@@graullas8981Nope! You actually need pretty good people-skills to work in tech if you want to go up the ranks. Even just getting jobs in the first place requires networking. Not saying it's impossible for ND folks - but they are more likely to get pigeonholed into specific roles. If that works for that person, great, but if not, they'll have to make a concerted effort outside their comfort zone.
@@graullas8981 sure but lots of narcissistic jerks too, but I guess one of those would never have admitted or realized that they were the actual problem (as opposed to the 100 contractors) lol so maybe you're right
Hot take - most indies can't decide if they are making games for money, to learn, or just for fun. Most of these questions seem like ppl who haven't been honest with themselves about that decision. Once you know, it's way easier to navigate that path.
not that hot of a take. I spent a lot of time trying to help people in various game dev discords and said confusion was all over the place. [at least once you get past the "I have no experience and am going to make a MMORPG turn-based FPS racing game in 3 months that is going to make billions" issue]
Doesn't really cover all the scenarios, and most games are a combination of those 3 things. For my own game RoadHouse Manager, my main driver is trying to make a great game that hasn't been done before, and then to a lesser extent, for money, to learn, and for the fun of playing it when its done.
@gameboardgames Okay, but *why* do you want to make a "game no one has done before"? It's fine to have secondary goals, but what is your primary motivation? "To see if I can" or "so I can play it" both fall under the for-fun category. You post about your game all over the place (think I've seen you on at least 2 other channels), so you are clearly motivated - what's the motive?
@@mandisaw I love gaming. I'm a game-making guy. So, I make games! As for my motivation...hmm... well part of is wanting to bring my ideas to life, as a creative person. Part of it is the challenge of tackling such a huge undertaking. Part of it is innovating game design. And another part is I find it much more satisfying than my previous jobs in tech working for big companies such as Activision. As I said before, there are many motivations, at least for me, its not just one thing.
I'm a programmer with more than 10 years of exp in software development and I'm using blender regularly just to improve at art and even though I won't create a masterpiece, my current game I'm developing looks decent. It's possible with a little-bit of patience (which programmers usually have) :-)
On having a "better" teammate - Some skills are not "transferable". For example, I was in one team where one programmer was super fast, another one was really rigorous, and another good at thinking outside the box. It would have been pointless to try to be like those other programmers, so instead I worked on personal improvement - identifying areas where I could do something better unrelated to my colleagues' strengths and weaknesses. And then focus on making that better. (My team lead helped/encouraged this). As well, it's ok to be a junior, and whoever does the project planning in the team should know that since when you joined. So long as you're not going backwards, it's all good.
Yeah, I feel like that Q came from someone who's been hanging out on Tumblr or DA too long 😅 Artists of all sorts are a valuable part of the team, incl writers & composers, tech artists, etc. But on the whole, society seems to vastly undervalue art relative to code, and they're always trying to find a way to get rid of us coders.
Same for me, art is a very difficult and long path, you have to spend so much time and energy before you can create something that people actually want to buy. If you go to art school you end up in dept and there's absolutely 0 guarantee you'll have job opportunities at the end. I had/ still have to teach myself 3D on top of 2D that I went to school for, and none of the 400 jobs /internships I applied for for 2 years reponded to me. I'm thinking of making games myself just because no one will hire me. And I know so many people that are in this situation. Whereas a developper? After just 2 years you can create something that works and that has value. So many job opportunities, and with good pay. And I know that because my bf is a dev. I'M the one who's jealous of devs
@DearShion In both cases, networking and getting your portfolio out there is critical. When I was last out of work, couldn't get a callback from my resume & code-samples, but got a few hits after publishing a small mobile game. Even showed it off on my tablet at the 2nd interview for my current job. If you and your SO can work together, maybe try getting an online portfolio project setup, something that can show off your skills in under 5min, and can be easily linked to from various places (resume site, LinkedIn, looking-for-artist boards, etc). And if you're in an area where it's feasible, look into some meetups - more ppl get jobs through connections than applications, moreso now than ever. Good luck!
@DearShion Oh yeah, and 2d translates fairly well to 3d. Texturing is critical, and it's basically all 2d. Same with designing materials, whether freehand, or procedurally via Substance. Once you get your 3d bearings, you'll be in good shape 👍
As a programmer doing gamedev at night for hobby, 12:42 - the first part was actual truth bomb. Mostly we don't have enough money to hire good artists for entire game. Other options can be learning art on own which may end up taking lot of time and it also requires genuine interest from our side or using asset packs but then we may unintentionally end up making a generic looking game with no unique art hook and also there is risk of game ending looking like an asset flip.
Thomas had it at 16:02 - Write a SaaS 😅 Programmers earn a lot more than artists, and have the most transferable & marketable skills. Learning some technical art skills and the basics of color & composition doesn't take long, and will allow you to produce a coherent aesthetic from paid assets or commissioned art. Never underestimate the power of wallet 💰
0:37 I've been using Unreal for 4 years now and I started learning blueprints mostly by exploration and with little help of tutorials so I can put my 5 cents of advice here. The learning curve is quite steep for a bit and then you hit a place where all this wired spaghetti mess starts to make sense and everything that's left to learn becomes very straight-forward. I'm sure you'll be able to match your co-dev skills in a couple of months. Be sure to work on things you like so that it's easier to stay motivated, you got this! 👊
This was very interesting to listen to! Here are my thoughts on the ones that I related to most: Skill issue: As someone who is primarily a game designer and can barely program, I've often felt this way. I can, however, contribute documentation, writing/narrative design, art, marketing ideas, research, project management, etc. 100 contractors: I actually experienced the opposite situation. I'm a people-pleaser, and I struggle to be assertive enough. I went through two contractors, and the second one was very nasty to me when I told him I couldn't continue with him since he wasn't progressing fast enough. He was experienced, but he had other responsibilities on his plate, and my project was clearly not his priority. 3rd-class citizens: I'm a big believer in giving credit where credit is due. When I brought my game to a couple of conventions, I made sure to put out a piece of paper that had my teammates' names on it so that people knew everyone who contributed. It also seems like programmers have less of a tendency to seek out recognition, though. As for the second part of the comment, I'm actually quite surprised to hear that programmers are considered to be a dime a dozen while artists are the more desirable ones. It's been a while since I've developed a game, but as someone who did many of the non-programming tasks, I've always felt like the one at a disadvantage due to my sub-par coding skills. Plus, there are so many assets and basic art styles a programmer can work with, but there's no game without the code. I'm quite envious of those who can program, and I'm hoping to get to a point where I'll be able to do at least some of it myself.
