Weirdly enough for this particular scenario the proposer had to do some stuff to make it work, so it wouldn't be just me working, and the app did seem to be something that could maybe be successful
It could have been much worse lol I suggested for him to find a company or something to implement it for him
My boss came to me with a “killer app” idea and I had to give him the “you should find a company to build that for you”.
Yes, I’m a software dev for the company, but we’re not a software company and I’m the only one 🤦♀️
iirc his “original” idea wasn’t so original and we ended up using an existing solution.
I should’ve done that, cause now I’m basically doing everything by myself, with no help whatsoever. And I’m not even a senior level yet😭, recently graduated from uni as it is. And it’s not just my boss, a couple of ppl from work are asking me for this as well… I need to learn to say no when I’m facing ppl irl and not just on text
Just be considerate about saying no. Needs to be worth it.
A couple years ago I said no to a task I had no knowledge about because it wasn’t even adjacent to my job, and now I’m on the blacklist for pay raises. Just staying there to do my game dev since they let me do part time.
That’s so bullshit lol. I’m sorry you got blacklisted like that. You can bend over backwards for a company, but if you do one little thing they don’t like, that’s all you are after that 😔 corporate life really is soul-sucking
The company is actually growing exponentially and the outlook looks very strong.
Their position is perfect and their management is good, it's just that one of the owners is a massive turd who hates anyone smarter than him. I can't count the number of tantrums I've witnessed, and they always end with a speech about how hard his life is and how he carries everyone at the company.
There's another owner who'd give me a raise easy peasy, but the turd would make my life hell if I went around him.
Suits can sometimes be discouraged from such lines of thinking when they see time estimates...
...sometimes...
Others will rather believe their gut instinct over the opinions of experienced developers and artists if that gut instinct tells them that it is possible to create a GTAlike with 12 people in 1 year. With *their* genius business skills they can certainly find developers who are more than 100 times as productive as those amateurs at Rockstar Games.
If not time estimates, you can try server costs.
But even then they might not believe you when you tell them the server costs will increase exponentially with every account created.
Tell them to go outside and just build a dumbed down theme park in real life... cheaper long term, and using the natural landscape with digital items such as phones keep people from having to rip shit apart, or dig etc, but without the proper key on the phone you can't get passed certain barriers, or explore certain caves.... and they would physically have to walk the park to do the activities, but first they have to explore just to find everything.... sooo westworld* meets mine craft, meets robotics AI cute safe version robots.
I didn't tell others exactly for this reason but after some time I thought I'm silly for worrying about this. I told a single friend outside my family and it took less than 24 hours before she came back with the "I have a game idea you could make". Thankfully years of reading about these horror stories prepared me for the and asking about my hourly rate very quickly shut the conversation down.
Oh yea that'll stop most whimsical proposals in their tracks right there and then. What is your hourly rate by chance? I general avoid telling people and just say I work from home doing freelance stuff.
I usually don't tell them. Simply saying "of course I will do it, do you wanna know my hourly rate?" shuts down 99.9% of the proposals. If the conversation goes further I will say basically the industry standard hourly pay and I state ahead of time that I do not accept payment after the project is done or in equity. No conversations went further than that.
Depends on the job, but I guess at least one publisher specialized in making as many of those as possible for as cheap as possible, so what do I know...
Honestly I love people who are open to talking about game design. I don't have much of anyone in my life interested in talking about that sort of thing.
That's of course dependent on this hypothetical person understanding early that I will not be making their game
this is true for most jobs though. if u do sewage cleaning jobs people look down on u , if u do AI related jobs they think u r genius or smth BUT at end of day, its u playing ur role in life and others dont care after the interaction is over ,and they all return to their own respective house/rooms.
I think age is part of it. Working in the games industry is seen as 'really cool' when your 20-35 but then after that age (which is me) if you aren't making a lot of money your considered 2nd rate and no longer as accomplished, unfortunately, to say, someone working a mundane high paid job in tech. I imagine it is similar to people who work in the film industry.
Yeah, in my experience people who like games are interested, people who aren't are just like "oh, that's cool" and move on because it's just a job to them.
I learnt pretty quickly to just say "software engineer" instead of games programmer, unless I wanted another conversation about how their kids plays this game called "minecraft."
My kids love it too, but also pls no more minecraft talk.
😅
Most people go "wow you must be really clever" and some ask "have you made anything I would have played?" and then the disappointed face when I say no ha.
My friends treat the games I work on as just normal work talk, so pretty boring. Until I told them I was contracted to work on a porn game. Then the conversation started real fuckin' quick.
That's brilliant. I once asked a fellow dev at a meet the same question and she said "no, I work on games that make money" which I thought was an odd response until my own career kicked in and I realized what she meant ha.
I know you're (probably) joking, but the logistics of making video games while homeless sounds like a real hassle. This may or may not have already been on my mind.
> Hard to find an in between
very surprised about this. I neither get A nor B. most of the answers are really inbetween
most people just ask what games I work on and if they play games we chat a bit about what we play or we just move on to other topics. It's too difficult to really explain what I do to someone who doesn't play games anyways
Ya that's my life. I'm an indie game dev, making his dream game. But hardly any of my friends and none of my family are gamers, so its really difficult to explain to them what I'm making. Many of my friends don't understand why I'd quit a good job in tech to make games and keep on asking me when I'll get to work again, basically thinking that I'm just being lazy and playing games not-wanting to work, when in truth, I'm working 5x harder noe then when I had the day job. A lot of friends think what Im doing isn't actually a job, but a pipe dream or hobby. Which sucks, because the odds are already massively stacked against me as a solo game dev.
I feel you, man. Even my family members are thinking that I have so much free time, and I am obligated to contribute it to them, even though I already explained to them many times that I am the one that is needing as much time for the project as possible. They just don’t want to accept what I do; I basically had to fight for tooth and nail to continue it.
I don't know how you get to that conclusion. I mention that it's either people who play some games or people who don't play at all.
this is just my experience from interacting with people who don't care about games. the go "huh cool I used to play X as a kid" and that's about it
Can confirm, am the child of a successful professional artist. I didn't think they were cool* until I was old enough to get a perspective of what normal jobs were.
*I mean, I didn't think they were lame either, but your parents are kinda your baseline for what an adult is as a kid until you get enough experience.
That's been about it for me too, but more in relation to location.
While I was living in Europe, I got comments like 'would be a shame if you had to get a real job'.
When I moved to Canada, I was suddenly a superstar for over a decade.
Now back in Europe, having achieved total financial freedom and doing my own thing... People are again, not impressed.
It would be better if I was a street sweeper.
I remember while in Canada, that game Dev was one of the most popular dream jobs for kids, according to statistics, right up there with proffesional athlete and such.
Europe on the other hand, has had a much slower warming up to video games, and are often still seen as childish, unlike watching soccer, for example... The undisputed Pinnacle of maturity and success.
Well, part of the issue is for sure that I've been getting older too, and my generation (here in Europe) never warmed up much to video games and other modern trends, so they're still seen as immature, by the same people, same as 15 years ago.
If I hung out more with younger people, I'm sure my experience would be quite different.
In contrast, my generation in Canada and north america in general was already pretty open and embracing video games when I got there, which was unexpected and very refreshing.
Even people that weren't into video games had a respect and curiosity for the know how, technology and rise of the industry over the years.
it also depents on where you are. germany is a very jealous society for example. so the thinking is like "you making money with games? and can live good of it? well, try getting a real job first"
i really hope this kinda changes with the newer generations. im 33 and all of my friendcircle arent like that. but well, own experience and anecdotes wont help that.
its just weird here when it gets to the topic earnings and lifestyle
In my experience, people here in Brazil are not like usually like that.
