Working in a video game industry must be a dream job of many people. What could be better than getting paid to play, test or create video games? Sadly, life is not a bed of roses. Reality is far worse than it. Below I present five personal reasons, backed by both rational and empirical evidence, on why I am not a video game developer or a video gamer.
How many real life problem do majority of video games solve? Zero. While some might argue that video games are source of entertainment and happiness, I would like to clarify that video games aren't the only source of entertainment and certainly not the "best" one.
Happiness can be obtained from productive things like learning new skills, physical activities, talking with people, self improvement and many more. These activities not only provide entertainment, but they also have a productive outcome. It's like the best of the both world.
Not surprising that it's almost impossible to find a single person who is proficient in all aspects of game development. A team of multiple professionals is required for game development. Not just programmers, but writers, animators, artists, actors and more.
Such diverse and unusual requirements make it expensive, and hard to produce a video game. Not to mention that maintaining coordination and unity among such diverse set of skills is almost impossible. A programmer may not knowledgable about art. An artist may not be knowledgeable about programming. Yet they are still expected to coordinate and deliver the product within a strict deadline.
As video games don't solve any real life problem, require diverse set of skills, have a high capital requirement, its obvious that they aren't much profitable. According to VGInsights, 80% of video game developers have gross lifetime income of less than $5,000
Video games are addictive, aren't they? Why wouldn't they be when developers spend years in making them "better". To make them even more addictive, video game industries have started using various unethical means like:
The development side isn't very good either. Overtime, low pay, unreasonable demands, strict deadlines are a common thing there.
“It is not really an industry that treats people well. It’s not an industry that is stable or well-paid. It’s also an industry that has tons and tons of supply and not a lot of demand. So it’s not the most ideal place to work." - Wired
I am a "hedonist". I do what I enjoy the most. As I discussed in my previous post, one should choose the programming language that he enjoys working with the most. Same thing can be applied here. I don't like playing or making video games, so I don't do it. Being hedonist a doesn't mean that I have to derive pleasure from things I am not passionate about or things that do not have a productive outcome.
I would once again like to remind that I'm not saying, "Don't be a game developer". I am just sharing my personal opinion.