30 ms·

"The ultimate point of Masters of Doom is that today you no longer need to be as brilliant as John Carmack to achieve success, and John Carmack himself will be

by nadam 13y ago

"The ultimate point of Masters of Doom is that today you no longer need to be as brilliant as John Carmack to achieve success, and John Carmack himself will be the first to tell you that. Where John was sitting in a cubicle by himself in Mesquite, Texas for 80 hours a week painstakingly inventing all this stuff from first principles, on hardware that was barely capable, you have a supercomputer in your pocket, another supercomputer on your desk, and two dozen open source frameworks and libraries that can do 90% of the work for you. You have GitHub, Wikipedia, Stack Overflow, and the whole of the Internet." Which is bad news if your strength is that you are a good programmer, because in this kind of environment games become a commodity, so you have to compete with hundreds of thousands of other game developers who also don't have to be as briliant as Carmack. See the app market; it has a winner take all characteristic, so even if you don't have to be as brilliant as Carmack in programming, you have to be very strong in something or lucky to achieve success. As I remember Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky took venture capital to take off stack overflow. (And also they had a huge following even before starting that venture.) I kind of don't really buy these kind of 'motivational' posts. Achieving success is always possible but always hard.

gizmo 13y ago
Every generation faces different challenges, but the value of the internet cannot be understated. It's a resource that answers any question you may have about programming, about PC internals, or about the business and marketing parts you have to get right. You can easily reach out to hundreds or thousands of people who have already accomplished what you're trying to do and who blog earnestly about their experiences. You can test whether a game or app has merit with a fraction of the effort required in the 90s. And now you have millions of hours worth of open source code to build on top on. "If you build it they will come" doesn't quite work on the internet. Except maybe if your product is extraordinary. But before the internet, when it's just you in your parents' basement? Then you need a real marketing channel otherwise you stand no chance. Even the Id guys had to write shareware games for an established distributor before they figured out how to do the shareware thing. Today you can bootstrap a business worth millions based on a $8 a month VPS. As far as I can tell this hasn't been true in any other part of history or in any other field. There is still so much low-hanging fruit in software - it's crazy.
- sanderjd 13y ago
  Everything you say is absolutely right, but your parent's point still stands: everybody has all those same advantages, which means that the bar for both ordinary and extraordinary is much higher. DOOM would be ordinary (even sub-ordinary) if it were released now, precisely because you no longer need to be as brilliant as John Carmack to make it.
  - gizmo 13y ago
    The bar should be much higher, but it isn't. You'd expect there to be thousands of startups in every space imaginable, because writing software has never been easier and there are more software programmers today than at any point in history. You'd expect the competition to be fierce, but it isn't. This is why mediocre products with mediocre marketing make bank. The games industry is very competitive, and so is the iOS app market. But that's only a tiny percentage of the software market (measured in dollars). Where are the thousands of Gmail competitors? Word processing and spreadsheet competitors? Where is a better DabbleDB? Nothing has changed in the past 5 years, and in any of these markets you can simply win with a better product and half-decent marketing. And if you make a product for a specific vertical it's even easier. It's not like Patio11 is the first guy to ever make Appointment Reminder software. Or the 20th. But with half-decent execution and half-decent marketing he's still making a ton of money. And is he afraid that by posting on HN people here are going to start competing AR software? Of course not. Because there are so many better opportunities out there that there is no need to fight for the same customers. How many startups do we see coming from Spain, or India, or Brazil? Very few. How many from Milwaukee? I don't know of any. But the software engineers exist. The opportunities are right here for the taking. But people just don't take them.
    - wslh 13y ago
      I agree in that there is an opportunity window until the market is semi-arbitrage-free. People around virtual communities like HN are in an advantage now. But you are underestimating by a lot the costs and risks of software development, for example, a spreadsheet competitor. Not only from the software development side but also from the marketing/sales perspective. If you analyze an established software company the work force in software development and marketing/sales are evenly distributed and this is not because companies love to make advertisements, events, etc but because is how (currently) the business world works: you compete in an attention economy and this costs millions. Another thing that you are underestimating is that Internet makes much easier things that were impossible or time consuming just a decade ago but "everyone" is competing in a new league and that advantage will be capitalized by "everyone".
petercooper 13y ago