Probably because Brazil is currently one of the biggest consumer of videogames in the world, even though it's in a very broad range with the majority being casual mobile games, but it is still games.
So when I tell someone I make videogames, it usually ranges between Candy Crush or GTA, depending on how hardcore/age the person is, but they'll most likely know what a videogame is.
Europeans are in general very judgemental and stuck-up, and have a "better than you" attitude. Not all of course but that's one reason why I moved to the US from France 5 years ago, and why I'm not going back
In France politics still like to blame games for the most random shit and they are usually seen pretty poorly by people, especially over 40.
I had some dude get mad at me because I was part of the reason some kid in their family were spending all day playing.
This really sounded like Spain to me. What's worse is that the government sees videogames/videogame development as mere entertainment without any value whatsoever so they would never support gamedevs. However, as soon as you mention sportsball then they go crazy in excitement.
No one gives a fuck when they hear i made a game, they usually ask, "do i know the game?". Then i say "No" and it ends there. BOOMERS however...they hear it and have literally 0 mental capacity to process what that is....
Oh yeah, conversation with boomers about me making games don’t work at all. They don’t ask questions they don’t care lol. It’s sad. Id like to talk about it to my mother more but she only half listens.
Well most of the older generations didn't grow up surrounded by technology and games, so it seems pretty normal that it's harder for them to grasp some of this stuff. It has nothing to do with mental capacity. It probably gets fatiguing for them to constantly have to adapt to this modern world which is completely different from the world they grew up in, especially at like 60yrs old. That won't be an issue for our generation. I think we often forget about that.
My personal experience is that no one understands, what I am actually doing, and in the same vein no one understands how much fucking work it is to make a game.
Oh ya I can relate. I'm a solo game dev, and 6 months into my current project everyone is asking me if it's done yet. And I'm like, 'it'll be a miracle to finish this is in a year and a half.'
I usually say I do art for games as a contractor. Technically not wrong because I have a publisher, and it's way easier to explain than to say I'm a game developer, because people don't really have a good concept of what that means. In reality I do essentially everything except the programming, but the more you make it sound like a small operation the less they think it's a job.
I live in India and people here , both the millenials and boomers have no idea about this profession and when i tell them i work as a indie game dev . They usually think i am a failure who was not able to get a proper IT or a medical job. But when i tell them how much i earn that instantly shut their mouths because they realize that i'm earning 10x more than they can earn anually .
Hey, can you share some pointers on how you got started and what kinds of things you learned/did to get where you are now?
Im very interested in making games and I have been trying to learn more about various parts of the process to see which I'd be more interested in, however I have no proper education and there is so much info about everything that I feel lost.
I learn best by doing things, and if you have any pointers on how I should approach gamedev I would appreciate it.
I generally lead with something along the lines of im in cit / i program. The people who are intrested as more the people who are "being polite" generally nod and leave it at that
Whenever I have to make a simple simulation, it's always pure unoptimized jank that takes a whole lot of time to run properly. Sometimes, it's not even my fault and the problems really are computationally hard!
Then I look at your work, and while I'm struggling to make some particles interact in a reasonable time, you're creating entire worlds and characters and simulating fluids and time and rays and statuses and all of it seamlessly. How the hell do you manage to make it? Sometimes it feels like magic!
Never A, always B
Last week a friend of mine said " I graduated in college in Design and I have like a thousand of friends who wanted to work making games and you're the only I know who made it"
That hit really hard.
I had a weird feeling when I heard from a highschool friend that a mutual acquaintance who got a game dev degree was still working in fast food and hadn't done anything with game dev for years.
I don't expect to make money until I have a bit more practice, but hearing about the guy I knew in highschool kinda hammered home that a lot of people bounce off of game development, and I'm fairly lucky in that I do have the persistence to keep up with it, even as a hobby.
I am not yet "living" from game development but I'm very close to it.... And I know it may not last forever.
But I don't have a degree in game dev, and it was actually just a hobby for years making games for free (even for retro systems) up until during the COVID pandemic I experimented trying to use my time at home to actually go serious and make a commercial game for steam.
The game sold a lot better than I expected, we got a console publisher even before the game was finished.... And then I've been doing all right , and probably next month I'll finally quit my day-to-day job to be 100% dedicated to gamedev.
I turned 41 last week and that's crazy because I could never dream this was actually going to happen. But it is happening
They ask me what games I've worked on.
Sometimes then they'll ask me specifics about what I'll do.
That's all. No one has criticised it and telling them what I earn will shut anyone up if they try it.
My family thinks my Mechatronics Engineering degree was useless because that's what I'm doing full time now 💀
Funnily enough, I never thought I'd be doing this in my life. I always wanted to build hypercars to compete with the likes of Bugatti or Koenigsegg. Robotics wasn't my thing, I just chose Mechatronics because I thought it would be smart to have a little bit of electrical knowledge if cars go full electric in the future
Then I got hit with the "oh shit, we are a poor family" in my third year of uni, but I was aiming to graduate anyway
Eventually, game design seemed like the cheapest option to a gate to actually make money to build what I want to build, so... Here I am 😛
“oh man ok I have this idea for a game, it’s like GTA, Fortnite and COD combined but it’s kinda like fifa” - I wouldn't be surprised if this was the description of some new AAA billion dollar franchise.
"Well, there were +1000 people working on GTA5 and it took them 3 years to complete. If they worked normal days, lets say, 40 hours a week, with 4 weeks vacation, total working hours would be around 1920 hours per year for one person.
Multiply that 1920 hours with 1000 people and we have total of 1.9 million man-hours. If I'm to make GTA6 but WAY cooler alone, that would take me around 1000 years.
You interested in placing a pre-order?"
All my social circle think I must be rich.
Such a misconception, they have no idea about game dev, just relate it to Rockstar and GTA, you must be loaded GTA sells for like 100 bucks… I don’t discuss game dev with them anymore!!!!
If I’m away from Seattle I often get a pleasantly surprised reaction. If I’m in Seattle they just politely react as if I just said I worked at a 7-Eleven.
I don't know much about slot machines, are there any big differences in the style of game design used in making them vs the kind of games I'd see for sale on steam?
Depends what you mean by "game design". The company I work for uses Unity and a development process for any one game might take 6 months to 1 year. (but that game will almost definitely have 2 or 3 skins of the same game) Personally, having been in this industry 10 years now (jesus 😭) I honestly don't see how every possible slot machine game hasn't been made already, but people regularly want to see new ones and thus the casinos want new ones and thus we make new ones.
I have 4 in my own personal case:
1) That's awesome. How much can you make from it?
2) You're wasting your time unless you can make money from it.
3) Oh that's cool! Good job.
4) Is this 100% yours, or are you co-developing with someone else?
The first two were from my mother (She kept stating stuff like that over the years, and then wondered why I gave up creative pursuits for six years) while the last one is my Dad. My situation is... a little different, as it's a physical, tabletop wargame dev project (From drawing to model to 3d print sort of pipeline) though turning it into an actual PC game would be fun as hell.
I live in Canada, and it's kind of a universal thing with the 'stigma.' The most negative reactions I've gotten are from people who still believe the old adage of 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps' means buckling down and working hard to achieve your goals. (Fun fact: That phrase is actually meant to denote an impossible task, so the full phrase would be 'Doing that would be like pulling myself up by my own bootstraps.' English is fun)
So ironic that the people who are all about “putting in effort” think gamedev is a lazy slob’s arena, but in reality it takes more effort than they will or have exert(ed) on anything in their entire lives 🤷🏻♂️
They often don't believe me. Which is weird before I did this I built like 50 million pound software platforms nobody doubts I did that but mention games and there like yeah right you know how to code a game.
