Yeah, it does take a lot of time to learn the tool and implement anything even remotely worthwhile.
That's absolutely true!
Quote:
It's not like I have huge chunks of free time or anything, especially with the documentary, book projects, and Matt Chats. Summer is coming, though...!
And that's why most coders entering the games industry are young and often have no obligations. That was the case in the 80ies and it hasn't changed since then. No families to feed, no mortgages to pay back, but lots of time to put into the project.
As for Bill's comment that hobby coders aren't open to other ideas: I don't agree with that completely.
While I think that there are lots of people only able to re-program clones of Tetris, Breakout, Ultima etc. there are also lots of people open enough to process ideas they get from anywhere with something they come up themselves and -sometimes- produce something really good in end.
Often they have bigger ideas than abilities to implement it equally well but sometimes they are equally good at designing and implementing. They are a rare breed, IMHO, but in most cases even they don't produce commercial quality that also sells enough.
The problem I generally see is that creativity isn't a universal, equally distributed talent. While learning a programming language is something that can be done by practically everybody (of course with varying success), coming up with something fresh and original isn't as easy.
However, one must not only train a programming language by implementing something just to not forget things but also the ways to be creative: Thinking up scenarios and settings, inventing characters like enemies, designing a plot structure if needed. Systematically collecting ideas is one way to do that and I can only recommend to use a spreadsheet like the one in OpenOffice or Excel to do that.
Training a programming language may result in hard work (not always fun ;-) and creating a 3D engine is beyond most people's dedication and ability but lots of people are able to implement their ideas with tools like Gamemaker, RPG-Maker or a game that provides an editor (and there is quite a variety to get your hands wet).
Training creativity on the other hand is beyond hard work: It really is talent no matter how methodic you are. And you also need luck to come up with something that hasn't been done exactly like that before! ;-)
An interesting example for creativity could be Quentin Tarantino:
He's undoubtedly one of todays biggest cinematic innovators - and yet: He's only taking existing elements, stirrs them, combines them and - voila! - you get a product that's often entertaining as hell and *seems* to be fresh. In reality, however, it is only a concoction of things already existing somewhere else. Just look at the IMDb trivia section for the Kill Bill movies...
Yeah, it does take a lot of time to learn the tool and implement anything even remotely worthwhile.
That's absolutely true!
It's not like I have huge chunks of free time or anything, especially with the documentary, book projects, and Matt Chats. Summer is coming, though...!
And that's why most coders entering the games industry are young and often have no obligations. That was the case in the 80ies and it hasn't changed since then. No families to feed, no mortgages to pay back, but lots of time to put into the project.
As for Bill's comment that hobby coders aren't open to other ideas: I don't agree with that completely.
While I think that there are lots of people only able to re-program clones of Tetris, Breakout, Ultima etc. there are also lots of people open enough to process ideas they get from anywhere with something they come up themselves and -sometimes- produce something really good in end.
Often they have bigger ideas than abilities to implement it equally well but sometimes they are equally good at designing and implementing. They are a rare breed, IMHO, but in most cases even they don't produce commercial quality that also sells enough.
The problem I generally see is that creativity isn't a universal, equally distributed talent. While learning a programming language is something that can be done by practically everybody (of course with varying success), coming up with something fresh and original isn't as easy.
However, one must not only train a programming language by implementing something just to not forget things but also the ways to be creative: Thinking up scenarios and settings, inventing characters like enemies, designing a plot structure if needed. Systematically collecting ideas is one way to do that and I can only recommend to use a spreadsheet like the one in OpenOffice or Excel to do that.
Training a programming language may result in hard work (not always fun ;-) and creating a 3D engine is beyond most people's dedication and ability but lots of people are able to implement their ideas with tools like Gamemaker, RPG-Maker or a game that provides an editor (and there is quite a variety to get your hands wet).
Training creativity on the other hand is beyond hard work: It really is talent no matter how methodic you are. And you also need luck to come up with something that hasn't been done exactly like that before! ;-)
An interesting example for creativity could be Quentin Tarantino:
He's undoubtedly one of todays biggest cinematic innovators - and yet: He's only taking existing elements, stirrs them, combines them and - voila! - you get a product that's often entertaining as hell and *seems* to be fresh. In reality, however, it is only a concoction of things already existing somewhere else. Just look at the IMDb trivia section for the Kill Bill movies...
take care,
Calibrator
take care,
Calibrator