What is it with games programming??

[guestgulkan]

Is it the flavour of the month.
Does any novice here want to be anything other than a games
programmer.

What about operating systems, compilers, debuggers etc.

[Return 0]

lol. Flavour of the decade is more like it. There are enough OS, compilers, and debuggers out there... Who wouldn't want to create games for a living. I for example have been pushing Business Applications for over 10 years, Oracle, .Net, you name it I've done it, and I'm plain sick and tired of working with accounting and inventory departments and dealing with business requirements. That's why I'm moving toward game programming, but mainly its just a hobby right now until I produce something decent. What other way can you bring together your analytical, graphical, musical, and storytelling skills into one product and have fun at the same time, not to mention make some cash if your good at it. I think the spike in novice game programmers are due to the new tools that are available purely for game development such as pygame, xna, darkGDK, and BlitzBASIC.

What people don't realize is that game programming is typically a hell of a lot more difficult than Business App development (immensely more difficult), unless of course you are working on something scientific and bleeding edge. My advice to everyone that reads this post that is intrested in programming is to stay the hell out of main stream corporate America and go to game programming. It's not a complete escape from the annoyances of corporations, but you won't have an "Office Space" day and want to shoot up the place... that often. And if you're one of those people that just plain sucks and has no creativity but you still don't want a Business App job, then look into Game Tool Designer jobs.

[jsmith]

OTOH game programmers work a lot of hours and typically don't make a lot of money to show for the effort.

[Return 0]

Yeah that's the huge down side to it. You're expected to work 60+ hours a week and the pay is not what it should be often, however that is gradually changing thanks to the efforts of the IGDA. I've seen some jobs out there recently ranging from $60-70k for 3-4 years of solid C++ experience and exposure to various APIs. Typically the perks out weigh the lower pay, not to mention the majority of Game companies offer free employer paid insurance, onsite employer paid lunches, events, always casual day, etc... Not the occasional "Hawaiian T-Shirt Day" and $500/m benefits. You also have location problems. There are only a handful of locations where game companies are based: California, NY, Atlanta, Orlando, to name a few. So anyone looking to get into the industry that is not fortunate enough to live close by will be forced to relocate. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing, Game companies are reknown for luxurious offices in comparison to your typical cubicle prison cell.

[Mythios]

My old tutor once said to me - "Scott, when you start working for a game company - expect to have no life or family". It actually annoyed me and made me start re-thinking what I should be doing. So I spent a year after that learning Java (worst mistake I made imo). But in the end went back to my game development programming course and I must say - It makes me happy and I have great fun doing it. But yes as of late I've noticed a lot of people getting into this side of programming more. But myself - I much enjoy seeing the outcome of a game I'm working on rather than a business app. But hey well all enjoy different things.

@Return 0 - Especially game tools like xna. All you have to do is download it and C# and off you go. You can download a tutorial and build what ever you want off it. Great language and it's giving novices an easy view into game programming. But I myself much prefer c++ for its raw/pure power it has. But I look forward to just over a year finishing up my course and heading out into the real world. Craving to get out there actually and start programming my ass off :)

[PanGalactic]

I have worked at a game company (as a systems engineer, not as a programmer), and at that company the benefits and pay were crap save for the execs, which were all shareholders. I still know many of the developers, and they love game development are and happy trading the poor pay/benefits for being able to do game developent. Most don't have the desire or the demeanor necessary to work in a more professional setting. Most are now getting to be middle-aged, still single, still paying rent. I just couldn't do it.

[Mythios]

Hehe, yeah amazingly enough I don't really play that many games. Play one here and there but I spend most of my time studying/programming. But for me I quite enjoy it. Fits in my life, my parters life so hopefully all goes well. I've heard a lot of bad things about game companies. But I guess I love it a lot so hopefully I get lucky and end up in a position I want to be in :)

[Return 0]

I don't plan on trying to obtain a job with a game company because I most likely would need to take a 50k pay cut and well that's not happening at this point. So i'm in the process of starting my own studio, start small, not looking to really hit it rich just do something I enjoy and maybe turn a few bucks if possible. If it turns out i'm making a decent living maybe i'll quit my job... who knows.

