"No, You Can't Make Video Games"

General Discussions
#101 
if (*success*) self-image += hard work + persistence + intelligence;
else self-image += bad luck +  external obstacles + unfair handicapping;

The point being, this is all about the story we tell ourselves, and project onto others, and the correspondence to reality is shadowy.

The above coding could also imply the following:

if (*success*) self-image -= good luck + external advantages + positive handicaps;

i.e., an increasing tendency to overlook or discount the above as being contributing factors. There is also an increased tendency towards self-satisfaction and complacency, and arrogance towards others who are not as successful.

There is a remarkable tendency towards tautologies in this sort of discussion. If intelligence and/or hard work determines success and success is an indicator of the presence of intelligence and/or hard work then the terms become useless if one is trying to say anything meaningful.

Luck doesn’t have to be as extreme as being born in an impoverished country vs. the USA. Being born into a family in which there has been someone who works in a scientific sort of field is a big plus factor. One has to consider the imprinting that starts from day 1.

Being born in a cultural niche where group identity actively discourages being a pointy-headed nerd is also a factor, where “book knowledge” or being a bookwork is a cause for derision. Someone who tries to succeed in such a negative emotional environment has got it tough, especially if they hit a conceptual obstacle and receive “I told you so” rather than encouragement. There could also by well-intentioned but misguided help from a family, such as teaching a study model that is ineffective for that stage in the child’s development (e.g., rote memorization & drilling instead of problem solving? or maybe turning them loose to solve something on their own before they have the needed tools/skills), or otherwise turning the learning task into a system of negative-feedback shocks, turning it into a chore.

I know a brilliant women mathematician, but how many young girls with talent in this regard are encouraged? More now than in the recent past, but the pressure to not “show up” young boys or to be “unfeminine” still exists in various degrees. This friend had one incredible advantage, a father who was a University level mathematics professor. Imprinting, anyone? Sure, she also worked hard at her studies (is it still hard work if much of it happens to be fun and relatively easy?), but maybe was lucky her parents weren’t subscribers to strong preconceptions about appropriate roles for the sexes that would have conflicted with this career path, and grew up in a community that also supported rather than discouraged her.

The definition of hard work is especially dubious and shadowy and dangerously high in the degree of self-deception & tautology. Theories and effectiveness of useful skill-building strategies vary wildly. The clearest example of this that I can think of may not translate to this programming crowd; it comes from the music world. A young player can practice 8 hours a day, but if they are not practising effectively, no matter how hard or how persistent, they will fail. It is not uncommon for a teacher to have misguided conceptual framework for how they achieved their success, and ruin (despite being well-meaning) their most promising and talented students.

My main take-away here is the following (sorry for the tldr):
(1) If someone wants to try, if you can afford to help, then give them a hand.
(2) If they fail, try and put yourself in their shoes and figure out what the hitch is, don’t just judge them and write them off.
(3) Don’t assume that a strategy that you adopted and brought you success is necessarily the right one for the current situation. Try to understand the OP’s position and issues and tailor the answer accordingly.

That is what I try to do when I give OPs coding advice on threads where they are getting tons of flak and attitude. There are an infinite number of ways to succeed or fail, many of which will be new or eye-opening to those of us who are trying to help.

#102

This conversation has went to the moon and back when it comes to discussion. Every science and research that can be involved, was involved. However, I believe if people did have an unlimited existence, eventually, you would be capable of learning everything either by technology or by willpower.

Luck or learned skill; We live in a very privileged time. We are on the verge of another industrial revolution, and we are seeing failures in models that have evolved for decades. The new minds of this generation, are just different than ours. This overload of information access has created individuals that do not like sticking to one task for too long. It could be why programming has always been a tough fit for many. I mean, even among people who believe it is the right career path, only a small subset make it out with a degree.

No question, we all have varying levels of retention, persistence, and resistance to outside pressures. The factors that persuade this is all over the place: Our ancestors, our upbringing, our friends, our environment. People’s ability to absorb knowledge and actually find a field they’d like to pursue is a complicated process.

