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Comment by a_t48 | Hacker News Reader

Let's say for the sake of argument that there is too much art out there, that we need less people writing novels and more people fixing potholes and whatnot - fine. How does the author propose deciding _who_ gets to make art? Even if you have an oracle who can assign some sort of quality number to an art project before it's made...how are people supposed to get better at it? It's going to take thousands of cruddy Unity indie projects to make a single Undertale or Stardew Valley. The more crappy art we have, the more good art will come later, as artists either get better or luck upon a good idea combined with the perseverance to make that idea a reality.

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Read through some other posts - author is a game developer who founded his own company. This post feels like one of three things:

1. burnout, as someone else pointed out.

2. a very good troll :)

3. A somewhat poorly guided but honest attempt to dissuade people from joining the games industry (possibly mixed with 1.)

As someone who started their career in games and left - he's not wrong. The games industry is kind of shit. It doesn't pay well, the hours suck, and you might work for months or years on something that either never sees the light of day or nobody ends up playing (not to mention that in the beginning you're somewhat replaceable, there's a dozen young developers who would love to be in your shoes) - and this is just the life of a salaried game dev - the indie life is even harder.

...on the other hand, the projects and problems are interesting/unique and the people in it are some of the most wonderful I've ever met. I miss shipping games, even though I bailed out of my own volition. I don't blame anyone for wanting to join, especially as a young developer.

I remember at the age of 19 or so being asked (paraphrased) "why the hell would you want to do that?" by an ex-Bungie developer (and now good friend, even if we haven't chatted for a while) when I said I wanted to join the games industry. For better or worse I persevered, showed him I had some potential as an engineer and eventually he helped me get some interviews and a job. But I'd ask the same question of any young developer who came my way hoping to get in.

So I guess I agree with what the author is trying to say (the games industry is full-up! are you sure you want to try and squeeze in?), even if I don't agree with words he's using to say it.

I feel like the author has used his games published numbers to hide the fact that the number of gamers is large and growing much larger all the time.

There are 8 billion people in this world, and the Playstation 2 is the highest selling console ever at 155 million[0].

In a world of 3 billion computer and internet users, 12,000 Steam games a year doesn't seem like that much too me.

The real problem is that all the sales are going to go to the top 1% of games.

But here's another truth that dispels the author's main point: I can make one or two games a year, but I can play dozens of them.

Game developers that see this problem should be encouraging people to develop games - and buy as many indie games as they can afford.

In a world where everyone is making art at 1x and buying art at 10x, then many many more people can make a living from their art.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_game_cons...

> How does the author propose deciding _who_ gets to make art?

I feel like the author makes it fairly clear: those with enough privilege. If the cost of living goes to zero, we'll have near-infinite art. If the cost of living goes to maximum we all starve to death.

At very least, I was very much in love with a free-living artist who inspired me greatly in my 20s. I moved to San Francisco to hangout with her and her amazingly cool and smart friends - living on couches and doing art. I felt like a sell-out that I couldn't make it in that world and got a "real job". I found out later that she had several million dollars to her name in her early 20s. I somehow had missed the implication of her text "stopping by my dads house in the Marina, be there in a minute".

When you find out that most free-living artists have financial backing - well, the rose-tinted glasses come off quick.

That said, props to any actually desperate-artists out there. I tend to think it's a bit of a mythic trope, but I'm sure some do exist.

> When you find out that most free-living artists have financial backing - well, the rose-tinted glasses come off quick.

Maybe the issue there is taxation, not art? If we're going to get into a debate about people owing stuff to society, I think looking at estate taxes, property taxes, etc... is probably a lot more reasonable than getting mad at them for doing things they enjoy with their time.

I think it's a very easy trap to fall into where we sometimes look at opulence/privilege and get mad at the good things that come out of that (life/job security, freedom to experiment, etc), rather than the consolidation of resources and wealth that enable those outcomes very selectively and that deny other people access to the same conditions.

And there's lots of different life philosophies about how to deal with millionaires/billionaires from lots of different political perspectives, but in all of them from the most Capitalistic to the most Socialist, guilting people over not being passionate about charity blue-collar work is probably less helpful and less reasonable than guilting them over not paying back money (either through charity or taxes) into the systems and common social resources that are currently supporting them and their lifestyles.

"I'm a millionaire, but I got a normal job so therefore I don't need to feel guilty", feels weird to me. That's not really practically changing anything about other people's conditions.

Charles Darwin accomplished building a theory in comparatively luxury. Clearly, wealth can, if not always, enable great things.

Absolutely. But if Darwin had spent his life drawing pictures and showing them to no one - and if his entire generation did the same - we would not live in the modern world.

After reading the post and comments, it feels more like the author (Jeff, maker of the Avernum series) is cautioning against too many of us moving too far away from life-sustaining activities like maintaining infrastructure (and I would add: teaching and parenting effectively, farming, using our bodies to do most of our work, practicing being more in tune with other life on Earth).

I’ve been escaping into videogame-land during most of my free time (I’m a homemaker & parent of a disabled kid), and while it’s helped me get along with my spouse (release valve, maybe?), it is not the healthiest solution in the long run. Okay for now, and I understand I have a lot of work yet to sync my real and ideal selves (where I know in the moment what I’m feeling and have agency to decide what to do next, rather than picking up the pieces later).

Art gets made by people who have the free time and/or people getting paid to do it. People do a pretty decent job at self-selecting for who gets to make art

That’s how it works now though. So it’s not a solution to the proposed problem in the article.

I agree though, there is no problem.

This completely misses the point of art. Art is just an outward expression of thought and feeling, desires, fears, hopes, pain, pleasure. The problem is not that there is too much art or too many games, the problem is there is not enough TRULY artistic art or games. Most games now are created for profit and not because someone is trying to create the world they love. Likewise a lot of “art” created now is made to be sold and not for its own sake. This does not mean something cannot be art but intended to be sold but if it’s design revolves exclusively around whether it will sell the most copies then it is not truly an expression of the inner self but rather an expression that more external possessions would be nice to have.

This is dangerously close to "no true scotsman". "This game isn't true art!" Trying to categorize things as artistic or not is a losing battle

One answer is "no one, at least not full time, we're gonna try and get by with existing works and amateur quality art"

Which is of course fantastically unpopular and will never happen, so people will continue to brutally compete for who gets to make art instead of doing grunt work

Just cancel copyright and see who will keep on creating.

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