Although I spent sometime learning C# and creating prototype games on my own, I discovered that Development (Scripting) is just not my thing. I much prefer to focus on Game Design and putting all the pieces together. So usually most of the Development (Scripting) work I require for my games or projects are outsourced while I focus on the areas I enjoy most.
I often wonder how many people would much prefer to Design Games over doing Development (Scripting) work. When I say Development I’m referring to Scripting everything from the ground up to bring the Game Design to Life.
While Game Design for me includes Writing the Game Design Document, then taking all the Completed Assets (Art, Sound, Scripts) and putting them all together.
If Game Engines Advanced to such a High Level one day where we didn’t have to actually do any Development (Scripting) Work anymore, but rather Simply Drag and Drop things into place… How would you feel about that?
I imagine that it would take many more years before a Game Engine offered something like that where every possible game feature we can think of was decoupled to a point where we can piece them together and simply edit values and put things into place or motion with clicks of a button.
I would personally love that! While maybe many of you who have spent years perfecting your scripting / coding skills may totally be opposed to that idea…
I think eventually over the years, Game Development may head more and more into that direction because if we look at Unity for example, i’m pretty sure Unity alone makes so many things much easier to do in comparison to other Game Engines, and Unity is probably one of the Top Engines today because of it’s ease of use, and easier learning curve.
My thought is… if 1+1+1+1 = 4, while 2+2 = 4, Why would we want to continue adding all the 1’s to get 4 if we can get the same results 50% faster by adding 2+2? (hopefully you understand my analogy)
My only worry is that as games become easier and easier to make, they become less and less valuable. Way more people make games, and so the markets get absolutely flooded. And then no one really succeeds anymore at it except those extremely lucky ones. That’s sounding a lot like how it’s turning out already, but this idea would only continue this issue further.
I would like to have a skill I can succeed with, but if everyone has this skill then it’s a lot harder to succeed with it.
Granted, just being able to program isn’t enough to make a great game. One could argue that even if this drag and drop approach did exist at the level you’re suggesting, you would still need the right way of thinking to make something great with it. It just lowers the barrier considerably.
Is this a selfish view of it? Perhaps, but it’s going to affect every person who wants to make a career out of this.
Still, programmers can’t really become redundant. In the end, they’re going to have to write and maintain those visual scripting systems and drag and drop systems. And they’re going to be the ones to keep advancing these things.
The day I see drag and drop be the most fundamental way of doing things, I’ll drop games design permanently, because there will be no value whatsoever.
Yes I hate programming when something just doesn’t work, but have you ever sat for days trying to figure out why something just isn’t working, then mysteriously you get it, the sense of joy is overwhelming and you feel like you actually accomplished something great.
It’s not selfish Jason, it’s practical to think like we do, we see what the future can hold if things become easier and easier and easier, I mean there is nothing wrong with getting more easier, I mean heck we all wish it could be easier than it already is, but there’s a such thing as being to easy.
If a 6 year old can pick it up and make the next AAA game, it will never be worth making games anymore and I’ll stick to just my music.At least that is something that will always for the span of man be something that you just have to be good at to play.
As i programmer i don’t mind more and more things becoming easier. Because then i can focus on the harder and often funnier stuff.
Also i don’t fear for my future at all. It will be hard to cover everything within an engine. Some stuff are easy to transform into drag and drop features others are not. Even with visual assets like Player-Maker you will constantly run into stuff that you need to add yourself by code because your case is not exactly as the ones available. It will be extremely hard to cover all bases.
Other stuff is just not so easy to generalize. Take AI as an example, its been moving along for the last 20 years but most people still use FSM’s.
Not saying we never get there, i mean people are playing with algorithms that create even the rules of a game, but we are far away in my opinion.
Yep, that’s exactly what I was thinking lol! Currently we have so many Complete Projects in the Asset Store that people buy and re-skin and publish to iOS or Browser, but they have zero ratings, hits, or downloads in comparison to some other Indie Unity Game’s I’ve seen that actually took sometime to think about how to make their game unique. I’m pretty sure with the amount of crap being published daily, the end-user / gamers have already become immune to it, and just know to breeze right past what looks like another re-skinned game off a template.
Regardless how easy Game Development becomes with new game engines, tools, or assets released, we still need to properly Market our Games, and Build a Fan Base around the Game to really see some Success. So yea, I don’t think it will matter too much how easy Game Development becomes…
we’ll just see more crap flooding the App Stores lol… and will need to find more creative ways of standing out, no different than we have to do today, but yea the extra load of crap might make it wee bit harder to get noticed depending on your Marketing Budget and Strategies.
I think Developers have a brand new Market where they can make tons of Money! Create Development Tools, and be apart of that Wave of Making Game Development Easier… as it’s already happening with Unity + Asset Store, so if I was an awesome Developer, that’s exactly what i’d be focusing on… Building Editor Extensions or other Assets.
Easier engines can only make better games, since talented people who want to express themselves can have a platform to do so.
It’s just like how personal camera and youtube have given some a platform that was exclusively reserved with those with money(television).
Of course, you have to make allowances for complete crap. However, in the Nintendo era, there were still crap games made, and they weren’t “indies.”