[komali2]

I've noticed this kind of response before - recall that when Dropbox was first shown to HN, one of the responses was something along the lines of "This is trivial to set up with a linux box and (esoteric techno-babble follows)."

Not wrong, per se, but a super-technical HN reader was not the target of Dropbox, and I feel like it's the same situation here.

While you could, I guess, plug your HDMI cable from your computer running your first hello world python program onto a screen, I think there's something much more tangible and incredible to a child to run their own code on the device they usually play video games on. As a 10 year old, I would flux around with the debugger cheat in my Star Wars n64 game and think "well obviously these numbers change the color of fog, but how on earth did they code the actual game? The characters? The lasers?" What's being demonstrated here is "look kids, it IS possible for YOU to write code and run it on a video game console! YOU can become a game developer, if you learn about this stuff!"

Another anecdote - my uncle gave me his old computer to pull to pieces, I wanted to know how it went from circuits to showing Windows on the screen. I finally get to what he kept calling the "motherboard" and "processor," which he said is where most of the work is happening. So I pulled off the processor, disappointed at just seeing more circuits. He said there was even more circuitry inside it, so I cracked it open to find a black blob of I guess silicon. Nothing revealing how it worked! "What'd you expect to find," he asked, "a brain?" Imagine if the gap had someone been bridged by the existence of arduinos back then, or even just redstone in minecraft - a direct link between logic gates and, say, a calculator working.

[mathgeek]

> Not wrong, per se, but a super-technical HN reader was not the target of Dropbox, and I feel like it's the same situation here.

Even for highly technical users, "pay someone else to do something trivial for me, because they do it well" is still a huge draw.

[fsloth]

I know you meant intellectual empowerment but in the current employment market "YOU can become a video game developer" sounds like "YOU too can be a slave and work the salt mines". Where my kids passions take them, I let them happily choose it but it's unlikely I'm going to encourage them to pick one of the most precarious, underpaid shitjobs available to keen minds. I'd rather have them being the capitalist rather than slaving under one. I know not all gaming jobs are like that but given the rising power of companies and the availability of labour (everybody loves video games) it's unlikely to be any better in the future.

Besides, games are not important. They are really fun, but things like medicine, art, literature and mathematics are way more important. All of which programs can empower, sure.

I know we all here love code, but objectively speaking, it's not the best thing in the world unless a person has a specific inclination towards it (like I do, but not all do, and it's totally fine).

[komali2]

Woah, it seems like you feel very strongly about this subject, is that interpretation correct? Why is that?

I feel like statements such as

>games are not important

are very unfair. Same with your assumption that a game developer will be I guess a capitalist slave? What about indie developers? Crowdfunded developers? Dwarf Fortress?

Some indie games that have exploded, off the top of my head:

* Flappy Bird

* Shovel Knight (crowdfunded)

* Divinity and Divinity 2 (crowdfunded)

* Stardew Valley (single developer)

* Minecraft (was a one man passion project)

* Terraria

> I know we all here love code, but objectively speaking, it's not the best thing in the world

What gives you this perspective? Speaking as someone who has tried art/literature, I think it's a false narrative that the "starving artist" is happier because their work is more "fulfilling" or something. I tried that, and yea I loved my art and I loved pursuing it, but it didn't pay the bills, and I still had to have just a regular job to keep it up. A sales job, keeping me at a healthy but relatively insignificant 40k/year, limiting my travel options and forcing most of my time to be spent sustaining my ability to eat and pay rent.

Then I discovered programming - still a creative endeavor! I can work for a company, freelance, work from home, work much better hours, and at that paygrade I could afford to get solid savings that grants me the confidence that I can retire at some point to pursue my writing full time, if I want.

As for medicine, my conversations with friends who have to put up with 10+ years of medical schooling at massive costs only to suffer through 60-80hr workweeks and claw their way up the medical ladder have convinced me that that path is not something I would like to entertain.

[xfer]

> What's being demonstrated here is "look kids, it IS possible for YOU to write code and run it on a video game console! YOU can become a game developer, if you learn about this stuff!"

You do realize that people play game on PC too? The main issue that you are trying to address, i think, is whether there are other frameworks in teaching kids programming with games?

In, fact the part of world where i live in, it is much more expensive to buy a nintendo switch than to assemble a computer and hook it up to your tv and use scratch to teach the kids.