12:41 I would call Designers 3-Class citizens in the game development world, least job openinings, and although they might know enough programming, people still think they are only with they're heads in the clouds or writing stuff in a GDD.
Then those same people start making their own game, only to realise that knowing how to code != knowing how to make a game. I know I’m being needlessly bitter, but this year one of my great joys has been seeing the indie dev UA-camrs of a few years ago collapsing since they finally came face to face with the reality that they’re programmer or artists, but not game designers. Not that they can’t be, but just that as of now, they don’t have that skill.
@pushkar000 Feel like that was less the lack of game design skills, as not having a coherent vision in most cases. So many "dream games" that ironically weren't thought-through enough. I would agree that game designers aren't valued as much. But also they are least likely to have tangible, marketable skills. No one is hiring a fresh-grad junior to design their game, even at the indie or AA level. There are some good project-oriented programs, but I think there are prob too many design degrees relative to the actual industry need.
For me personally, as a programmer, if I spent time learning art / music (or doing anything else for that matter) rather than programming, I feel like I'm wasting time, like I'm not making real progress. Maybe it has to do with its subjective nature, as that guy said, code either works or it doesn't, while art / music is "never finished, but abandoned". Or maybe it's because I'm neurodivergent, I don't know xD Also, I don't really like using free assets. My thinking is: if it's free, somebody else will have used it and it's no longer unique. Maybe I'm too fixated on things being "unique" and "just for this game"... For people like me, there's basically two options: spend ungodly amounts of time learning everything and doing it yourself (with the risk that something will be half-baked), or having enough money to hire somebody else. It's tough.
I think the only good outcomes I've seen of people using free/purchased art assets is when they ignore the textures that the models come with and instead create a cohesive visual style with a lot of shader magic. It absolutely can be done well, but obviously is more difficult that just slapping in whatever you find and calling it a day.
Make sure the art and concept are good. It's even more important in NSFW to understand your audience and specifically what they're looking for. Never made one myself, but feels like it's less forgiving of being "off" than regular games.
#6 is some "artist's" wet dream. We (programmers) can get paid a lot if we sellout to corpos. Artists on other hand are usually having issues with finding sustainable work unless they are top tier or go for UX design. Also more and more games are using AI and people don't really care. If game is good and graphics are "pretty", they will play. They don't have high moral ground and won't say, I won't play it because you don't hire real artist. Also pixel art is just like any art but easier in terms of complexity than making 3D models. Lets face it, it's easier to fake 3 dimensions in two dimensions than to model, rig, texture entire thing. Though once you have model, it's easier/more cost efficient to make new animation that for pixel art where you have to draw everything by yourself. I remember learning pixel art for Tibia OTS custom client stuff and cutting corners. I did it without any art background. Just took references from Legacy of Goku, winged it and it came out to look decent. Game can be completed with placeholders or bought assets. I can make most of the game without assets. Write story, program mechanics, plan out skills, builds, equipment, NPCs, enemies, town layout. It can be black and white, some dots. With this stuff, I can have a game. Create the most beautiful art, make shit gameplay and you invented most popular P2W Mobile Game that nobody with more than two brain cells plays. As for "availability", I am not sure? I mean since art don't pay and as I mentioned, you have to be really good to survive from art only (or make NFSW/furry/rainbow stuff) and programming is/was great when it comes to making money as well as entry level got lower for programmers and higher for artists, it created natural imbalance where you have more programmers than artists.
@@libertarianterminator Make art or hire someone. It all depends. If you don't like art and making it doesn't feel good, you lack ideas when it comes to design etc. you definitely should not force yourself to make it. Art is expression in it's purest form. Then it's craft second. You should use AI only if it feels good for you/makes your vision come true in your eyes.
It's very interesting that programmers feel that way because I'm an artist and a designer but I suck at programming. The thing is, if you make a beautiful game but it doesn't work, the game just sucks no matter what. Programming is an AMAZING skill. Btw I make money selling art assets. Programmers PLEASE make and sell systems, templates, and starter kits for idiots like me. I don't even know how to carry variables from level to level in Unreal 😭
The thing about unique ideas, is that people have them all the time, but unique ideas are rarely ideas people understand. Explain any video game to someone from 2000 years ago, and they'll look at you like a bird laid eggs in your ear. When stuff is unique, it rarely registers or resonates with people. Being unique isnt the goal, and most people hearing a unique idea for the first time will just be confused or even unimpressed because people are prediction machines, if they cant compare something to something else, they'll just avoid it. Its too foreign to be understood. Innovation is incremental. If its radical, its usually just ignored and forgotten. Essentially, if your idea is that unique, don't expect it to be something others even want to copy, they won't even know why its good, those words will just feel like noise. Which also means, you are grambling by even investing into an idea so different people don't know why its good from a discription. In a career feild where each project takes half a decade, maybe don't gamble unless your already a financial secure. Also, copycats tend to copy success, not concepts. You'll get a rip off of a good game only because that good game sold well, no one will gamble a half decade on an idea from a stranger, least of all if they aren't passionate about the idea like you are. Overwhelmingly, its fine, share your ideas and get feedback from friends.
17:30 - What Thomas is trying to say is that if I was an awful programmer, one who steals code from GitHub, changes a few numbers, and built an entire game on a foundation of spaghetti, unless someone calls out the bugs and my awful programming skills, I'm more likely to still sell copies and get a 6 figure job at a tech company. On the opposite, if I took a box of crayons and drew with my fists, uploaded it online, and called it "art," I'd be more likely to win the lottery than to get people to notice, like, comment, and reblog my art. People can see the flaws of bad art far easier than people who can see the flaws of bad code. Per your dating/gender-standards analogy, people are more forgiving of the "mediocre white man" (programmer) while having incredibly high beauty standards for women (artists) (again, this is hyperbole/generalization, but just trying to illustrate the point here).
Almost. It's the part where most ppl can't say *why* art is bad or bland, or uncanny, but they just "feel" it. You can also hit the pain-points of bad code, but you'll already have bought the game, or it'll hit on the dev side when porting or upgrading.
@@monolith-zl4qt Except they did hit a lot of issues when the game became crazy-popular, and they wanted to port it. I think there was an entire GDC talk on it.