[helios]

There are enough OS, compilers, and debuggers out there...

What? I can count all the C/++ debuggers I know of with one hand, and the only good one is VC++'s.

There's a very good reason why so many beginners want to program games. It's not because they like to program and also like games. It's because they like games, researched how they are made, and found that many of them were written in C++. For these kind of poor bastards, programming soon stops being a tool and becomes an obstacle. Not all of them, obviously, but I would assume a rather large proportion of them end up abandoning it.

I remember I once saw "no programming needed" proudly displayed on the feature list of RPG Maker (an engine used to make RPGs of the J variety). I knew this was total BS because I had fooled around with it for few minutes some time before (by "programming" I assume they meant "writing code", since the actual programming was done by clicking buttons in dialogs, which ironically made it harder and more tedious to use), but I still marveled at both the hypocrisy of the claim and the utter ridiculousness of the premise. Not having to program is a feature in a game engine? That's like having a book titled "Build your rocket car. Rocket science is optional."
Now people can make programs without having to program? I'll be damned if I'm going to let that happen.

[Return 0]

lol you're right helios, there's only a few and the only one I use is VC++. Back in the glory days of Playstation One (not that the glory days are over for Sony), there was a game released called RPG Maker, not to be confused with that other one out there, whatever it's called that has grown so popular online. You're right in that the game maker was more difficult to use with its clunky interface and strange options. I made a game or two that plain sucked. There is no substitute for pure coding. These no coding required tools are a farce. It's one thing to have a game tool, for example a level editor makes it easier to get the job done, but it's entirely something else to have a hands free game creator. Those game creator kits are really for hobbyists that like to share ideas in a community.

[helios]

not that the glory days are over for Sony

I remember when "Sony" meant "a company that makes great consumer eletronics" to me, not "never buy optical media from this company".

It's possible that we found it tedious because, as programmers, we hate repetitive work. Someone who can't (as opposed to "doesn't know how to") program may not mind spending hours in mouse movement alone. There are people willing to draw sprites pixel by pixel in Paint. FOR FUN.
If there are people who do that, I can believe the human brain is capable of indefinitely high patience and tolerance for monotony. We just don't have it.

[CrimsonAngel]

im not to much of a novice any more but i want to do any thing but that ... that field will be flooded in a few years ... lol and being on a collage campus i find that to many "game programmers" quickly switch there major to atec when they discover what programing is about

[Mythios]

Out of the two years I've actually been studying game programming. My first class started with around 15 people - with in the first month, 6 of them dropped out. By the end of the year there was only 5 who made it through. And for this year we started off with 15 and the course has been going for 3 odd months - and now 5 people have dropped out so far as well. (God damn spell check its telling me every word is an error?!?!)

Point being as well - is a lot of people come into these courses not realizing what programing really is. And well when they do - it's epic fail for them.

[mcleano]

@ Mythios

it's epic fail for them

I had to lol at that ha

[Mythios]

lol, sadly enough its true though :)

[jsmith]

There is a lot of _ s _ e _ x _ appeal to writing games -- they are like the muscle cars of programming. I love what I do, and it's not game programming. But, if there was an opportunity for me to make games for the identical compensation, work environment, etc, I would consider it. Why? It just seems like more fun.

There is something so much more tangible to game programming than to other programming. I could boast to my friends: "look at this cool new game I just made!" As opposed to boasting: "you know the last time you went to the ATM to get some money? Well, I wrote the code that sent those 50 messages back and forth to the bank to make that happen!"

[z05DSL3A]

A friend of mine was a pixel pusher, he grow to love it so much he's now a database administrator.

[ShawnStovall]

heh, my field of interest is actually the programs that construct the 3D environment of a game, like LightWave and 3D Studio Max. I find that making programs like that require a good mix of hard-line number-crunching programming and the more artistic side of programming tools which create the 3D objects.

[Mythios]

@ShawnStovall - Ah yes, I think a lot of that stuff is quite enjoyable as well. It's pretty hard a lot of it but fun :)