[gfodor]

This is the inevitable response that I get when I dare suggest that those of us with the gift of being able to program computers in such a interesting time choose wisely where we place our efforts.

I'm not saying it's immoral, unrewarding, or not plain fun to play and build video games. I'm saying that in life you get to choose how you spend your time, and in my view building the next killing simulator when you have the talent and means to do so much more is probably something worthy of self-reflection.

[icandoitbetter]

Speaking of self-reflection: a quick look at your profile revealed that you're working at an e-commence company and previously worked at an advertising solutions company. Do you consider those things less superficial than video games? Honest question.

[gfodor]

Sure, and a fair one! I think there are a number of tradeoffs you can make when taking on a new project:

- Will this make me happy?

- Are the people involved good people I can enjoy working with?

- Will this develop my skills in the way I want for my future?

- Will this enable me to open doors later that are shut now?

- Does this have a positive impact on the world?

- Will this have a long-lasting impact?

- Is this ethical, will it be used for good or evil?

- Is it something that I can be proud of? That I'll tell my grandkids about?

I've been lucky enough to work on a variety of things all of which stretched these constraints in wildly different directions. In each case I've tried to push things towards a happy medium when it was clear things were tilted too far in one direction. I'm quite happy with what I am working on now, as it is with a great team, provides good technical challenges, and has a positive, real impact on thousands of people's lives in an ethical, positive way, while potentially having a long term impact on building sustainable, local economies as a whole.

The point of my post is not to 'judge' people doing things they enjoy. It's to point out that it's important to keep in mind these tradeoffs and be honest with yourself. At any point in my career I like to think if you asked me where what I was working on fell on these lines, I could give you an honest answer. I think there are many engineers who blindly follow technical problems wherever they lead, without thinking of the larger picture.

My original post was pointing out video games certainly, for the most part, fit into these tradeoffs in a common way. (Again, I am talking about applied software engineering in video games, not all facets of video games.) If you're working on fascinating computational geometry algorithms for the next game that lets people run around shooting each other in the head, I think you know where what you're doing falls on these dimensions, and I think it's important to know if you're comfortable there. (Yes, I play and love Quake 3.)

It's hard to phrase these things without people taking it personally, but I've known many engineers that wake up 10 years into their career and realize they've been working on incredibly interesting technical problems which are being applied to things they aren't really too stoked about.

[dan00]

"My original post was pointing out video games certainly, for the most part, fit into these tradeoffs in a common way. (Again, I am talking about applied software engineering in video games, not all facets of video games.) If you're working on fascinating computational geometry algorithms for the next game that lets people run around shooting each other in the head, I think you know where what you're doing falls on these dimensions, and I think it's important to know if you're comfortable there. (Yes, I play and love Quake 3.)"

Ok, you're saying, that you don't judge, but are doing it the whole time.

Your definition of meaningful is very simplistic. It's like saying, that exertion could be without catharsis. No, they can't be without each other. If they can't be without each other, than both are meaningful in the same way.

[gfodor]

The term 'judging' is a loaded term. It implies that the person doing the judging thinks less of people that are being judged. That isn't the case here. How could I? I've written video games and play them all the time.

If I had said something along the lines "working on your college degree is a better use of your time than gambling your money away in a casino" I'd not be 'judging' gamblers who do so. I'd be judging the acts themselves and how I see their relative merit and the rewards they'll bring the person doing them. I'd also be stirring up less controversy.

It's disappointing that people in this thread have tried to attack me personally or twist my words to be interpreted as 'judgements.' I don't think it's controversial to say that playing video games excessively is, in the long run, not the most rewarding endeavor. The question is, does this extrapolate to making a career of the construction of games themselves (exclusively on the software engineering side, the topic of this thread.) I happen to think that it does, particularly when I look at all the energy and talent that goes into creating them and the draw they have due to the fact that our generation was raised on gaming and that it offers enticing technical challenges.

[johnyzee]

I would rather tell my grand kids that I made a cool game that a lot of people had a lot of fun with, than try to explain how I helped an insurance company limp along without succumbing under the weight of their legacy IT architecture. Or contributed to make the world a better place for advertising. Etc. That kind of thing is how most programmers pass their lives.

[withad]

And what is the "so much more" that these talented programmers could (and, in your opinion, should) be doing instead? I'm genuinely curious, since most programming jobs that I can think of aren't exactly world-changing.

Yes, a programmer in the video game industry might spend their days debugging the mammary physics of "the next killing simulator". But they might also create the next Braid or Minecraft, helping a lot of people connect and have fun in the process. Similarly, a programmer outside the games industry is much more likely to be tweaking some bespoke piece of accounting software than they are making the next Facebook.

[gfodor]

I think you bring up a good point. The person making the mammary physics simulation or Braid are probably two different types of people.

I think the reason for this is because the person working on Braid chose to balance technical challenges with other things important to them. A 2d platformer is certainly less interesting to build from an engineering standpoint than building a navier-stokes based milk dynamics solver in CUDA :) But, the Braid engineer knows they are working on an ambitious, novel piece of art. It's this tradeoff that I don't think most people are making, and I think most video game engineers do not see themselves as agents to push the boundary of contributing in an artistic sense to a greater whole as those on games like Braid do, particularly.

The post in this thread sparked my comment because it mentioned the most drawing position in gaming is the coveted engine programmer position. To me, this sounds like people want to work on bleeding-edge technical problems without regards to the fact their engines are probably being applied towards shoveling out violent, dry crap from the mainstream gaming studios. I once had one-dimensional goals like this too ("I want to work on global illumination algorithms!") but this has changed for me dramatically over time.

[SoftwareMaven]

I think the problem is you appear to be judging others by the stick you are measuring yourself with. Everybody gets to decide what they feel is important, but HN'ers don't like others telling them what should be important to them.

[gfodor]

On the other hand, sometimes being slapped in the face to think about what your working on and it's larger purpose can be like getting dunked into a pool of ice water for the first time.

[alanfalcon]

Insult after insult. I think a vast majority of those on HN are self aware enough that they don't need your comments to make them stop and think about their lives. Seriously.

[16BitTons]

"I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?" — J.R.R. Tolkien

[tansey]

Actually, 3D games are a GREAT test-bed for AI research. Some of the best AI algorithm competitions in academia are possible solely because of the game industry's awesome killing simulators.

[waitwhat]

building the next killing simulator when you have the talent and means to do so much more

Such a shame that you claim to have the talent, but obviously don't have the imagination, to build something better.

[michaelchisari]

building the next killing simulator when you have the talent and means to do so much more

Possibly. But can you say that about building the video game equivalent of Citizen Kane, The Battleship Potemkin, or La jetée?

[headbiznatch]

This response is inevitable because you are sharing this opinion with people who can see through your biases. I'm happy enough that someone programming games isn't hacking my bank account. Does that register on your personal Richter scale for a valuable use of one's time?

[gfodor]

I'm not really a fan of moral relativism. I don't think it's unfair to claim that certain applications of engineering are objectively more valuable to society as a whole than others, or more rewarding to the person doing them. It's fair to disagree with me on the particulars, of course, and argue the point, but it's not fair to say such judgements are impossible to make in the first place.

[davedx]

"Wisely"? "Self-reflection"? I find your attitude to what others choose to do with their life incredibly patronising.