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Comment by jimmyrcom | Hacker News Reader

The 'I want to make video games' for a living is like hearing a teen girl enthusiastically brag about having great style sense and wanting to be a fashion designer or a poet because the things she writes are 'deep'(depressed with loaded words). These statements are so common it can feel disgusting. The counterstrike neckbeards of my generation would always go into CS half assed, learn java and usually not do it as a hobby. The new WOW generation are doing the same thing now. If someone wants to be a game programmer I think it's better to have a passion for programming and math first rather than a passion of games. As far as programming the internet is a better resource than any school could be. As far as game companies hiring people I think there's a better chance in getting a job if you're really great at art and creating environments. People have always been full of shit, but the only one you can blame for letting it affect you is you.

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I'm younger than this guy was in the article. My next door neighbor just went off to college to become a fashion designer. A handful of my friends became poets. A few friends of mine are forming a video game company.

I don't see the point in bashing somebody because they like something. Very often, those people that try something and turn out to be terrible find what they love in the process. Why insult them?

It's not insulting them, it's looking at them as if they're naive because they don't know half the other guys or girls also secretly want to be the some thing. I have yet to meet anyone that's become a poet as a career choice. It doesn't pay. Only a handful of those girls ever become fashion designers. It's like looking at a little kid saying I want to be a policeman, fireman or doctor. All the little kids at 5 years old seemed to pick one of the three. You give them encouragement with a smirk and always expect things to change. The professor has the right to his opinion and to give his personal recommendation when asked. A person who has the balls to tell you you're wrong when he/she really feels that way should be respected not demonized. This should not be an earth shattering visionary destroying event if he recommends the contrary to what you want based on experience. I think the author exaggerates and throws the blame outward way too much.

Well, I don't know the author, but from what he wrote I don't think there's too much blame-throwing going on. What I do know is that it's wrong to smirk at somebody who tells you what they want, or to flat-out tell them they're wrong without backing yourself up. Sure, you have a right to tell somebody their life is meaningless if they aren't saving lives, but it's a dick move to do so and all it does it hurt.

the hell are you talking about? It's fine to smirk at a kid he says something like I'm going to be an astronaut, cause it's cute. maybe you don't know what a smirk is. I used a different example for the professor, don't mix and match sentences to try and improve your point. People's advice is people's advice, if you want to hang them over the fire for it if they don't tell you what you want to hear then you're an idiot. If someone says, 'If I had your intelligence I would have became a doctor or tried to change the world', that's a compliment. The 'you should' in the statement of advice usually comes from the position of 'if I were in your shoes'.

Your analogy falls short at the end there...

A teenage girl bragging about her fashion sense or poetic style does not directly equate to the statement 'I want to make video games'. Unless, of course, you are implying that anyone who makes that statement has already tried and failed at creating successful video games and are now doomed and hopeless before they even hit the campus floor (as I am assuming that teenage girl is because, well...her poems suck).

I wanted to make video games. I went to a school specifically for that. I made it halfway through. The reality (to me, at least) was that the industry was just not worth it. The average lifespan of a game developer is 5 years...before total burnout ensues, and you are left entirely drained, hopefully with some bank though. But above all that, I decided to drop out because of a very simple and fundamental reason: It took all the mystery out of games...the X-factor, if you will.

This is not just refined to games of course...I feel that this happens all over the place, and the simplest answer as to why could just be that we as humans LOVE to learn. Just the prospect of learning some new language or about a new technology can spike a persons motivation to new heights, even if it is short-lived...we keep going.

It's like the people who audition for american idol. They secretly feel they can sing at the highest but only a handful of them are good at singing. If they knew there's a huge amount of people that think they're geniuses at singing and actually suck they'll more carefully re-evaluate themselves. Turns out there's a huge amount of people that got CS majors just because they felt it fitting after spending half their life on the computer playing games. Programmers that don't have side projects and don't do it for fun will be way inferior to those who do.

Making games seems like a pretty decent sized side project to me. As a teen I did a number of game like things. Spent lots of time as a coder on a MUD and created a number of simple games. The majority of the people I knew well during that period are now programming successfully. Some of them are even making games for profit.

The problem is, I think, if you say "I want to make games"(or any other thing) but wouldn't spend your next few hours of free time actually starting something.

I'm 32. I still want to make videogames but I don't want to work for Shit-A. I want to hole up in a log cabin somewhere and code till my eyes ache. Like Jeff Minter. (I seem to recall a comment from John Carmack along similar lines when he wanted to try a rendering technique: something like "I did what I normally do. I locked myself in a hotel room for three days and coded it up.")

Oh well. Until I have that log cabin in the woods my day job involves robot submarines, which is as awesome as it sounds.

I want a robot submarine. That runs Linux. That I can script in Python. Would your day job by any chance involve making/selling those? :)

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