Whaaaa?! That programmers vs artists Tinder thing was a complete surprise to me. I've always thought programmers are these superpowered wizards who actually *make* the game, while art is something anyone can do. Although I agree that there is a big difference between a god and a bad artist.
A shit programmer can make a good game, because what matters is that it works and it's fun. In long projects a shit programmer will struggle, but you have an opportunity of making a game that resonates with people. Shit artists however have two main issues: the first one is that their art is just uhh not good or appropriate, this is a complex issue. The second part is that regardless of things, artists need to develop a certain degree of technical skills, making assets that work for game development, or having someone that is able to either do it themselves or guide them. Like, it's "easy" to model that looks good, but you need experience to make that 3D useable in games.
I like VR. As a player, the games I want to play still don't largely exist. It's fun for me to make a VR game because it feels like I'm doing something that hasn't been tried before. In flatscreen, almost anything you can think of has been done and by bigger studios. I don't want to be an improver, I want to walk off the beaten path. Even if that means I won't get much money, just making it gives me motivation to become a better programmer in my field of work just so I can also apply it here.
I think VR & AR are both pretty cool mediums for games. But the bottleneck isn't money, it's our bodies. Motion sickness, focal distance, accommodations, head / neck fatigue, having space to safely move about, being isolated from your family or friends (VR) or reliant on your environment (AR) - all of that stuff is an insurmountable challenge. They've been saying VR was gonna be adopted in "10 more yrs" since the 80s. Even if we engineered it to be $5 contact lenses, unless we "fix" human bodies, it's not gonna happen. Should probably just be like an art installation or itch-io kind of thing, non-commercial.
@@mandisaw people can get over it if they have a reason to. After getting into VR I realized how horribly out of shape I was despite doing weight training. My posture was terrible and that extra brick like quest dangling in front of my face made it even worse. It showed me how forward my head was leaning and I had to correct it so I can play the VR games I liked. Same with lower back pain. The final Boneworks ladder boss killed my shoulders. Now when I play I am fine and I don't feel any pain. I know it's hard to convince gamers to play this when they are mostly out of shape. It's not accessible, but it would help a lot to get people more healthy while also having fun. Be more open to change and don't let go into the path of least resistance. I don't get what you say about isolation in VR. You can only play a few hours at a time and people are just as isolated playing on their PCs with their headphones on. It doesn't matter if you see someone else in your peripheral vision. But yeah, I agree with you that no matter how cheap it is, if VR doesn't convince people to play despite their tendency towards complacency it won't become popular. That being said, there are commercially successful VR titles like Boneworks, Into the Radius, Vertigo and others. It's not impossible, but not likely. I do it because I want to make the game I want and it doesn't exist yet on the market. Maybe if more great games are made that take advantage of the medium, then people will come. Until then, it's just my pet project. I don't want to be a programmer just for the money. I want to express my creativity too.
@libertarianterminator I'm glad it's worked for you, but you know motion-sickness & vertigo are neurological right? Not smth ppl can just go to the gym for, or have a can-do attitude about 😩 Products have to solve a problem, or give people something better than the alternative. The more friction, the more likely someone will just go do or buy something else. VR is friction-heavy for the vast majority of people, and there are a ton of better, more enjoyable ways to get entertainment. That's the fundamental issue, not complacency or being out of shape lol It's cool if you want to make games for it tho, and obvs great if you enjoy it. It's been around for 50yrs in some form, prob not going anywhere.
"programmers are 3rd class citizens" And that's why programmers are better paid than artists. Wait a sec...what? In order to be successful, games need to work. And just as a said days ago in the discord, "working" is the problem right now. There's so much stuff on steam and a lot of it is crap. I played a lot of demos during next fest. Not one demo was playing well, but looked too bad to be fun. The main issue is almost always that stuff is broken or badly implemented. Yes, nice graphics get people to buy. But if the game looks okay and does not play well, you will not get positive reviews and there will be no real success.
The person who made that little rant is really saying that in the perspective of hobbyist gamedevs. With tutorials everywhere on youtube, it's super easy to be a bad game programmer and call yourself a programmer. If you are a bad artist, people have eyes, they can see you are a bad artist. Good artists will make a lot of art and often spend their time on making stuff to post on social media over trying to make a game. As soon as you get in a professional setting, it's not that at all, cause there is way more demand for programmers outside of gamedev, while artists pretty much only have gamedev and film. But then those people will complain "no I tried getting a job and nobody's hiring me". Yeah... nobody is hiring the 16yo self proclaimed programmer who followed a couple of youtube tutorial...
Undertale has terrible art and went viral as a meme. People care more about polish and visual consistency. It just shouldn't look amateurish. Also having a visual style that is consistent with the genre matters a lot like how your game is like Guts and Glory
Undertale's art isn't terrible in the slightest. It's not the most technically impressive, but it suits the game's tone and direction extremely well, and at the end of the day that's what's most important for game art. Also, it didn't go viral as a meme, it became a meme because it went viral. The game's unexpectedly great writing was what initially got it popular.
I'm mixed on the x artstyle is cope. To a degree, low poly and pixel art are popular among low budget indies because pixel art is the easiest to get decent at and low poly 3D assets are way cheaper than medium or high poly ones. I genuinely believe it's harder to make a low poly asset in a style that looks good than a medium or a high poly 3D asset. It's kinda the same with pixel art. It's relatively easy to make a decent looking asset in pixel art because you don't have to bother with a bunch of details you'd otherwise have to, but also, you can't add as many details to your artstyle and need to find the right color composition and way to make it look more detailed than it is. AI art is literally just "I don't wanna spend money on this, let the ai do it".
I think the artists have it harder. Programmers are the ones that make the game, the artists give you the art assets in the game. I'm the 100 contractors bro btw.
I think VR on steam has a very small pool of potential customers. VR on the quest store has a lot more customers and is growing with the quest 3/3s. VR is a niche, SteamVR is a niche within a niche
I feel like the "artist vs programmers" argument made no sense when the person right off the bat ditch pixel-art and low-poly. in the end of the day, a good (or even bad, depending on the game's scope) programmer can do an incredible game if they learn the basics of pixelart/lowpoly, like Zero Sievert or Terraria, or Minecraft. Like an artist can do a good game with basic programming. But in the end, as a programmer, what I really like about the fact I'm more skilled in programming than art is the fact I can basically create any game of any complexity. My lack of art talent will never stop me from making any game. An artist that's bad in programming simply can't do a super complex game. The bigger the scope will be, the more bugs will bring the game down.
