Is it really fun to make games?

Question

Game development

Hello!
I am doing web development. It just so happens that freelancing is the fastest and easiest way to make money in this area. But really, for a long time, since childhood, I have wanted to create games.
But one friend who works in a game dev company said that not everything is so rosy in this area, they are literally forced to develop casual shit that is faster and easier to develop and monetize, and they are not involved in interesting projects like Skyrim, Gothic, Warcraft or Diablo, and to get into a company where they make really cool games, you need to be an unrealistically smart specialist and have been developing almost from the age of 15 (ps I'm 23).
And he says if you compare what he does and web development, then the web is much more interesting.
What do you think?

Answer 1

95% of web projects are landing pages with Jesus rags, shops and business cards. 95% of games are casual junk, HOGs, subway surfer clones and other freemium. In design studios, 95% of the work is annual reports, catalogs of Jesus rags and design for the above web projects.
It's the same everywhere, there's not enough interesting work everywhere, and you still have to earn it.

Answer 2

I have just the opposite pattern. Worked for a year and a half in game development. Moved into web development. The company was engaged in tearing apart popular western casual games. Terrible job, glad I don't work there anymore. By observation, 95% of game development companies in the CIS are doing the same. So the friend is right, in reality, not everything is as rosy as you imagine.
If you are a programmer, your impact on the game world will be minimal, in most cases it is the same boring coding on a ready-made engine.
Yes, there are companies producing interesting projects. But they are concentrated mainly outside the CIS countries. You don't need to be a genius to get there, but some experience and good preparation are required.
Be prepared for rush jobs, for not being able to influence the development process, for dissatisfaction with the quality of your work, because. "the authorities have set deadlines, we cannot but release" and similar wonderful chips.
Are you still reading?
In fact, the point is that, like everywhere else, game development has its own problems. And they need to be understood, otherwise you will be greatly disappointed. If you want to develop games - start doing something for yourself. Take Unity3d, write a simple game, upload it to the market. Repeat. And again. Then you will understand everything and all questions will disappear.

Answer 3

If you have an idea for a game, then you can also interest other programmers, in other words, create your own team and maybe the game will take off, you can go study the whole thing and wait until the boss tells you to do something, you can do everything alone, but there are no such people who will do it everything alone, and the most brilliant ideas appear only in a team

Answer 4

Many people go into game dev because it is associated with being playable.
Once upon a time, as soon as I learned, Flash made a couple of amateur games in the style of arkanoid and a pathetic parody of worms. It's not interesting to play your own)) you will know literally everything about the game and all its shortcomings.
Other than that, yes, it's work. You are hired to earn more money due to your knowledge, skills and experience. It just so happened that people hawala more kid-friendly casual games, and there's nothing to be done about it.
From the point of view of a programmer - something is a code, what is a code)) It is worth pumping the skill: "to solve a boring task in an interesting way for yourself." The same landings can be implemented:
1. Stupid html-other.
2. As a configurable multi-site system with load balancing up to automatic raising of nodes. I am already silent about the collection and analysis of traffic with a personal selection of landing pages.

Answer 5

For me personally, creating any game - casual or not, logic, arcade or any other - is always interesting. I started programming about 25 years ago, and have been doing game development for about 4-5 years. And over the past few years, I've been doing a lot of very interesting tasks. Routine, of course, is also present in large quantities, but this does not negate interest. Especially when there is a development of games of different genres, and not the same - it's very interesting. For example, I made a HOPA / HOG game - yes, casual, banal, etc. But in addition to working on the engine itself, scripting, etc., we also had to make mini-games. And each mini-game is a new task, a new separate small game. Lots of experience. It may seem boring to some, but this is my experience.
PS If that person thinks that the development of "Skyrim, Gothic, Warcraft or Diablo" will be much more interesting for one programmer than any other game, then he is mistaken. There will be exactly the same routine. Bunch of routine. I had to, as the main developer, distribute tasks to other programmers - from their side, these tasks hardly seemed to be any super interesting. But if there is a desire and interest, then a person will do it. And if a person is more interested in web development, then let him do it - how can you even compare these completely different areas?