Quote:Original post by Sneftel
I just get rather irritated with what sometimes seems to be a culture of discouragement here when the topic of job hunting comes up. I understand the reasons for it, but I think at times we go too far in suggesting that newbies just give up now.

I usually ENcourage the n00bs - but when a l0ser asks "is it hard," then I go the other way.

Quote:Original post by Sneftel
I just get rather irritated with what sometimes seems to be a culture of discouragement here when the topic of job hunting comes up. I understand the reasons for it, but I think at times we go too far in suggesting that newbies just give up now.

Too far ? The OP "heard" that gamedev is competitive and wants to know if "is that true". Obviously, he knows absolutely nothing about game programming at all. Because if he knew, he would be at least partly interested in this area, and therefore would have lurked around these forums for a longer period of time, and thus wouldn`t have to post so stupid questions.
I just would like to see his reaction in a real life after being told that he must first create the portfolio in his own free time (after daily work alongside his family duties), during evenings, weekends, and that it`s about 237 times harder than regular SQL job and that even after a year he might have absolutely shitty portfolio which won`t land him a job unless being extremely lucky to find a local company ad searching for junior programmers (that shall land him a job not because of his portfolio, but his previous programming experience in DB field).
I`d love to see his face when he realizes that he`s gonna earn much less for a much harder work.

But actually, I wouldn`t want that. I`ve seen that before many times when my friends working in other fields realized what it takes to get and stay in this field.

So, back to our original problem, of whether Tom had to be so harsh in his reply, I think he was actually quite polite and far from being adequately arrogant.

Snef wrote:
>Someone can know quite a bit about programming, and even have lurked around these forums or other game development communities, and not have any idea as to how competitive the hiring process for most game studios is.

Yeah, but he figured it'd be a waste of his time to learn how to program games if he then would find it "hard" to get a job. In other words, he doesn't really want to program games out of a love of doing it. Failing to get a job at doing it, he implied, he would not go ahead anyway and program games. He doesn't have a true passion for it, he's not driven -- we don't need him to take up a job that somebody passionate and driven could have and enjoy and thrive in.