I came here to say almost exactly the same thing, that is, doing impressive looking things nowadays is so relatively easy that doing something that genuinely stands out is as hard as ever. Back in the day, it was more a problem of resources than ability or ideas, because hardware was expensive, open source was less prevalent, etc, but now almost everyone has the resources so now you need to be creatively and mentally on top of your game to compete instead. Being persuasive and able to get your work seen is also more important than ever. Lots of great work gets produced that never breaks out. All that said, when things become more about talent than resources, it reduces the privilege needed to make an impact, so it certainly has its plus points.
- speeder 13y ago
  More or less... Unless you make some sort of lucky viral, now what you need is massive resources for marketing... as I continue with my startup this become more and more obvious, there is no decent success in the game industry without massive marketing, from AAA (Activision expends on its main games around 250 million in marketing budget only), to Indie (many small successful indie games had big marketing budgets, or had others with those budgets doing the marketing for them, successful indies either are close friends of other successful ones or are rich or are close to the media industry, for example was journalist or worked for CMP Media)
  - Negitivefrags 13y ago
    It doesn't have to be that way. We started Path of Exile with a low budget, no following, no connections. When we wanted to announce we phoned up journalists, made appointments. We flew to the US, we went to PAX (with no booth) and tried to approach journalists cold to give a demo on a laptop in the corner. We got a bunch of small articles, and bugger all web traffic. I think on announcement day we got articles on most of the major internet gaming news sites, but we still only got like 7000 visits to our website. This was in 2010. But we kept on going. We kept on banging the drum. We kept making announcements. We kept making trips to America to talk to journalists in person. We kept grinding up the popularity and by the time we were ready to go in to open beta in January this year, we were a notable enough thing that on that day we got a million visits. It wasn't an instant success. We didn't spend money beyond travel expenses. We didn't have prior connections. It was just a cold, hard slog from nothing to something.
robmcm 13y ago
The thing to remember is that everyone has these advantages, so really they aren't advantages. All they have done is raise the standards, you can't just knock out something of the W3D standard and make millions, these days people expect quality that cost upwards of 100M to make a top hit.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  All they have done is raise the standards Disagree. What they have done is reduced the amount of effort that needs to be invested in the technical aspect, thus increasing the amount of time that can be invested in the creative aspect. In other words, they have changed the field on which contenders compete.
  - robmcm 13y ago
    Yes that was my point, I was refering to mainly creative aspect.
mseebach 13y ago
What has changed isn't the opportunities of good programmer - they can still have very solid careers. I am not convinced that a developer could successfully build a game as good as Quake just on the strength of being a good programmer. He would also need to be a good game designer. What has changed is the opportunities of good game designers, and tons of other fields that can much easier leverage the awesome power of computing to achieve success. EDIT: > As I remember Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky took venture capital to take off stack overflow. (And also they had a huge following even before starting that venture.) I don't think his point was that StackOverflow was an example of something that was easy to build, I think he meant is as a example of a resource that didn't exist when Carmack wrote DOOM.
avenger123 13y ago
I would not say that games become a commodity because anyone can make them now. You still need to make a game that is playable, has replay value, engages the person and is fun to play. That is no easy task at all. Some have the gift for it and for those this is an incredible opportunity. I look at Temple Run and Ting Wings on iOS. Two games that stand out for their uniqueness and that were developed by 1 or 2 people. No one is getting anywhere making another Tetris clone or a match 3 game unless there is really unique twist to the game. At the end of the day, the tools are much much better but you still need that gift to know what will click with people.
- _random_ 13y ago
  This. There is only one Limbo, Gish, Fez, Galcon, Voxatron etc.
  - pseut 13y ago
    Ending a list of one-of-a-kind things with 'etc.' somewhat undermines your point.
    - delian66 13y ago
      Perhaps, that was his point ?
    - _random_ 13y ago
      Each is special in their own sub-(sub-)genre niche. You can't expect making a quality Angry Birds clone and be hugely successful. Now cross it with some other game and you might be on to something.
toadi 13y ago
I think for games the challenge is not in the technology anymore. But in the gameplay and making a game that's compelling. I used to play games on a commodore which only showed pixels. I remember playing pirates and feeling like a real pirate. At least people who can make compelling games and stories are not hindered any more if they're not a genius programmer.
- hi-there 13y ago
  IMHO there's another factor at play. Back in the Commodore days very low percentage of population had computers, and the average computer user IQ was very high. So back then games were targeting a smarter user, hence a better gameplay.
cerebrum 13y ago
I like the way someone put it: "Is it easy to achieve success with an app(website, game, whatever)? Yes! Is it probable? No!"

