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The problem I find with the gamedev subreddit is it seems like it’s 90% beginners And the focus is like all on 1-person indie projects with very little content

The problem I find with the gamedev subreddit is it seems like it’s 90% beginners And the focus is like all on 1-person indie projects with very little content from professional/AAA devs

65 2y ago
This is the problem you will find with pretty much any subreddit, they are always filled with beginners. Drives me a little crazy.
- LordDragonfang 2y ago
  Every programming-related subreddit is stuffed to the gills with content that's mostly relatable to freshman CS students, and it all gets upvoted to the top. I agree, it's infuriating. If I have see one more meme about missing semicolons...
  - justsid 2y ago
    [dead]
  - superconduct123 2y ago
    I can't read ProgrammerHumor anymore for that reason Its like every joke is aimed at someone who just took their first CS class
ArlenBales 2y ago
This is less a problem with the subreddit and forums, and more that AAA game devs seems to be very reserved about discussing their industry or keep discussion internal to private channels (possibly for IP reasons). Whenever I see a AAA developer pop up on Reddit they're always vague and mysterious; "I work for an unnamed AAA developer.." You don't see people doing that on HN very often, they usually announce unabashedly they work at a well known company, like Google.
- KittenInABox 2y ago
  I have seen game devs that are public with what company they work for also get death threats/hatred/etc whenever a game comes out that flops even if they didn't work on it specifically. Gamers can come off as a really political audience with a lot of grift money to be made on culture war stuff so it makes sense if you're an apolitical gamedev to stfu.
  - Agentlien 2y ago
    I've also received surprising levels of vitriol here on HN when I mentioned working for EA (which I did 2015-2019).
    - natebc 2y ago
      There's gamers here too. I'm always surprised at the tonal change in a comment thread on a game related post here. Sorry we're such a nasty audience. It's not all of us for what little that's worth.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      Ahh yes, AKA The Devil. From the Bible. Big fan of his work. /s Yeah, it sucks. Some people can't separate the grunts just working on features from the suits up top who manage a lot of the things they actual hate. Don't shoot the messenger.
- harrison_clarke 2y ago
  i think a big part of it is that their audience isn't just other gamedevs, it includes gamers those gamers often have strong emotional attachments to games/characters that very few people have for google sheets studios get crazy backlash for nerfs and other changes, so i can see not wanting to attach your name and face to that. in the other direction, i wouldn't want a horde of gamers using my words as evidence that my employer is dogshit, unless that was the goal of my message
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bloomingkales 2y ago
I have a suspicion it’s worse than beginners (absolutely nothing wrong with beginners). There’s a cohort of marketers on Reddit that profit off of beginner-aimed content. Lots of “oh I just built a successful game doing this”, link off to a blog. So the shepherds in those subreddits are not really elders, but sadly, grifters. In turn the beginners sort of stay perpetual beginners. It’s horrific if you go to the /r/startup type subreddits, the grift is super strong there. Makes you really appreciate HN, good shepherds (not perfect, but good).
Animats 2y ago
The more professional discussions seem to be on the forums for Unreal Engine or Unity, where people are struggling with obscure issues inside those monster packages. (I'm trying to do 3D stuff in Rust. The number of people who do hard 3D stuff in Rust seems to be very small, which is frustrating. There are many obscure bugs in the graphics stack and not enough people to exercise the stack, find the bugs, and get them fixed. 3D game dev in Rust is below critical mass. Retro-looking 2D is doing fine. But most 2D Rust work could be done in HTML/CSS/Javascript, or could have been done in Flash. About half of my time goes into graphics stack problems. This is not fun.)
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Even Unreal Q&A's get thin once you start looking into features deeper in the engine. Epic's campaign to make the common dev afraid of C++ seems to have worked with ablomb. Maybe there's some closed off sections to look into, but I sadly don't have access to that anymore. I can't imagine much knowledge out there on Rust gamedev atm. Truly a trailblazer. At that point your resources are more about community discords and arguing in github issues than anything casual.
Agentlien 2y ago
I found this very frustrating back when I was active on Reddit. There were times when I put a lot of thought and effort into writing posts drawing from my moderate knowledge and (at the time ~10 years of) experience. And then I get some reply from a complete novice or two saying this is clearly wrong and the post gets tons of down votes. Meanwhile the top comment is another beginner saying something obviously wrong and hundreds more agreeing.
brudgers 2y ago
That’s probably the problem for any HN-for-X because a talking at/with/to beginners and hobbyists is not a rare internet opportunity for experts. I think one of the things that makes HN HN is that experts can choose to have only incidental open internet engagement with their areas of expertise. Most or all of their time on HN can be engaging with other topics that they are less familiar with. The attractions of an HN-for-X include engaging with an unfamiliar-X that experts are already familiar with.

