#Memes
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I say “developer” is only for code, “designer” can be any system, level, or character designer (ooh they use spreadsheets!), “artist” is only for drawing things. Marketing douchebags are “marketing douchebags”. And since I’m indie, I’m all of those.
But some studios just don’t care and have stupid titles; as long as thy get paid it doesn’t matter to them. WTF cares what some idiot screaming in a forum says?
Sorry, but you are wrong. Everyone on the team is a game developer. Game developer is a term for those who make games. They develop the game. You can’t restrict the term “developer” to those who just write code. A developer in the classic term just someone who develops. Develops is a term to create or construct. Thus a game developer is anyone who creates or constructs a game. This can be an engineer, designer, artist, etc.
I’ve been in the games industry for a decade and can tell you that this isn’t a debate or even up for question for those experienced in the field. It’s simply how we give credit to the whole team. A game engineer is one who writes code for the game, a developer is anyone on the team who works toward creating the game. Also, you should learn to respect marketing. Done right and respectfully, it’s a powerful way to connect to your audience. Just like a community manager.
Overall don’t gatekeep titles. It’s not great and would be like if someone came along and challenged you on calling yourself “indie”. Overall it’s not a good feel or look.
Ooh, a whole decade! I’ve been developing games (“developing”) since the '80s. You are literally the guy I referred to, in a studio, with a stupid title. If you’d called yourself a developer without being able to write code at some companies I’ve worked at, you’d have a conversation with HR. As it is, people can get away with it but it’s not true. Words have meanings, even when savages from a fallen age misuse them.
Actual customer service/community managers are fine, we need those; working indie that’s the worst part, not having them. But I’m with Bill Hicks on marketing douchebags.
Idk man… seems like that would make GameDev mean anything and nothing. Just for the record, I have no stakes in this discussion, I really don’t care. I just find it weird to blur a word like that. Is the game company’s canteen cook also a game dev? The person who plugged in the monitors? The CEO? The HR person? And so on…
I agree tho that this entire discussion feels a little like gatekeeping and would prefer everyone getting some credit for the game development over pedantic hairsplitting.
I get it! Me, developing a game, but it’s just not interactive in any way
I mean sure anybody in a team can have input in what makes a ‘game’ in a basic sense. But I think there’s a difference between I contribute to this process and I do the thing. If programming is muscle/nerves, level design is bones (especially with puzzles) and concept art is skin (or spine when it pertains to the story).
Also IMO solo-game-dev stuff should be elevated even for the simple stuff. It means you got all the keys, even if it takes you a while to find the right ones. (note I’m not even really comfortable with programming so I wouldn’t call it a bias, though if I could I most likely would stay solo so maybe it is)
A common complaint I see on gaming forums (especially after a new patch) is “Why is team working on X instead of Y?!” as though the people working on Y could switch to X or should be fired or sit around and do nothing until X is fixed. The people doing content creation stuff (e.g. artists, writers, scripting team, voice actors etc) are probably not going to be able to fix the netcode of the game.
(obviously, there is also mismanagement and failing to read your audience, but god damn gamers are the most entitled audience I’ve encountered in doing any art)(as a gamer etc etc)
I see it too, I tried explaining how it works a few times but the complainers don’t give a shit, they want X and they want it yesterday! Even if X is a vague concept that we don’t know yet. Frustrating.
It’s one reason I prefer a community forum over a community Discord. The forum tends to keep the complaints to a few easy to ignore threads. Meanwhile in the Discord someone asks the same braindead question every 5 minutes.
I learned this lesson 10 years ago at my first game dev job. The lead artist called himself a game developer and I said “Well I thought developer was a term reserved for engineering.” They gave a long passionate explanation about how it devalues the rest of the industry and that game developer is “one who makes a game”. To say that engineering is the only person to make the game is completely wrong. As I could not, as an engineer of 15+ years now, 10 of those in games, could not make a game entirely myself with just my engineering skills.
This comic hits home because anyone claiming that game developer is an engineering-only title has never worked on a team project. Anyone who goes in the credits is a game developer. Including random executives to backend developers on the game.
By that same logic, nobody can be a software developer because in order to develop a software project involving 100 people, one needs HR, managers, QA/testing, SREs, sysadmins, architects, finance, …
Nobody can be a brick layer either because in order to build the Burj Khalifa one needed architects, engineers, glaziers, plumbers, managers, secretaries, fork-lift drivers, truck drivers, etc.
Every team project has is multi-disciplinary. To claim one discipline doesn’t exist because in order to complete the project all disciplines are necessary, is willingful misrepresentation of facts.
some electricians who work on office buildings are
kaijusgamedevs(without them, your in-game lamps wouldn’t work.)
No, you’ve reversed my logic. Everyone you named would be a software developer but there is only one team of software engineers. The entire point is that “game developer” isn’t a discipline on the team. It’s a member of the team. It’d be like arguing the term medical professional only means doctors.
It’d be like arguing the term medical professional only means doctors.
That makes more sense and I agree with it. The way you wrote it (or the way I interpreted it) was like “we’re all doctors because a hospital can’t run without the rest of its staff”. I still disagree that a level designer can be call themselves a game developer. That’d be like a nurse calling themselves a doctor.
A game developer is anyone on the team which creates the game. A level designer is a game developer. A game engineer is the term you are confusing it with. This is common because of the term Software Developer but the developer part of game developer comes from the creation/construction side. Like a property developer or community developer.
This is common because of the term Software Developer but the developer part of game developer comes from the creation/construction side
since when? When did the software part of game developer stop being about actual code development and start being more like property or community? That makes literally no sense at all. Developer as it relates to any sort of code means the person actually writing the code. To say otherwise is just ignoring the meaning of words.
It’s not ignoring the meaning and even the term software developer doesn’t just mean “one who writes code.” Software developer also includes software designers, testers, and other facets of creating computer software. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_development#Workforce
You misread that.
is a person or company engaged in a software development process, including research, design, programming, testing, and other facets of creating computer software
does not mean software testers are developers, it means that software development includes testing, and a person that does software development might be involved in all of the above.
Notice how the next sentence includes no such title that would be confused with a person that isn’t writing code.
Other job titles for people with similar meanings include programmer, software analyst, or software engineer.
