"No, You Can't Make Video Games"

General Discussions
#1

I was curious what everyone’s input it on this. The guy got slammed hard in his comments section, but I imagine most of those people have zero experience in programming, development or graphics of any kind So, I’m curious what you guys (who have these skills) think. I actually agree with a lot of his points, but I am beside myself. I’ve always felt I can do anything, as long as I put my mind to it and dedicate the time. I also always try to motivate other’s to think the way I do. But sadly, there do seem to be some people who just will never “have it”. They’re those talentless people who seem to be completely incapable of learning even the fundamental basics of computer programming, game design, or well, anything creative for that matter. No matter how hard they try, no matter how many years they work at it, no matter what they do, they’re always awful and always below par.

The example I’d use is an old friend of mine from many years ago, he wanted to be a game developer. So, he went to college all wide eyed and with the rose colored glasses on. I tried to talk him out of it, because to put it simply (while I did not tell him this) he was one of “those people” who are hopelessly unable to be a good game designer of any kind. He lacked all real ambition, had no natural talent and wasn’t all that smart

Now, this friend did eventually go, drop out, and now he doesn’t talk about it. But even if he had graduated, I still to this day feel he never would of made anything beyond flash games that are just ripoffs of already existing concepts (Like the 50 million Flappy Bird clones, for example). My reasoning behind this was:

  • Tons of ambition, zero drive to actually do anything with it.
  • His “awesome ideas” were basically a ripoff of the latest hit game, with “that one cool thing he wanted” (that was a bad idea in the first place). He also thought too grand, he didn’t want to make a little game, he wanted to make the next Battlefield, CoD, Halo, etc (mostly FPS games, that was his thing)
  • He lacked all artistic ability what so ever. I don’t mean he just couldn’t work photoshop, I mean he had no creative logic problem skills what so ever (critical to be a good programmer). He was a “if a tutorial doesn’t exist, I can’t do it” type of guy. No ability to solve his own problems independently.
  • He simply wasn’t all that smart. He was the nicest guy you’ll ever meet, but his light bulb was a little on the low-wattage side.

So having said all that, how do you guys feel about it? Do you think there are people out there that even if they want to learn to be programmers (or acquire any creative based skill for that matter) they just can’t? For whatever reason, it’s simply beyond their abilities?

TL:DR - Are some people doomed to never have any creative talent what so ever, and unable to learn?

#2

Honestly, I know it is true. Game making isn’t too different from Computer Science in terms of accessibility.

In this world of instant gratification, people have the notion that they can do anything if they try hard enough. Fact is, many don’t have the patience or tenacity to make it happen. Let’s face it, making games is a very cool profession. I mean, who doesn’t want to design something that everyone enjoys.

Like all things, there is a dark side to gaming many don’t speak about.

Even when you can program, there are the parts in which you are implementing that you can be extremely creative and bring out the new fun mechanics. Then, the grunt work appears. The lines and lines of menu implementation, connecting graphics, lining up text. You then realize the fun is all sucked out when you have those 11 bugs you have been trying to get rid of for days.

At those times… I’m usually saying “the last 10% is 90% of the work.” How many people think like that?

Unless you’ve worked on a game, mostly people think… “Work? Game making is a good time.” It is naive, and those who go for it arms open and fearless usually get killed in the battlefield. Game making is like every profession out there. “It is not how well you do the parts you like, but how you endure the parts you hate.”

So, the article is correct. Though, letting people find that out the hard way is a little process called “natural selection”. If people want to make games, let them prove themselves in the wild. The ones who emerge from the jungle are the best and brightest talents. The ones who don’t, will probably fare better somewhere else. :point:

#3

Yes, they are.

People do not want to put in the effort to learn, they put in very little and expect so much back. They are the kind of people that sit on a computer to study and end up on Facebook for an hour, exercising the scroll wheel.

This is about 90% of the population, kids in schools are too busy playing games, arsing about with friends or just being idiots in general. Adults, people from 30-50 are just stuck in a “rut”, they think because they have a job and money coming in that there is nothing else to learn, these people are lost.

#4

Before we make grand, sweeping statements about large groups and individuals… :persecutioncomplex: most people are just not intelligent enough, regardless of their creativity, passion, motivation and drive. (did I miss one?)

#5

This is the biggest problem I have:

Just because there are lots of bad games out there does not devalue other peoples work. I went to Deviant Art and saw a lot of nice art. The only problem with a lot of bad games is if the site you are trying to find them on cannot help avoid the chaff and find the gems.

