I had no idea. I think even now, it’s still only settling in my brain how much work I’ll have to do in order to create meaningful experiences. Artwork, music, story writing, scripting, engineering, design… I used to wonder why all of the old games weren’t how I imagined they could be. I always said, “If I made this game… I would have blah, blah blah”. Yeah, okay. Sometimes I think if I could have been shown how much hard work it was, I would have devoted myself to a different hobby.
I’m 16 and I don’t really consider game development as a “hobby” anymore. When I first started out I did not realise the fact that the road to developing games is treacherous and we have to tread ever so cautiously. But soon, I embraced the difficulty and went ahead with the learning process. I don’t really know how to describe it but there is a certain joy and … satisfaction that one derives from creating a game all by his own brains. So, in a nutshell, I don’t care about “how much work is involved” or “how difficult it is”. I plan on taking baby steps forward no matter how long it takes.
Is there a mistype in there? I spent my first 10 years in business-app development and the next 11 in game development. I’ve managed dozens of people, across ~40 projects, and written 100k+ lines of code in a bazillion languages. So, I am Completely confident when I say there is NO question that building business apps is child’s play compared to the “Rocket surgery” that is game development.
The complexity, diversity of skill sets, and interdisciplinary nature of game teams increases the difficulty by 10x. For my non-game projects, it’s typically X engineers, with a mix of ‘senior’ and ‘junior’ types, plus a manager. Whereas, even my small game-projects have dealt with audio, story, cut-scenes, splash-screens, physics, and both 2D and 3D assets, nevermind that’s there’s also server-coding, UI-coding, 3D-coding, and of course, the game-logic itself. Though, the simplest argument is that game teams even consider paying $1M for a ‘Game Engine’. Bout says it all.
100% agree with GIGI here, I did coding for telephony platforms / netflow nodes and a whole array of business comms / monitoring suites. If you are doing a game of any substantial merit it utterly dwarfs business apps in terms of complexity.
Do you not think you have to do that for games as well? You can’t have crashes, bad UI’s and you’re aiming for a good consumer spanking if you don’t bother testing it. Plus the million other challanges with rendering / shaders / lighting / phsyics / 3D modelling / particles etc. etc.
Bar ANN, probably good games are one of the most complex things I’ve ever come across.
As for the OP, I fall into the camp of I knew how bad it was but did it anyway :).
I would say out of the couple of games I have made vs the non games I made. I would say games require a lot more complex logic vs the non games. Non games are hard in their own respect, but don’t require a bunch of different scripts with all different kinds of logic with 2D/3D assets and hours trying to optimize. Both require a great deal of knowledge and whatever you do more your going to think is easier than the other.
To answer the question though, I knew how much work was involved but I wouldn’t change what I do because this is one of the few professions that I don’t need to work for a big company in order to be successful and I don’t need to have a big list of top paying clients paying me to make their stuff. I get to make whatever I can think of and put it out to the masses to judge and play.
I’m still amazed how much work it is even for something that I thought would be very small and simple. I keep trying to go for smaller and smaller projects that seem like they would not take long, but it always ends up take 5x longer than I expected, with so many little details and things… It’s all in the translation between brain language and computer language… having to put everything into a form or instruction that the computer can understand and work with. The ideas are so easy to envision but making them happen inside a computer, is just a ton of work.
I agree also creating applications is generally simpler and easier, and can be much less fun. Especially given it’s much easier to know who your audience is and what the app needs to do, based on the needs of the user and real problems that it is solving… instead of trying to entertain subjective people and having no idea who likes what or why.
Video game development in one form or another has been one of my favorite hobbies. And I’ve been working at it for more than a decade. If I had known how much work it entailed at the beginning, I would have been a little more intimidated. But I still would have gone for it. Curiosity is a powerful motivator for me, and there is no end to the learning with game development.
Problem solving is one of my most pronounced talents. I didn’t fully grasp this until after I had started digging into game development. And problem solving seems uniquely suited to this particular discipline.
I may never be a professional developer. But I’m never going to stop making games. Game dev fo’ life!
If I was stuck on a desert island I would want my 3D app, my music production app, Zbrush and Unity with one of the new MacPro cylinders, dual 4K monitors, with some solar panel setup and I would be amused till the day i croaked.
If I could go back in time I still would have pursued a career in the industry, but I would have went through a traditional B.S. in Computer Science instead of a ‘game’ program at a private institution. I could have been far better educated for a significantly lower price tag. More importantly, it would have made it easier to transition out of the gaming industry in the event that I eventually get burnt out. The cost associated with programming in the gaming industry as opposed to most of the alternatives is becoming more and more ‘real’ as I get older and start seriously wanting to settle down and have a kid.
Also, in games, from a programmer POV, if something isn’t quite working out, you can fudge it. You just can’t fudge an app. It has to do a very specific task, or not do it.
But as I said, it’s more relative to what it is. Doing World of Warcraft isn’t necessarily more difficult an engineering task than doing 3DSMax 2015, it’s plugins, import, export, rendering and everything else.
But ultimately, game development is only as difficult as your ambition, skillset and time available.
A tool like 3DSmax isn’t far a field from making a game with tools (Game engine), it follows a similar path in a lot of regards. But I agree, it all depends on the scope and size of the project you wish to undertake… From an RPG standpoint it’s far more difficult, making a space invaders clone wouldn’t take much thought neither would it be that difficult.
For me making games is a hobby. I don’t think that will ever change - particularly not when I hear the horror stories of 200+ hour work weeks. Okay, I exaggerate, but you get the point. I have a life. I love games, but I’m not sure I want to devote every waking moment to making games.
I have a partner who deserves a big slice of my time. I want to play games. I want to have friends and hang out with them.
If I ever got into the business, I would probably go at it alone, and form a team based on human expectations. I’d make it more like a film crew with clear roles than what I read game crews are like.
A lot of Yes. I wasn’t expecting much in the way of response. I’m impressed at the amount of enthusiasm in this thread.
For anybody worried that they don’t have a degree, I can’t imagine how certification would make the work easier. It always falls on your shoulders to learn the material, build the skills and earn the experience points.
I don’t personally see the difference between
games and non-trivial “useful” software. Both must solve a problem. Both utilize the same concepts to deal with data. I don’t see the debate on which is “harder”. Its like comparing being in a indie rock n roll band to playing instrumental music for weddings. To each their own.
Pretty cool, the independent spirit of “I’m going for it, no matter the cost!” Haha.
