Hi folks,

the title might be a little misleading. Just to clarify things, a little about me:

When I was a child and saw video games for the first time, it was clear to me I have to become a programmer in order to develop games. So I did study computer science, just to end up as a programmer in the business sector

I still do develop small prototypes at home. During my College time I started out with XNA and still do my work in MonoGame. But now I start to wonder,

are game developers dying out? Is/Will the industry of video games (be) driven by designers and not by developers anymore? I imagine it like developers are still needed but only the very, very best will be hired for engine/graphics development?

The point is we have Unity, UDK, Cry Engine...you know them all. So I wonder why should I torture myself into OpenGL/DirectX or anything that is more driven by programming while people with very low (or no) programming skills can create finished products within months? There must be any advantage?!

Why am I asking:

I still hope to get a job in the game industry some time. So should I try to improve my programming skills or just do as most people do and start working with some powerful Engine. I mean over 50% of AAA titles are developed in UDK anyway. Soon Valve will release Source 2, who knows maybe we then have another powerful tool.

I am a little frustrated as I feel like studying computer science was a completely wrong thing to do. I know this question might be very opinion based, but I would like to hear some of your opinions especially if you already are working in the business.

Greets

The difference between games that use the Unity editor/scripting language and games that use unity just for the Graphical stuff is immense. Programming won't be replaced for a long time.

I've been working in the industry for about 15 years ( although on and off ) and I developed same kind of feeling. One of the reasons I left my last company, where we used to develop own tech, was that we switched at some point to the Unity. The decision was driven by the fact, we were not able to catch up with all current technologies made by thirdparties. We were just too small for that. Sounds like very reasonable decision if one wants to keep studio running rather than going bankrupt. But I couldn't find anything to do for myself. Unity has everything my team needed. And if didn't have? Well, the major "Unity" workflow I learned from Unity developers was to look for a feature in the AssetStore first. If it's not there, maybe it can be dropped. Writing your own is just extreme. Anyway why to bother writing anything yourself? So yet, programmers who till now were focused on the tech development felt pretty much useless.

Don't get me wrong. There are things that will be challenging for tech developer even if one works with ready-made engine.

After that I left games industry ( it was about 2 years ago ) and what I'm noticing, the situation isn't getting any better. Try to 'google' anything about game/graphics development and most of topics thrown by Google will be about Unity ( surprisingly other engines appear not that often ).

There are still companies working on own tech and in the long run it's actually good idea as it's usually easier to extend, maintain or in very emergency situation hack ( ) own stuff rather than getting thirdparty solution to do some work that it wasn't designed for. But since big engines became free of charge studios don't have any need to invest time and money ( and for example for startups it could be "be-or-not-to-be" situation ) in own solutions.

For me this situation came to be more difficult because I cannot make a game. Believe me, I tried. If there was no other choice I could do it but it wasn't too fun. It was always a tech for the game I worked on and I always needed somebody to use that tech in actual game development. The major problem here is that I'm always getting stuck on the technical stuff. This is what I do and can't just switch to be a gameplay developer - it's not my field And I have tried to befriend with Unity ( which personally I really like for giving me plenty of ideas in terms of, how to make a game engine developer-friendly ) and failed. Just got bored of working on the actual gameplay ( the game I started working on, the clone of old "Desert Strike" is somewhere in bitbucket now ;) ).

I'm still hoping that somebody here will prove me I'm very wrong and situation is totally different ;)

You guys are clearly right. Programming will not die out. I guess I am simply a little disappointed about the fact that a game can be done with almost no coding.

I mean at the time when I decided becoming a developer I did not even know how many different roles are involved into the process of game development. I always thought "You just have to learn coding, then you can develop any game you want."

Now I had to realize that my programming knowledge is less important than, let's say a game designer's or a artists (2D/3D) knowledge.

So I feel like I am facing the following problem:

If I want to make games (fast and efficient) I would have to switch to one of the engines. On the other hand I consider myself a developer who is constantly afraid of not keeping up with innovations in the "programming world". This is why I see myself confronted with a landmark decision (is this proper english here ?).

You guys are clearly right. Programming will not die out. I guess I am simply a little disappointed about the fact that a game can be done with almost no coding.

Why should someone else's ability to create something awesome with skills different than yours impact your ability to create something awesome with your own skills? Why should it affect the happiness you derive from doing so?

It shouldn't. That way is the path to elitism. Be wary of it.

Now I had to realize that my programming knowledge is less important than, let's say a game designer's or a artists (2D/3D) knowledge.

Your ability to program was never more important than a designer's ability to design, or an artists ability to model. They are all equally valid and equally important in game development -- with some variations on individual projects depending on that projects needs, but allowing yourself to fall into the mindset that your abilities as a programmer are the "critical ones" to making a game is dangerous. It takes a village.

Programming will not "die out" any more than any other discipline will; the advent of Unity and Unreal and all these wonderful tools has lowered the barrier to entry to making games, which is wonderful because it exposes our entire industry to the creative work of individuals who might otherwise not have been able to leverage their creativity within our industry at all (and it allows those of us who otherwise could do to so quicker and more expediently when it is appropriate). Since we all build on eachother's work, we're all influenced and "steal from" the things we respect and admire, this is only good for us in the long run.

What Unity and Unreal have not done is touch the upper limit of specialized work that's possible in the industry. If you want to be worried about your future career as a developer, that's what you want to watch out for: something that can make the upper limits of quality and experience more attainable than they are now. There's really nothing out there currently or on the horizon that can do that better than what currently have: designers, artists, and programmers doing specialized work for a specialized, focused idea.

Thanks Josh,

your words make me feel better :D (really!)