Do you enjoy your job in the games industry?

Quote from Sentura

Blackdog, I think you're missing an important point here: It's not the purpose of games to educate or discipline kids. Don't take the moral high ground expecting games to be anything but entertainment in their strictest form.

The argument with "kids just consuming" is a strawman, and even if this is the case when it comes to some kids, then it is the responsibility of parents to ensure that their kids can handle this.

Hey wait, as I thought I made clear replying to HP, I'm definitely not blaming games or developers, focus of my post wasn't direct addiction or promotion of education, and god forbid about moral enforcement.

I'm just saying that as happy I would be to work in the industry and knowing that millions enjoy what I created... I'd feel a little bit guilty thinking how many kids would over-use and forget about other nice things there are outside the digital world.

Of course responsability stands on the parents, i've said that myself... definitely not suggesting that you should put in a game a prompt suggesting the kid to turn off after two hours to go play football outside or make the homework

I think most of us by now make games for mainly adults, and as such there really isn't a need for a moral filter as the onus for this is on the recipient. We create a product that people can use in whichever way they desire. What they do with it in their own living rooms or bedrooms should be none of our business whatsoever.

It's easy in the case of kids because you have parents to throw the responsibility upon (like always), but in the case of large audience f2p facebook games like farmville, happy aquarium or any of the like, there is also a good part of psychologically fragile adults (and it's easier to make them take out their wallet).

I'm not sure if this is true or not, nor i remember from where i heard it. But apparently the companies distributing these games live from 0,2% of their player base, people who are basically ready to pay 5000, 10000 $ for content or ingame money. Are they rich responsible persons who dispose of their money as they like, or are they psychologically fragile persons like your senile grandma throwing away her economies in a delirium ? Not sure these companies have the means to know, and probably no desire to know anyway.

Quote from Sentura

I think most of us by now make games for mainly adults, and as such there really isn't a need for a moral filter as the onus for this is on the recipient. We create a product that people can use in whichever way they desire. What they do with it in their own living rooms or bedrooms should be none of our business whatsoever.

I agree that adults don't need the same moral filter but I sitll think that devs have a responsibility for the content in the game to some extent, you cannot just pull the 'it's just entertainment'-card on everything. Sure we shouldn't mind what people do in their bedrooms, but what about misinformation could potentially lead to prejudices? And hurt people?

One could argue that it's still up to the consumer to understand and see through the 'bad' messages of the game, yet this will not always happen, people will get things wrong and they will get prejudices. I cannot really say it's not the consumers responsibility, but do we really want our games to potentially lead to bad consequences?

Just like I want journalism not to give me a wrong idea of what middle-east is like, I sure as hell don't want Call of Duty to write arabic over their map Karachi even though arabic is not the country's language. If the games are taking place in the real world and is not meant to be alternate reality, just a series of scenarios happening in our world, I think devs have a responsibility to make it legitimate - partly for the sake of actually calling it 'real world' and party not to misinform players (no matter if they are kids or grown ups.)

Thanks for sharing your thought Koko and Sjonsonn, good point a with which i agree to.

Quote from KoKo5oVaR

Not sure these companies have the means to know, and probably no desire to know anyway.

Be sure they know everything they need to know from their customers.

They know exactly what type of people are ready to spent x-$ on x-time for x-item. They are working with "working-bubbles", like for example they will provide 10.000 users an offer to buy a new tool that allow to harvest twice faster :they will also test the color of that item, the message and the moment they offer this tool. Then they gather datas from all those tests and try to optimize who (age, gender, liked pages, etc...) gonna buy that shit at x-time.

I think this is obvious abuse of fragile people, like "cash games" are. This is really easy to fall into that dependance, once you try you often keep paying.

PS : i know this wasn't the meaning of your quote, but I wanted to share my thought

I've only been doing game development professionally for a couple of years, and only with independent companies. They've certainly been interesting and fulfilling experiences which have reinforced my desire to continue building worlds and environments for games. I decided to go back to university after losing my job last year, though, and I don't regret it. Programming is something I've never had much experience with (I'm one of those designer-types), so I chose to undertake a computer science degree. I don't think I would have been unable to learn the same programming concepts on my own, but the way the teaching is structured makes it easier for me to have a better understanding of these concepts more quickly, and having a schedule set by someone else helps to keep me focused (so I don't start shifting my goals around because there was a delay in completing one, for instance).

I don't know if I would have had the same level of comprehension if I was trying to teach myself programming concepts while also working on design or art for a game. Since I already have some professional experience with the latter, I'm working on building up these skills in my spare time away from studies, and when it's all done I'm hoping I'll have a better understanding of art and design, plus some new knowledge that can be applied to making games. I don't think I would have been able to learn as much if I was employed full-time, at least not in the same time frame, so this way of thinking always keeps me motivated through the times when I wish I could be working again with a really solid team on something exciting

I do think there is immense value to what you accomplish outside of work (be it through a hobby, education, etc) even if it's not readily apparent. Sometimes this can be more valuable than the work itself (hmm, maybe the employers won't like this one, but I think in a lot of cases it's true). Before I started working on games professionally I was studying and training to become a commercial pilot. The discipline of planning and executing a successful flight has it's own relevancy to games development (like doing things correctly the first time, even if they are time-consuming), even though the specific procedures and skills are of little use unless I'm working on flight simulators or something.

Hey, that's another reason I like making games - when you make a mistake, there is significantly less risk of physical injury or death