#6

The problem was probably the fact that your friend didn’t really enjoy game programming. He just liked playing games…That’s all IMO. Most people are the same way and this is perfectly fine. They just see the end product and have no idea how it got there. I don’t blame them, we all have distorted perceptions about things we never got deep into and I doubt anyone started without thinking too grand. The same is true for any profession. Even if it’s the standard nowadays, I still think going to college is a terrible way to start your journey. He should have just started learning and making all those little ripoff flash games you talked about. Then he would either get hooked and plan his next steps or fail faster with less investment. This is the key to personal success…lots of failures as fast as possible.

#7

And yet still, there are more good or interesting titles being released every day than anyone can possibly have to time to play, let alone pay for. See: bundle madness, endless Steam sales and discounts, developers wringing hands over devaluation of video games, the App Store, and google for “the race to the bottom” :slight_smile:

Cas :slight_smile:

#8

Motivation and drive is the same or at least equivalent and the ONLY thing that matters.
Every other skill can be learned with average skill/intelligence, given enough motivation and “training”

I also dont believe in talent. Or at least not in “no talent” - someone might be very good at a given task, but one can learn everything.

As a Jack of all trades, I speak from experience. Even if you are not as good at self teaching, doesnt mean it isnt possible.

#9

[quote=“Cero,post:8,topic:48933”]
What applies to you, doesn’t therefore apply to everybody else. :expressionless:

I know people with ‘average intelligence’ who couldn’t learn to program to save their lifes.

#10

I wholeheartedly agree with the main point of the article: Just wanting something isn’t enough.

I personally subscribe to a modified version of the “you can be anything you want” motto:

You can be anything, if you work hard enough.

The key here is swapping the “wanting” with the “putting effort”.
In my opinion talent helps, but hard work is what gets result, so a person without natural talent can outdo a very talented individual if the talentless person is the one making an effort to improve.

The hard realization for essentially every one of us, is finding out what amount of effort is more than what we are willing to put into something, specially as you grow older and see there are other things you might be doing (or need to do).

In my opinion, the reason why the language used is often about “wishing hard enough” is because people don’t really internalize what effort means (blame society, upbringing or whatever), hence all the pep-talks like the one the article is criticizing, with their disney-esque language, setting up people to fail by giving them disproportionate expectations.

Honestly, I think this is not only about games (and the article says as much), and I think it needs to be said more often, if only to curb inflated expectations leading to the sense of entitlement we keep seeing popping up these days.

As for the white noise comment. I don’t fully agree. It is true that “noise” devalues hard work, but I believe in the long run it is best to have that noise, as it means more people experiment with the tools of the medium and thus there’s a greater chance of actual talented people popping up.

To make a parallel, think of music education in schools. Most music students will be crap at it, but by giving more kids a chance to try their skills at music, more actually good musicians will get a chance to discover their true calling.

The trouble with the white noise is not about it being there, but about how we parse it to look for the good stuff, but we’ll get there, if only out of necessity seeing how cheap products aren’t exactly going away (app stores, steam…).

Anyway, just my opinion, as a nobody.

Edit: Woah, forgot about something. Life isn’t fair, and sometimes people simply cannot do certain things. For example, an astronaut requires being in top physical conditions, and many common defects (like wearing glasses) can render someone unfit for the task.
So take my comments on effort with that caveat: Sometimes life deals you a shitty hand and you must work with what you have.

#11

I call bullshit on this. Saying someone’s smart is a huge insult in the first place. No, I’m not good at programming because I’m smart and got it for free. Some of my classmates at Uni seem to fail to get this. Instead they get mad at me because they think it’s unfair that I’m so lucky being smart that I don’t have to put as much time into my studies as they do. No, f*ck you, I’m good at programming because I spend 2/3rd of the time I am awake either coding or thinking about how to solve coding problems, and you’re not gonna guilt-trip me into feeling bad for having invested time into something productive since I was 12. That’s EFFORT, not innate ability.

#12

I can second to that. I have above-average IQ compared to my friends, but the fact i get good grades and know how to code a little bit is, of course, thanks to my lucky earned intelligence. I wish they knew how much i study and work hard.

On topic, this guy might be right, but he’s totally wrong. I don’t get his point at all.

