site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

11
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Game development on aggregate isn't any more technical than making a movie anymore IMO. We aren't in the 90's where making a game started with building an engine. The bulk of videogames released each year are indie games where the workload of programming is probably less than the art required to fill the space (which is also often just bought from the unity asset store).

If anything you are correct just because it takes literally 0 social skills to solo dev a game, while making a movie usually requires actors, whom would likely need some form of interaction to help guide them. Has there ever been a successful "solo dev" movie?

Point being that success in hollywood isn't really based on soft social skills, but movie making has a baseline requirement for social skills that game dev doesn't have. I imagine however that rubbing the right elbows will get you just as far in Rockstar Games as it would in Disney Films, provided you have a reason to be in the room in the first place.

Having spent time in the single A development space as well as contracting for TLAs, I would rate the average skillset of the technical staff making low budget licensed games and mobile skinner boxes above the people who have to leave their cellphones in a cubby before going into the office. Averages in both cases get brought down when you include artists or systems engineers. Meanwhile isn't there a meme in Hollywood about a desperate need for gaffers who know how to actually light sets and audio engineers who can make speech audible?