If you are a less experienced, less confident programmer. Have the more skilled one on the team make tools so you can craft more of the content in the game.
I get his point about shit programmers still being able to make a good game. I am not in any place to call any programmer shit, but wasn't there a whole thing about the Balatro guy using very inefficient code that was supposedly terrible? You can hide your bad programming in a lot of cases, but its hard to hide bad art.
if you're just a "programmer" in game dev that's not enough. because programming in game dev isn't as hard as it used to be. If you want to focus on programming things then games aren't the thing you should be doing. Doing game dev to learn programming is fine, but there's more money to be made outside of game dev. Programming as a skillset is better suited to making the game engine than programming a game.
This artist take hurts.... As someone who did both in my game. Artists are usually paid way less than devs And good art takes years of practice to learn. You can get into jobs as programmer with relatively less expertise than artist jobs, where the minimum skill requirements are way up high. Artist's life is harsh. No way an artist can hire a developer, but most devs could hire a jr level artist for a fraction of what their dayjob pays
NSFW games get funding on patreon like crazy, cause someone simping for an exact idea might hand you 1000 dollars over a year or two, but the actual finished game will get kess than 100 reviews on steam. 🤷🏾♂️ Kcikstarter might work,but again treat it like that kickstarter is the payment for the game, cause these games don't sell a lot, but they do get weirdly avid support before completion.🤷🏾♂️ Cam girl game dev, basically. 🤣😂🤣
"Ideas are worthless and copied ideas:" The example is quite telling. Something like Supermarket Simulator is not something you can protect by not talking about it. Those games exist in the context of steam having low quality "for the lulz" simulators for everything and it's been that way for some time. There is no creative process that leads to the idea "supermarket simulator". It's like if tomorrow a new TikTok trend starts where you get kicked in the balls and try to sing like Michael Jackson and you're like "oh. i'm gonna do that with the song 'Beat it' but i better not talk about it because otherwise someone will do it first". Powerwash Simulator is a whole different beast imo, because it takes a seemingly boring idea and combines it with a sweet technical implementation.
NFSW games are usually garbage but I agree, even garbage will get some funding... Now if you make a good one, you are golden. Good NFSW game can get you to patronite with $30k or $40k monthly... it's insane. As for me, I only pirate NFSW games and only ones I find "good" on paper at least and usually, even 95% of ones I download are still crap. There are some good games that I bought on Steam once they come out just to support dev/show appreciation but it's literally few titles like G Senjou No Maou, Acting Lessons, Once in a Lifetime, Being a Dik.
f95 is a good resource (for VN and RPGM). I agree, lots of tosh. Was tempted to go into NSFW games - I even have mocap. In terms of money, it would be the funding that makes it for you, I think...
@@doghous3 I am already working corporate job to have money. Changing to developing NFSW would be the same, doing stuff I don't want to do. Closest I could get to enjoyable gameplay + NFSW is Kamidori Alchemy Meister.
Best approach is to follow the TypeMoon playbook - go with NSFW on PC, hone your art and writing skills to perfection, then go "clean" on console & mobile. That's how we got the Fate franchise. Arguably it wrapped around - they make their money now doing gacha-waifu mobile versions of their original characters. Fate GO is regularly Top 10 in Japan. [Edit: $7B annually, 7th highest grossing of all time worldwide 😎]
@@mandisaw First they made visual novels with original, good story, setting and cool characters. They actually release multiple in different universes. Then they made anime based on it, more of them and lastly mobile games which are taking most of their resources. You can sell gatcha with sexy women if your designs are good enough and your game is "okay" but Fate cashed their popularity from animations and established characters which were all original. They also took cultural/mythological well known figures and gave them different personalities/appearances, keeping their coolness even if they were meant to lose.
@lionart5230 Their original VNs were definitely NSFW dude 🫣 I'm talking about way back at the beginning, when they were PC-only. They did have good plots & characters, and improved even more over the years - that's how they were able to work "clean" and still be successful. But even the anime based off the early works leaned towards the ecchi side. I never could get into Fate, just too convoluted. But I liked a couple of their other titles (the vampire ones, brain's blanking on names at the moment). [Edit: Tsukihime and Kara no Kyoukai]
"Starving artist" is a concept not so much "starving programer". There is so many programming jobs out there..... ... for now. But AI will soon make starving programmer a very real concept. :)
18 years ago, people used to pay me to create a contact form in php. Then to build things from scratch, in rails and other frameworks, etc etc. The work of today hardly resembles what I worked on 5 years ago. A programmers job is flexible by definition and doesn't necessarily mean writing code.
Programmers can starve, ageism kicks in pretty early in tech, like 40s-50. That said, at pro levels, more of the job is people than code. Until AI can give someone what they actually need, not what they say they want, I'm not worried :) Also genAI is compute-heavy, and only getting more so. Humans are cheaper, and we don't need retraining every 6mos 🤷♀️
"I feel like you are a bit neurodivergent or something" is a wild line XD
Aren't we all in this field lol
@@graullas8981Nope! You actually need pretty good people-skills to work in tech if you want to go up the ranks. Even just getting jobs in the first place requires networking.
Not saying it's impossible for ND folks - but they are more likely to get pigeonholed into specific roles. If that works for that person, great, but if not, they'll have to make a concerted effort outside their comfort zone.
@@graullas8981 sure but lots of narcissistic jerks too, but I guess one of those would never have admitted or realized that they were the actual problem (as opposed to the 100 contractors) lol so maybe you're right
Hot take - most indies can't decide if they are making games for money, to learn, or just for fun. Most of these questions seem like ppl who haven't been honest with themselves about that decision. Once you know, it's way easier to navigate that path.
not that hot of a take. I spent a lot of time trying to help people in various game dev discords and said confusion was all over the place. [at least once you get past the "I have no experience and am going to make a MMORPG turn-based FPS racing game in 3 months that is going to make billions" issue]
@@AdroitConceptions Twisted Metal as a turn-based MMO 😆
Doesn't really cover all the scenarios, and most games are a combination of those 3 things. For my own game RoadHouse Manager, my main driver is trying to make a great game that hasn't been done before, and then to a lesser extent, for money, to learn, and for the fun of playing it when its done.