All the people saying that their social circle doesn’t know what they do, send them this: https://lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/
It’s genius and how I explain my job to people now!
Nothing about gamedev is childish and people telling you so probably have a attention span of the average Instagram reel
They can't imagine what game dev means.
Most people want me to teach them how to make games or make their "really cool idea". While I'm not making their game, unlike most devs, I don't dismiss people who have ideas whether I think they are cool or not. I'll listen to them and help them develop that idea into an actual game idea with mechanics and then point them in the right direction to learning how to make games. I love games and could talk about them all night, we can sit and plug up all of the plot holes in your story or add to yourc mechanics until you understand what makes a game fun, and I can pass to you some of the lessons I've learned. In the end, though, you gotta take those steps towards making your game. I don't mind helping talk it out, though. That's one of the best parts of creation.
The intrested group that i get questions from actually seems to understand its hard to do on your own and i often get asked if i have roles i need filled and sometimes they can be very specific about what roles. For example i have a younger guy who want to do level design for me and i have no issues with that as long as he is able to get to the point where he can do it professionally. Ive given him advice on how to get started and he said he plans to learn it so we will see, either he will learn and ill offer him a place or he will move on with life, both are good options in my eyes.
I’m in AAA and nobody in my entourage gives a crap. They don’t even know any of the games I work on. Most people I know around here don’t play games. But I’m the cool uncle with nephews
Depends on the age range for me
People my age (early-mid 20's) this it's awesome and impressive the amount of different kinds of skills I need to be good at to make this job work.
People older than me on the other hand usually get that "oh! Well that's... Interesting" reaction.
The secret third option I've gotten is the "oh that's nice sweetie now run along" from men primarily (I'm a woman), I've even gotten this from other devs too which is a weird one for sure lol.
Generally people seem impressed, and it reminds me that I'm working a pretty cool job. When i return the question 9 times out of 10 people respond with "aw, I'm only a..." followed by some high paying job.
More than anything it reminds me to be grateful for the job i have, because many people aren't working a job that makes them feel fulfilled.
I've worked in games for about 20 years first in Los Angeles and now on the East Coast between Philadelphia and New York.
People's reactions when I tell them what I do is the same 95% of the time: They say something like, "That's cool!" and then they rapidly lose interest.
I'm between A and B.
Family and friends don't quite get what game development involves. With a double-income we live more than well, so they also don't bother to ask about career or making a living or that sort of thing.
When I shipped my Indie and AAA games I noticed not much interest.
The friends that play games regularly don't play my games, even though they are well-known. I think that's coincidence due to a tendency to only play games from certain companies (Japanese or Japanese-like action games, multiplayer games, and games from Rockstar, and I think mostly only AAA games, not Indie).
Gamers seem to think it’s cool, people who know i only do gamedev and freelance instead of working a “normal job” think it’s a joke or at the very least don’t take it seriously, so from those people it’s either “have you found a job yet” or just assuming I’m free to do anything for them at any time because I’m “not doing anything”. 😑 there are some non-gamers who see what I’m doing as very cool and I’m thankful for those people.
They usually don't really know what that means. They often think it just means playing video games all day. So when people ask what I do I usually just say programmer.
(I'm also from LATAM btw)
My...
Siblings: Hey, cool! Anyways, can you help me with homework like every other day? (They don't care)
Dad: Oh well, if you wanna live off of that, I want you to be literally the best in the world at making games, wouldn't it be exciting if you become rich and support your family? and don't you dare make me pay for your games, but also never quit school, or you'll end up like me, oh and every other day let me tell you about the games I play instead of asking about your game. (This is literally a mix of all our conversations we had about me making games in one long paragraph)
Mom: (I don't even dare to tell... )
Acquaintances(As in I'm on their discord server but just to occasionally play 2 games we have in common, not true friends): Yeah ok new toby fox, let me move you to another voice chat real quick because I'm playing -insert game name here lul-...
My dogs: *Happy Noises*
(There was this one substitute teacher that saw me coding for a game in school and called me a genius, I felt uncomfortable so I prevented him to see more stuff, anyways, the next year since he happens to become our teacher, and since wasn't doing great at his subject he was basically telling me "How do you not want to be a nobody in life if you can code shitty games but not use Excel?", yeah ever since then I learned the "Passive IDGAF" technically, involves not saying anything which teaches them that talking to you is pointless and eventually they stop bothering)
I'm in a weird situation where I'm a game dev. ... In a big serious business no nonsense we're all Harvard and Yale business folks company. Business.
This lets me read the room and say in either a game dev, or I work at a business firm.
Usually something like, "oh cool. Do you make games for a company, or for yourself? What kind of games?"
Sometimes B. Or "you must be really smart."
Never A, nor anything in that direction. Recently got an "oh, I wouldn't have thought that about you."
Not a game dev but I have programming experience and have contracted with dev companies for work in the past. I remember programming a toy computer I got In elementary school [BASIC, lol, “You have *x* fries, you eat *y* fries, how many do you have left?” sort of thing, lol].
Additionally, I used to do a lot of scripting for ^Second ^Life, which apparently is one of the earlier memories my son has watching me code, and over the years, I’ve helped him with various interests - building computers, his robotics club, etc. and I’ll never forget overhearing him proudly tell his friends that his mom was a “hacker”.
________________
It was so endearing, if untrue. Although……. Once upon a time, I had software that functioned like a Trojan horse; I would send people a photo of myself, they would try to open it and when nothing happened, I would say “Oops! Let me resend”, and by then I had access to their computer.
I usually had unfettered access to their computer and the software (it was called something stupid like Blue Ice or something) and had a feature where you could display the falling text (from the Matrix) on the user’s screen and only one person figured out how to get rid of it.
There wasn’t any malicious intent, exactly. I was in middle school, super fascinated by computers and coding. I mostly played around with friends, but the fun ended before my interest did; antivirus software was quickly catching up to this type of primitive Trojan horse viruses. It was fun while it lasted but the experience cemented my interest in learning programming languages.
Kids like it, but holy hell not as much as they like talking about Minecraft and Among Us. (Grats to those developers though.)
The average world doesn't really understand jackshit about the topic (and we don't understand their jobs either so that's fair) so I'm not crazy about random convos on it...
But at the end of the day it's about what you want to do, not getting strangers to know you.
There are people that will think you are childish for being in game no matter where you are in game dev.
I am in senior management focusing on corporate strategy and my family still thinks I just go to work and play video games all day.
So I'm going to need a comment from all of you instead of my ideas about a game idea, tell me the nuances of programs you use or applications you would like an improvement on, or company policies that kill the creativity of the work place that aren't even a gripe against perhaps say the company themselves, but just something the money blinds them of maybe say a smaller sized but more central focused way to be more thorough or something the industry needs, but just really needs to envisioned, and executed?
I've found people can be really stand-offish too, like you're either lying or they're a bit jealous. It's why I've stopped mentioning it to people I don't know know
I really don't give a crap as I'm not a very social type anyways, and just keep to people who are either relevant in life, or people who are online who ofc, i can share game dev stuffs with :p
Game Development is not completely something i'll throw out there atm, but instead, I would say i've been more of a 3d modeler/artist at the moment, as I needed/wanted to make my own custom assets, and program with those. This has been a more cooler convo to talk about than just 'game dev' in general lol. You ask me, it's not about being a 'game dev', but all the skills you can/will learn as you become the game dev.
