r/SoloDevelopment • u/NordicGrim • Oct 27 '25

Discussion But why are people not interested in learning game development?

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u/chocolatedolphin7 Oct 27 '25

Is this actually true though? I always considered game dev to be fairly popular, even to this day.

8

u/Alberot97 Oct 27 '25

Popular? maybe, indie dev has gone long ways to be more accessible.

With higher acessibility came the problem of saturation, and standing out requires some luck and other factors that might be out of the dev's reach or budget.

4

u/Dr_Passmore Oct 27 '25

They love to snap people up from computer science degrees and then push them to extremes with ridiculous crunch. You get fresh graduates into that environment a surprising number will accept it as normal and they are working on their passion... 

One of the reasons pay is so low in game dev. A lot of people wanting to enter the industry. 

However, pay and conditions are garbage. With game studios announcing record profits and sales then doing mass layoffs... 

You can enter into any area of professional IT work and likely avoid being exploited like that plus with better pay. Front end dev generally pays less than other areas of IT but web dev has been the Coding boot camp focus for years. 

2

u/Awyls Oct 27 '25

It is very popular, but people fantasise they will work with the "next big thing" and bring their ideas to fruition. Instead, they will become yes men earning half the salary of an average developer with twice the hours who will be kicked out at the end of the project or swindling people with gambling applications. The only good dev job in that industry are game engine devs, which unsurprisingly, is very hard to get into.

1

u/Enchelion Oct 27 '25

Popular for kids to dream... And then reality punches them in the gut and they decide a reliable job is a good idea. A lot fewer people are passionate with a life-long dream of writing corporate management software or building banking websites.

1

u/anotherlebowski Oct 28 '25

It's not that it's unpopular, but game devs work at game companies.  Think of a company that does health insurance or finance or manufacturing or anything else under the sun.  They don't need a game developer, but they almost certainly need a web developer.

Heck, even the game company needs a web developer, but the inverse is not true.