5 myths holding you back from starting gamedev
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- A lot of people dream of going into gamedev, but often stop themselves from doing so, before even having tried it. They give a wide variety of excuses why they can't do it, even though these don't hold up.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Excuses
00:33 I can't program
02:27 I'm too old
04:18 I won't have success
06:06 AI will replace me
08:02 I can't go fulltime
09:53 What did I miss
10:46 Closing
---
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I am 37 and just starting. There are pros and cons to being older or younger. My advice is don't wait, just do it. I regret waiting so long and ultimately it was just me being dumb and telling myself stupid stuff or believing stupid stuff others told me. You are your biggest roadblock, so come to terms with that and figure out what you are going to do about it. I will give you a hint, waiting around for something to happen is not it.
Same. 37, just starting. Woohoo lol
Wow, same except I just turned 40 and getting into it now.
Old gang 💪
This whipper snapper called me a "sweaty dude who's 30-40 years old."
Lmao I felt that too
Marnix seems like a nice dude, but he's not even old enough to be a "whipper-snapper" 😂😂
To be fair, I had to look up the word 'whippersnapper' cause I'm even too old to know that word.
You young people with your slang, in my days .... tssss
I felt personally attacked, not going to lie
@@channyh.221B So are you a vampire or a Higlander? LOL "Whipper snapper" is from the 1600s 😂
I am honored you added a clip of my next game "Surviving Ceres" into the vid, was a nice surprise for me. I wish it wasn't used as an example of look at what old people can do, but I'll take it. :) I didn't get into game dev until I was 39. So I agree, age is not a factor. You can start at any age if you have the passion, dedication, and ideally some savings to survive on while you learn and grow.
As a starting 40year old gamedev, it definitely helps me a lot. I have experience in web development. In my 14 years in webdev, I always got involved in every sphere of activity involved in a project, from design to coding to SEO, and I also work in Agile development as a Scrum Master and a advisor on Agile Project Management.
All that experience allows me to manage my project better. Its not perfect. Also having two young kids doesnt make it as stable as it should be but thats part of the deal!
People who have clearly defined visions and successfully commit & execute are the ones who'll make it for sure. A lack of clarity is the biggest challenge. Prototype fast, fail fast, don't double down on bad executions.
@@TESkyrimizer Definitely. Learning how to scope yourself, how to iterate and how to plan ahead, how to cut up your work in easy to accomplish chunks, it comes from experience. Also limiting yourself to not jump around multiple projects is easier as you get older !
50 years old here!! I've just asked my company a unpaid leave to go full time game dev. To be honest, I was a bit tired of the work i did there .... but let's see where this adventure leads me !!
The thing with being older I find (I'm 32) is that I'm waaaaay more disciplined than I was at 20-25. The stability is definitely a positive too.
Definitely. It's way easier for me to motivate myself to sit down and do something productive past 30. The stability helps a lot, the lack of overdrive hormones + desire to "experience life"/socialize, and the desire to make something of myself helps motivate me a lot.
Though the lower amount of free time and energy offsets it a bit LOL
As a sweaty dude in my 30's, you whippersnappers are great, don't give up! While I have less game dev experience, here's some life experience in exchange: you'll make it eventually. Experience and failing upward IS the key to success, even if it doesn't seem like it.
I'm 55 and I love developing games!
I've started in august last year, and I also had no idea where to start. BUT just starting is the biggest point, and from there, everything comes from alone - at least kind of. :D And I loved every minute so far!
A bunch of good takes in this video imo. Recommended it to a friend of mine who is the actual irl idea guy king
I’m 45 and starting this year!
The comment about the difficulty of being your own boss is so true! I've been doing a self-led PhD for over 3 years and only recently started to be able to follow my own orders consistently. Great content btw, keep it up :)
42 year here. 3rd Game on go
I had launched a game on Android in 2021. It was a personal victory but haven't updated also my developer account is now shut. I'll keep watching game dev vlogs. I'm gearing up for something big. Next game will be launched with more maturity.
One of them allmost 40yr olds here. That in my opinion is the best of the myths and you say it just right. Kids are allmost grown, have a stable job and nowdays i rather work on my game. It has been a dream of mine for a long time, and now is the time.
I m in the mid of 40. And m working on game for last 3 years. TBH this journey is more like learning each day, and yes its my part time i m full time Interior Designer.
Very good points! Hopefully this inspires someone to take the plunge!
I needed this thanks Marny
What's holding me back is lack of discipline and passion. I can make all sorts of game frameworks, but I never have the desire to complete them. That's where discipline would kick in to polish and create assets and put everything together, but lately I've been getting better at that and yet still feel a mental wall.