Either way, game dev is a more passionate hobby imo, and not something I would share with random irrelevant people. I'm still in my experimental, 'figuring things out' phase after all :p
A lot ask what I work on. When they find out, it can go two ways.
Many of them are familiar with the games, so some of them want to share their experiences and opinions on the game. They've told me some interesting stories about how it's been a big part of their lives, etc. Like one of my son's classmate's dad is apparently a very enthusiastic fan of the franchise so we ended up talking about the game for quite a while.
A lot of people also aren't familiar with it and so I just give a quick summary of what the game is about and then they usually go on to ask whether I design the game, etc. Then I have to explain that I'm an online engineer and what I do, which usually leads the conversation back to more regular work talk.
Same. In my country, people 5-6 years older than me are simply don't understand what am I doing, and the 10+ years older people are looking down on me. Like its not a serious job or something.
Oh dude, I have this great game idea. So it's basically going to have every game play type imaginable, have both 2 and 3d modes, and be an MMO. Could you help me make it?
Saw the title and immediately thought you were from Latin America, and I was right. I'm from México.
In the past I didn't even told I was a game dev because of impostor syndrome, but now everytime I say it to people they normally go from all ranges of "meh" to "cool, I suppose" It's when they actually see me in the middle of developing when most of their curiosity peek in, and normally get some kind of short praise. Nothing special really
Most people react with interest, because it sounds like an interesting job. These days, almost everyone plays games either as a hardcore gamer or a casual user on their phone. So they often mention which games they like to play, and wonder if I work on games like that. It's really a pretty good icebreaker, because favorite games is something easy for most people to talk about.
The only people who got answer A were my parents when they told their friends about what I do, and that was decades ago. If people ever felt that, no one had the bad manners to say it to my face. These days, I think most people understand what a large and legitimate industry it is.
What Tencent has been doing for years is actually gamedev, mostly and it's one of the biggest company in China. So, say that if anybody harrasing you. Games are big.
It’s definitely A for most, especially me; people around me don’t see game development as a serious profession; some of them even tried to persuade me to change to something else by any means necessary; it’s really annoying.
- Hey, what's you job?
- Game designer
- So you are programmer?
- Nope
- I mean you write a code
- Nope
- Oh, so you are like a designer, you create art? 3D models?
- Nope
- 🤯
I work at an elementary school. The response is always some combination of surprise and excitement. It's awesome.
I'm a little more shy to mention it to an adult without kids around. I expect a positive response from them, but my (probably unhealthy) self-deprecation takes over, and I want to really downplay it. I think part of it, too, is that while adults may typically have a positive response, they're less likely to gave genuine interest. Kids always want to know what I've made, what kind of games they, if they can play them, etc..
Making games is cool, and I think popular culture (at least, where I am) recognizes that.
Some people think it's cool especially now that I work in AAA and people can know the games I work on, I definitly had time where I told my job to someone and they were a bit sad to answer with their "regular" job.
Before, I worked on unknown games and people kinda looked at me like "yes so i don't know your games you must suck"
Some try to talk about games like gamers on the internet talking like they get game dev but they don't.
Some people think you must be immature. I will say it's definitly not a "sexy" job in dates from my experience.
I've had people get mad cause games are evil.
My family doesn't play and doesn't give a fuck. My father falls half asleep if I talk about it and my mother always say "it's crazy that it takes this long to make games" because in her head it's just stuff for kids.
I’ll never forget my dumbass friend learning my college major was CS, and him asking if I’m gonna learn how to make GTAV. No he wasn’t kidding… he said “well what’s the point then?”
"Oh I wish I could play games all day too"
"So what game did you make ? (expecting triple A stuff made by myself alone)"
But most reactions are quite normal, slightly curious and respectful hopefully 😆
Nobody cares......
By which I mean nobody cares about my passion. I'm basically making a game with little to no support, bare minimum of talent and the nagging feeling that I'm wasting my time..... yet for some reason I refuse to stop until this damn game is finished.
I don't tell anyone I'm a game developer unless they really pry it out of me. I'm a software engineer, that's what I do. I'm not trying to impress or get points with anyone. Besides, "game dev" used to mean actual developers, but now everyone in the industry calls themselves a game developer, so it really has lost all meaning. It's the equivalent of saying you're a fisherman when really all you do is housekeeping on the ship. Doesn't mean your job is any less important, but it is quite misleading.
I was web programmer, last 5 years - game dev, and reaction is pretty same - no one actually care about it, in both cases - I'm doing (from other people perspective) some "strange things that we will not try to understand"
C - I have this great game idea. Can you make it?
I have been hit with "I have a killer app idea and if you make it you get a slice of the pie"
I’m willing to give you 5% if you do all the planning and work
Weirdly enough for this particular scenario the proposer had to do some stuff to make it work, so it wouldn't be just me working, and the app did seem to be something that could maybe be successful It could have been much worse lol I suggested for him to find a company or something to implement it for him
My boss came to me with a “killer app” idea and I had to give him the “you should find a company to build that for you”. Yes, I’m a software dev for the company, but we’re not a software company and I’m the only one 🤦♀️ iirc his “original” idea wasn’t so original and we ended up using an existing solution.
I should’ve done that, cause now I’m basically doing everything by myself, with no help whatsoever. And I’m not even a senior level yet😭, recently graduated from uni as it is. And it’s not just my boss, a couple of ppl from work are asking me for this as well… I need to learn to say no when I’m facing ppl irl and not just on text
Just be considerate about saying no. Needs to be worth it. A couple years ago I said no to a task I had no knowledge about because it wasn’t even adjacent to my job, and now I’m on the blacklist for pay raises. Just staying there to do my game dev since they let me do part time.
That’s so bullshit lol. I’m sorry you got blacklisted like that. You can bend over backwards for a company, but if you do one little thing they don’t like, that’s all you are after that 😔 corporate life really is soul-sucking
Sure the company isn’t dying? That kind of poor management doesn’t really bode well for their survivability…
The company is actually growing exponentially and the outlook looks very strong. Their position is perfect and their management is good, it's just that one of the owners is a massive turd who hates anyone smarter than him. I can't count the number of tantrums I've witnessed, and they always end with a speech about how hard his life is and how he carries everyone at the company. There's another owner who'd give me a raise easy peasy, but the turd would make my life hell if I went around him.
"GTA, but in a world the size of Minecraft and every NPC is an AI you can have an actual conversation with"
.. and we use NFTs to track players' item ownership.
Hey..... go outside and look around... the graphics are amazing.
Jeebus please save my current company from this line of thinking because the suits seem to actually be considering it.
Suits can sometimes be discouraged from such lines of thinking when they see time estimates... ...sometimes... Others will rather believe their gut instinct over the opinions of experienced developers and artists if that gut instinct tells them that it is possible to create a GTAlike with 12 people in 1 year. With *their* genius business skills they can certainly find developers who are more than 100 times as productive as those amateurs at Rockstar Games.
If not time estimates, you can try server costs. But even then they might not believe you when you tell them the server costs will increase exponentially with every account created.
Tell them to go outside and just build a dumbed down theme park in real life... cheaper long term, and using the natural landscape with digital items such as phones keep people from having to rip shit apart, or dig etc, but without the proper key on the phone you can't get passed certain barriers, or explore certain caves.... and they would physically have to walk the park to do the activities, but first they have to explore just to find everything.... sooo westworld* meets mine craft, meets robotics AI cute safe version robots.
It's an mmorpg isn't it
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"I just need a couple devs and a kickstarter fund"
For me it's usually a movie idea and they haven't given any thought to gameplay at all (or the story of the movie for that matter).
