck" and some really are just poor beyond belief. So saying "hard work" doesn't matter is strictly not really the case, if you aim to do something interesting and don't put in the effort to do it properly. Then you'll pretty much get laughed at and blacklisted..

So anyone believing they don't have to put in the effort, research the examples of dev's who didn't and find out what happens when you don't.

Of course I agree, "effort / hard work" is only really useful when you apply it to the correct thing. Also your end users really don't give two craps about how much effort you put into it.

 

This sounds at its core like the beef between capitalism and socialism. One wants market forces deciding and the other want equality without putting the effort in to be equal, so to speak.

 

Some nice comments here. So merged some to make some kind of inspirational quote lol

" People tend to want others to know how - hard - they work. Society nowadays is fuelled by narcissists who wish to exercise their ego and indulge in self admiration.

No one has asked you to do any work at all and no one gives a damn. If you spend a year carefully stacking thousands of pennies in neat little stacks, should you be pissed because no will pay you for your time? You put a lot of work in to it, surely your time is worth something right?

No, Your time and effort has no value to anyone except you. What you produce is what has (or has not) value to others. Stop caring about letting others know and use that energy to not only work hard but smarter too. "

 

Spoken like a true capitalist.

 

Just a quick question how many messages does the developer of this game have, or how much time did he/she/they spend on the Unity forums?

 

Maybe this sounds capitalist too, but really as consumers of games, gamers' preferences are the only things that matter. No one has a right to impose their imagination (or lack thereof) on gamers or the market they are consumers of.

I know you were probably just replying to the phrasing of the comment though

 

Mainly this. When arguing different political, economic or religious view points it's easy to compare the best of one system with the worst of another. Worse you can straw man the opposing system.

Neither tatic has much value in driving forward the conversation.

 

About the only real problem with most systems is the people intended to use them. Remove flawed individuals (not possible for obvious reasons) and suddenly just about any system stands a very good chance of working properly.

 

Totally. And I'm not a die-hard left or right, in my point of view the market should not be applied to everything, but where it does apply, such as the games industry, the will of the consumer should prevail without interference. If gamers don't want 'crappy' games, stores will find it out quickly and move to highlight their better quality stock.

I find it kind of strange that in discussions about what 'should' and 'shouldn't' happen in the game market, the point of view of gamers themselves is hardly ever discussed. Game stores like Steam cater to gamers, they don't cater to some illbegotten moral code of their own that gamers don't want, otherwise some competitor or other would present better options to the gamers and take them away. Sometimes it takes a while for the collective cry to catch on but sooner or later it will.

The real problem is that developers want to sell games in a unrestricted, open environment, such as the internet presents, but without the other vendors of 'crappy' games to be able to do the same thing. Doesn't work like that.

 

Not to get sidetracked, but I don't think it works that way. Most people have a relative morality that depends on how their environment responds to their behaviour. When that response is consistent, the appropriate behaviour is internalised. So on that premise it's logical to assume that the political system is responsible for someone's behaviour by enabling or disabling a society's ability to respond appropriately.

 

Tell that to Venezuelans. Show me an unflawed person. I don't believe in utopia.

 

The game industry indies in particular are an example of true capitalists. Tell ya what. Next time you make money off your game industry efforts I demand you socialize the profit (and at gunpoint if possible) and give it to the whiners who "worked so hard" but didn't make a dime. Ya know..like that other poster you were telling the hard truths to in another thread that got locked and you referred to in another thread earlier i participated in. The guy who thought Unity should socialize his tweets by retweeting them.

I like the story of the college professor who began socializing grades. He distributed the scores of all evenly amongst the class. The scores slowly went down as the achievers no longer had any incentive to produce and study to make that production of good work.

 

Like you straw manning my comparison perhaps? Perhaps you can enlighten me in the flaws of my thinking being yer such a smart and opinionated fellow. I am open to shifting my views as I had done when I was thinking socialism was great years back and then sat down and studied and came to the conclusion that socialism always fails because it runs out of other peoples money.

 

The basis of capitalism.

 

Yet if you took that same class, divided them up into groups, and gave each group an assignment that required every member of the group to contribute you'd see a completely different outcome.

 

Slackers abound where they can get a free ride from others work. If you let them individually choose and accept members of their own working group there would be a massive difference between the winners and losers. This is why there is such a thing as a CV and job interview.