To wrap it back to games…

The main factor I see in many people who want to design games is that they are good “idea people.” In short, they have great ideas for the next big game, however, they lack the patience to find the tools to carry it out themselves. So, they depend on others to carry out that dream for them. The reasoning why they don’t varies for the reasons gone through in this thread.

However, I’d be lying if I were to say that every single game idea I wanted to carry out has gone to 100% completion. The fact is, I just don’t have the time to carry out all the ideas that I have in my head. I just choose the best ones and carry it out. Truly, in this case, it isn’t about intelligence or luck. It is about finding the time.

Hard work actually reveals your abilities. In other words, you can be a very talented snowboarder, but if you never picked up the snowboard in your life, that ability would never be found. Luck follows this exact same path, without trying to do that trick, you would have never achieved that lucky landing.

Even though I know not everyone is cut out to be a game designer, you can’t just tell people not to try. The only way that abilities are shown in individuals is by hard work. Intelligence and luck support the work done, not the other way around.

TL;DR

It is a wise choice for people to encourage individuals to try new things. You have to work at those ventures in order to know what you’re capabilities are. Otherwise, the notion of talent, luck, and mental capability is useless.

#103

Sheesh I am not saying that we should discourage people from stuff but that we should tell them the reality. Programming is hard. It is not simple. Game dev has huge amounts of coding that needs to be done in order to produce anything worth while. That is not to say that if something is not “worth while” it shouldn’t be produced but to say that you will NOT make money off it.

It seems like there is a huge influx of indies thinking that their first 5 or 10 games/projects will be hits when the reality is their first 5 or 10 games/projects will suck. There is nothing wrong with making something that is crap as that is how we get better but people need to understand that no one want to pay to play bad games.

Even the oh so glorified notch was a game dev BEFORE he did minecraft. It wasn’t like he learned to code in a year and then made minecraft.

I don’t think people are discouraging in this thread but trying to get across the hard reality of life. No one becomes a game dev or anything over night. And those that seem to succeed rapidly (first few games made) is generally due to prior experience.

#104

This just popped up on my twitter:


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BoLyH-sCYAARS2r.png

#105

As others mentioned, there’s no one singular thing called “intelligence”. Programming involves math, analytic, pattern recognition, language, social, project management and many other skills. I’m not so good at math but I compensate by having a more generous dose of other capacities (and experience / practice of course). Overall I’ve been a very valuable addition to any software development team I’ve had the pleasure of working with.

Similarly, there’s no one singular thing called “game development” which you either can or cannot do. In this sense it’s much like cooking:

“You Can Cook” (some simple dish)

“No, You Can’t Cook” (like a master chef)

It’s the same with coding. Yeah most people will be able to learn how to “code”, in the sense that they can make some nice unpolished little game using an accessible language. Just like most people are able to learn how to cook, in the sense that they can prepare several different simple meals. To imply that someone that “can cook” simple meals has the same skill as a master chef, however, shows a total lack of understanding of the incredible skill and hard work involved in becoming a master chef.

So yeah you can code (a simple game) with hard work. And no, you can’t code (like a master, e.g. John Maccarmack). To throw “coding like someone who did a tutorial once” on the same heap as “coding like a master” is insulting to the incedible skill and dedication of a master coder.

#106

I can also relate to that. I was lucky enough that an old classmate got me into a company where I became a junior Java programmer (which switched me from hating Java to loving it), or else I would have stuck in shady PHP development companies that rise and crumble by the minute and would probably have ended up flushing out of IT.

If that made my life worse or better, I can’t really know though. I live a good life money-wise but I do feel a bit like what I do is a fart in the wind.

#107

You deny the existence of intelligence? That’s quite funny, even after reading this topic. :wink:

I think you made up a nice theory about cooking, and ofcourse there is a lot of difference between coders, a lot of people here are fine coders, but in comparison with other coders like Notch or Mario (LibGDX creator) they are peanuts. But I know there are lots of people who can’t just even make a simple game, I have seen it multiple times in my life. Guy comes from middle school, likes games, and so he does a CS education, but he didn’t understand a single piece of the program. He didn’t understand anything of it, he just didn’t get it. There are just those people who can’t understand programs no matter what, but everybody understands/can learn how to cook, I think it has to do with human nature, since every human has some sort of survival-instinct, and so knows about cooking, but computers are an invention which have nothing in common with innate survival things like cooking or building houses.