@gameboardgames Okay, but *why* do you want to make a "game no one has done before"? It's fine to have secondary goals, but what is your primary motivation?
"To see if I can" or "so I can play it" both fall under the for-fun category. You post about your game all over the place (think I've seen you on at least 2 other channels), so you are clearly motivated - what's the motive?
@@mandisaw I love gaming. I'm a game-making guy. So, I make games!
As for my motivation...hmm... well part of is wanting to bring my ideas to life, as a creative person. Part of it is the challenge of tackling such a huge undertaking. Part of it is innovating game design. And another part is I find it much more satisfying than my previous jobs in tech working for big companies such as Activision.
As I said before, there are many motivations, at least for me, its not just one thing.
17:33 As an Artist and a Programmer, I offer my condolences
*taking notes* Don't.... get.... heart... attacks...
I'm a programmer with more than 10 years of exp in software development and I'm using blender regularly just to improve at art and even though I won't create a masterpiece, my current game I'm developing looks decent. It's possible with a little-bit of patience (which programmers usually have) :-)
On having a "better" teammate - Some skills are not "transferable". For example, I was in one team where one programmer was super fast, another one was really rigorous, and another good at thinking outside the box. It would have been pointless to try to be like those other programmers, so instead I worked on personal improvement - identifying areas where I could do something better unrelated to my colleagues' strengths and weaknesses. And then focus on making that better. (My team lead helped/encouraged this).
As well, it's ok to be a junior, and whoever does the project planning in the team should know that since when you joined. So long as you're not going backwards, it's all good.
Been a 3D artist for years now. Hearing I have all this power is surely news to me.
Yeah, I feel like that Q came from someone who's been hanging out on Tumblr or DA too long 😅 Artists of all sorts are a valuable part of the team, incl writers & composers, tech artists, etc. But on the whole, society seems to vastly undervalue art relative to code, and they're always trying to find a way to get rid of us coders.
Same for me, art is a very difficult and long path, you have to spend so much time and energy before you can create something that people actually want to buy. If you go to art school you end up in dept and there's absolutely 0 guarantee you'll have job opportunities at the end. I had/ still have to teach myself 3D on top of 2D that I went to school for, and none of the 400 jobs /internships I applied for for 2 years reponded to me. I'm thinking of making games myself just because no one will hire me. And I know so many people that are in this situation. Whereas a developper? After just 2 years you can create something that works and that has value. So many job opportunities, and with good pay. And I know that because my bf is a dev. I'M the one who's jealous of devs
@DearShion In both cases, networking and getting your portfolio out there is critical. When I was last out of work, couldn't get a callback from my resume & code-samples, but got a few hits after publishing a small mobile game. Even showed it off on my tablet at the 2nd interview for my current job.
If you and your SO can work together, maybe try getting an online portfolio project setup, something that can show off your skills in under 5min, and can be easily linked to from various places (resume site, LinkedIn, looking-for-artist boards, etc). And if you're in an area where it's feasible, look into some meetups - more ppl get jobs through connections than applications, moreso now than ever. Good luck!
@DearShion Oh yeah, and 2d translates fairly well to 3d. Texturing is critical, and it's basically all 2d. Same with designing materials, whether freehand, or procedurally via Substance. Once you get your 3d bearings, you'll be in good shape 👍
As a programmer doing gamedev at night for hobby, 12:42 - the first part was actual truth bomb. Mostly we don't have enough money to hire good artists for entire game. Other options can be learning art on own which may end up taking lot of time and it also requires genuine interest from our side or using asset packs but then we may unintentionally end up making a generic looking game with no unique art hook and also there is risk of game ending looking like an asset flip.
Thomas had it at 16:02 - Write a SaaS 😅 Programmers earn a lot more than artists, and have the most transferable & marketable skills. Learning some technical art skills and the basics of color & composition doesn't take long, and will allow you to produce a coherent aesthetic from paid assets or commissioned art.
Never underestimate the power of wallet 💰
6:33 BG3 winning game of the year showed that NSFW games can also be fine art. 🤣
The highest budget nsfw game in existence, on par with Skyrim.
@@AndreyMakarov-i7h though Skyrim requires mods for NSFW action.
0:37 I've been using Unreal for 4 years now and I started learning blueprints mostly by exploration and with little help of tutorials so I can put my 5 cents of advice here. The learning curve is quite steep for a bit and then you hit a place where all this wired spaghetti mess starts to make sense and everything that's left to learn becomes very straight-forward. I'm sure you'll be able to match your co-dev skills in a couple of months. Be sure to work on things you like so that it's easier to stay motivated, you got this! 👊
6:25 OH HE SAID! HE SAID THE THING! IT'S THE CHANNEL NAME!
Being a programmer and an artist is the way to go
thank you, great video!
This was very interesting to listen to! Here are my thoughts on the ones that I related to most:
Skill issue: As someone who is primarily a game designer and can barely program, I've often felt this way. I can, however, contribute documentation, writing/narrative design, art, marketing ideas, research, project management, etc.
100 contractors: I actually experienced the opposite situation. I'm a people-pleaser, and I struggle to be assertive enough. I went through two contractors, and the second one was very nasty to me when I told him I couldn't continue with him since he wasn't progressing fast enough. He was experienced, but he had other responsibilities on his plate, and my project was clearly not his priority.
3rd-class citizens: I'm a big believer in giving credit where credit is due. When I brought my game to a couple of conventions, I made sure to put out a piece of paper that had my teammates' names on it so that people knew everyone who contributed. It also seems like programmers have less of a tendency to seek out recognition, though. As for the second part of the comment, I'm actually quite surprised to hear that programmers are considered to be a dime a dozen while artists are the more desirable ones. It's been a while since I've developed a game, but as someone who did many of the non-programming tasks, I've always felt like the one at a disadvantage due to my sub-par coding skills. Plus, there are so many assets and basic art styles a programmer can work with, but there's no game without the code. I'm quite envious of those who can program, and I'm hoping to get to a point where I'll be able to do at least some of it myself.
God bless you guys
Becoming an NSFW games developer is like joining the dark side. There's no turning back.
A vid with the team is always 💯
10:29 This was mine and I meant I've definitely made games just never done prototyping or made a game design document 😂
12:41 I would call Designers 3-Class citizens in the game development world, least job openinings, and although they might know enough programming, people still think they are only with they're heads in the clouds or writing stuff in a GDD.