I think it mostly boils down to low-grade depression or dysthymia. I don't feel passion about games like I used to, or really about anything. So whenever I think about a project idea, nothing "clicks" even from the start. I still make a lot of prototypes and learn a lot, but when the passion isn't even there from the *idea phase*, it's basically a death sentence for the project as a whole.
This has been gnawing at me for a while now. I feel like I'm wasting my own potential because I know I have decent programming and artistic skills, yet produce nothing of value.
I doubt there's anything you can do to artificially create "passion," like the type I have it's probably better to describe it as "desperation" because I was working a (literal) back-breaking job in construction before getting a life altering injury. It's been a few years since then and now I'm a game developer getting paid $0/hr. I don't really have work options, from everything available game development has been the only one that I appear to be capable of doing now. Oh, also I suffer from depression and extreme social anxiety where I had panic attacks on the regular when I was working construction, ironically, it wasn't the jobs requiring me to scale skyscrappers that gave me panic attacks- no it was dealing with people.
But, regarding drive, I'd say "just open the engine for your first week, don't do anything, just open it." It's the same thing as "just go to the gym, don't lift weights, just go and walk out for your first week." You just habitualize it. When I game dev, sure I've got a plan, but sometimes I just kind of meander and do whatever. Strictly speaking, attaching bells and whistles isn't going to get me closer to being Steampage Ready, what with my lack of any kind of visual whatsoever, but sometimes that's what you have to do to get yourself game deving for the week.
Right now I'm wasting my time on here instead of doing game dev for much the same reason. It's hard to get going, but by the end of the week it's almost impossible to get me to stop.
I'm a little bit in the same boat. I've learned how to make music, draw, and almost everything I could need for game dev (am also programmer for a living so I already know plenty of that), but ultimately, I don't have the drive for more than, say, 2 or 3 weeks at most. Something else will get my attention, or maybe I'll just be tired from work, or more simply sometimes I'll just straight up forget about the project almost completely.
Personally, I want to make games, but I also love playing games. However, when I started developing intensely, I realised that I just didn't have time to play anything, especially with a full-time job on the side already. I'm not sure I'm willing to sacrifice my game time for game dev, deep down.
I'll agree with @Ryanowning about making it a habit though. I think it's also best to link that to an habit you already have. If you're used to do something every day, open the game engine just before or immediately after. Once it becomes an habit, you can then create a new habit like "play the current prototype for 2 minutes". Obviously easier said than done though.
10:30 And this is exactly why I'm remaking Warlord 3 :D
The fact that you insulted your own audience. You've earned my respect for your honesty.
Basically why you shouldn't start making a 2D platformer? GRIS or Hollow Knight or Celeste or Shovel Knight or Ori are crazy people?
Buddy, we're living in 2024, not 2014.
What worked 10 years ago, doesn't work today anymore.
When looking at game market trends, don't look back more than 3 years from today, as player sentiments and trends change over time. There were no survivor likes or roguelite deckbuilders in 2014, and now they are booming. Meanwhile, the median platformer revenue is ~$200
gamalytic.com/genres?sub_genres=Platformer&tags=2D%20Platformer.
-M
@@bitemegames I think you are missing my point.
Are you thinking that searching the actual trend of the month and trying to make a game in that way will does it ensure you make money?
I think in 2024 if you are a solo dev you have to try to take a little niche instead of trying to create something trendy that much larger studios can do better and often fail to do.
Read Purple Cow of Seth Godin and i think you will change your mind about that.
Setting a trend imprison your idea, try to do something really high quality no matter the genre.
Make something memorable and not something trendy.
No wonder he missed your point. Your comment is rather ambiguous given its _unique_ phrasing and missing punctuations (even after it's edited).
Also If someone needs to hear it, you can do things because it does you good, write a book you wont sell, paint something you wont get buyers, you can weight lift without winning any contest.
And of course, you can make games if you find it interesting or fun.
Creating things makes you a better person.
This is me. I'm at a point where I just want to make a fully-complete, "releasable" game just because that sounds like something I'd like to accomplish. As long as it's truly complete, I would be happy even if 2 people bought it.
I really wish I knew how to do that again.
I think you have an older audience because older people are more pragmatic about the financial and day to day of things, and your channel focuses more on that than a lot of gamedev stuff on youtube.
You're definitely never too old to start game dev. I recently turned 50 and decided to retire from the oil/gas industry to work on games fulltime. In my case I started coding games back when I was 10 years on the Acorn Electron writing 6502 assembler (bring back the 80's, things were so much simpler than today!). I had planned to work in game dev after school but ended up in software/hardware engineering in the oil industry. Fast forward 30 years and I finally decided to follow my passion that has been festering all this time.