by nadam 13y ago

gizmo 13y ago

Every generation faces different challenges, but the value of the internet cannot be understated. It's a resource that answers any question you may have about programming, about PC internals, or about the business and marketing parts you have to get right. You can easily reach out to hundreds or thousands of people who have already accomplished what you're trying to do and who blog earnestly about their experiences. You can test whether a game or app has merit with a fraction of the effort required in the 90s. And now you have millions of hours worth of open source code to build on top on. "If you build it they will come" doesn't quite work on the internet. Except maybe if your product is extraordinary. But before the internet, when it's just you in your parents' basement? Then you need a real marketing channel otherwise you stand no chance. Even the Id guys had to write shareware games for an established distributor before they figured out how to do the shareware thing. Today you can bootstrap a business worth millions based on a $8 a month VPS. As far as I can tell this hasn't been true in any other part of history or in any other field. There is still so much low-hanging fruit in software - it's crazy.

sanderjd 13y ago
Everything you say is absolutely right, but your parent's point still stands: everybody has all those same advantages, which means that the bar for both ordinary and extraordinary is much higher. DOOM would be ordinary (even sub-ordinary) if it were released now, precisely because you no longer need to be as brilliant as John Carmack to make it.
- gizmo 13y ago
  The bar should be much higher, but it isn't. You'd expect there to be thousands of startups in every space imaginable, because writing software has never been easier and there are more software programmers today than at any point in history. You'd expect the competition to be fierce, but it isn't. This is why mediocre products with mediocre marketing make bank. The games industry is very competitive, and so is the iOS app market. But that's only a tiny percentage of the software market (measured in dollars). Where are the thousands of Gmail competitors? Word processing and spreadsheet competitors? Where is a better DabbleDB? Nothing has changed in the past 5 years, and in any of these markets you can simply win with a better product and half-decent marketing. And if you make a product for a specific vertical it's even easier. It's not like Patio11 is the first guy to ever make Appointment Reminder software. Or the 20th. But with half-decent execution and half-decent marketing he's still making a ton of money. And is he afraid that by posting on HN people here are going to start competing AR software? Of course not. Because there are so many better opportunities out there that there is no need to fight for the same customers. How many startups do we see coming from Spain, or India, or Brazil? Very few. How many from Milwaukee? I don't know of any. But the software engineers exist. The opportunities are right here for the taking. But people just don't take them.
  - wslh 13y ago
    I agree in that there is an opportunity window until the market is semi-arbitrage-free. People around virtual communities like HN are in an advantage now. But you are underestimating by a lot the costs and risks of software development, for example, a spreadsheet competitor. Not only from the software development side but also from the marketing/sales perspective. If you analyze an established software company the work force in software development and marketing/sales are evenly distributed and this is not because companies love to make advertisements, events, etc but because is how (currently) the business world works: you compete in an attention economy and this costs millions. Another thing that you are underestimating is that Internet makes much easier things that were impossible or time consuming just a decade ago but "everyone" is competing in a new league and that advantage will be capitalized by "everyone".

petercooper 13y ago

I came here to say almost exactly the same thing, that is, doing impressive looking things nowadays is so relatively easy that doing something that genuinely stands out is as hard as ever. Back in the day, it was more a problem of resources than ability or ideas, because hardware was expensive, open source was less prevalent, etc, but now almost everyone has the resources so now you need to be creatively and mentally on top of your game to compete instead. Being persuasive and able to get your work seen is also more important than ever. Lots of great work gets produced that never breaks out. All that said, when things become more about talent than resources, it reduces the privilege needed to make an impact, so it certainly has its plus points.