#13

Intelligence and experiences are two distinct things, that are easily confused in a discussion. You have intelligence and experience, that makes your competence very high. Your classmates don’t have the experience yet, but most likely do have the intelligence. If saying somebody is smart (intelligent) is an insult, because it is ‘unfair’, well, yes, intelligence is unfair - it’s not equally distrubuted, just like sharp vision and body length are not equally distributed. That your classmates think you have an unfair advantange is their flawed reasoning, because they ignore the time you invest in experience, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with being ‘smart’, as, again, they are not unlikely to be on par with your intelligence.

The combination of intelligence and experience is very important. Intelligence determines how you apply your experience, and therefore your effective competence.

Without adequate intelligence, you’ll never get the experience required to do non-trivial things, as such people simply are not capable to make the correct decisions in calculations and/or code design, and eventually end up with a codebase that is deeply flawed and beyond repair… this is incompetence: failure to apply your intelligence and experience in a way that is valueable.

#14

No such thing as inborn, unchangeable, fixed intelligence
No such thing as IQ. Its a very old and flawed concept.
Everyone who is not medically handicapped is intelligent enough to do almost everything.

If a person has true motivation, focus and self discipline to attain experience - thats all a person needs.

If you get more and more experience, you inadvertently get better at something.

You may disagree.

#15

Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters…

Cas :slight_smile:

#16

You just gave an exact description of Twitch plays Pokemon

#17

Your last paragraph has some implications that I do not agree with. I’m interpreting what you’re saying like this:

  • Experience is basically the data we’ve collected and stored in our memory so far in our lives.
  • Intelligence is our ability to draw conclusions, see patterns and process the data we’ve collected and make decisions based on that.
    What you said about intelligence implies that it is purely an innate ability that cannot be improved in any way, but I don’t think so. When learning to do addition, you first get to learn that 1+1=2, then that 1+2=3, etc etc etc. At first, you simply memorize that 1+1 always equals 2, but after looking at enough of these examples you start seeing a pattern, and after a while you may be able to come up with an algorithm for solving addition instead of memorizing the result of certain X+Y=Z examples. I do not think that it’s impossible for someone to come to this conclusion, but that it takes a different amount of time to reach that conclusion for different people. THAT’s what I think intelligence is; not a cap on our ability to learn, but rather a speed multiplier.

EDIT: I also think that this speed multiplier isn’t static, but something that improves as you learn more as well. Meta-learning!

#18

This is actually what intelligence is.
Anybody can understand anything, somehow, if you spend enough time with some kind of logical concept, you will get used to, so better and better with it.
Intelligence just means how fast you can progress.

#19

[quote=“theagentd,post:17,topic:48933”]
Intelligence is far from a constant, but that doesn’t mean we can all get to Einstein’s level of intelligence, not even with a lifetime of training.

[quote=“theagentd,post:17,topic:48933”]
A limited speed multiplier, if you will. It will get harder and harder to increase the multiplier, and for the best brains the speed multiplier is at a value that is unreachable to others.

There is a world of scientific research that show how different brains actually are, how certain skills are hardwired in brains of specific people. Say you have a damaged frontal lobe, it reduces your intelligence significantly. You’d say that you ruled out damaged branis, with a reference to ‘not medically handicapped’, and I’ll give you that, but now look at it from the other end of the scale: certain people have extraordinarily well developed frontal lobes, right from the start, because certain genes determine the development of the brain. This frontal lobe will give that brain the ability to grasp logical or emotional things much quicker than the average brain. This is what we call analytical and/or social intelligence. Others have an extraordinarily well built corpus callosum, which is, among other things, responsible for how the brain ties memories to time. They can recall every day in their life, and tell you what they did, in great detail, 754, 755 and 756 days ago, hour by hour. No training, they just can. Something the average brain simply can’t, ever, regardless of training.

The base is laid right in the whome, giving these brains an unfair advantage. By the time they are born, they are physically better equiped to deal with, and adjust to their surroundings. The evidence is in the MRI scan, and the brains that scientists sliced in ultra thin slices.

If all brains had the same potential capability, we could teach great apes, monkeys, no… dogs… no… goldfish, ants! to comprehend programming, given enough time. I rest my case.

So, yes, I disagree to the strongest extend.

#20

That also qualifies as a rare medical handicap, you may call it positive handicap.

You know I was talking about human brains on average. Of course there is a difference in hardware… But the difference in brain quality, in general, within a species, is negligible.

The intelligence of most every person is absolutely enough to do most ever task, if the person applies themselves.

Proper chef level cooking is not inherently easier than doing chemistry. It’s just that cooking is very practical and chemistry is “science”.

Also dont get me wrong, I think the world is full of stupid people. But thats due to education and parenting leading to no focus or ambition… or manners =<