Then those same people start making their own game, only to realise that knowing how to code != knowing how to make a game.
I know I’m being needlessly bitter, but this year one of my great joys has been seeing the indie dev UA-camrs of a few years ago collapsing since they finally came face to face with the reality that they’re programmer or artists, but not game designers.
Not that they can’t be, but just that as of now, they don’t have that skill.
@pushkar000 Feel like that was less the lack of game design skills, as not having a coherent vision in most cases. So many "dream games" that ironically weren't thought-through enough.
I would agree that game designers aren't valued as much. But also they are least likely to have tangible, marketable skills. No one is hiring a fresh-grad junior to design their game, even at the indie or AA level. There are some good project-oriented programs, but I think there are prob too many design degrees relative to the actual industry need.
For me personally, as a programmer, if I spent time learning art / music (or doing anything else for that matter) rather than programming, I feel like I'm wasting time, like I'm not making real progress. Maybe it has to do with its subjective nature, as that guy said, code either works or it doesn't, while art / music is "never finished, but abandoned". Or maybe it's because I'm neurodivergent, I don't know xD
Also, I don't really like using free assets. My thinking is: if it's free, somebody else will have used it and it's no longer unique. Maybe I'm too fixated on things being "unique" and "just for this game"...
For people like me, there's basically two options: spend ungodly amounts of time learning everything and doing it yourself (with the risk that something will be half-baked), or having enough money to hire somebody else. It's tough.
I think the only good outcomes I've seen of people using free/purchased art assets is when they ignore the textures that the models come with and instead create a cohesive visual style with a lot of shader magic.
It absolutely can be done well, but obviously is more difficult that just slapping in whatever you find and calling it a day.
@@myrrysmiasi4866 It's the skill/role of being an art director. (Doesn't necessarily need shader magic.)
fuck it, gonna make the nsfw game I had in mind
What is the concept?
DO IT
Make sure the art and concept are good. It's even more important in NSFW to understand your audience and specifically what they're looking for. Never made one myself, but feels like it's less forgiving of being "off" than regular games.
They can have incredibly enjoyable gameplay, humor and charm. If you want to do a game do it, dont care about your image our morals here.
@@mandisawBad advice tbh. You dont need great visuals with H-Games. They dont need to be.. ehh.. wankable
#6 is some "artist's" wet dream. We (programmers) can get paid a lot if we sellout to corpos. Artists on other hand are usually having issues with finding sustainable work unless they are top tier or go for UX design. Also more and more games are using AI and people don't really care. If game is good and graphics are "pretty", they will play. They don't have high moral ground and won't say, I won't play it because you don't hire real artist.
Also pixel art is just like any art but easier in terms of complexity than making 3D models. Lets face it, it's easier to fake 3 dimensions in two dimensions than to model, rig, texture entire thing. Though once you have model, it's easier/more cost efficient to make new animation that for pixel art where you have to draw everything by yourself. I remember learning pixel art for Tibia OTS custom client stuff and cutting corners. I did it without any art background. Just took references from Legacy of Goku, winged it and it came out to look decent.
Game can be completed with placeholders or bought assets. I can make most of the game without assets. Write story, program mechanics, plan out skills, builds, equipment, NPCs, enemies, town layout. It can be black and white, some dots. With this stuff, I can have a game. Create the most beautiful art, make shit gameplay and you invented most popular P2W Mobile Game that nobody with more than two brain cells plays.
As for "availability", I am not sure? I mean since art don't pay and as I mentioned, you have to be really good to survive from art only (or make NFSW/furry/rainbow stuff) and programming is/was great when it comes to making money as well as entry level got lower for programmers and higher for artists, it created natural imbalance where you have more programmers than artists.
I won't say "I won't play it because you don't hire real artist". If you are a programmer and you have no artist, then sure, use AI.
@@libertarianterminator Make art or hire someone. It all depends. If you don't like art and making it doesn't feel good, you lack ideas when it comes to design etc. you definitely should not force yourself to make it. Art is expression in it's purest form. Then it's craft second. You should use AI only if it feels good for you/makes your vision come true in your eyes.
It's very interesting that programmers feel that way because I'm an artist and a designer but I suck at programming. The thing is, if you make a beautiful game but it doesn't work, the game just sucks no matter what. Programming is an AMAZING skill.
Btw I make money selling art assets. Programmers PLEASE make and sell systems, templates, and starter kits for idiots like me. I don't even know how to carry variables from level to level in Unreal 😭
The thing about unique ideas, is that people have them all the time, but unique ideas are rarely ideas people understand.
Explain any video game to someone from 2000 years ago, and they'll look at you like a bird laid eggs in your ear. When stuff is unique, it rarely registers or resonates with people. Being unique isnt the goal, and most people hearing a unique idea for the first time will just be confused or even unimpressed because people are prediction machines, if they cant compare something to something else, they'll just avoid it. Its too foreign to be understood.
Innovation is incremental. If its radical, its usually just ignored and forgotten.
Essentially, if your idea is that unique, don't expect it to be something others even want to copy, they won't even know why its good, those words will just feel like noise. Which also means, you are grambling by even investing into an idea so different people don't know why its good from a discription.
In a career feild where each project takes half a decade, maybe don't gamble unless your already a financial secure.
Also, copycats tend to copy success, not concepts. You'll get a rip off of a good game only because that good game sold well, no one will gamble a half decade on an idea from a stranger, least of all if they aren't passionate about the idea like you are. Overwhelmingly, its fine, share your ideas and get feedback from friends.
17:30 - What Thomas is trying to say is that if I was an awful programmer, one who steals code from GitHub, changes a few numbers, and built an entire game on a foundation of spaghetti, unless someone calls out the bugs and my awful programming skills, I'm more likely to still sell copies and get a 6 figure job at a tech company. On the opposite, if I took a box of crayons and drew with my fists, uploaded it online, and called it "art," I'd be more likely to win the lottery than to get people to notice, like, comment, and reblog my art. People can see the flaws of bad art far easier than people who can see the flaws of bad code. Per your dating/gender-standards analogy, people are more forgiving of the "mediocre white man" (programmer) while having incredibly high beauty standards for women (artists) (again, this is hyperbole/generalization, but just trying to illustrate the point here).
Almost. It's the part where most ppl can't say *why* art is bad or bland, or uncanny, but they just "feel" it. You can also hit the pain-points of bad code, but you'll already have bought the game, or it'll hit on the dev side when porting or upgrading.