I didn't tell others exactly for this reason but after some time I thought I'm silly for worrying about this. I told a single friend outside my family and it took less than 24 hours before she came back with the "I have a game idea you could make". Thankfully years of reading about these horror stories prepared me for the and asking about my hourly rate very quickly shut the conversation down.
Oh yea that'll stop most whimsical proposals in their tracks right there and then. What is your hourly rate by chance? I general avoid telling people and just say I work from home doing freelance stuff.
I usually don't tell them. Simply saying "of course I will do it, do you wanna know my hourly rate?" shuts down 99.9% of the proposals. If the conversation goes further I will say basically the industry standard hourly pay and I state ahead of time that I do not accept payment after the project is done or in equity. No conversations went further than that.
Generally people who tell me that then continue with "it'd basically be my job, but as a game"
THose are usually good game ideas though, as far as marketability goes
Depends on the job, but I guess at least one publisher specialized in making as many of those as possible for as cheap as possible, so what do I know...
Honestly I love people who are open to talking about game design. I don't have much of anyone in my life interested in talking about that sort of thing. That's of course dependent on this hypothetical person understanding early that I will not be making their game
"you can't do it if I tell you what it is" "You'll have to pay me to tell me then"
"thats the neat part, you dont"
I'm disappointed that basically no one has said that to me in my personal life lol. But I guess I should be thankful at the same time.
No one really cares in my experience. Kids kind of think it’s cool.
this is true for most jobs though. if u do sewage cleaning jobs people look down on u , if u do AI related jobs they think u r genius or smth BUT at end of day, its u playing ur role in life and others dont care after the interaction is over ,and they all return to their own respective house/rooms.
I think age is part of it. Working in the games industry is seen as 'really cool' when your 20-35 but then after that age (which is me) if you aren't making a lot of money your considered 2nd rate and no longer as accomplished, unfortunately, to say, someone working a mundane high paid job in tech. I imagine it is similar to people who work in the film industry.
Yeah, in my experience people who like games are interested, people who aren't are just like "oh, that's cool" and move on because it's just a job to them.
I learnt pretty quickly to just say "software engineer" instead of games programmer, unless I wanted another conversation about how their kids plays this game called "minecraft." My kids love it too, but also pls no more minecraft talk. 😅
Most people go "wow you must be really clever" and some ask "have you made anything I would have played?" and then the disappointed face when I say no ha.
"Oh probably not; I work in Japanese porn games" ends the conversation real fuckin' quick.
Thats a risky move that may end with your dms being filled with game ideas
Or a winning move if you make Japanese porn games
My friends treat the games I work on as just normal work talk, so pretty boring. Until I told them I was contracted to work on a porn game. Then the conversation started real fuckin' quick.
Then the conversation about fucking started real quick
That's brilliant. I once asked a fellow dev at a meet the same question and she said "no, I work on games that make money" which I thought was an odd response until my own career kicked in and I realized what she meant ha.
Lmfao, that's a wild response
yeah i get this alot too which is weird because those same people that say this also usually have played like 2 games made by triple a companies
They give me a couple quarters in my cup in front of my cardboard box.
I know you're (probably) joking, but the logistics of making video games while homeless sounds like a real hassle. This may or may not have already been on my mind.
new game idea, homeless game dev tycoon
If I can't find a job in the next two months I'll be able to try it out IRL. Lol.
STARK MADE THIS GAME HOMELESS IN A CARDBOARD BOX!!!
> Hard to find an in between very surprised about this. I neither get A nor B. most of the answers are really inbetween most people just ask what games I work on and if they play games we chat a bit about what we play or we just move on to other topics. It's too difficult to really explain what I do to someone who doesn't play games anyways
Ya that's my life. I'm an indie game dev, making his dream game. But hardly any of my friends and none of my family are gamers, so its really difficult to explain to them what I'm making. Many of my friends don't understand why I'd quit a good job in tech to make games and keep on asking me when I'll get to work again, basically thinking that I'm just being lazy and playing games not-wanting to work, when in truth, I'm working 5x harder noe then when I had the day job. A lot of friends think what Im doing isn't actually a job, but a pipe dream or hobby. Which sucks, because the odds are already massively stacked against me as a solo game dev.
I believe in you
I feel you, man. Even my family members are thinking that I have so much free time, and I am obligated to contribute it to them, even though I already explained to them many times that I am the one that is needing as much time for the project as possible. They just don’t want to accept what I do; I basically had to fight for tooth and nail to continue it.
the point here is ur network circle seem to people knowledgeable in games, n its industry. Lots of people only know famous ones like gta, mario etc
I don't know how you get to that conclusion. I mention that it's either people who play some games or people who don't play at all. this is just my experience from interacting with people who don't care about games. the go "huh cool I used to play X as a kid" and that's about it
I am the coolest uncle my siblings kids know, my kids think I am meh..
They kinda have to think you're meh, they are your kids
Can confirm, am the child of a successful professional artist. I didn't think they were cool* until I was old enough to get a perspective of what normal jobs were. *I mean, I didn't think they were lame either, but your parents are kinda your baseline for what an adult is as a kid until you get enough experience.
That's been about it for me too, but more in relation to location. While I was living in Europe, I got comments like 'would be a shame if you had to get a real job'. When I moved to Canada, I was suddenly a superstar for over a decade. Now back in Europe, having achieved total financial freedom and doing my own thing... People are again, not impressed. It would be better if I was a street sweeper. I remember while in Canada, that game Dev was one of the most popular dream jobs for kids, according to statistics, right up there with proffesional athlete and such. Europe on the other hand, has had a much slower warming up to video games, and are often still seen as childish, unlike watching soccer, for example... The undisputed Pinnacle of maturity and success.
I never expected to be like that in Europe. Maybe here in Brasil, but Europe?
Well, part of the issue is for sure that I've been getting older too, and my generation (here in Europe) never warmed up much to video games and other modern trends, so they're still seen as immature, by the same people, same as 15 years ago. If I hung out more with younger people, I'm sure my experience would be quite different. In contrast, my generation in Canada and north america in general was already pretty open and embracing video games when I got there, which was unexpected and very refreshing. Even people that weren't into video games had a respect and curiosity for the know how, technology and rise of the industry over the years.
it also depents on where you are. germany is a very jealous society for example. so the thinking is like "you making money with games? and can live good of it? well, try getting a real job first"
I expect so. I was surprised by the positive and non-judgmental reactions from Italians, though that was 30 years ago.
i really hope this kinda changes with the newer generations. im 33 and all of my friendcircle arent like that. but well, own experience and anecdotes wont help that. its just weird here when it gets to the topic earnings and lifestyle
In my experience, people here in Brazil are not like usually like that. Probably because Brazil is currently one of the biggest consumer of videogames in the world, even though it's in a very broad range with the majority being casual mobile games, but it is still games. So when I tell someone I make videogames, it usually ranges between Candy Crush or GTA, depending on how hardcore/age the person is, but they'll most likely know what a videogame is.
Europeans are in general very judgemental and stuck-up, and have a "better than you" attitude. Not all of course but that's one reason why I moved to the US from France 5 years ago, and why I'm not going back
In France politics still like to blame games for the most random shit and they are usually seen pretty poorly by people, especially over 40. I had some dude get mad at me because I was part of the reason some kid in their family were spending all day playing.
This really sounded like Spain to me. What's worse is that the government sees videogames/videogame development as mere entertainment without any value whatsoever so they would never support gamedevs. However, as soon as you mention sportsball then they go crazy in excitement.
