Monday 23 May 2011

Writing Games Is Easy

Oh dear, here we go again. Just saw another string of comments on a RPS post about how "writing games is easier than ever."

Um, no. Writing games is every bit as difficult as its ever been.

Someone else made it worse by saying "No, it's just coding games is easier than ever."

Um, no again. Coding games is every bit as difficult as its ever been. Its just that a lot of very clever people have very nicely done a whole lot of the work for you. This is a good thing - it democratises the process and means that we have more bodies to throw at the "writing games is hard" problem we mentioned earlier.

Unfortunately, if you want to step outside the boundaries of those elements they've been nice enough to provide, you're still going to discover to your horror that coding games is as difficult now - if not more so - than it ever was before.

2 comments:

  1. Writing games is easier now, so is writing a letter, I remember having to use a pen, and even having to lick a stamp... but, that just means that you don't get the feeling of effort put in anymore. Writing a game that stands out of the crowd is the new benchmark. Writing a game that isn't just a copy with a reskin, has a new mechanic, uses an invention that no other game has used before, is the only way to truly say that you have written a game. Oh, and finished the damn thing too. So many people miss that point. There's a thousand miles of difference between a playable tech demo and a game.

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  2. The last bit is, of course, a big issue. The problem is, as ever, the big gap between a finished piece of work and something ready for the consumer. Flash games are perfectly designed to overcome this problem, which is why there's so many wonderful random little Flash games out there. Downside is no-one will ever pay for them.

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