Everyone's favorite example for that is Undertale. Worst codebase in history of mankind, but no one cares because the game is awesome.
@@monolith-zl4qt Except they did hit a lot of issues when the game became crazy-popular, and they wanted to port it. I think there was an entire GDC talk on it.
Whaaaa?!
That programmers vs artists Tinder thing was a complete surprise to me.
I've always thought programmers are these superpowered wizards who actually *make* the game, while art is something anyone can do.
Although I agree that there is a big difference between a god and a bad artist.
A shit programmer can make a good game, because what matters is that it works and it's fun. In long projects a shit programmer will struggle, but you have an opportunity of making a game that resonates with people.
Shit artists however have two main issues: the first one is that their art is just uhh not good or appropriate, this is a complex issue. The second part is that regardless of things, artists need to develop a certain degree of technical skills, making assets that work for game development, or having someone that is able to either do it themselves or guide them. Like, it's "easy" to model that looks good, but you need experience to make that 3D useable in games.
I like VR. As a player, the games I want to play still don't largely exist. It's fun for me to make a VR game because it feels like I'm doing something that hasn't been tried before. In flatscreen, almost anything you can think of has been done and by bigger studios. I don't want to be an improver, I want to walk off the beaten path. Even if that means I won't get much money, just making it gives me motivation to become a better programmer in my field of work just so I can also apply it here.
I think VR & AR are both pretty cool mediums for games. But the bottleneck isn't money, it's our bodies. Motion sickness, focal distance, accommodations, head / neck fatigue, having space to safely move about, being isolated from your family or friends (VR) or reliant on your environment (AR) - all of that stuff is an insurmountable challenge.
They've been saying VR was gonna be adopted in "10 more yrs" since the 80s. Even if we engineered it to be $5 contact lenses, unless we "fix" human bodies, it's not gonna happen.
Should probably just be like an art installation or itch-io kind of thing, non-commercial.
@@mandisaw people can get over it if they have a reason to. After getting into VR I realized how horribly out of shape I was despite doing weight training. My posture was terrible and that extra brick like quest dangling in front of my face made it even worse. It showed me how forward my head was leaning and I had to correct it so I can play the VR games I liked. Same with lower back pain. The final Boneworks ladder boss killed my shoulders.
Now when I play I am fine and I don't feel any pain. I know it's hard to convince gamers to play this when they are mostly out of shape. It's not accessible, but it would help a lot to get people more healthy while also having fun. Be more open to change and don't let go into the path of least resistance.
I don't get what you say about isolation in VR. You can only play a few hours at a time and people are just as isolated playing on their PCs with their headphones on. It doesn't matter if you see someone else in your peripheral vision.
But yeah, I agree with you that no matter how cheap it is, if VR doesn't convince people to play despite their tendency towards complacency it won't become popular.
That being said, there are commercially successful VR titles like Boneworks, Into the Radius, Vertigo and others. It's not impossible, but not likely. I do it because I want to make the game I want and it doesn't exist yet on the market. Maybe if more great games are made that take advantage of the medium, then people will come. Until then, it's just my pet project. I don't want to be a programmer just for the money. I want to express my creativity too.
@libertarianterminator I'm glad it's worked for you, but you know motion-sickness & vertigo are neurological right? Not smth ppl can just go to the gym for, or have a can-do attitude about 😩
Products have to solve a problem, or give people something better than the alternative. The more friction, the more likely someone will just go do or buy something else. VR is friction-heavy for the vast majority of people, and there are a ton of better, more enjoyable ways to get entertainment. That's the fundamental issue, not complacency or being out of shape lol
It's cool if you want to make games for it tho, and obvs great if you enjoy it. It's been around for 50yrs in some form, prob not going anywhere.
As a playdate dev, yeah going for niche platforms isn’t the best idea for sustainability 😆 fun as a hobby though!
Love the playdate. the platform is too expensive for mass market appeal though.
"programmers are 3rd class citizens"
And that's why programmers are better paid than artists. Wait a sec...what?
In order to be successful, games need to work. And just as a said days ago in the discord, "working" is the problem right now. There's so much stuff on steam and a lot of it is crap. I played a lot of demos during next fest. Not one demo was playing well, but looked too bad to be fun. The main issue is almost always that stuff is broken or badly implemented.
Yes, nice graphics get people to buy. But if the game looks okay and does not play well, you will not get positive reviews and there will be no real success.
The person who made that little rant is really saying that in the perspective of hobbyist gamedevs. With tutorials everywhere on youtube, it's super easy to be a bad game programmer and call yourself a programmer. If you are a bad artist, people have eyes, they can see you are a bad artist.
Good artists will make a lot of art and often spend their time on making stuff to post on social media over trying to make a game.
As soon as you get in a professional setting, it's not that at all, cause there is way more demand for programmers outside of gamedev, while artists pretty much only have gamedev and film.
But then those people will complain "no I tried getting a job and nobody's hiring me". Yeah... nobody is hiring the 16yo self proclaimed programmer who followed a couple of youtube tutorial...
I think good looking games that play well have the highest chance of success.
Undertale has terrible art and went viral as a meme. People care more about polish and visual consistency. It just shouldn't look amateurish. Also having a visual style that is consistent with the genre matters a lot like how your game is like Guts and Glory
Undertale was carried by music and writing. But the art is not terrible as well, it's just low-poly.
Undertale pixel art is actually pretty good for the intended resolution. If you think that is bad, then you haven't seen an actual bad pixel art yet
Undertale's art isn't terrible in the slightest. It's not the most technically impressive, but it suits the game's tone and direction extremely well, and at the end of the day that's what's most important for game art.
Also, it didn't go viral as a meme, it became a meme because it went viral. The game's unexpectedly great writing was what initially got it popular.
I'm mixed on the x artstyle is cope. To a degree, low poly and pixel art are popular among low budget indies because pixel art is the easiest to get decent at and low poly 3D assets are way cheaper than medium or high poly ones. I genuinely believe it's harder to make a low poly asset in a style that looks good than a medium or a high poly 3D asset. It's kinda the same with pixel art. It's relatively easy to make a decent looking asset in pixel art because you don't have to bother with a bunch of details you'd otherwise have to, but also, you can't add as many details to your artstyle and need to find the right color composition and way to make it look more detailed than it is. AI art is literally just "I don't wanna spend money on this, let the ai do it".
