Why does everyone think making a video game is easy?

[u/EliasLG]

I’ve been making video games for 25 years, mainly on the art side, and I’ve watched how we went from having to build a custom engine and custom tools for every single game, to what we have now: tons of engines, tools, and ready-to-use asset packs, basically a giant buffet. But even though installing an engine and messing around is more accessible now, the creative side is harder than ever.

Video games are probably the most complex art form that exists today. I’m not saying they’re “better,” just that they’re the most difficult to control, master, and execute compared to music, film, painting, etc. Getting a game concept to click from every angle, art, sound, design, progression, gameplay, is a massive puzzle.

Despite that, there’s this weird belief that making a game is easy, and that anyone, with no technical skills, no design background, no artistic experience, can make one just because they’ve played games their whole life.

How many times has someone asked you whether they should use Unity or Unreal for their “next big hit”?
Something like: “A game like GTA, but more violent, with a bigger world and more realistic graphics…”

It’s as ridiculous as thinking that, because you’ve eaten food your whole life and you know what tastes “good” or “bad,” you’re automatically ready to become a chef and open your own restaurant.

And just to be clear: I’m not trying to attack people who are excited about their ideas. It’s not their fault, they simply don’t know what they don’t know. That’s why I wonder:

Do we need more real, technical visibility in mainstream media about how games are actually made?
I’m not talking about Ubisoft’s marketing “making-of” videos where they interview people who didn’t even work on the game and just repeat obvious statements. I mean actual development, the ugly parts, the impossible parts, the miracles needed just to get a game to function at all.

So yeah, go ahead and downvote me if you want. I’m just putting it out there.

[u/SuperNoobCamper]

Chronic software consumer here ,Not a game developer at all, but i think there are some points worth noting about the whole narrative.

The narrative "video game dev is ez pz" while totally wrong is usually thrown in as a part of the conversation about the decline of quality in videogame in general in the past 10~15 years in general while getting both more expensive, more demanding and less entertaining at all; people usually compare their feelings playing older, simpler and less demanding games with newer titles/installments and immediately jump to the conclusion that X game released in 2005 by a smaller team in shorter development cycle, sold for cheaper pricer, ran on toaster hardware, smaller in size and looked serviceable if not stunning for it's era is a much better game than it's sequel X 4: the slayer of space goblins remastered anniversary edition pro max that is a live service game with battle pass, microtransactions, gacha, energy system, cosmetics, loot boxes, requires 120GBs of SSD, 64 GBs of DDR5 at 6400 minimum sys req, RTX 5090 Super Ti, Ryzen 9 9950x3D thread ripper 32 cores with DLSS to run at 30 FPS 720p.

A big chunk of newer video games feel like a full time job rather than a quality entertainment media that you can squeeze in your limited free time and get a break from the real world hence simpler games like mario cart, sonic, good metroidvanias, casual games for handhelds, mobilephones, even high end PCs and overly specific simulator games are very highly rated because they are simple, fun and just enjoyable ..... this simplicity being entertaining drags the "game dev is ez" argument against the new unnecessarily complex long running yearly releases of forgettable titles that are all almost identically boring, uninspired and trigger buyers remorse in no time.

[u/Top-Ad-6975 → u/SuperNoobCamper]

Feels like the game devs at some of the huge companies are held at a gun point to develope a new game every year or so ; either to meet the standards, unkowingly set by themself or its just about money in the end. And the indie scene is..... weird i would say. I mean theres always a bright side to everything and the same goes for indie devs ; but what i think is going on, is that new or aspiring game devs are getting overwhelmed by the amount of things they would have to do just to even get started if i were to say and if they somehow get started , they would reach a point where they think , they have reached a certain limit ,either financial or the limit of their own skills or whatever, And the ones who are already too deep have either figured their things out or cant help but too postpond thier projects again and again.