266: Making Fun Ain't Always Fun
- Thread starter Wendy Despain
- Start date
Err...
Wasn't this kinda obvious?
Just because you are making things that are fun, it doesn't mean making them is fun.
It's just like any other job.
Sometimes it fun and rewarding and you feel you've accomplished something significant.
Other times, reality smacks you in the face and takes a dump on your chest.
Wasn't this kinda obvious?
Just because you are making things that are fun, it doesn't mean making them is fun.
It's just like any other job.
Sometimes it fun and rewarding and you feel you've accomplished something significant.
Other times, reality smacks you in the face and takes a dump on your chest.
There's an old, albeit, obscure adage in movies and television that the more fun you're having on set, the more likely it is that you're not working on a very good project - as a testament to how hard it is to create visual art, the inverse of that statement is never necessarily true (having a horrible time on set doesn't mean you're making a good movie) either. The truth is that i don't think anyone works in these industries because it's fun - we're hard working people who want to be a part of the glory that comes with making successful projects, for love and frankly, because no normal job would ever hire us and we literally have no idea how to do anything else.
Blizzard. I don't agree with this article. I think that all jobs can be this tedious and game design is far more rewarding and fun than say washing cars for example. There is nothing worse than standing there and washing a Ferrari knowing that you will never get to ever drive one in your current job and the guy is going to jump in his car and simply not give a shit that you have been toiling away to clean it. When you make a game, you leave a legacy. Enough said.Dr_Steve_Brule said:
I must say I disagree in a whole lot of the points you are making in your article.
Beginning to read this, I was wondering if your intention was to stop people from becoming game developers (may it be to warn them or because you want to still have a safe job in 20 years), then, after two pages, I thought I'd slowly understand what you were going for until you suddenly broke apart in self-pity. First things first.
This overly long talk about how horrible it is to make games really struck to me. I'm no game designer, but as a filmmaker I can tell you that if it is really this terrible for you to make games most of the time, you've picked the wrong job. Maybe you yourself are or were one of those gamers you are trying to warn here - just because you like to play games you'd also like to make them and held on to this idea until it was too late to start something else. Maybe I am completely wrong on this, I don't know your past, but I do know exactly that this part of your article went on for far too long and the comparison between the advertising business and the - let's call it art-business, as it's not restricted to games - is ludicrous. Anybody with the slightest insight in the topic should know that.
Then you started talking about the good sides and it reminds me of what sometimes happens when making films - with the exception of that the rest of it is not as horrible as you describe it (it's more stressful with big budget productions but still nowhere near as "3.5 hrs horrible - 10 mins fun"). This was the part I thought was the best, because it really describes how a person in the entertainment industry is working - stress, stress, stress, but loving that and being euphoric in the end.
Until suddenly you start to getting all dramatic about how thankless the job is. Well, tough luck, this is the entertainment industry, and most you'll ever hear in you career is (harsh, often unfounded) criticizm. If you cannot deal with the fact that it is always the loud assholes you hear and expect a huge load of praise all your career, you're definetly at the wrong place. I understand you're trying to give exactly this across in your comment, but you seriously do not sound like a professional on this one - you sound like you regret your decision and just want recognition like big hollywood stars. It's mostly important you are satisfied with your own work yourself. The things other think should only come second, or, even better, third.
Edit: Many have pointed out now that "It's a job, not a hobby". Well, I can tell you people that making films to me does not feel like work. It's hard. It's exhausting. You need to concentrate to keep the level of professionality you target. But it's not work. I love every second of it.
Edit#2: I don't see why game designers (or any other artist) should feel any different about their expertise.
Beginning to read this, I was wondering if your intention was to stop people from becoming game developers (may it be to warn them or because you want to still have a safe job in 20 years), then, after two pages, I thought I'd slowly understand what you were going for until you suddenly broke apart in self-pity. First things first.