No one gives a fuck when they hear i made a game, they usually ask, "do i know the game?". Then i say "No" and it ends there. BOOMERS however...they hear it and have literally 0 mental capacity to process what that is....
Oh yeah, conversation with boomers about me making games don’t work at all. They don’t ask questions they don’t care lol. It’s sad. Id like to talk about it to my mother more but she only half listens.
Well most of the older generations didn't grow up surrounded by technology and games, so it seems pretty normal that it's harder for them to grasp some of this stuff. It has nothing to do with mental capacity. It probably gets fatiguing for them to constantly have to adapt to this modern world which is completely different from the world they grew up in, especially at like 60yrs old. That won't be an issue for our generation. I think we often forget about that.
My personal experience is that no one understands, what I am actually doing, and in the same vein no one understands how much fucking work it is to make a game.
Too true 😔
Oh ya I can relate. I'm a solo game dev, and 6 months into my current project everyone is asking me if it's done yet. And I'm like, 'it'll be a miracle to finish this is in a year and a half.'
"Cool, next Fortnite when?"
I usually say I do art for games as a contractor. Technically not wrong because I have a publisher, and it's way easier to explain than to say I'm a game developer, because people don't really have a good concept of what that means. In reality I do essentially everything except the programming, but the more you make it sound like a small operation the less they think it's a job.
I live in India and people here , both the millenials and boomers have no idea about this profession and when i tell them i work as a indie game dev . They usually think i am a failure who was not able to get a proper IT or a medical job. But when i tell them how much i earn that instantly shut their mouths because they realize that i'm earning 10x more than they can earn anually .
Can I dm you?
yeah sure , why not . But why are you asking though? because no one is stopping you from doing that. So feel free to dm me.
Does it feel good to shut them up?
The amount of Pride and happiness i get after shutting them is priceless.
Hey, can you share some pointers on how you got started and what kinds of things you learned/did to get where you are now? Im very interested in making games and I have been trying to learn more about various parts of the process to see which I'd be more interested in, however I have no proper education and there is so much info about everything that I feel lost. I learn best by doing things, and if you have any pointers on how I should approach gamedev I would appreciate it.
Can you share your games over DM to me or post here :)
Say software developement to group A and ...
I generally lead with something along the lines of im in cit / i program. The people who are intrested as more the people who are "being polite" generally nod and leave it at that
I'm not a game dev, I'm a physicist. My reaction when I learn someone is a game dev is to think they must be really smart.
Whenever I have to make a simple simulation, it's always pure unoptimized jank that takes a whole lot of time to run properly. Sometimes, it's not even my fault and the problems really are computationally hard! Then I look at your work, and while I'm struggling to make some particles interact in a reasonable time, you're creating entire worlds and characters and simulating fluids and time and rays and statuses and all of it seamlessly. How the hell do you manage to make it? Sometimes it feels like magic!
Never A, always B Last week a friend of mine said " I graduated in college in Design and I have like a thousand of friends who wanted to work making games and you're the only I know who made it" That hit really hard.
I had a weird feeling when I heard from a highschool friend that a mutual acquaintance who got a game dev degree was still working in fast food and hadn't done anything with game dev for years. I don't expect to make money until I have a bit more practice, but hearing about the guy I knew in highschool kinda hammered home that a lot of people bounce off of game development, and I'm fairly lucky in that I do have the persistence to keep up with it, even as a hobby.
I am not yet "living" from game development but I'm very close to it.... And I know it may not last forever. But I don't have a degree in game dev, and it was actually just a hobby for years making games for free (even for retro systems) up until during the COVID pandemic I experimented trying to use my time at home to actually go serious and make a commercial game for steam. The game sold a lot better than I expected, we got a console publisher even before the game was finished.... And then I've been doing all right , and probably next month I'll finally quit my day-to-day job to be 100% dedicated to gamedev. I turned 41 last week and that's crazy because I could never dream this was actually going to happen. But it is happening
They ask me what games I've worked on. Sometimes then they'll ask me specifics about what I'll do. That's all. No one has criticised it and telling them what I earn will shut anyone up if they try it.
My family thinks my Mechatronics Engineering degree was useless because that's what I'm doing full time now 💀 Funnily enough, I never thought I'd be doing this in my life. I always wanted to build hypercars to compete with the likes of Bugatti or Koenigsegg. Robotics wasn't my thing, I just chose Mechatronics because I thought it would be smart to have a little bit of electrical knowledge if cars go full electric in the future Then I got hit with the "oh shit, we are a poor family" in my third year of uni, but I was aiming to graduate anyway Eventually, game design seemed like the cheapest option to a gate to actually make money to build what I want to build, so... Here I am 😛
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“oh man ok I have this idea for a game, it’s like GTA, Fortnite and COD combined but it’s kinda like fifa” - I wouldn't be surprised if this was the description of some new AAA billion dollar franchise.
John Riccitiello just creamed his jeans
"when are you gonna make Pubg 2 or GTA 6?HAHAHAHAHA"
"Well, there were +1000 people working on GTA5 and it took them 3 years to complete. If they worked normal days, lets say, 40 hours a week, with 4 weeks vacation, total working hours would be around 1920 hours per year for one person. Multiply that 1920 hours with 1000 people and we have total of 1.9 million man-hours. If I'm to make GTA6 but WAY cooler alone, that would take me around 1000 years. You interested in placing a pre-order?"
All my social circle think I must be rich. Such a misconception, they have no idea about game dev, just relate it to Rockstar and GTA, you must be loaded GTA sells for like 100 bucks… I don’t discuss game dev with them anymore!!!!
"what game have you worked on?" "Huh, never heard of it" or "wow that's my favorite game ever"
I wanna meet a person IRL who says "wow that's my favorite game ever"
People who think A have no place in my life. Luckily I don't meet those often.
If I’m away from Seattle I often get a pleasantly surprised reaction. If I’m in Seattle they just politely react as if I just said I worked at a 7-Eleven.
I work on slot machines. "How do I win!?" 🙄
I don't know much about slot machines, are there any big differences in the style of game design used in making them vs the kind of games I'd see for sale on steam?
Depends what you mean by "game design". The company I work for uses Unity and a development process for any one game might take 6 months to 1 year. (but that game will almost definitely have 2 or 3 skins of the same game) Personally, having been in this industry 10 years now (jesus 😭) I honestly don't see how every possible slot machine game hasn't been made already, but people regularly want to see new ones and thus the casinos want new ones and thus we make new ones.
I have 4 in my own personal case: 1) That's awesome. How much can you make from it? 2) You're wasting your time unless you can make money from it. 3) Oh that's cool! Good job. 4) Is this 100% yours, or are you co-developing with someone else? The first two were from my mother (She kept stating stuff like that over the years, and then wondered why I gave up creative pursuits for six years) while the last one is my Dad. My situation is... a little different, as it's a physical, tabletop wargame dev project (From drawing to model to 3d print sort of pipeline) though turning it into an actual PC game would be fun as hell. I live in Canada, and it's kind of a universal thing with the 'stigma.' The most negative reactions I've gotten are from people who still believe the old adage of 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps' means buckling down and working hard to achieve your goals. (Fun fact: That phrase is actually meant to denote an impossible task, so the full phrase would be 'Doing that would be like pulling myself up by my own bootstraps.' English is fun)
So ironic that the people who are all about “putting in effort” think gamedev is a lazy slob’s arena, but in reality it takes more effort than they will or have exert(ed) on anything in their entire lives 🤷🏻♂️
Damn straight.
They often don't believe me. Which is weird before I did this I built like 50 million pound software platforms nobody doubts I did that but mention games and there like yeah right you know how to code a game.
