4 ms·

This is a major reason why I refuse to get into the video game industry. I read on TIL last week that the video game industry makes more than the music and film

by sbjs 8y ago

This is a major reason why I refuse to get into the video game industry. I read on TIL last week that the video game industry makes more than the music and film industries combined, and it shows. Every mobile game utilizes unethical or at the very least shady practices. Console games are slightly better in stability and quality but even more sketchy and ruthless. The industry is run by greed. Reading the story about how Minecraft started, before Microsoft bought them, that is a true inspiration. Make games because you enjoy them and let money be an afterthought. Is there room for that anymore? I don’t think so. The major players crush any competition. Read about Ketchapp. The video game industry is dead, no it’s a zombie, alive but dead, sucking the souls out of employees and customers alike, and that’s sad. But maybe it’s for the better. Don’t we already spend too much time staring and screens and not spending time with people right next to us?

rm_-rf_slash 8y ago
I share your concerns. It was a dinky little text-based Visual Basic game at a summer camp computer area that got me into programming in the first place. By the next summer I was teaching C++ to Ken Levine’s (creator of Bioshock, nice guy) nephew. True story. All I’ve ever really wanted to do is make video games. I have always been fascinated with the ways an interactive narrative can evoke emotions in ways that prior forms of art could never do. Fans of Spec Ops: The Line will know exactly what I mean. But every story of games development sounds more depressing and horrific than the next. Hours are long, pressures are high, fans are ruthless, and keeping a job depends on your game selling enough to justify a sequel (RIP, Mass Effect. You deserved better). I always hold out the hope that development in game making frameworks will allow bedroom programmers to eventually create games on par with the big budget productions we have today, but games development is so talent-driven and expensive, I have never felt that that time is near in the way we have been lead to believe about other futuristic technologies like self-driving cars. I agree that much of the games industry is a zombie these days. How I long for the halcyon days of the Playstation 2...

by sbjs 8y ago

rm_-rf_slash 8y ago

I share your concerns. It was a dinky little text-based Visual Basic game at a summer camp computer area that got me into programming in the first place. By the next summer I was teaching C++ to Ken Levine’s (creator of Bioshock, nice guy) nephew. True story. All I’ve ever really wanted to do is make video games. I have always been fascinated with the ways an interactive narrative can evoke emotions in ways that prior forms of art could never do. Fans of Spec Ops: The Line will know exactly what I mean. But every story of games development sounds more depressing and horrific than the next. Hours are long, pressures are high, fans are ruthless, and keeping a job depends on your game selling enough to justify a sequel (RIP, Mass Effect. You deserved better). I always hold out the hope that development in game making frameworks will allow bedroom programmers to eventually create games on par with the big budget productions we have today, but games development is so talent-driven and expensive, I have never felt that that time is near in the way we have been lead to believe about other futuristic technologies like self-driving cars. I agree that much of the games industry is a zombie these days. How I long for the halcyon days of the Playstation 2...