speeder 13y ago
More or less... Unless you make some sort of lucky viral, now what you need is massive resources for marketing... as I continue with my startup this become more and more obvious, there is no decent success in the game industry without massive marketing, from AAA (Activision expends on its main games around 250 million in marketing budget only), to Indie (many small successful indie games had big marketing budgets, or had others with those budgets doing the marketing for them, successful indies either are close friends of other successful ones or are rich or are close to the media industry, for example was journalist or worked for CMP Media)
- Negitivefrags 13y ago
  It doesn't have to be that way. We started Path of Exile with a low budget, no following, no connections. When we wanted to announce we phoned up journalists, made appointments. We flew to the US, we went to PAX (with no booth) and tried to approach journalists cold to give a demo on a laptop in the corner. We got a bunch of small articles, and bugger all web traffic. I think on announcement day we got articles on most of the major internet gaming news sites, but we still only got like 7000 visits to our website. This was in 2010. But we kept on going. We kept on banging the drum. We kept making announcements. We kept making trips to America to talk to journalists in person. We kept grinding up the popularity and by the time we were ready to go in to open beta in January this year, we were a notable enough thing that on that day we got a million visits. It wasn't an instant success. We didn't spend money beyond travel expenses. We didn't have prior connections. It was just a cold, hard slog from nothing to something.

robmcm 13y ago

The thing to remember is that everyone has these advantages, so really they aren't advantages. All they have done is raise the standards, you can't just knock out something of the W3D standard and make millions, these days people expect quality that cost upwards of 100M to make a top hit.

sliverstorm 13y ago
All they have done is raise the standards Disagree. What they have done is reduced the amount of effort that needs to be invested in the technical aspect, thus increasing the amount of time that can be invested in the creative aspect. In other words, they have changed the field on which contenders compete.
- robmcm 13y ago
  Yes that was my point, I was refering to mainly creative aspect.

mseebach 13y ago

What has changed isn't the opportunities of good programmer - they can still have very solid careers. I am not convinced that a developer could successfully build a game as good as Quake just on the strength of being a good programmer. He would also need to be a good game designer. What has changed is the opportunities of good game designers, and tons of other fields that can much easier leverage the awesome power of computing to achieve success. EDIT: > As I remember Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky took venture capital to take off stack overflow. (And also they had a huge following even before starting that venture.) I don't think his point was that StackOverflow was an example of something that was easy to build, I think he meant is as a example of a resource that didn't exist when Carmack wrote DOOM.

avenger123 13y ago

I would not say that games become a commodity because anyone can make them now. You still need to make a game that is playable, has replay value, engages the person and is fun to play. That is no easy task at all. Some have the gift for it and for those this is an incredible opportunity. I look at Temple Run and Ting Wings on iOS. Two games that stand out for their uniqueness and that were developed by 1 or 2 people. No one is getting anywhere making another Tetris clone or a match 3 game unless there is really unique twist to the game. At the end of the day, the tools are much much better but you still need that gift to know what will click with people.

_random_ 13y ago
This. There is only one Limbo, Gish, Fez, Galcon, Voxatron etc.
- pseut 13y ago
  Ending a list of one-of-a-kind things with 'etc.' somewhat undermines your point.
  - delian66 13y ago
    Perhaps, that was his point ?
  - _random_ 13y ago
    Each is special in their own sub-(sub-)genre niche. You can't expect making a quality Angry Birds clone and be hugely successful. Now cross it with some other game and you might be on to something.

toadi 13y ago

I think for games the challenge is not in the technology anymore. But in the gameplay and making a game that's compelling. I used to play games on a commodore which only showed pixels. I remember playing pirates and feeling like a real pirate. At least people who can make compelling games and stories are not hindered any more if they're not a genius programmer.

hi-there 13y ago
IMHO there's another factor at play. Back in the Commodore days very low percentage of population had computers, and the average computer user IQ was very high. So back then games were targeting a smarter user, hence a better gameplay.

cerebrum 13y ago

I like the way someone put it: "Is it easy to achieve success with an app(website, game, whatever)? Yes! Is it probable? No!"