Great stuff! I was brought up on 6502 and though I was a bit young to understand assembly, my dad taught me the basics of BASIC - I was blown away seeing how I could make things appear dynamically on the TV using INPUT statements and FOR loops.
I also have the same latent passion - I've a few months of relatively free time now to make it real... If nothing else I want to produce something that I would have loved to have played as a kid...
@@crtglowgames Nice! I miss the days when you could get pixels on the screen just by poking a single byte into video ram, but hey-ho, we are where we are now I guess!
I saw a bit of 6502 in college. Never thought I'd hear anyone mention that again. But my first code was written in Apple basic, which I learned from books. Good thing I didn't know it was supposed to be hard. I remember the peeks and pokes too. And half a byte was a nibble.
The only gamedev channel that I get legitimate laughs out of.
‘Your all just a bunch of sweaty dudes in your 30’s and 40’s’
Can confirm: 35m, sweating my ass off over here
10:30 funny enough there IS a game I use to play 20 years ago that the entire world forgot about. Specifically a WC3 custom map that I use to love. Two actually. And when there's so many reimagined custom maps that have been somewhat to very successful, I look forward to remaking one or both of those games one day.
But multiplayer games are a little beyond me at the moment hahaha
Which maps did you like?
Where do you get these stats at 4:36?
gamalytic.com/genres
I don't know to what degree this can be considered an excuse but a big mental block I have is art and assets. I keep thinking that I can prototype with ready-made assets but on top of learning the engine and programming skills, I can't possibly fathom learning art skills as well.
would love to see you lay off the beginner videos for a bit and do some more in depth stuff.
In-depth stuff doesn't get the same views and doesn't make sense to put up here, we upload more in-depth videos every Monday on our Patreon: www.patreon.com/collection/259026
At the end of the day, without Patreon this channel wouldn't even exist at this point anyways.
-M
7:39 triggered my tripophobia so hard
Another one: "I don't know which engine to pick"
I recommend Unreal because it has a lot of AI tools packaged into it which will make development a more fulfilling experience. Not to mention it feels like I'm playing a souls-like game when I develop.
@@Ryanowning Also, I would suggest you if you pick Unreal ... buy an extra big SSD (1TB or bigger), just to install Unreal requires if I remember correct 200GB or so.
Few days ago I have done the first step and created an Epic account, now I need a good and afordable SSD. ^^
That's a popular cope, it's a delay tactic IMO. They get stuck in "analysis paralysis" trying to find the perfect engine, instead of risking failure by actually starting.
All of them. Install and try out all of them. Mainly tho the 3 bigger names today. Unity, Unreal and Godot. Do a couple of tutorials on them all, and see what sticks, see what feels the most comfortable to you. Thats how i use unreal today, to some unreal feels too bloated and you have millions of buttons, but i kinda like just that. Oh and blueprints and interfaces and data tables ane etc etc.
Even better, "I can't use an engine. I must build an engine from scratch".
as an artist , trying unreal blueprints, its just as difficult as learning code imo, because you still need to know what and how and when to use the nodes and what they do from what I found. So at that point you may as well learn code. I guess the point of blueprints is for people who already know code and can just slap something together more quickly
Independently from video,Ive been following your channel for quite a long time so I wanted to tell something.
I am nearly 17 and live in Turkey.There is an exam system called YKS,which decides what university you will continue your educational life.I will be entering it in next 2 years.I want to study endustrial engineering,however,I like to come up with game ideas.I have a really bad computer(17 years old office laptop) so I am taking notes and photos in my phone and notebooks.I came up with a lot game ideas,but I find 2 of them way more promising.Here comes the problem:I am kind of bad in coding.I just learnt Scratch and little Python online.I really would like to do give at least two games live,but I am not sure if I will ever do it/be able to do it.Moreover,the stories are a bit dense.I am not even sure if it would be more suitable as a game or some kind of series/book stuff.
Also,can I "sell my game idea" to some kind of company,like everything that must be done is listed in notebooks and PDF's.They just need to make musics,recording and coding.
Wow, you are too young, you have plenty of time ahead to learn what you need and earn money for new computer to bring your ideas to life. No one will buy your idea, at most they will steal it or steal part of it if something looks good enough and do it by themselves.
@@flamart9703 I unfortunetly think you are right D: Thank you for reading that and commenting :]
@@ctn219 Hang in there, take you time, taking notes is so important, so good for you already doing that. Good luck.
