Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

penny-arcade.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 177 posts

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#151

Post by BSousa »

endtime wrote: post #124
jmduke wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to the fundamentally CRUD-like nature of most startups?

No, compared to most people [OP knows] not in the games industry, as the OP said. I've worked at a lot of different, varied places (including someone else's startup, and my own, and a government agency, and an investment bank, and a chip manufacturer, and a couple large software companies) and I'd say there's more to learn there than C/C++, GLSL, "AI" (game AI implementations might be large/complex planners or whatev…

Most definitively there is more to learn than what you learn in game development.

Heck, since I left the industry I've been working on a few projects that taxed me as well (multi-platform threading code, nginx custom modules, metrology algorithms (most of the math here went over my head to be honest)). But in all honesty, and I may just have been unlucky, most developers I know can't do C/C++ or any kind of memory management in non GC languages and have trouble developing algorithms that a bit more complex than qsort.

As I pointed out, I find it sad that most replies on the older thread to 'when you need performance you just drop down to C for that part of the code' where complaining that most Ruby/Python developers couldn't do it. Comparing this with having someone (and that was over my head) profiling the damn game for cache misses on the Xbox 360, and you can understand why I said what I did.

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#152

Post by Crake »

kitsune_ wrote: post #9

Most trendy, fashionable and 'glamorous' jobs are like this. A lot of suckers want to get into the field, and the employers know this. I know people who work in haute-couture shops. They typically clock in 14+ hours per day, and regularly work insane hours on the weekend. The weeks leading up to a fashion show / collection are brutal. These people have years of experience and managerial responsibilities, yet their sa…

"I know people who work in haute-couture shops."

Me too, or costume production, rather. It's insane how much they have to work for so very little pay. It's hard to tell if they're happy or unhappy, overall--they seem proud of their work, but at the same time, incredibly stressed over bills and whether they'll still have a job after a certain production's wardrobe is finished.

(This is skipping over the sewing people who went to college for it and now work at starbucks or whatever. These people are also a much larger percentage of the total than the people who were even able to get into the industry at all.)

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#153

Post by Crake »

calibraxis wrote: post #21
schoper wrote: post #11

Using "white" as a casual negative adjective is weak. I can respect non-whites using it as a term of anger or hatred. We're all big boys. But seeing it used as a term of self-hatred leaves me feeling more than a little disgusted.

Well, I wouldn't necessarily call it self-hatred, just as it's reasonable for many males to "hate" the male gender. I have serious issues with the social construct of gender, with its inculcation of aggression/subordination and bizarre attitudes, dress codes, etc. As a male, it's acceptable for me to "hate" maleness, and I think that's better than leaving only females to dismantle patriarchy. (Then again, in the sens…

"As a male, it's acceptable for me to "hate" maleness, and I think that's better than leaving only females to dismantle patriarchy."

Please don't hate yourself for the way you were born.

Believing in the moral righteousness of self-hate over unchangeable attributes invalidates the mantra of pro-GLBT rights groups everywhere. People have told me all my life that I'm disgusting and degenerate and innately evil because of something I have absolutely no control over. I don't like seeing GLBT hating themselves, and I don't like straight people hating themselves either, whether agender or female or male.

Would you tell a trans guy that he should hate himself for being male? No? Why a cis guy, then? Because the average trans guy does not want to be considered any different from the cis guy.

Of course, there are some feminists who believe that trans men are traitors to females everywhere for trying to "become" part of the patriarchy. These feminists say that trans men are just women that are trying to make a grab for male privilege, but the reality is just that the trans guy is trying to be who he is. He can't help the way he was born. And yet, here you are saying "it's fine" to be considered a "gender traitor" and that it's acceptable to "hate" maleness. Can you see how this is harmful to GLBT? We're already really marginalized as is because of the general attitude of "you were born the wrong way."

But I can't help it, and neither can you.

Do you see where I'm going with this? I hope you can understand, at least a little.

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#154

Post by Crake »

hacker789 wrote: post #137
alxp wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might not realize it but the thing you're complaining about? That's the Patriarchy to a t. No one thinks 'patriarchy' means 'all men oppressing all women.' except people constructing straw men. Patriarchy is the force that both tells women they belong at home and tells men that it's honourable to die in war. It's all around us.

I'm not constructing a straw man. You'll be bullied until you go silent if you claim to be a feminist while asserting that men can be victims of sexism, or that whites/Asians can be victims of racism[1]. You can use the word "Patriarchy". You can use the phrase "male domination". But it doesn't change the fact that men at the bottom have to watch the men at the top stomping all over them while preening themselves. [1…

Conservative fundamentalists bully me for being born the wrong way and having liberal views, and recently the liberals have all taken to bullying me as well whenever I post stuff about, well, male victims of sexism or white/asians being victimized by racism.

