We need a "Ask GameDev" like on HN
Hacker News for Gamedev
201–210 of 229 posts
Re: Hacker News for Gamedev
#202When you've only got 3 comments on your whole front page, not sure invite-only is the best idea.
As someone who wanted to comment and was immediately prevented by the invite wall, I agree.
I even submitted for an invite but clicking submit triggered no notification or anything. I don't have the energy to look at the network request to confirm
Re: Hacker News for Gamedev
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem I find with the gamedev subreddit is it seems like it’s 90% beginners And the focus is like all on 1-person indie projects with very little content from professional/AAA devs
This is less a problem with the subreddit and forums, and more that AAA game devs seems to be very reserved about discussing their industry or keep discussion internal to private channels (possibly for IP reasons). Whenever I see a AAA developer pop up on Reddit they're always vague and mysterious; "I work for an unnamed AAA developer.." You don't see people doing that on HN very often, they usually announce unabashe…
I work for an unnamed AAA developer..
...and people I work with have gotten mail on their PERSONAL phones, addresses and social media accounts because a, let's say "enthusiastic", fan found out they work on a product they have strong feelings on.
Re: Hacker News for Gamedev
#204fwiw I read hacker news through RSS only, top 10 items every day using https://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/
Something similar would be great
Re: Hacker News for Gamedev
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is less a problem with the subreddit and forums, and more that AAA game devs seems to be very reserved about discussing their industry or keep discussion internal to private channels (possibly for IP reasons). Whenever I see a AAA developer pop up on Reddit they're always vague and mysterious; "I work for an unnamed AAA developer.." You don't see people doing that on HN very often, they usually announce unabashe…
i think a big part of it is that their audience isn't just other gamedevs, it includes gamers those gamers often have strong emotional attachments to games/characters that very few people have for google sheets studios get crazy backlash for nerfs and other changes, so i can see not wanting to attach your name and face to that. in the other direction, i wouldn't want a horde of gamers using my words as evidence that…
Yeah it's a bit of both. Last thing gamedevs in industry wants is a bunch of players hounding them over things they 99.9% cant control anyway. That's why any devs that reveal themselves are long gone from an older game, perhaps not even in games anymore.
And yes, the NDAs on a game are bizarrely strict. For B2B stuff like engines and tools, they usually don't care too much what you discuss as long as you don't make a show out of it. For Game studios, you basically cannot say much more other than "I work here" in public unless you're PR.
Re: Hacker News for Gamedev
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have seen game devs that are public with what company they work for also get death threats/hatred/etc whenever a game comes out that flops even if they didn't work on it specifically. Gamers can come off as a really political audience with a lot of grift money to be made on culture war stuff so it makes sense if you're an apolitical gamedev to stfu.
I've also received surprising levels of vitriol here on HN when I mentioned working for EA (which I did 2015-2019).
Ahh yes, AKA The Devil. From the Bible. Big fan of his work. /s
Yeah, it sucks. Some people can't separate the grunts just working on features from the suits up top who manage a lot of the things they actual hate. Don't shoot the messenger.
Re: Hacker News for Gamedev
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem I find with the gamedev subreddit is it seems like it’s 90% beginners And the focus is like all on 1-person indie projects with very little content from professional/AAA devs
The more professional discussions seem to be on the forums for Unreal Engine or Unity, where people are struggling with obscure issues inside those monster packages. (I'm trying to do 3D stuff in Rust. The number of people who do hard 3D stuff in Rust seems to be very small, which is frustrating. There are many obscure bugs in the graphics stack and not enough people to exercise the stack, find the bugs, and get them…
Even Unreal Q&A's get thin once you start looking into features deeper in the engine. Epic's campaign to make the common dev afraid of C++ seems to have worked with ablomb. Maybe there's some closed off sections to look into, but I sadly don't have access to that anymore.
I can't imagine much knowledge out there on Rust gamedev atm. Truly a trailblazer. At that point your resources are more about community discords and arguing in github issues than anything casual.
Re: Hacker News for Gamedev
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Isn't game development already discussed here? I'd say not really. Not in the detail that this site aims for. At least on the front page.
Any dev based forum needs full markdown support where you can type ```javascript. //js code here. ``` And it formats as js, say. Formatting stuff on here, reddit, and other sites that support only partial markdown is painful for me.
Q.E.D.
Re: Hacker News for Gamedev
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
For better or worse at least it's not "uber for X" posts of a half decade ago
New startup idea. Just get some big names to sign on like sama or whoever and then only ever state “we are the uber of AI”. Then wait for the spice to flow.
n-gate would have said "OpenAI, business model - Uber for laundering pirated content"
Re: Hacker News for Gamedev
#210I hope this catches on. For whatever reason, I haven't come across many gamedev-focused sites with good content. The gamedev subreddit is particularly disappointing. Feebdack: agree with the other comments that the background image is a bit hard on the eyes. Nice work!
There aren't many social media communities with quality gamedev content, because professional (especially AAA) developers with decades of experience rarely participate, and you can only have so many beginner communities. The lack of participation exists for many reasons: 1. Befriending fans or participating in their communities leads to constant requests for insider info, which is tiresome. 2. Social media is for ext…
> Influencers often flip-flop between these criticisms reviewing any game they come across, so these ideas have now taken hold in social media, and are often barriers to respectful communication.
From my observations, I see that most influencers are consistent. A few will flip flop to chase the trend of the week, but most simply have hard, clashing stances. And of course, those clashes creature flames
Sadly, talking about games is rarely civil. You need to find a quaint community and/or do a ton of moderation to keep the conversation from tilting off.
> Many devs align with the games industry a lot more than the idealistic "games is my calling" new developer.
Yeah, that was definitely a contributing factor to me leaving Reddit. Only so many times you can try and reason "well yes, costs have grown for these larger games. Maybe a 16% increase after 15 years is justificed" and are counted by "but the market is bigger! You sell less games with higher costs"... sigh. I know they can't see the pocket books, but companies are still breaking records with $70 priced games. Come on.
Also just a real shame how much those gamers ignore the japanese market. They focus on COD and claim to just want to buy games. meanwhile Nintendo has never put MTX nor battle passes in their games, and they are chastised as bad for completely different moving goal posts (ahh yes, because lawyers remove mods... because Nintendo games disproportionately have a huge modding community. Population maps anyone?). Maybe a bunch of cosmetic DLC at worst, but all those western tactics are relagated to Mobile in Japan (which this audience couldn't care less about).
They have options to branch out to, but never do. Can't make the horse drink.