Justifying this hobby?

[UncleSporky]

For one of the critics, it's often housework. (Not that I don't do my own share.)

After that I mentioned hobbies. For example my mom taught herself to touch up old family photos with photo editing software and has bought other old items to touch up such as sewing patterns.

Naturally photoshopping is a marketable skill, but the stretch from what she does now to a "real" job in graphic design is similar to the stretch from coding NES logic to programming machinery, software development, web coding etc.

They consider programming for an obsolete computer to be "play", not resume-worthy work, because one cannot sell copies of a program for an obsolete computer in commercially significant quantities unless you happen to live in the same town as one of the makers of handheld TV games such as Jakks or Radica. And my cousin doesn't finish much of anything in part because I haven't yet got him to care about filling a resume.

Suppose you were spending all day building computers and installing OSs, would they frown on that?

If I am or reasonably could be making money from it, no. For example, fixing PCs made in the past decade is work; fixing C64s is play.

Then the only real answer is that it cannot be justified to people who believe this.

Doing an activity that "won't sell" does not equate to something that has no value. There are possibly more worthy pursuits, but there will always be more worthy pursuits than whatever you are currently doing. You could also be doing a lot worse.

[Jeroen]

Well does life have to be about usefull things ALL the time? And ya not making money =/= not usefull or productive.

[tokumaru]

I was gonna ask the same thing. So something is only good if you can make money out of it?

I know we all need money to survive, but we also need to have fun. If something brings joy to your life, it's just as important, if not more, than something that brings money.

[Jeroen]

Not that you shouldn't do "usefull" things to btw. (personally I think I probably spend too much time on the internet and way to little doing usefull stuf, but that's personal) Just saying....some devving on the side shouldnt hurt. It just shouldnt consume all your time.

[NovaSquirrel]

Both my mom and my dad agree that I actually learn a lot and do things. It's just Grandma and my little brother who oppose what I do.

[strat]

The guy specifically said he understood that I didn't have any knowledge at all about their system, and had no employment history, but it was mostly because my NES-related experience that he even considered me for the job.

Interesting. I once impressed someone at an interview by telling him I knew assembly language ("we don't have any assembly experts here"). Too bad I gave crappy answers to some other questions.

[Bregalad]

Definitely I agree with tepples it's hard to justify that hobby. But as long as you have nothing special to do, you might as well waste your time to make games that other people will possibly waste time on. However, considering anything other than eating drinking and sleeping a waste of time would mean being an animal.

More seriously it should be easy to justify the hobby if you have already released somthing complete greatly sucessful. Unfotrunately, that's not the case of anyone of us.

[CaptainMuscles]

The guy specifically said he understood that I didn't have any knowledge at all about their system, and had no employment history, but it was mostly because my NES-related experience that he even considered me for the job.

Interesting. I once impressed someone at an interview by telling him I knew assembly language ("we don't have any assembly experts here"). Too bad I gave crappy answers to some other questions.

I attended a session at GDC where several people gave accounts of how they got into the game industry and gave advice for others to do the same. One of the things they agreed on was that it doesn't hurt to have something a little different in there (IIRC, one of the people had put winning a Soulcaliber tournament on their resume.)

Mentioning NES development on a resume can make yours stand out as different and maybe start an interesting conversation. Regardless of whether or not you are applying for a game-industry position, this makes you more memorable which is extremely valuable when your resume is part of a large pile someone is looking through.

After that I mentioned hobbies. For example my mom taught herself to touch up old family photos with photo editing software and has bought other old items to touch up such as sewing patterns.

My granny uses her computer and the internet to research geneology. Woe be unto anyone who uses her computer and leaves the resolution higher than 640x480, she reeeeeeallly does not appreciate that.

---------------------------

Now for something more on topic:

A few years ago I wasn't being productive and my family was not happy about that.

The turning point for me was deciding that instead of just going back to college and hoping my dream job would fall into my lap, I would be proactive and make it happen. I thought my family would think that transfering to a school to pursue a game-programming degree was silly, but they were actually just glad to see me be independent and pursue my passion.