It's an incredibly cruel thing to do. For example, I saw my mother beating my father all the time when I was growing up, yet I get a bunch of straight liberals yelling at me if I mention supporting the establishment of domestic violence shelters for men about how they can't believe any "legitimate" GLBT person would support something like that. I once had a person tell me that she couldn't believe any self respecting GLBT person would support them, since "ANY study" would show that men were predominantly the agressors. I linked her to 200 studies showing equal rates of male vs female aggressors, and she made a vague post about cleaning her friendslist based on "politics" and promptly removed me. I don't know how to deal with people who literally refuse to acknowledge that my entire childhood is something that could never exist. Or refuse to recognize that they're wrong, when science says something that happens to contradict their pre established worldview.

It's incredibly bewildering, and more than a little cruel. I have to deal with the memories and trauma of my childhood, on top of conservatives AND liberals being unwilling to associate with me because of my views. That are mostly based on how and where I was born (GLBT, and understanding of how women assert their "female privilege" within our current society, which is matriarchal in many respects, based on observing my mother in action for 17 years).

Conservatives hate women and liberals hate men. What's an egalitarian to do? :(

I'm already severely marginalized, and liberals shunning me isn't exactly helping. I wish they'd stop enforcing mandatory privilege checks and actually just listen to the people they pretend to be advocating for, even just for once.

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#155

Post by Crake »

Camillo wrote: post #76
calibraxis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I wouldn't necessarily call it self-hatred, just as it's reasonable for many males to "hate" the male gender. I have serious issues with the social construct of gender, with its inculcation of aggression/subordination and bizarre attitudes, dress codes, etc. As a male, it's acceptable for me to "hate" maleness, and I think that's better than leaving only females to dismantle patriarchy. (Then again, in the sens…

Frankly, you sound very similar to those homosexuals with strongly traditional religious beliefs who try to purge themselves of their "twisted" part.

I'm GLBT and I just made a post along similar lines above, ha.

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#156

Post by Crake »

Karunamon wrote: post #44
schoper wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clear up any misunderstanding: Is it ever acceptable to have feelings of anger and hatred? Yes, surely. There are situations in life that demand that response. Are whites the only acceptable target? Surely not.

> Is it ever acceptable to have feelings of anger and hatred? Yes, surely. There are situations in life that demand that response. Are whites the only acceptable target? Surely not. Not to accuse you of any impropriety, but that was the most artful dodge I've ever seen outside of a presidential debate. Please answer the question as asked. As far as I'm concerned, anger and hatred on a racial basis is rarely, if ever…

" As far as I'm concerned, anger and hatred on a racial basis is rarely, if ever justified."

^---this.

If we say it's okay for a certain race, why not the others? It's logically unsound. Far better to not hate anyone on the basis of their skin color. Only way NOT to be a racist, too, for that matter.

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#157

Post by Crake »

louthy wrote: post #109

The reason I left the games industry after 10 years (aged 31) was because there was a serious lack of professionalism with project delivery, which leads to ridiculous hours, and the pay really isn't worth it after a while. As the consoles got more and more powerful, the pressure to deliver next-gen experiences just overwhelms the team. Quite often at the expense of delivering good gameplay. I worked at a number of me…

Off topic sort of, but--how is the programming market for developers in the UK? I'm an EE major and think it'd be cool to live abroad for a while after I get my degree, but I've heard the UK doesn't treat their engineers very well. Does this extend to developers too?

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#158

Post by Crake »

thenomad wrote: post #93

This helps explain why I'm starting to feel the games industry isn't catering to people like me as far as storylines go. I find that AAA games are often very disappointing in as far as they're full of one-dimensional characters, terrible cliches and limited understanding of anyone who isn't young and male. (I'm relatively young and male, but enjoy stories that aren't entirely filled with people like me.) There's a ma…

I've been similarly disappointed in the failure to deliver a coherent storyline for some of my most anticipated games in the last year or so.

Dead Space 3 and Mass Effect 3, I'm looking at you. :(

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#159

Post by Crake »

numo16 wrote: post #123
st8ic wrote: post #85

The fact that they are childless indicates that they don't have time to have children, but how the hell is the fact that they're white relevant to the point they're trying to make in the article?

> The fact that they are childless indicates that they don't have time to have children Or they don't want them...It may be anecdotal, but I know a good many of people around age (26) who don't really want to have kids

Yeah, seriously. (I'm one of them.)

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#160

Post by azatris »

gordaco wrote: post #150
azatris wrote: post #126

Perhaps it's a bit offtopic, but as I have not found myself a good pet language that I'd truly make my favourite yet, being a 21-year old university student, is there any other reasons of studying, learning C++ as an all-around language, than being in the game industry? The dream of working for a company like Valve has pushed me into learning C++, but I am not so sure anymore whether that is a good choice due to both…

C++ has plenty of uses outside games and it's still one of the most demanded languages, although here on HN most people seem to work on web development and rarely need C++. The truth is, if you don't like C++, you won't like working on an industry that relies heavily on it (however, not every game is done in C++, and certainly few games use it exclusively), so in that case it may be a good idea to go for another indu…

I really like the way C++11 is and I already see how it is in so many ways more likeable than Java as an OO language. But a question arises: would the common C++ jobs be maintaining legacy C++98 codebases?

Also, when I am thinking about possibly being in web development, then is it a much more diverged path from the C family or could I somehow keep this as an open option? Is the easiest solution simply learn e.g. Javascript in parallel?

Post reply on HN