12:43 I imagine this guy wearing a top hot and a monachal as he looks down at all the 3rd class citizens around him.
I know that feeling
I think the artists have it harder.
Programmers are the ones that make the game, the artists give you the art assets in the game.
I'm the 100 contractors bro btw.
As both an artist and (not great) programmer I agree.
I think VR on steam has a very small pool of potential customers. VR on the quest store has a lot more customers and is growing with the quest 3/3s. VR is a niche, SteamVR is a niche within a niche
yeah, i was a VR dev - it is also a bit of a pita to dev for. gone back to pancake. I do like VR, being in the game world is something else, but eh...
16:20 this is exactly what I am doing
True
Thomas looking paler than ever 😅, keep up the videos.
Forge industry has 26 reviews, has it made any money?
I feel like the "artist vs programmers" argument made no sense when the person right off the bat ditch pixel-art and low-poly.
in the end of the day, a good (or even bad, depending on the game's scope) programmer can do an incredible game if they learn the basics of pixelart/lowpoly, like Zero Sievert or Terraria, or Minecraft.
Like an artist can do a good game with basic programming.
But in the end, as a programmer, what I really like about the fact I'm more skilled in programming than art is the fact I can basically create any game of any complexity. My lack of art talent will never stop me from making any game. An artist that's bad in programming simply can't do a super complex game. The bigger the scope will be, the more bugs will bring the game down.
If you are a less experienced, less confident programmer. Have the more skilled one on the team make tools so you can craft more of the content in the game.
I get his point about shit programmers still being able to make a good game. I am not in any place to call any programmer shit, but wasn't there a whole thing about the Balatro guy using very inefficient code that was supposedly terrible? You can hide your bad programming in a lot of cases, but its hard to hide bad art.
if you're just a "programmer" in game dev that's not enough. because programming in game dev isn't as hard as it used to be. If you want to focus on programming things then games aren't the thing you should be doing. Doing game dev to learn programming is fine, but there's more money to be made outside of game dev. Programming as a skillset is better suited to making the game engine than programming a game.
This artist take hurts.... As someone who did both in my game.
Artists are usually paid way less than devs
And good art takes years of practice to learn. You can get into jobs as programmer with relatively less expertise than artist jobs, where the minimum skill requirements are way up high. Artist's life is harsh.
No way an artist can hire a developer, but most devs could hire a jr level artist for a fraction of what their dayjob pays
NSFW games get funding on patreon like crazy, cause someone simping for an exact idea might hand you 1000 dollars over a year or two, but the actual finished game will get kess than 100 reviews on steam. 🤷🏾♂️
Kcikstarter might work,but again treat it like that kickstarter is the payment for the game, cause these games don't sell a lot, but they do get weirdly avid support before completion.🤷🏾♂️
Cam girl game dev, basically.
🤣😂🤣
"Ideas are worthless and copied ideas:"
The example is quite telling. Something like Supermarket Simulator is not something you can protect by not talking about it. Those games exist in the context of steam having low quality "for the lulz" simulators for everything and it's been that way for some time. There is no creative process that leads to the idea "supermarket simulator". It's like if tomorrow a new TikTok trend starts where you get kicked in the balls and try to sing like Michael Jackson and you're like "oh. i'm gonna do that with the song 'Beat it' but i better not talk about it because otherwise someone will do it first".
Powerwash Simulator is a whole different beast imo, because it takes a seemingly boring idea and combines it with a sweet technical implementation.
NFSW games are usually garbage but I agree, even garbage will get some funding... Now if you make a good one, you are golden. Good NFSW game can get you to patronite with $30k or $40k monthly... it's insane. As for me, I only pirate NFSW games and only ones I find "good" on paper at least and usually, even 95% of ones I download are still crap. There are some good games that I bought on Steam once they come out just to support dev/show appreciation but it's literally few titles like G Senjou No Maou, Acting Lessons, Once in a Lifetime, Being a Dik.
f95 is a good resource (for VN and RPGM). I agree, lots of tosh. Was tempted to go into NSFW games - I even have mocap. In terms of money, it would be the funding that makes it for you, I think...
@@doghous3 I am already working corporate job to have money. Changing to developing NFSW would be the same, doing stuff I don't want to do. Closest I could get to enjoyable gameplay + NFSW is Kamidori Alchemy Meister.
Best approach is to follow the TypeMoon playbook - go with NSFW on PC, hone your art and writing skills to perfection, then go "clean" on console & mobile. That's how we got the Fate franchise.
Arguably it wrapped around - they make their money now doing gacha-waifu mobile versions of their original characters. Fate GO is regularly Top 10 in Japan.
[Edit: $7B annually, 7th highest grossing of all time worldwide 😎]
@@mandisaw First they made visual novels with original, good story, setting and cool characters. They actually release multiple in different universes. Then they made anime based on it, more of them and lastly mobile games which are taking most of their resources. You can sell gatcha with sexy women if your designs are good enough and your game is "okay" but Fate cashed their popularity from animations and established characters which were all original. They also took cultural/mythological well known figures and gave them different personalities/appearances, keeping their coolness even if they were meant to lose.
@lionart5230 Their original VNs were definitely NSFW dude 🫣 I'm talking about way back at the beginning, when they were PC-only. They did have good plots & characters, and improved even more over the years - that's how they were able to work "clean" and still be successful. But even the anime based off the early works leaned towards the ecchi side.
I never could get into Fate, just too convoluted. But I liked a couple of their other titles (the vampire ones, brain's blanking on names at the moment). [Edit: Tsukihime and Kara no Kyoukai]
"Starving artist" is a concept not so much "starving programer". There is so many programming jobs out there.....
... for now. But AI will soon make starving programmer a very real concept. :)
18 years ago, people used to pay me to create a contact form in php. Then to build things from scratch, in rails and other frameworks, etc etc. The work of today hardly resembles what I worked on 5 years ago. A programmers job is flexible by definition and doesn't necessarily mean writing code.
Someone who thinks programmers will be replaced by AI don't know what programmers do.
Programmers can starve, ageism kicks in pretty early in tech, like 40s-50. That said, at pro levels, more of the job is people than code. Until AI can give someone what they actually need, not what they say they want, I'm not worried :)
Also genAI is compute-heavy, and only getting more so. Humans are cheaper, and we don't need retraining every 6mos 🤷♀️
First!