@@channyh.221B Thank you!I try to collect as much as footage and notes as I can,also writing some kind of complete guide of how game will be.
I think these are some good points but I do think you’re wrong on AI.
I basically just write the outline for scripts and let ChatGPT4 write them and it’s pretty good.
Also the tesla self driving is pretty good in my opinion, especially in the US.
I really wish to learn and proceed to develop video game but I am electrical engineering postgraduate
Dude, you could've introduce them to the most innovative approach to game development in human history...paper games. Just write and draw stuffs on paper and play. It's the very first type of games that I developed since I was 10 or something. Maybe if you're still reluctant to write or draw stuffs, just buy a box of toys like Lego or Chinese version of them. If you're truly don't want to spend money...well maybe just pick up some solid trashes similar to stones and make a game like Checkers. Maybe you even make Hopscotch. I mean the idea is to build up your confidence and understanding of "games" in general. Making videogames is just to understand the tools and make those "games" into digital version. I know it's hard to learn "tools" to make videogames, but it's much harder for you if you don't even understand games like Checkers or Hopscotch. That's why I recommended you to make "paper games" which is far less learning curve than other mediums. Of course you won't be able to distribute that paper game globally, but it's a good thing to start with. Heck you might even be able to use that paper game as the base idea for your commercial version of the game whether it's tabletop game or videogame. If you agreed with me, you better either pin my comment or make the video about it.
The thing for me is coming up with the game idea. I can't decide or stick to one. I worry too much about the future/outcome, like what people will think, I must have an original idea, oh this idea won't work because it has already been done etc etc.
Same here. I've stopped caring as much about the "it's already been done" part, but my mental roadblock is finding an idea that I feel passionate about and would be an expression of myself, rather than just another "game for the sake of a game" idea.
Your first game has a 99% chance of failing, so no need to worry about whether it will fail or not. You just have to get through it. It's like when you turn on the shower and the hot water is out, you just have to stand there and endure the pain until you can't feel it anymore.
I wouldn't worry about that, like *at all* 😅 Every skill & experience you're learning applies equally to any idea. And no idea is truly good on its own merits - it's down to the implementation, and ultimately, the audience. You'll literally never know for sure until someone plays your game, so might as well just start with whatever strikes your fancy.
I use to think that too. I still have "marketable" ideas I want to make that'd probably sell decently, but I'm limiting those to simple games that I can work on here and there.
I think the most important thing is having something you're passionate about and feel happy making. Think of it as productive-profitable work and hobby-fun-time work.
Hey I'm not that sweaty! Well maybe just after hitting the gym.
Enginedevvin don't make me break a sweat.
Yes, yes, I know. Get off my duff and make a game. But I'm in the #1 category for holding me back ☹ And then I looked into Construct since the "I'm not a programmer" excuse really hit home. But there's a paywall for businesses so I will continue to look around.
To people who think they don't have time.
Truth is, you'll only ever have less. Time is something you lose, not something you make. So spend the time you have doing what you want. You'll genuinely only ever have less time. Either make room for your dreams, or watch them shrivel in the corner until they legitimately cannot be achieved anymore.
The time you spend failing is better spent than the time you spend wondering if you could have succeeded. Live in the "I found out" not in the "I wish I could have".
Don't die with wishes. Die with answers.
I can't program, I'm old enough to be a grandpa in less than a decade, I'm making my dream game Zelda-like open world multiplayer game as a solo dev and this is the first game I've ever tried to make (99% chance I will fail), I've kept a very close eye on AI and realized that the people making it forgot that intelligence isn't witty responses- it's doing more with less, and I'm looking for a job because I've almost run out of money. Also I've spent the past six months basically doing nothing but learning Blueprints in Unreal.
I'm a game developer. I'm going to make my game. It isn't about circumstances, it's about willpower. You can make a game on a full time job, you just need to accept that your weekends will be spent doing game development.
Also MWAHAHAHAAHA I found a niche of game genres hardly anyone is making games for! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Probably because open world life sims are hard to code. I mean, I really picked a hard genre for my first game. 😅
Probably make smaller games before you start this otherwise you will get really frustrated like me and possibly quit game dev altogether.
@@Choco794 Nah, I'm having a blast. This is fun. Last time I got frustrated and took a month hiatus, but since then I've gotten a lot better. This is definitely teaching me a lot.
That said I have scoped down quite a lot. I might not even do multiplayer because Unreal's replication system is confusing.
I've decided next time I get frustrated I'll just spend a week working on a side project.