The problem I find with the gamedev subreddit is it seems like it’s 90% beginners And the focus is like all on 1-person indie projects with very little content from professional/AAA devs

65 2y ago

This is the problem you will find with pretty much any subreddit, they are always filled with beginners. Drives me a little crazy.

LordDragonfang 2y ago
Every programming-related subreddit is stuffed to the gills with content that's mostly relatable to freshman CS students, and it all gets upvoted to the top. I agree, it's infuriating. If I have see one more meme about missing semicolons...
- justsid 2y ago
  [dead]
- superconduct123 2y ago
  I can't read ProgrammerHumor anymore for that reason Its like every joke is aimed at someone who just took their first CS class

ArlenBales 2y ago

This is less a problem with the subreddit and forums, and more that AAA game devs seems to be very reserved about discussing their industry or keep discussion internal to private channels (possibly for IP reasons). Whenever I see a AAA developer pop up on Reddit they're always vague and mysterious; "I work for an unnamed AAA developer.." You don't see people doing that on HN very often, they usually announce unabashedly they work at a well known company, like Google.

KittenInABox 2y ago
I have seen game devs that are public with what company they work for also get death threats/hatred/etc whenever a game comes out that flops even if they didn't work on it specifically. Gamers can come off as a really political audience with a lot of grift money to be made on culture war stuff so it makes sense if you're an apolitical gamedev to stfu.
- Agentlien 2y ago
  I've also received surprising levels of vitriol here on HN when I mentioned working for EA (which I did 2015-2019).
  - natebc 2y ago
    There's gamers here too. I'm always surprised at the tonal change in a comment thread on a game related post here. Sorry we're such a nasty audience. It's not all of us for what little that's worth.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Ahh yes, AKA The Devil. From the Bible. Big fan of his work. /s Yeah, it sucks. Some people can't separate the grunts just working on features from the suits up top who manage a lot of the things they actual hate. Don't shoot the messenger.
harrison_clarke 2y ago
i think a big part of it is that their audience isn't just other gamedevs, it includes gamers those gamers often have strong emotional attachments to games/characters that very few people have for google sheets studios get crazy backlash for nerfs and other changes, so i can see not wanting to attach your name and face to that. in the other direction, i wouldn't want a horde of gamers using my words as evidence that my employer is dogshit, unless that was the goal of my message
- johnnyanmac 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bloomingkales 2y ago

I have a suspicion it’s worse than beginners (absolutely nothing wrong with beginners). There’s a cohort of marketers on Reddit that profit off of beginner-aimed content. Lots of “oh I just built a successful game doing this”, link off to a blog. So the shepherds in those subreddits are not really elders, but sadly, grifters. In turn the beginners sort of stay perpetual beginners. It’s horrific if you go to the /r/startup type subreddits, the grift is super strong there. Makes you really appreciate HN, good shepherds (not perfect, but good).

Animats 2y ago

The more professional discussions seem to be on the forums for Unreal Engine or Unity, where people are struggling with obscure issues inside those monster packages. (I'm trying to do 3D stuff in Rust. The number of people who do hard 3D stuff in Rust seems to be very small, which is frustrating. There are many obscure bugs in the graphics stack and not enough people to exercise the stack, find the bugs, and get them fixed. 3D game dev in Rust is below critical mass. Retro-looking 2D is doing fine. But most 2D Rust work could be done in HTML/CSS/Javascript, or could have been done in Flash. About half of my time goes into graphics stack problems. This is not fun.)

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Even Unreal Q&A's get thin once you start looking into features deeper in the engine. Epic's campaign to make the common dev afraid of C++ seems to have worked with ablomb. Maybe there's some closed off sections to look into, but I sadly don't have access to that anymore. I can't imagine much knowledge out there on Rust gamedev atm. Truly a trailblazer. At that point your resources are more about community discords and arguing in github issues than anything casual.

Agentlien 2y ago

I found this very frustrating back when I was active on Reddit. There were times when I put a lot of thought and effort into writing posts drawing from my moderate knowledge and (at the time ~10 years of) experience. And then I get some reply from a complete novice or two saying this is clearly wrong and the post gets tons of down votes. Meanwhile the top comment is another beginner saying something obviously wrong and hundreds more agreeing.

brudgers 2y ago

That’s probably the problem for any HN-for-X because a talking at/with/to beginners and hobbyists is not a rare internet opportunity for experts. I think one of the things that makes HN HN is that experts can choose to have only incidental open internet engagement with their areas of expertise. Most or all of their time on HN can be engaging with other topics that they are less familiar with. The attractions of an HN-for-X include engaging with an unfamiliar-X that experts are already familiar with.