I made a game earlier this year. Itās about a Tuesday.
Wasnāt there just an article on how the notion of a game being āfunā was outmoded?
[quote=āboingboing, post:1, topic:59414ā]You donāt have to be a professional writer to enjoy keeping a journal[/quote]No, but the output of professional writers tends to be held to a certain standard and may generally be expected to be of greater value than someoneās journal.
That was great. I got emotional. SRSLY.
Thanks so much!
As a bitter ex-game developer, this āeveryone make gamesā thing annoys me, and I canāt even quite figure out why. Maybe itās because itās one thing to make a game, itās another thing to make a good game, and once you learn the difference, itās really, really hard.
Maybe itās how established journos trapped in the horrible system get annoyed at bloggers who have freedom. I dunno. Just putting it out here.
My kids are already acing Hopscotch. They can do in 5 minutes what took me 2 days to do in 1985. And purddier.
I heartily endorse.
Would you say the same about woodworking? There are plenty of people who make a living by carving/building with wood. There are also hobbyists who do this but have no intention of it being their career. Occasionally the latter become the former, and I donāt think the former ever get mad about that.
lol I donāt think Zoe is anyone you would want to take tips from on the industryā¦
A better comparison might be how anyone can call themselves a āPhotographerā now, and it annoys real photographers.
Isnāt such an outlook self-aggrandisingly exclusionary? I can be happy for anybody who feels accomplished in something that interests them. But using this to insist that others canāt/arenāt really doing anything seems quite petty. I canāt think of any endeavors which are improved by pissing contests.
@anon61221983 actually inspired me (inadvertently, or perhaps, conspiratorially) earlier today to consider the awesomeness of a game I would like to make called āRPG Zombie.ā I was just thinking it would be really cool to make.
Do it! That would be awesome-sauce.
I canāt really explain it, which is why I was just floating it out there w/o much explanation. And Iāve noticed others seemingly acting the same (aforementioned journos attacking bloggers). I figured a forum would be an interesting place to solicit opinions on the idea.
Like most emotions, Iām not saying itās justified, nor do I indulge it (Iāve actually talked to many amateur/aspiring devs, both on a hobby and professional level), so itās not like Iāve thrown any daggers myself.
Might be the Hollywood glossing of a profession. You donāt see people saying āAnyone can practice medicine at home!ā much, but for some reason, the āanyone can codeā meme has gone further, whereas when I was in school, I remember an awful lot of people taking classes where they tried to avoid a) math, or b) writing papers, so clearly thereās some differentiation in mindsets.
The kicker for me was the Silicon Valley guy who decided to teach a homeless man to code, and somehow the idea that what you may have spent your whole life to do, some 20-something is trivializing away with a āHereās a āTeach Yourself JavaScript in 30 Daysā book, study it in a week and Iāll give you a salary.ā On one hand, weāve got a whole workforce of experienced people out there, and on the other hand, weāre saying the experience is useless and you can just pick up a Ruby book and have a career. The āanyone can codeā seems to subscribe to that philosophy beyond a simple āhere, have fun building a ship in a bottle in your living room.ā
Again, not saying I have a conclusion here, nor am I saying I know whatās going on, but Iām thinking itās an interesting discussion. And the folks at BB are the type who Iād figure might have some insight to share. I realize Iām broadening this beyond games, but I do think itās the same as the āanyone can codeā idea, just a specific branch.
I do also know that the same ones donāt tend to say āHere, learn openGLā as much as āHere, play with GameMaker and make the 6.022*10^23 sidescroller or tile based RPG.ā
There are many people who are convinced that their careers should come with benefices. They feel entitled to certain markets - if not not individually, then at least for ātheir own kindā. From that perspective you are stealing from the pro you didnāt hire when you let an impostor shoot your wedding.
And as I am not an art history major, Iād love to know if the same thing happened when you had the old guard who spent all their time learning to paint with realism and a new class of painter came along breaking from that representation in a way that didnāt take the same time commitment of skill.
Iām sure this is like any other cultural/academic evolution of profession.
Yeah, thatās probably a great example. Shooting on film with manual cameras is way different than a digital that does a bunch of the work for you, and as those become cheaper, the barrier to entry becomes lower and lower.
However, as photo development becomes turnkey, you start seeing a million of the same style based on the filters the camera/software has, instead of someone finding an interesting exposure in the dark room.
Iām a hobbyist dev, and this website is really great. There is so much content farm, SEO-laden clickbait out there, it can be hard to shuffle through tp find real advice and information. A simple, well-laid-out interface of prescreened resources is really a goddessend.