This overly long talk about how horrible it is to make games really struck to me. I'm no game designer, but as a filmmaker I can tell you that if it is really this terrible for you to make games most of the time, you've picked the wrong job. Maybe you yourself are or were one of those gamers you are trying to warn here - just because you like to play games you'd also like to make them and held on to this idea until it was too late to start something else. Maybe I am completely wrong on this, I don't know your past, but I do know exactly that this part of your article went on for far too long and the comparison between the advertising business and the - let's call it art-business, as it's not restricted to games - is ludicrous. Anybody with the slightest insight in the topic should know that.
Then you started talking about the good sides and it reminds me of what sometimes happens when making films - with the exception of that the rest of it is not as horrible as you describe it (it's more stressful with big budget productions but still nowhere near as "3.5 hrs horrible - 10 mins fun"). This was the part I thought was the best, because it really describes how a person in the entertainment industry is working - stress, stress, stress, but loving that and being euphoric in the end.
Until suddenly you start to getting all dramatic about how thankless the job is. Well, tough luck, this is the entertainment industry, and most you'll ever hear in you career is (harsh, often unfounded) criticizm. If you cannot deal with the fact that it is always the loud assholes you hear and expect a huge load of praise all your career, you're definetly at the wrong place. I understand you're trying to give exactly this across in your comment, but you seriously do not sound like a professional on this one - you sound like you regret your decision and just want recognition like big hollywood stars. It's mostly important you are satisfied with your own work yourself. The things other think should only come second, or, even better, third.
Edit: Many have pointed out now that "It's a job, not a hobby". Well, I can tell you people that making films to me does not feel like work. It's hard. It's exhausting. You need to concentrate to keep the level of professionality you target. But it's not work. I love every second of it.
Edit#2: I don't see why game designers (or any other artist) should feel any different about their expertise.
Hmpf. Just because they take all the fucking time they want doesn't mean it's not possible to do your work at least a little bit quicker.Dr_Steve_Brule said:
It's also not like they make the unarguably best games in the world. There are many games out there that are at least on the same level of professionality like theirs.
It's been said before, but I'm repeating it because I agree:
If you can wake up every day and not bemoan that you're going in to work.
If you have co-workers who are entertaining, supportive or at least don't make you want to smash someone's (theirs or yours) head on your desk.
If you have a high enough income to support the lifestyle you want.
If the hours allow you to do at least some of the things you want to do as opposed to those you have to do.
If the job you are working fulfills all four of those criteria, you have a good job. And of course, where you work can change, who you work with can change, and how much you work for can change. You can make broad generalizations about any industry or portion of an industry, but they won't always be true, except for one:
A job is a job is a job, and jobs are hard work.
If you can wake up every day and not bemoan that you're going in to work.
If you have co-workers who are entertaining, supportive or at least don't make you want to smash someone's (theirs or yours) head on your desk.
If you have a high enough income to support the lifestyle you want.
If the hours allow you to do at least some of the things you want to do as opposed to those you have to do.
If the job you are working fulfills all four of those criteria, you have a good job. And of course, where you work can change, who you work with can change, and how much you work for can change. You can make broad generalizations about any industry or portion of an industry, but they won't always be true, except for one:
A job is a job is a job, and jobs are hard work.
Game development isn't just "game development". There are many different positions to fill, such as graphic effects programmer, engine programmer, game logic scripter, tool programmer, etc. I think that the amount of fun you will have depends on your job description fitting your inclinations and on how much freedom you enjoy in realizing your work.
If you enjoy hacking away at low-level code and clever programming, you will likely flourish as a graphic effects programmer, and it will be very rewarding to you to see all that hard work come to life in the game. Or you might prefer working directly inside the game world, by doing some high level scripting, such as quests and plot events. As with any other job, it depends on if you're doing what you really like to do.
Another important factor is how much freedom you have to do things your own way. It's always more fun to realize your own vision of things than to implement stuff that other people have thought up for you.
It's definitively wrong to say that game development is automatically a fun job because you're working with games. I think this may be the grave misunderstanding that alot of people might have. But it's also not right to claim that game development ist mostly just tedious, nerve wrecking hard work. Actually I think that game development isn't that different from any other job. If you're working with something that interests you, you will have fun. Otherwise it might be tedious and just another job.