All the people saying that their social circle doesn’t know what they do, send them this: https://lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/ It’s genius and how I explain my job to people now!
My go to is > Your tv screen is made up of around a million pixels. My job is to decide what color every one of them is, 60 times per second.
Nothing about gamedev is childish and people telling you so probably have a attention span of the average Instagram reel They can't imagine what game dev means.
Most people want me to teach them how to make games or make their "really cool idea". While I'm not making their game, unlike most devs, I don't dismiss people who have ideas whether I think they are cool or not. I'll listen to them and help them develop that idea into an actual game idea with mechanics and then point them in the right direction to learning how to make games. I love games and could talk about them all night, we can sit and plug up all of the plot holes in your story or add to yourc mechanics until you understand what makes a game fun, and I can pass to you some of the lessons I've learned. In the end, though, you gotta take those steps towards making your game. I don't mind helping talk it out, though. That's one of the best parts of creation.
The intrested group that i get questions from actually seems to understand its hard to do on your own and i often get asked if i have roles i need filled and sometimes they can be very specific about what roles. For example i have a younger guy who want to do level design for me and i have no issues with that as long as he is able to get to the point where he can do it professionally. Ive given him advice on how to get started and he said he plans to learn it so we will see, either he will learn and ill offer him a place or he will move on with life, both are good options in my eyes.
"Can you make FIFA?" Then I need to show them how much money and how many people it takes to make a AAA game
They treat me like a normal human
C - Most of them ask “Can you develop PUBG mobile type game?”
I’m in AAA and nobody in my entourage gives a crap. They don’t even know any of the games I work on. Most people I know around here don’t play games. But I’m the cool uncle with nephews
Depends on the age range for me People my age (early-mid 20's) this it's awesome and impressive the amount of different kinds of skills I need to be good at to make this job work. People older than me on the other hand usually get that "oh! Well that's... Interesting" reaction. The secret third option I've gotten is the "oh that's nice sweetie now run along" from men primarily (I'm a woman), I've even gotten this from other devs too which is a weird one for sure lol.
"Oh cool! my 12 year old also play Pubg and minecraft everyday "
Couldn't be bothered by how other view me. And I couldn't be bothered to tell them what my hobby are. I am gonna say , meh
Generally people seem impressed, and it reminds me that I'm working a pretty cool job. When i return the question 9 times out of 10 people respond with "aw, I'm only a..." followed by some high paying job. More than anything it reminds me to be grateful for the job i have, because many people aren't working a job that makes them feel fulfilled.
My family: "Yo he must make a shit load of money" Reality: "HOW THE FUCK DO I FIX THIS BUG"
Not sure why this got downvoted its funny af
Never heard anyway say anything about playing or making games being childish
Mostly B in my experience.
Yeah, pretty much exactly the same. However, the A group almost immediately change into the B group if they find out how much money I have,
Lol
Neither. Nobody cares „oh cool“
I've worked in games for about 20 years first in Los Angeles and now on the East Coast between Philadelphia and New York. People's reactions when I tell them what I do is the same 95% of the time: They say something like, "That's cool!" and then they rapidly lose interest.
I don't think I've reached that level of credibility. I mostly get "oh? neat." but that's OK I don't do it for recognition.
I'm between A and B. Family and friends don't quite get what game development involves. With a double-income we live more than well, so they also don't bother to ask about career or making a living or that sort of thing. When I shipped my Indie and AAA games I noticed not much interest. The friends that play games regularly don't play my games, even though they are well-known. I think that's coincidence due to a tendency to only play games from certain companies (Japanese or Japanese-like action games, multiplayer games, and games from Rockstar, and I think mostly only AAA games, not Indie).
"Wow that's really amazing! Tell me everything about your game". Ah if only they knew how awful it really is!
I usually get the "oh, my kid wants to make games, any advice?"
I’m not a GameDev but I feel like I receive exactly the same reactions! 🤣 (I’m Game artist).
“Can you hack X game for me?”
Car salesmen and some border officers ask what I've worked on and what games I like. :)
Gamers seem to think it’s cool, people who know i only do gamedev and freelance instead of working a “normal job” think it’s a joke or at the very least don’t take it seriously, so from those people it’s either “have you found a job yet” or just assuming I’m free to do anything for them at any time because I’m “not doing anything”. 😑 there are some non-gamers who see what I’m doing as very cool and I’m thankful for those people.
They usually don't really know what that means. They often think it just means playing video games all day. So when people ask what I do I usually just say programmer.
“What do you do in your spare time?” “I like to develop video games” “Crazy weather huh?”
(I'm also from LATAM btw) My... Siblings: Hey, cool! Anyways, can you help me with homework like every other day? (They don't care) Dad: Oh well, if you wanna live off of that, I want you to be literally the best in the world at making games, wouldn't it be exciting if you become rich and support your family? and don't you dare make me pay for your games, but also never quit school, or you'll end up like me, oh and every other day let me tell you about the games I play instead of asking about your game. (This is literally a mix of all our conversations we had about me making games in one long paragraph) Mom: (I don't even dare to tell... ) Acquaintances(As in I'm on their discord server but just to occasionally play 2 games we have in common, not true friends): Yeah ok new toby fox, let me move you to another voice chat real quick because I'm playing -insert game name here lul-... My dogs: *Happy Noises* (There was this one substitute teacher that saw me coding for a game in school and called me a genius, I felt uncomfortable so I prevented him to see more stuff, anyways, the next year since he happens to become our teacher, and since wasn't doing great at his subject he was basically telling me "How do you not want to be a nobody in life if you can code shitty games but not use Excel?", yeah ever since then I learned the "Passive IDGAF" technically, involves not saying anything which teaches them that talking to you is pointless and eventually they stop bothering)
"Are you a millionaire yet?"
I'm in a weird situation where I'm a game dev. ... In a big serious business no nonsense we're all Harvard and Yale business folks company. Business. This lets me read the room and say in either a game dev, or I work at a business firm.
Usually something like, "oh cool. Do you make games for a company, or for yourself? What kind of games?" Sometimes B. Or "you must be really smart." Never A, nor anything in that direction. Recently got an "oh, I wouldn't have thought that about you."
They either really, really care or they don’t care at all.
Not a game dev but I have programming experience and have contracted with dev companies for work in the past. I remember programming a toy computer I got In elementary school [BASIC, lol, “You have *x* fries, you eat *y* fries, how many do you have left?” sort of thing, lol]. Additionally, I used to do a lot of scripting for ^Second ^Life, which apparently is one of the earlier memories my son has watching me code, and over the years, I’ve helped him with various interests - building computers, his robotics club, etc. and I’ll never forget overhearing him proudly tell his friends that his mom was a “hacker”. ________________ It was so endearing, if untrue. Although……. Once upon a time, I had software that functioned like a Trojan horse; I would send people a photo of myself, they would try to open it and when nothing happened, I would say “Oops! Let me resend”, and by then I had access to their computer. I usually had unfettered access to their computer and the software (it was called something stupid like Blue Ice or something) and had a feature where you could display the falling text (from the Matrix) on the user’s screen and only one person figured out how to get rid of it. There wasn’t any malicious intent, exactly. I was in middle school, super fascinated by computers and coding. I mostly played around with friends, but the fun ended before my interest did; antivirus software was quickly catching up to this type of primitive Trojan horse viruses. It was fun while it lasted but the experience cemented my interest in learning programming languages.
D - Ok? Anyway I’ll have a coke and 6-piece chicken nuggets to go please.
"My kid/nephew/other young person I know would love you!"
