19 karma · joined February 16, 2022
I think history should be up for interpretation in about the same way as something like the laws of physics are, ie only if there's strong evidence that our current understanding is incorrect. I don't think a black Gandalf should be that evidence.
An interesting perspective, but I suspect that you're using "likeability" as a cynical proxy for how well a person works in a team.
A person with an exceptional personality that motivates their entire team to work harder is likely infinitely more valuable to the employer than a more individualistic employee that might be exceptional when compared to any individual employee but still severely underperforms compared to a motivated team. Should the employer be compelled to pick the later just because they are smarter and more competent?
The pay is usually indicative of employer's ability to find a person with the necessary skillset to do the job and not some abstract "importance to society" value that the job has.
Unfortunately the solution I've found is to only commit to making a game you're at least 90% sure you can complete without learning any new tools/engine functionality/design practices, etc. The "write what you know" advice for writers is directly applicable to commercial indie game development (maybe to an even greater degree).
Additionally: I think it's quite unreasonable to expect that you won't get demotivated over the course of a year(s) long project when even the most basic features require hours of research before they can be brought to a functional stage, not to mention the stage where they begin to coalesce into something fun.