[koitsu]

Sounds like someone needs to move out of the home. :-) I'm making a lot of assumptions saying that, but, well... here's my take on it:

There's a lot of things my mum and I didn't see eye-to-eye on when I was a kid -- mainly how much time I spent on the computer and in front of my NES. Her concern over video game playtime was a bit overdramatic, but even more so her concern over my computer use ("Would you get outside and do something? The northern field needs to be mowed and there's wood to be stacked out back!" -- ah the joys of farm life...)

It wasn't until I started working at Oregon State University (volunteer job) concurrently while attending school, then later moving to California at age 17 + getting a full-time job that she actually took what I was doing seriously.

Comparatively, my relatives used to laugh heartily ("Career?! You're just a kid! Listen to him! Career my ass!") at family reunions when I referred to what I was doing down here as "part of my career" -- they quit their laughing after a few years once they realised it really *was* a career, and that I was making almost 3x more than they were. (I've noticed that a lot of people seem to hold value on what a person's salary is -- like somehow because I make X dollars per year that means I'm serious about what I'm doing, while if I made half that maybe I wasn't serious. I don't understand it. It's just money -- it's material, and you can always make more)

These days my mother often brags about me to people she meets ("Oh let me tell you about my son, he's so successful", yadda yadda) and I hate it. Specifically, I hate ego-stroking, and I hate the fact that she seems to have forgotten all the lectures she gave me when I was younger. It's hypocritical, and I remind her of that ("That's an interesting tune you're singing compared to the one you sang when I was 18...")

That said -- I have an excellent relationship with my mum and I love her to bits. There's just some things we don't (and won't) see eye-to-eye on with regards to my upbringing and some of the choices both her and I made during my life. But so what? That's life. No one's perfect. :D

My point here is that once you move out of the home and take on the responsibilities of a working-class citizen (as an individual and not reliant on others -- this usually means holding a full-time job, paying rent, paying for your own food, paying your own bills, and establishing your own line of credit), good parents often look at what you do/what you spend your time doing with a bit more respect than when they see you doing it non-stop every day under *their* roof.

When you start having to justify your hobbies or interests -- good ones -- to your parents, it's time to move out.

[tepples]

But as long as you have nothing special to do, you might as well waste your time to make games that other people will possibly waste time on.

But then why shouldn't I be doing it exclusively for AllegroGL and not NES? At least on PCs, I have a chance to sell copies.

My granny uses her computer and the internet to research geneology. Woe be unto anyone who uses her computer and leaves the resolution higher than 640x480, she reeeeeeallly does not appreciate that.

That's why GNOME and possibly other GUIs that run on multiuser systems allow each user to configure the text size independently.

The turning point for me was deciding that instead of just going back to college and hoping my dream job would fall into my lap, I would be proactive and make it happen. I thought my family would think that transfering to a school to pursue a game-programming degree was silly, but they were actually just glad to see me be independent and pursue my passion.

I just wish I had the money to go back for a master's.

Sounds like someone needs to move out of the home.

I agree. That's why I'm slowly trying to talk my boss at my day job into a raise or more hours, in part so that I can more comfortably afford rent, food, and utilities.

[Bregalad]

Yeah just today my mom was annoying me so much I don't know why because I'm not going out but making a lot of progress to my NES project.

She keeps saying that video games are the stupidest thing on the world (without any good argument, and she haven't even tried one once), and keep asking me what I'm doing, so I answer "I make something you find very stupid". The only time I've tried to answer that I was going to actually develop a game, that it was art, and that not many people could be able to do it, and that they should be proud of me they laughed at me so I'm not repeating it again. Maybe if I tell them I get money with it they will take it seriously but I'm not even sure.

That said I do everything to get good releationship with them, but whathever I do they're not happy with it and keep saying bad things about me. Thanks god I'm not emotionnal, because if I were I would feel really bad (but again whathever I do as long as there is other people arround I spend my time hearing people saying bad thing on me so I'm really used to it and all cool with that they're 100% forgiven).
I guess the "your parents hate you" at the end of teenage syndrom is not avoidable no matter what you do and no matter how much you love them.

("Would you get outside and do something? The northern field needs to be mowed and there's wood to be stacked out back!" -- ah the joys of farm life...)

Same here, happened exactly a few hours ago and I was almost mad to be always interrupted at the wrong time.

When you start having to justify your hobbies or interests -- good ones -- to your parents, it's time to move out.

That's easy to say but you'd have to have a full time job, and in the country I live in there is ridicouls immigration and surpopulation, which implies ridiculously low amount of available homes at ridiculously high rants. My bro who started his full time job this month can't get his own home.

[GradualGames]

I demoed my NES graphics editor to the company with whom I am now employed. I was able to use it to demonstrate my problem solving skills and described to them some of the features I implemented.

In terms of justifying the hobby to your family, I don't know if this is possible. My mom hated video games. She let me get them and play them, but she never made me feel that great about playing them.

This had a cumulative effect of making me a bad video game player, because I never tried very hard at the games I played. Now, after the trauma of adolescence and college, I have gotten back into video games. And I can easily say that playing video games takes:

1) Extreme patience and perseverance. If these virtues are not well developed in you, good luck beating Castlevania.
2) Problem solving skills. Good luck beating Dragon Warrior if you can't make a map and interpret it later (unless you're a lazy bastard and just look up the maps on the internet).
3) Highly developed reaction time. I think this has quite honestly saved my life driving down the road a few times.

And that's just PLAYING games. developing them (alone) takes:

1) Highly developed problem solving skills.
2) An artistic bent.
3) Patience many orders of magnitude greater than that which is required to beat an old game
4) A musical bent.
5) The ability to research technical information and constantly better oneself.

To me, video games can draw you into a world like no other media can. It stimulates the imagination like no other media can. It is more fun than any other media. It is like a synthesis of all forms of media-art into one.

If someone refuses to acknowledge these things, I guess they're just plain old and you have to accept it.


Also, it is definitely possible to have a life, and this hobby as well. When I started learning about devving for the NES, in Nov 08, I had prior to that begun experimenting with more disciplined ways of organizing my life including my hobbies. Since then, I have devoted one evening per week, and each weekend, to working on NES development. I haven't felt even slightly burned out the entire time I've been doing this. 10 years ago when I was a teenager, I wanted to do the stay up late and drink coke and code thing. But when I try that now I just burn out (and, I did back then too). Slow and steady wins the race as the saying goes. The race with myself anyway,not saying any of us are in a race together here...

[Celius]

It's funny, because the situation is rather backwards for me. My family is actually rather supportive of me making a game. My mom always tells me that everything I'm doing is so beyond comprehension, and my brother's always asking me "how's the game coming along?". I, however, have a lack of motivation while thinking about how there are more important things that need to be done, even when there is nothing more important I can do at the time. Most of the time though, there are things that I could be doing that would be more beneficial. However, I do have a dream of being financially successful and playing/making games all the time because I won't have to worry about much. Of course this is a dream, beyond the misty mountains cold, through dungeons deep and caverns old.

I think it's a good thing to put your NESdev experience on your resume, because like others have said, it starts conversations. And if that makes someone like you more, you have a better chance at getting the job. And then you can explain how it makes you better at solving problems (and that's not just exaggerating/milking it for all it's worth, because programming TOTALLY increases your problem solving skills by like 5000 miles).

Unfortunately, it's very hard to change people's minds about pretty much anything, because people generally don't like to admit that they're wrong. It's probably especially hard to change the mind of anyone who considers themselves superior to you (for example, your parents). If you're trying to change your parents' minds, maybe you can pull the "I'm finally using what I learned in algebra" trick. If you're still in school, maybe you can say "Oh, tomorrow we're learning more about trigonometry. This will really help in my 3D rendering engine." Or something like that! Just try and stress (preferably with subtlety) that you use your brain A LOT when making a game.

[GradualGames]

beyond the misty mountains cold, through dungeons deep and caverns old.

That immediately put the song from the animated Hobbit into my head. Man that film rules =D

*edit* check out at about 3:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSHLGnex ... 02&index=0

[Celius]

Yeah, I love that movie! That's where I got that from. I like to say it about something that's really far away (either in time or distance). For instance, someone will ask me where something is, like a hotel or a store, and I'll tell them it's "♫ Beyond the misty mountains cold ♫ Through dungeons deep and caverns old..." And of course, I have to sing the melody too; it just doesn't have as much effect without it .