You would probably have more of a blast by finishing small projects or at least seeing them come to finish and also you can test the features from your dream game in isolation and then in your dream project incorporate those features in the isolated projects you can work out any bugs and then in the long run streamline your dream project, you could even potentially do the multiplayer aspect as well.
@@Choco794 I'm enjoying this immensely. I'm mostly done writing out the foundations and I'll be moving into implementing them to make each actor and effect. Obviously it's a lot of work to update everything to what I need them for, but I've sort of been doing that all along the way.
I've already dug myself out of the valley of despair, although I might end up ending back there lol.
Alright, good luck hope you succeed
Honestly can't focus long enough to crack down on making games. I already can't comprehend code (though I have a college background in it somehow) and literally anything distract me.
Doesn't help that no one I know really wants me to pursuit it and I don't have an income as of writing either.
I did have a previous job, but left it because I realized it was sucking any creativity from me and replacing it with cynicism (not because of trying to career as a dev).
I am no good at art. This makes gamedev challenging for me.
Woohoo! 40 year old aspiring game devs, raise your hand! 🙋♂️
This didn't scare me, but one of my friends made this point. He was scared of just how much time it would take to make a decent game, and he didn't know if he would be able to commit to that with his other responsibilities
Sure, but you can stop & start. Take a cue from writers & musicians - some keep notebooks of half-finished stories & songs for decades, only to pull it all together later in life.
It's a parroted phrase in gamedev but it rings true: Control scope. Make a good, small game, and expand a ope after it's completed
I don't see these as myths, but as real obstacles for people who wonder whether to start making games, because they feel that It will take a lot of work and hardship.
Pretty much everything worth having in life requires work & risks hardship. Maturity is realizing & accepting that, and deciding how much work/risk is it worth to you.
Most people need instant gratification.
That is NOT game dev.
So most people are simply not cut out for it.
Started at 25 when the pandemic slammed its haunches right on our poor and unsuspecting faces. Now 28, and my life has just baaaarrrely started touching the edges of stability. XD
But I do agree with many in the comments here that the thing that holds most of us back is the idea we can't invest the time to be even close to competitive...
Truth is, game development is something you do if you have an itch for it... Just scratch it. You only waste time feeling like you can't be "good enough." This is one of those few fields where the people are here because they love it, not because they want to be the next winner in a competition.
I want to start learning game development, but I haven't enough time. 😢
and it's hard or I think it's hard however I am a programmer and create mobile apps, scripts (tools).
Start by opening your game engine whenever you're free and just closing it for your first week. Second week tinker with a couple of easy things, like testing out point lights or ambient lighting. Third week start your first attempt at making actual code.
Once you're there it starts to get easier to get it going and feel like it's a game.
"Just sleep a little faster"
Boys watch Brackeys…
Men watch Bite me Games.
wow wow ...... did he just call us old ?
Ok boomer -M
I feel it's pointless to waste time learning a crappy engine. You're still going to have to invest a huge amount of time becoming familiar with it, and by the time you realise you need to switch to one of the big 3, you'll have to re-learn almost everything from scratch (and yeah, the base concepts are identical, but the implementation is sometimes so different that it doesn't help all that much)
I think people get into game development for the wrong reasons. You should not be getting into game development so you can get rich and quit your job, you should only be getting into game development because you want to make games. If you get rich or make enough money to quit your job then thats a bonus.
I'm not sweaty... :(
20-25? you son of... just joking and kind of jealous. When I read comments I think you somehow figured it out that your audience might be just "little" older :D
Who told you I was sweaty
Actually I'm 28 and I'm gonna be the next Tynan Sylvester 😎 i just gotta buy more clickbait ads to convince people to wishlist my shitty unfinished game WOOOOOOOooo /s
Saying you don't need to be a good programmer to make a game sounds like you're just trying to tell your audience what they want to hear lmao.
It's true, though. You don't need to be good; you just need to be good enough. You can use free art assets to assist, too, and ask questions on forums.
@@TheMechanicalCoder32 That outlook is why there's tens of thousands of shovelware "games" on steam now.
AAA game developers love this message. Optimization? That's beyond enough -(my payroll).-
I just think you act like a senior game developer with decades of experience but you just started making games, so you are definitely not in the position to advise in what should be done yet, what you could do is just statics and what you think basically.
Are you really assuming that the majority of the people puts their real age
Adults do.
@@sdhority sure , but two arguments, you don't have a way of distinct fake to real, and second, some still use the same email as they were younger
Google knows. It's not actually the age you put in the form. They look at the content you watch, google queries, and other behavior patterns.
Is it somewhat scary? Sure, but it's also very accurate. -M