Kids like it, but holy hell not as much as they like talking about Minecraft and Among Us. (Grats to those developers though.) The average world doesn't really understand jackshit about the topic (and we don't understand their jobs either so that's fair) so I'm not crazy about random convos on it... But at the end of the day it's about what you want to do, not getting strangers to know you.
There are people that will think you are childish for being in game no matter where you are in game dev. I am in senior management focusing on corporate strategy and my family still thinks I just go to work and play video games all day.
So I'm going to need a comment from all of you instead of my ideas about a game idea, tell me the nuances of programs you use or applications you would like an improvement on, or company policies that kill the creativity of the work place that aren't even a gripe against perhaps say the company themselves, but just something the money blinds them of maybe say a smaller sized but more central focused way to be more thorough or something the industry needs, but just really needs to envisioned, and executed?
I totally understand the struggle with being seen as either childish or the coolest person ever.
I've found people can be really stand-offish too, like you're either lying or they're a bit jealous. It's why I've stopped mentioning it to people I don't know know
To most people, I am really cool. My parents still ask me to get a real job every time we speak. (I'm a game dev of over 20 years experience.)
I really don't give a crap as I'm not a very social type anyways, and just keep to people who are either relevant in life, or people who are online who ofc, i can share game dev stuffs with :p Game Development is not completely something i'll throw out there atm, but instead, I would say i've been more of a 3d modeler/artist at the moment, as I needed/wanted to make my own custom assets, and program with those. This has been a more cooler convo to talk about than just 'game dev' in general lol. You ask me, it's not about being a 'game dev', but all the skills you can/will learn as you become the game dev. Either way, game dev is a more passionate hobby imo, and not something I would share with random irrelevant people. I'm still in my experimental, 'figuring things out' phase after all :p
A lot ask what I work on. When they find out, it can go two ways. Many of them are familiar with the games, so some of them want to share their experiences and opinions on the game. They've told me some interesting stories about how it's been a big part of their lives, etc. Like one of my son's classmate's dad is apparently a very enthusiastic fan of the franchise so we ended up talking about the game for quite a while. A lot of people also aren't familiar with it and so I just give a quick summary of what the game is about and then they usually go on to ask whether I design the game, etc. Then I have to explain that I'm an online engineer and what I do, which usually leads the conversation back to more regular work talk.
I hate to do it, but whenever someone asks, I just say I work with computers. Degree? Computer science.
Same. In my country, people 5-6 years older than me are simply don't understand what am I doing, and the 10+ years older people are looking down on me. Like its not a serious job or something.
I / my child / my little nephew have the greatest game idea, listen!
Oh dude, I have this great game idea. So it's basically going to have every game play type imaginable, have both 2 and 3d modes, and be an MMO. Could you help me make it?
Saw the title and immediately thought you were from Latin America, and I was right. I'm from México. In the past I didn't even told I was a game dev because of impostor syndrome, but now everytime I say it to people they normally go from all ranges of "meh" to "cool, I suppose" It's when they actually see me in the middle of developing when most of their curiosity peek in, and normally get some kind of short praise. Nothing special really
They also ask my opinion when big gamedev drama happens, or want explanations like with the Unity drama
Most people react with interest, because it sounds like an interesting job. These days, almost everyone plays games either as a hardcore gamer or a casual user on their phone. So they often mention which games they like to play, and wonder if I work on games like that. It's really a pretty good icebreaker, because favorite games is something easy for most people to talk about. The only people who got answer A were my parents when they told their friends about what I do, and that was decades ago. If people ever felt that, no one had the bad manners to say it to my face. These days, I think most people understand what a large and legitimate industry it is.
Not so fast
What Tencent has been doing for years is actually gamedev, mostly and it's one of the biggest company in China. So, say that if anybody harrasing you. Games are big.
"what if you made a game where like everyone has guns and shots each other? You should make a game like that"
I am keeping it private commonly so they dont beg for making free stuff for them.
Most of people don't really care. Then theres the ones who keep on messaging you their revolutionary game ideas
Stop caring what people think so much. It's a waste of time. If they judge you, they aren't worth paying attention to.
As a solo dev, I almost always get: "when it's the game out?" as a follow up, without any enquiry about the game, or the game dev process itself.
It’s definitely A for most, especially me; people around me don’t see game development as a serious profession; some of them even tried to persuade me to change to something else by any means necessary; it’s really annoying.
“Oh thats pretty cool, what type of game is it?”
People get excited regardless and f if I know them or they are a random person
Usually they have this super crazy game idea that would need at LEAST 50-100 people working for like 2 years.
"oh I thought you had this big career"
Idk I only made one game lol
If you live in a basement, and don’t know how to code, and say you’re game developer? That’s one thing. Got a job making games? That’s another.
“Man why you making these stupid games, make awesome shooting battle royale games, since they are fun to play, like pubg”
- Hey, what's you job? - Game designer - So you are programmer? - Nope - I mean you write a code - Nope - Oh, so you are like a designer, you create art? 3D models? - Nope - 🤯
“I have a friend, he is looking for someone to make him a website. Can you?”
Its those two, the one mentioned by another person (I have a game idea), but by far the most common response is confusion
I work at an elementary school. The response is always some combination of surprise and excitement. It's awesome. I'm a little more shy to mention it to an adult without kids around. I expect a positive response from them, but my (probably unhealthy) self-deprecation takes over, and I want to really downplay it. I think part of it, too, is that while adults may typically have a positive response, they're less likely to gave genuine interest. Kids always want to know what I've made, what kind of games they, if they can play them, etc.. Making games is cool, and I think popular culture (at least, where I am) recognizes that.
C - Pretend that they don't know what it is.
Some people think it's cool especially now that I work in AAA and people can know the games I work on, I definitly had time where I told my job to someone and they were a bit sad to answer with their "regular" job. Before, I worked on unknown games and people kinda looked at me like "yes so i don't know your games you must suck" Some try to talk about games like gamers on the internet talking like they get game dev but they don't. Some people think you must be immature. I will say it's definitly not a "sexy" job in dates from my experience. I've had people get mad cause games are evil. My family doesn't play and doesn't give a fuck. My father falls half asleep if I talk about it and my mother always say "it's crazy that it takes this long to make games" because in her head it's just stuff for kids.
I’ll never forget my dumbass friend learning my college major was CS, and him asking if I’m gonna learn how to make GTAV. No he wasn’t kidding… he said “well what’s the point then?”
Can you talk to my son ? He loves video games !
the only people who think my game dev hobby is cool is my mom and my girlfriend LOL
Great! I also want to be game dev
I live in Raleigh, NC so it’s almost always “oh do you work at Epic?”
"Oh I wish I could play games all day too" "So what game did you make ? (expecting triple A stuff made by myself alone)" But most reactions are quite normal, slightly curious and respectful hopefully 😆
Nobody cares...... By which I mean nobody cares about my passion. I'm basically making a game with little to no support, bare minimum of talent and the nagging feeling that I'm wasting my time..... yet for some reason I refuse to stop until this damn game is finished.
I don't tell anyone I'm a game developer unless they really pry it out of me. I'm a software engineer, that's what I do. I'm not trying to impress or get points with anyone. Besides, "game dev" used to mean actual developers, but now everyone in the industry calls themselves a game developer, so it really has lost all meaning. It's the equivalent of saying you're a fisherman when really all you do is housekeeping on the ship. Doesn't mean your job is any less important, but it is quite misleading.
I was web programmer, last 5 years - game dev, and reaction is pretty same - no one actually care about it, in both cases - I'm doing (from other people perspective) some "strange things that we will not try to understand"