Call me crazy if you'd like, but nowdays, it seems that working in the videogame industry has to be the worst job to have. I mean, I used to think that it's a bunch of dudes (and broads, of course :P) enjoying their dream jobs and doing what they love because they probably grew up like all of us loving videogames, and want to contribute at the most flattering way possible: making your own games.

Well, after years of learning the business side of things, it seems to be worst than construction workers (with the whole "feast or famine" days when s*** happens, and you could be out of a job for months). I mean, being a videogame programmer sounds less like letting your creativity take a hit of meth and go apes*** wild and cram it all on a disc, and more about working your ass off for long hours, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best; because so many things can go wrong, like if the bigwigs in charge decide to dictate what we gamers "want" in our own games and end up cutting out or changing features to "appeal" to our tastes, someone in charge decides to scrap a perfectly good idea for a game simply because it's the Hollywood equivalent to "we want to be like the other popular games with no unique identity," not to mention when sales for said bad idea of a game doesn't meet its insurmountable expectations, the people who were basically forced to create this abomination are the ones who get the boot for their troubles :|.

At this day and age, I really can't point the finger at most studios who disappoint their fanbase with butchered masterpieces knowing that they've got some kind of corporation breathing down their necks. I'm not going to name them all, because just about every single company in charge of our hobby are responsible for this at least once. Point is, with the way simply making a game has so much restrictions and risks towards unemployment, I'm suprised so many people still want to be a programmer.

Okay, so there is a lot of things that can factor into why studios suffer: It's not uncommon for people to just have no interest in a game, no matter how sound it is (I mean, there's people who don't dig the GTA series), piracy, and sometimes you just have to let people go because they're not quite producing the kind of quality anyone would be caught dead publishing (you know, studios that made a name in infamy over very, very atrocious games and never once made a good one?). Hell, I never thought one of my oldest and favorite hobbies would both strive to have the appeal of a summer flick, as well as the kind of brutal iron fist of Hollywood's mentality of restricting creativity to appeal to what I can only describe as "primitive minds" who seeminly want "simple" things on the screen (I kid you not...I've seen prototype scripts of AWESOME ideas for a movie that was scrapped in favor of...something that completely sucked when it released).

I already know that videogames have always been about making money (I mean, let's face it...you don't spend all those years learning programming and animation for charity). Thing is, just like movies, once something utterly awesome blows everyone away, there's a ton of B-movie quality that tries to cash in on the same kind of success. I really never expected gaming to be reduced to this, actually changing games that used to capture our minds with originality and innovation into something that feels like a weak attempt at trying to divert our attention away from a likewise idea already implemented in a dozen other titles. Why? Because the working man is banging his head on his keyboard screaming to the ceiling "WHY?" as he's forced to make something that's not even a good idea to begin with, all while trying to pull a rabbit out his ass to make the thing appeal to the masses, or the boss will fire him :roll:. You'll hear things like "a company abandoned their core fanbase" or "became greedy" among other things...I really don't blame the guys who make this crap, because I'm pretty sure it's always the guy in charge who's basically forcing this on us. Seriously...I used to lay in bed and stare at the ceiling dreaming what it'd be like to make my own games for a living...I mean, I got literally a thousand ideas in my head, all original, and it would make one kick ass game. Then I'd lose that train of thought when I realize I may end up working for the wrong friggin' company, and all those ideas will amount for nothing when I'm essentially being hired to make videogames based on movies. Yep...gaming is awesome when you're a gamer....not so much as the creator.