If you enjoy hacking away at low-level code and clever programming, you will likely flourish as a graphic effects programmer, and it will be very rewarding to you to see all that hard work come to life in the game. Or you might prefer working directly inside the game world, by doing some high level scripting, such as quests and plot events. As with any other job, it depends on if you're doing what you really like to do.
Another important factor is how much freedom you have to do things your own way. It's always more fun to realize your own vision of things than to implement stuff that other people have thought up for you.
It's definitively wrong to say that game development is automatically a fun job because you're working with games. I think this may be the grave misunderstanding that alot of people might have. But it's also not right to claim that game development ist mostly just tedious, nerve wrecking hard work. Actually I think that game development isn't that different from any other job. If you're working with something that interests you, you will have fun. Otherwise it might be tedious and just another job.
Despite what literally EVERYONE has said about game design, I'm still going for it. One of the best schools in the country for game design, a faculty with understanding tech and dabbling in very small amounts of code is all i got, but i can safely say that I'm gonna try the fuck out of it come hell or high water or man eating opossums. If it is as impossible as everyone says, than there has to be something wrong with the world, cause there are more game companies than i can shake a stick at.
I was never under any illusions that making games would be as fun as playing them. It is much the same as my relationship with Pizza. Making Pizza is not as much fun as eating it.
I'm still a student in high school, and i want to become a game designer, and when i read this article, i didn't really feel turned away, going to my school (we do the IB, look it up) you already live simply for the thrill of having an idea that works and that gets done well. Not to mention that fact that i have already considered some of the points here.
I'm not exactly a hardcore gamer, i love playing games, but i don't have the money to buy all the new ones. My most recent purchase was for the playstation 2, so i'm not really in the loop of all the awesome games. I don't even have any other console. But when i am at a friends or playing some of my games, i actually already analyze them. I may not have the inside knowledge of how a game goes together, but i look an the mechanics, graphics and the game as a whole.
The thing is, i think everybody does to some extent. Some people are limited to "it sucks" or "it rules" but they can't explain why, but the majority of people i know do analyze, and i encourage other players to do so as well. it's a good thing, you can see what the game is striving to be and how the games different aspects add up as a whole.
the article really was pointing out that too much of a good thing isn't good, and i think that encouraging the behavior to analyze is important. it means that an improvement in the sequels is noted and appreciated, you see the light side of the game and what it was meant to be and you see the effort and thought put to the way the game plays.
So well done on the article escapist, you've made me want to be a designer more, and you've let me show people that analysis isn't always bad
I'm not exactly a hardcore gamer, i love playing games, but i don't have the money to buy all the new ones. My most recent purchase was for the playstation 2, so i'm not really in the loop of all the awesome games. I don't even have any other console. But when i am at a friends or playing some of my games, i actually already analyze them. I may not have the inside knowledge of how a game goes together, but i look an the mechanics, graphics and the game as a whole.
The thing is, i think everybody does to some extent. Some people are limited to "it sucks" or "it rules" but they can't explain why, but the majority of people i know do analyze, and i encourage other players to do so as well. it's a good thing, you can see what the game is striving to be and how the games different aspects add up as a whole.
the article really was pointing out that too much of a good thing isn't good, and i think that encouraging the behavior to analyze is important. it means that an improvement in the sequels is noted and appreciated, you see the light side of the game and what it was meant to be and you see the effort and thought put to the way the game plays.
So well done on the article escapist, you've made me want to be a designer more, and you've let me show people that analysis isn't always bad
I think the distinction should be made between large team commercial development and developing games in general. Game development is not inherently life destroying, but when large amounts of money are involved, that's when the fun disappears.
I was a web designer a while ago for about 3 years, and so I know what it's like to tinker with the HTML and CSS to try to get the page looking exactly what you want it to look like in all the major browsers. I can only imagine this to be the same, only many orders of magnitude more complex.
I currently do tech support for an ISP, and I am looking for a change. This article has completely put me off getting into Game Develpoment, which was something I was considering. I may have even been good at it as well, but I guess I'll never know since I value my work/life balance.
I currently do tech support for an ISP, and I am looking for a change. This article has completely put me off getting into Game Develpoment, which was something I was considering. I may have even been good at it as well, but I guess I'll never know since I value my work/life balance.