In my opinion another reason that the ‘suck-rate’ in CS is at 66%, according to the data Cas shared with us :wink:

#108

I’ve barely skimmed this. The notion that “if you smart enough and apply yourself” then you can become excellent/good or even merely competent at any technical activity is rubbish. I know brilliant people who’ve spent massive amounts of time programming that pretty much suck. So it goes.

#109

For the same reason you can’t teach a monkey to write. They’ve got the hands and opposable thumbs but their brains just aren’t wired for it, no matter how hard you try.
Although it seems you can teach an elephant to paint.

Cas :slight_smile:

#110

It is also rubbish to completely dismiss it because you know people who don’t apply. The only thing that’s rubbish is making it black & white.

#111

Nobody is making it black and white, except for those completely misinterpreting what was written by others.

#112

Yep, I realized that about 5 seconds after I hit submit that I had slammed myself into a brick wall :confused: Words man, they’re so difficult.

My apologies, I’m going to stand in the corner of shame.

#113

In my teens I read an interview with one of the grandmasters who was attempting to explain how he played chess. He didn’t think in terms of “if I move this then” for some number of moves ahead but described how he saw lines of movement for the entire board at once and how they changed if he were moved pieces from a given area. Some skills are impossible to learn regardless of motivation.

From my own personal experience I’ve been able to pick-up bits and pieces of things that don’t interest me in the slightest with about zero effort, while some things which I find very interesting the ideas/basic concepts simply refuse to stick in my brain. So it goes.

#114

[quote]In my teens I read an interview with one of the grandmasters who was attempting to explain how he played chess. He didn’t think in terms of “if I move this then” for some number of moves ahead but described how he saw lines of movement for the entire board at once and how they changed if he were moved pieces from a given area. Some skills are impossible to learn regardless of motivation.
[/quote]
Exactly! If a person makes the choice of trying to play chess by calculating ‘if this then that’, then they are going to achieve a pretty mediocre level of play, no matter how hard they work at it, or however many openings they memorize. There’s some that talk about the ability to see and calculate tactics as being a talent, not a trainable skill. I’m not so sure, though, and have been working through Polgar’s massive puzzle book (used to train his daughters), and several other tactic books. I try to solve via using patterns, not so much the this-then-that method, and I do think my tactics are improving as a result. I’ve definitely had some fabulous sacrificial attacks work out that I never would have dreamed of trying in the past. Very fun!

I also hit a plateau long ago with playing the oboe, but am revisiting technical fundamentals and feel like I’m making progress again. For example, I’ve been spending a few hundred hours playing with a drone, testing pitch, and imagining pitches before I play them: all helping with what has long been a problem with intonation that has made it very hard to succeed at a more professional level of performing. (Previous mediocre strategy: play and react, evaluating resulting pitch if I remember to do so or adjust quickly if a bad sound jumps out at me. Good enough for community gigs, casuals, lower-paying jobs.)

As one gets older, progressively more learning requires the unlearning of bad cognitive habits that tend to waylay or sabotage more effective thought processes. When you are young, it is more about simple acquisition, though it is dicey as to whether your acquisitions are fundamentally sound and will serve you well throughout your career.

#115

To paraphrase Clifford (I think it was at least): “Geometry is so easy only a child can learn it.”

BTW: I rather happy with some of my deviant art - http://roquendm.deviantart.com/gallery/

#116

John Carmack.

  • Jev

[sup][sup][sup][sup][sup]Edit: Please don’t take this seriously.[/sup][/sup][/sup][/sup][/sup]

#117

http://www.amazon.com/The-Scientist-Crib-Early-Learning/dp/0688177883

#118

I think that even those born with some sort of inclination still have to try. They do not magically know what to do.

#119

Sorry if you didn’t get the sub-text I left there.

What you’re saying is completely true, I was just joking. \o/

  • Jev
#120

Hehe. My laptop screen is small as is. Didn’t even see that. :stuck_out_tongue: