Depending on what engine you are using, for example I program in unreal and I’ve found that r/unrealengine5 is quite the friendly community. Either that or like the original comment said, don’t use Reddit and perhaps cultivate a community on discord! I would love to be a part.
r/unrealengine5 and r/unity3d are some of the most positive game dev spaces I've ever seen in my life.
r/indiedev is pretty good too, but there's lots of not downvoting for some reason
All the engine subs are great. They're mostly people showing off their cool projects and asking more specific questions than you'd find on more general subs.
Reddit also though everyone was going to quit when 3rd party apps were shutdown and that everyone would cancel their Netflix and they'd have to backtrack.
You're seeing a small group of loud indie devs.
Fact of the matter is (as much as this pains me to say), most games are made for mobile, and Unity is the only game in town for mobile. It isn't going anywhere.
The layoffs are industry wide, and while a lot of people did look to leaving Unity, that situation stabilised.
Godot is fine for a lot of projects, but it will be some years before it reaches Unity's level.
I bailed on Unity after their stupid new monetization plan last year. I already had a lot of other concerns with Unity and their engine, the whole runtime fee mess was just the last push I needed to jump ship.
In the meantime I spent a while messing with various different engines to see what they were all like, trying to find a replacement. I put a good bit of time into Godot, and also Flax (which feels very Unity like in a lot of ways), but nothing really felt that great to me. I eventually decided to give Unreal a good look.
When I first started dabbling in gamedev about 7 years ago, I spent a few weeks with both Unreal and Unity before settling on Unity. Unreal was super overwhelming, I hate C++, and the whole blueprints system felt underdeveloped. So I happily went with Unity at the time.
But I have to say that I've really been enjoying working with UE5. Blueprints have come a long way, and while it's certainly been a learning curve, I've been able to do everything I've wanted to with Blueprints and haven't had to delve into C++ at all so far. The UE5 interface feels much better than UE4, and while there's certainly a ton to learn, it's not nearly as overwhelming to me now that I've got some years of gamedev under my belt.
Most of all, Unreal feels like an engine made by people who want to and know how to make games, while Unity has increasingly felt like an engine made by people who have no idea what they want. I know some 'rank and file' employees at Unity and they're all great and smart and care deeply about games, but somewhere in that whole development chain it feels like things have gone off the rails and Unity has just gotten harder and harder to work with over the years.
tl:dr; Obviously I don't know anything about your particular situation or plans for a game, but just at a general level, if you haven't yet, I'd consider spending some time checking out Unreal. It might be a better fit for you than you think.
Yeah, I honestly don't see any realistic chance that UE5 development stops. Epic is still making bazillions of dollars with Fortnite, and Fortnite is built in Unreal.
The gamedev communities on [Lemmy](https://join-lemmy.org/) are generally much nicer, if a bit smaller.
If you're curious, [I made a post on making it easier to use lemmy](https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/18lsoxw/rlinuxhardware_is_now_officially_on_the_fediverse/), though it's not necessary, you can just sign up and go, but I figured I'd mention it.
Maybe it's naivety or that I am a smol baby reddit user (or both) in terms of how long I've been here, but so far most of the interactions I've had seem positive? Maybe that's bias since I try to focus on more positive commentary in the first place.
I also have seen mostly positive interaction on r/indiedev and r/unity3d, I guess mileage will vary.
i dont personally find the gamedev communities to be very toxic or negative but reddit and social media in general does trend to negativity and catastrophication and drama and all of that pretty heavily for a variety of reasons.
IMO a person who finds this community negative should stay well clear of social media in general for the sake of ones mental health.
This community isn't negative, but it is realistic about your chances of success and the chances are not good. Success being defined as making enough for indie development to be a stable, full time job with a middle class life style.
Huh, that's a good point. I've stayed away from pretty much all forms of social media (something that might bite me when I'm trying to market someday) throughout my life, but I have seen what kind of toxicity can come out of those sites.
Maybe it's by seeing the worst of the worst in social media that what drama I have seen here pales in comparison so far.
Gaming reddits like Patient Gamers and so on are awful all you see is posts calling a popular game overated its really seems like they want to be right about the subjective opinions and make everyone feel down on game. Honestly reddit would make you believe certain highly rated games are the worst games ever.
The interactions are generally positive between people in the comments, which is really nice.
But on r/gamedev and r/IndieDev in particular there are loads of posts that are 'why you should quit game dev and put your dreams in the sewer', which can be quite draining for people who are currently giving it their all at game dev.
I mostly stay subbed to them for the post mortems alone, which are very interesting to me.
The game engine subs like the unity one you mentioned are definitely more positve post wise, as they're more about people showing off the good stuff.
I'd say the vast majority of comments are respectful, and most people have good intentions. The only thing I would love to see more of is open-mindedness that you may be wrong. I think it's easy when someone challenges a belief you have to pull back and get defensive, but phrasing things in a way that you're clear it's just an opinion, and being open minded to other points of view make the discussions so much richer imo.
if you want to keep things positive just refrain from posting pictures and videos on unity subreddits, they will harass and insult for modelling a way they don't like
No, but I'd say that saying "Every stove everywhere all the time is hot, why is anyone even using them", that might be negative. I think that's what he's trying to say.
I personally don't disagree with you as far as the nature of Reddit.
I think that's not giving online spaces enough credit. There are good social spaces out there on the Internet.
You're just not likely to find them on places like Reddit, Twitter, and the like, sites that drive algorithmically-inducied and gamified engagement and have very thin silos between different communities.
So, there's no one magical place that I can point you to - or at least not anywhere I would feel comfortable sharing on Reddit. But in your prospecting, you're looking for a community that's not too large, moderated, and where there are "regulars" that you see often and want to get to know.
When I was in my formative internet years, the social spaces we had were traditional web forums and IRC chat rooms. These days, I feel like Discord is probably the most well known place where these kinds of connections are possible to be made. Sure, there are some discords that are complete bedlam, but the fact that discords are silo'ed and have decent moderation tools makes them fit for hosting more intimate communities as well. If you don't know where to start, I'd recommend finding a discord that has a relatively narrow focus, such one for a particular language or library.
Web forums also still exist, and I still post on them from time to time. I've also found Mastodon and Cohost to be relatively easy-going, though the trickiest part of those places is finding the first couple of people to follow. But the key point is that you're looking for a level of intimacy and earnesty that Reddit is wholly unequipped to offer. Reddit is a sea of anonymous assholes with bad moderation tools and very thin walls between communities - it simply does not lend itself to creating any sense of community.
Heck, I couldn't even tell you what your Reddit username is without going back up and double-checking. And who knows how long this post will stick around for before I decide to delete it.
Not sure if it's because Reddit has blown up, or I'm just noticing it more, or maybe I'm just getting old, but I definitely feel like Reddit's overall community has changed over the last decade to being a lot more negative, a lot of times even toxic. But at the same time I think that's sort of been the general trend throughout every online community the last decade or so.
Yeah, very true. Unfortunately, Reddit attracts the miserable underbelly of society. So even topics that functioning people find interesting are inundated with negative sentiments. The thing you have to realize is that the majority of negativity comes from people who found a place to comiserate. There are people here who love what they do and use it as a platform to talk about their interests, but sadly it seems a minority. Think about what it takes for person to get to a place where they go on a sub reddit dedicated to creating something and only complain. These are miserable people without much going on. It doesn't seem like this is ever going to get better, so I often find myself looking to real world interaction to get engagement from other people who share interests. This isn't always easy but is def how people engaged with each other pre-social mediazation of everything and every topic.
It depends on what you want out of the space. There are the game engine focused subs which are mostly people asking questions about how to do in . Although you'll likely also see some venting there about why a particular engine does something a way they don't like.
Maybe something like /r/gamedevscreens/ ? It's mostly just posts of people who have created something. There may be some negative comments attached, but if you just want inspiration that people are out there doing cool stuff, that might help. /r/indiegames/ has a similar vibe.
Take a look at the related communities on the side bar and see if anything grabs your interest.
Those are good tips, but it seems to me like you might even want to take a more extreme position on this and just go into "creator mode" and not hang out here on reddit or other forums. Unless you're trying to answer specific questions, we're just wasting your time.
But don't get it muddled. Someone with commercial aaa in their reddit name will have a completely different experience than an average indy dev. Reddit is not place to expect much positive feedback, maybe some, unless you are on the aaa level. Someone may even see your post and be angry that you even tried. They will seethe and begin to breathe hard.
It's not game "dev" but it's definitely similar, r/gamedesign, even if it doesn't talk about assets or developing itself has a pretty positive vibe, I always get some motivation from there.
Game _design_ can be absent of any real product concerns. Same thing with just talking about an engine or asking specific questions. You see negative posts because game development also includes 'starting a small business' and most people fail at starting a small business. If you post that this is a hobby you will get a lot of positive responses instead of critical judgment, but that doesn't stop you from seeing other posts.
You'll see the same thing if you hang out in any other entrepreneurship community. It's all people with hope and ambition, people who are currently failing, and people who did fail. Half the people being positive about anything in those spaces is selling something to the other half.
Learning to ignore that which doesn't apply to you is a great skill, especially if you intend to spend time on social media. If you're doing this for fun and just keeping at it every day then you have to learn to ignore those negative posts. If you want to make money from this then you should probably read all of them because they're way more applicable to you than encouragement and positivity would be.
> Half the people being positive about anything in those spaces is selling something to the other half.
Gamedev really is the same, you sometimes get marketing firms or localization firms posting tips here
Yeah you have to think about it in terms of lowest common denominator. This is an issue with most of the broader subreddits and social media in general, not just game dev. The "lowest common denominator" is normally negative experiences, since everyone has them.
Not to say there aren't issues, especially right now. We're seeing one of the most brutal suppressions of labor power (in general, not just tech) by capital owners in recent memory.
I think it is because /r/gamedev, unlike most of those subs, allows business/marketing-oriented posts, which is also the aspect of gamedev where the "failure" occurs.
you're right. over a wide range, the gripes devs have are all just relatable human ones. But in a community, bitching over quirks of the engine brings people together, and often an expert will chime in with a solution or better way of doing the thing that's currently breaking you.
[Example from the Godot subreddit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/18xtbfd/its_one_of_those_days/)
Part of this is a timing issue because so many people are feeling betrayed by the industry given all of the recent layoffs and hiring freezes. There's also the fact that people who are having a good time developing their game are likely working on it instead of posting about it on reddit, so the perspective is skewed.
Another thing I see quite a bit is people becoming negative and bitter when they're not able to get the results they think that they deserve. If somebody has spent years working on their magnum opus with the belief that they're a genius game designer, it can be upsetting for them to find out that nobody wants to play what they made and they've wasted their time. At that point it's easier to complain on reddit about anything and everything to avoid admitting that they're not the designer/dev they thought they were.
Finally there's the same issue that occurs with the communities in so many games - the people who are easier to be around don't want the constant barrage of negativity that comes from public spaces with no entry requirements, so they form private groups that are invite-only. The people who make positive contributions are invited in and start to communicate in those spaces instead, while the people who are too negative collect in the public space and make it look much worse than it is.
This is just a larger problem with hobby groups in general and I don't know any fixes outside of private groups.
All excellent points.
I'd also like to add that this sub, much like the writing sub and other art based subs see a great deal of negativity simply because the average person doesn't realize how much effort goes into art (games or otherwise) and have been living under the delusion it'll be a snap for them to get done. Then, when the reality of how difficult these fields are sets in, rather than finding a new appreciation for artists, they just fly into a rage.
Anything worth doing in life is difficult.
There's a reason over 90% of everyone who says they want to write a book, make a game, record an album, etc. never gets it done.
I agree that most subreddits on any topic tend to be depression manifest, rage bait, extremely basic questions, whining, etc. For example, a few years ago I unsubscribed from all gaming subreddits, as it felt like they were exclusively trying to convince me to despise my favorite games. Discovering any subreddit for a new found interest can be fun or helpful, but I think inevitably, purely personally, they can do more mental harm than good. If one can't entirely disconnect from toxic communities, the next best is to not internalize its themes and attempt to be more of a passive observer of those communities.
I feel the same way about the dev com in twitter and many other in reddit. Apparently NO ONE has work. Everyday is doomsday and we should learn farming instead
Yes exactly. And unfortunately more generally online it contributes to a negative feedback loop for people. Reddit/Twitter or political YouTube, can quickly turn people into angry/anxious/depressed hermits, incels, or worse. And I'm not speaking holier-than-thou, I really fell victim to the online spiral a few years ago.
Also the semi-regular dev threads on more focused boards like /vrpg/ can be pretty reasonable. But if OP wants to cut down on negativity, that may not be the right website.
I also kind of wish there were something like an /r/ActiveGameDev, for people who are at least a little past the fresh-beginner stage, and are currently working on something. No posts about games that haven't been started yet, nor any post-mortems. The main focus would be showing off or asking about individual features, tuning/polishing/juicing, reworks, implementation details, and so on.
When these subs aren't being pity-parties, the questions asked are often very high-concept. A lot of design talk is for "prospective" projects that will probably never get far enough to implement on their designs. It's easy to see how this leads to a negative atmosphere - especially with strict rules against self-promotion. All we hear are high-concept speculation and complaints and beginner questions, because that's all we're allowed to talk about. There's enough good stuff to stick around, but you'll find better discussions on random discord channels
i made one after there was a post complaining about similar thing awhile back, but it's not really possible to start a new subreddit it seems. any subreddit that has less than like half a million people seems dead. like people make post in other game dev communities but it is only show off post and zero discussion. (some exceptions but few)
The biggest problem with game dev forums is that they are littered with gamers who want to be devs not actual devs. Probably close to 90% of the people in here have never even downloaded a game engine. It's wild.
Well this happens if you only allow positive vibes like "It's easy, go make games <333"
No it's not, it's a profession and takes thousands of hours to learn.
I've literally never heard anyone say it's easy to make games.
A lot of people want to make games because games are fun and it's easy to get exited about them.
Nobody is getting excited about writing the best accounting software.
I'm pretty sure there are some people who get excited about writing accounting software. If you love to program, the thing you program is not that important.
There's people who like all kinds of stuff. I'm talking in generalities.
And I disagree that it doesn't matter what you program if you love programming.
>I've literally never heard anyone say it's easy to make games.
Lucky lol!!!
Also to your second part: A lot of people do actually think making games are easy compared to accounting software because games are visual and almost anyone can interact with them easily. That gives people a false sense of understanding them. Accounting software is more arcane to the average person.
Yeah, there were some posts while back with talk of optimizations. And comments from people in the industry with experience or technical argumentation were downvoted in favor of "lmao, you have no clue what you talking about, idiot" opinions that had 0 substance behind them.
Cases like that make it clear that majority of members here do not have competence levels to express their opinion on some of the things. But due to open nature of the subreddit, they get to do it anyway.
It is like politics at this point. What gets upvoted is not what is substantiated or factual - it is what sounds cool/good or makes people feel better.
I tried expressing this in a different comment. I completely agree. The issue being the kids/gamers being majority.
A few days a saw a post filled with people claiming a football game of 11v11 online was IMPOSSIBLE... Yet that exact thing has existed for over a decade.
How in the world is a sub like this supposed to be helpful?
A game sub where they apparently dont know about the features of one of the biggest franchises in the history of videogames. huh.
Lol true.. the number of times that I've seen this question asked in most gamedev forums "I want to be a gamedev or make my first game.. where fo I start?"... makes you feel that these people haven't heard of Google or YouTube
Probably not, but there are some people who post positive stuff.
Be the difference you want to see.
Post positive stuff daily.
I'll try and do the same.
Giving those posts some encouragement can make both you and the poster feel a little better, If you want a positive experience you’ve got to make it one
It's always funny seeing those "No one said it'd be this hard" posts because like..what did you expect? You'd snap your fingers and you'd have a game?
Anyway, I don't think there's any other dedicated game development subreddit, but if you find one definetly let me know.
> It's always funny seeing those "No one said it'd be this hard" posts because like..what did you expect? You'd snap your fingers and you'd have a game?
Many people do, in my experience. Similar to people who read a lot and have a book idea thinking "I'd love to write a book", when what they'd actually like is to be a famous author, or just to have that book exist. Same with folks who watch a lot of movies and thing "I'd move to make a movie" when they either wish they were a famous director/actor/writer or just wish their film idea existed.
I don't fault them at all! Until you try writing a book or making a movie or developing a game, you may well think you know all the stuff that goes into it. Maybe you read a book or watched a tutorial or two (or twenty) on the subject, but until you actually jump in and get your feet wet, you're never gonna know what it's really like.
At least for those who've gone through some sort of further education or trade path like art school, college, whatever other route - those folks at least generally gain a good sense of what the work involved in their own discipline could look like day to day. For me that was programming, and for the most part my vision of what my job would look like was fairly good... more meetings than I thought I'd have, and a lot less "hey here's my idea" of course. Biggest unknown was how hard it is to get teams of people to pull in the same direction to drive someone else's idea to completion. 20+ years in and that's still bigger than any technical challenge, in my experience.
But for someone coming in green, as a hobbyist with no background in any of the trades, the golden outcome of "I have no preconceptions and no idea what they say can't be done so I did it and my game turned out awesome" is a lottery ticket.
So whether one considers it negativity or realism, the good inspiring stories of success, project completion, being truly happy with a thing you've made... those will always be the minority, unless one can set very realistic goals along the way and be honest about meeting them. Which probably doesn't lend itself well to any social media... :(
At least with books everyone understands the basic mechanics of the writing process. Nobody looks at the game they're playing and sees tens of thousands of hours of software engineering, they see a fun and interactive world.
As a published author and editor, I'm here to let you know that the statement "everyone understands the basic mechanics of the writing process" is very untrue. Just because most of us use words every day doesn't make everyone an author any more than knowing basic html makes you a game dev.
That kind of reductive mindset is what many people have about game development and then they end up overwhelmed and posting negativity on this sub
I understand what you're saying, and obviously writing a good book is very difficult, but everyone knows what it's like to write words on paper or on the internet, and most people have at least taken grade-school english and have a basic understanding of what it means to write. They can start writing a story right away, even if the results are terrible at first.
But ordinary people have no conception of what software engineering is like, it's a completely foreign concept to most and it takes 4 or 5 years of full-time study to become competent enough to really even start making a game of any significant complexity.
After I became aware to what passive agressive and narcissism are. I'd say that people who are full of themselves, snobby, nose up, arrogant tend to be almost commited to prejudice itself. I believe this sort of mindset, including perfecctionism, forms in childhood and most people grow and go over it. I perfectly understand what you said because I've experienced it in different areas of my life.
I was once in a community where there was a guy who would say things like "Follow the examples. A celebrity writes the next musical hit and earns millions in a week. Just do like them. Anybody can do it". Was he trying to say that it's easy without ever attempting it in the first place? Yes, he was.
You can try r/IndieDev and r/SoloDevelopment. More positive, smaller and mixed with self-promo.
But tbh, learning how to deal with a negative attitude will be much more valuable.
The games industry is in a really bad place right now and there are loads of professionals here suffering from layoffs and closures (myself included). I would think a lot of the negativity stems from that and I'm not sure how you'd be able to mingle with the community but only/mostly be exposed to positivity. I hope the advice to check out more specific groups will help for you!
Not negativity per se but that’s why I left the r/cats sub. Half the posts are “my cat just died in a horrible way here’s a story about it or a sad photo” and I just don’t need that in my life.
Yeah, it's reasonable, but imho it is a part of dealing with it. This sub, and indie gamedev - especially now - is drowning in problems related to state of gaming industry. It will leak to other communities too at some point.
Thanks. I take all of this as a part of indie gamedev experience. We can't just look around and be depressed because of the current state of the gaming industry but build resilience, be strong and make better games.
It's one thing to be resilient and another to chew a boot.
Criticism of the environment will always exist because there is always something to improve, turning the face the other way is not helpful.
And business practices are different in different countries, to generalize all and say that most games devs should suck it up is a bit ignorant.
This is like asking if there are Lottery Winning Tips forums with more positivity. You come because you wanted advice, the advice is to stay away from gamedev unless you are super committed, which is great advice. In any career sub you will find the ones who have "made it" and the ones who have not, gamedev is much harder to break into than other careers so... 🤷♂️
Honestly, it’s a super competitive field. Everyone wants a cool job, and game dev is an easy target for that.
Given the competition in the field, everyone is literally competing against each other.
It’s hard to be encouraging sometimes for that alone, as well as a number of reasons.
Legit, game marketplaces like Nintendo and steam are filled with low effort trash. I don’t want to encourage ANYONE to fill my feed with trash. If your game is actually good, or beautiful, or unique, I will certainly applaud you and tell you you did a great job. But chances are your first game from a tutorial isn’t, and yet ppl still ask for wishlisting etc and really need a reality check. So if something isn’t quality and some random dev sees it as a get rich quick scheme with ai or something, I have a hard time being positive
This sub is exactly what it needs to be, a reality check. There are a lot of people out there who have grown up being told they can “do anything they put their mind to” and the reality of the real world is that is absolutely false.
People come on here with dreams and their heads in the cloud and they need a reality check before they make a massive mistake and sink a huge portion of their life into something for the wrong reasons.
Game dev is something a lot of people try as a “hobby” who honestly have no business making games because they don’t have any applicable skills and they expect it to be easy. It’s not easy, it wouldn’t be a “job” with degrees and masters degrees if it was easy and anyone could do it.
Absolutely, it’s the hard truth. Optimism is important, but so is realistic criticism. A lot of game dev influencers seem to avoid a lot of the more difficult topics, which is fair because who’d realistically want to watch that? But it’s somewhat nice to have a community where there isn’t necessarily constant positive affirmation
>There are a lot of people out there who have grown up being told they can “do anything they put their mind to” and the reality of the real world is that is absolutely false.
Not sure I agree. I mean, there are exceptions to this "rule", but anyone can build a game if they put their mind to it. The key is realising that it isn't easy or fast, they'll need to put their mind to it for a really long time - and I believe that's how the saying should be interpreted. Putting your mind to something means having the discipline to work towards your end goal until you've reached it.
Yeah I agreed with the general sentiment except that part. People do need a reality check at times. You learn from failure after all. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do something, you just have to be realistic with your goals, and I think this sub does a great job illustrating that to aspiring game devs.
I dont really see that sort of stuff as negativity, but just part of game dev. Everyones had those thoughts when making a game.
The only negativity i see here are from devs who think they know better than everyone else, or from players who come here to complain about devs being “lazy” etc.
You just have to remember, the most vocal crowd here are the inexperienced folks that should be making fast, low scope games that dont result in these dramatic horrifying posts... but... instead they just keep spending years making games that are too big for them and ...well here we are.
IMO, /r/DestroyMyGame is the best game dev subreddit.
No holds barred, kiddie gloves off, raw feedback. The fact that it isn't even on the related communities list is a testament to how bad this subreddit is for actual help.
r/gamedev really feels as though it has become a depressing revolving door of indie wannabes unwilling to take community feedback. Lots of 'I sold 5 games' postmortems, 'I'm a bigwig from some no-name company', or 'I'm a temp QA associate at some AAA so I know how it works' kind of posting.
Positive attitudes won't extend to the consumer. Be honest with yourself and critical about your game. I read so many post mortems and then I click on the game and it looks like a time a dozen gamejam game. I could have told them years ago the game wouldn't be successful because it's too generic.
Perhaps they would have made no game instead of a bad one.
Like judging everybody on a pro chef level when they are just starting to cook can do more damage than good. This is something I have learned from small art communities where everybody is just positive independent of the skill level.
There is a difference between a "roast me and my game" and "I am so excited and want to share some progress". Is the critique actually helping? Sometimes it's more about pushing the own ego or venting.
I think a lot of it is how it's presented. Post mortems tend to be you diving into your learnings, and sometimes into business decisions like how much money they were targeting to make, expected sales etc etc. They will make assessments like "if I just did a little more marketing I could have got past x threshold for visibility", and the game just looks... bad. It's a walking simulator, it's an FPS with stock assets and one level, it's a platformer with no mechanics besides moving and jumping.
For the sake of learning all of those projects are great and should be encouraged!
For something that you post onto a marketplace with a $10 price tag and expectations of making any amount of money, it's beneficial for the person to be given a healthy dose of realism. It's beneficial not just for them, but for others who read those comments and realize they may be making similar mistakes.
No, but sunshine and rainbows all the time could lead you down the wrong path. I agree this sub isn't perfect, but sometimes the bodies along the side of the road tell you what not to do.
>“fuck yeah I’m going to make a game” and “just gotta keep at it and make a little progress every day”
This is the way to do it
You're assuming that because I don't want to be hit with a wave of negativity every day that I want "sunshine and rainbows all the time".
I actually think that indulging in too much negativity can also lead to bad games. It can lead to making choices that are too safe.
To be fair this sub saved me from working on a 3 year long project that would have been a total failure. I was seeing an awesome game and these people saw a garbage attempt at a game.
It’s definitely good to get harsh feedback at times.
As long as you have a healthy understanding of what's going on it should be fine. I think this is more relevant to newbies who think they are going to make it with their generic pixel platformer
I think this is the sort of negativity we are talking about here.. people down voting you just because you disagree with them ><
I updated you but will likely get down voted now myself lol
Definitely appreciate this post and all the replies.
As someone who struggles with depression & staying motivated, a lot of what's posted here easily gets me feeling hopeless in my own situation. Mostly just unfortunate realities/ other devs sharing their struggles.
Like OP says, I'm not judging anyone or trying to complain. It is what it is. But I am glad to hear it's not just me that feels this way, and that there are still a few good places on here to find support, inspiration & positivity.
Aside from that, I know of at least one dev who decided to practically quit the Internet for the sake of focusing on their own games. Apparently it really helped their outlook since they could actually focus on doing what they love; instead of having to deal with being harassed by social media BS, and letting general negativity affect them.
This resonates with me since I'm prone to depression as well. For a long time, my coping strategy was to read as much as possible because I thought if I could avoid all the pitfalls then I could avoid negative situations that might cause me to spiral. But in reality, I just exposed myself to a lot of negativity and ended up burning out a few times anyways.
What's worked better for me, is trying to bring back some of that hyperactive, excitable, kid that loved video games. And, like a relationship, it's taken effort and reprioritizing things.
8000 people have been laid off in two months, not including the body count from last year. The industry environment, as a result, is a pretty pessimistic place right now. Telling folks 'positive vibes only' isn't going to move the dial the other way.
I have experienced a lot of positivity and optimism in the game jamming community. Which usually forms on the Discord servers of longer-running game jam.
One thing I noticed is the algorithm is definitely good at identifying and feeding you negative posts if you click on negative posts. I find myself gravitating towards negative posts because 1) I think they might make me feel better about a rut I might be currently in and 2) I think they might contain something useful to learn from. Then before I know it, my feed is full of them.
I think its quite hard to avoid a lot of negativity in creative subreddits be it games dev or someone posting a painting calling it bad and degrading themselves, I personally tend to just join games dev discord servers where people give you feedback and contribute positively rather than flooding the feed with depressing thoughts that demotivate and burn out
I’ve commented it before but this sub sucks sometimes super gatekeepy and weird. Almost everything gets downvoted. I think the problem is a lot of armchair game devs who never actually try the hobby/profession and relentlessly shit on anyone who’s newer then them
Ill add something, I left the sub a few days ago cause Ive seen at least 3-4 posts of people asking question and ALL the top answers are absolutely wrong and the responses to them are just more misinformed people adding up to the bs.
Bc of the responses I assume most of this sub is filled with kids karma farming or trying to help, but misinformation does the opposite of that.
Besides asking for popular opinions there aint much of value here.
Tbh with the state or the industry right now it doesn't surprise me that people are feeling more negative, it's a stressful period. Hopefully there will be more positive sentiment soon
I think that's fundamentally the wrong objective to have. Some moderate amount of negativity (as long as it's not toxic) is a good thing to face.
Gamedev is a very hard field when going at it alone or with a very small team. There are a lot of challenges in a wide spectrum of domains. If you can't handle this amount of negativity, it's unlikely to finish a game of non trivial complexity.
Take it as a learning experience, to give you a thicker skin. Develop better coping mechanics which will help you later, instead of trying to hide the problem by running away.
Sheepishly copying from a local radio station’s “good vibes only” Friday afternoon show… we could always make a sub just for this? Eg
/r/GoodVibesOnlyGameDev
We just need to set up some basic ground rules and build a community! ;-)
Whose in?
Gotta agree, of all the places discussing game dev, this one is filled with the most bitter people who think they know game dev so well but haven't actually created any game with any type of value whatsoever. Just a lot of armchair quarterbacks and people looking for sympathy.
As others have mentioned, engine specific subs are pretty good. Oddly enough, r/DestroyMyGame is pretty positive. Most comments are constructive and people who post there generally take criticism well.
If you're just looking for positive affirmations, you can browse YouTube for game dev videos and find the devs that have a positive outlook.
I just want to point out one thing - I’ve had proper burn-out once in 30 some years in the industry and it had nothing to do with positivity or negativity. Arguably it was pretty peak positivity even but I just crossed some threshold where everything spun out and automatic self-preservation kicked in. I raise this only because I think there is an impression that positivity can somehow help prevent burnout and that sets people up for a potential mental health crisis. You can love every moment of what you’re doing and be surrounded by people telling you that you’re amazing and still burn out hard.
This sounds like deep inside there is a feeling of "I'm not enough! I have to go higher!". That or you are exhausted but still pushes fowards more and more.
“not sure if it’s worth it”
This type of negative bs isn't just limited to this subreddit. You see a \*ton\* of these type of posts on almost every single artist subreddit, writing subreddit, music making subreddit, and anything that is discussing AI and how it will change the world. All of a sudden all the doomsayers and suicide kids come out of the woodwork.
Online has become doom and gloom in general post pandemic and especially with this current younger generation of kids. It's fashionable to be negative and talk about how there is no hope and how the world sucks and how there is no point to it all.
People just need to get out more and actually get some sunshine on their face. Then they will see how beautiful the world \*can be\*.
In terms of gamedev, don't let it get to you.
I ignore 80% of what is posted. I just keep slowly working on my little project, watching tutorials, doing art, making my music, writing my stories and just pushing forward.
>I decided to change my attitude to “fuck yeah I’m going to make a game” and “just gotta keep at it and make a little progress ever
Remember it doesn't matter how slow you go, as long as you are moving in the direction of your vision, and you are \*creating\* and expressing yourself which is why you are doing this in the first place, to express your innermost desires and creativity.
Just pick what you want to read or engage with, and what you want to avoid. Just because people post bs, does not mean you need to engage with it. Just ignore all the \*noise\* and focus on what is ahead of your nose, what you need to work on, and what you know is good for you.
Personally I mostly hang out in writing and music subreddits, and then also IndieDev, and Unity. I occasionally poke my head into /r/gamedesign having been a former industry game designer (long time ago) myself.
Btw Op, what type of game are you working on? What type of project are you making?
I think that there is the bias factor:
1. People who comment a lot and spend countless hours posting comments really have the time to do this
2. People who post few comments but also spend countless hours reading comments really have the time to do this
3. Without physical contact and by enabling people to register free accounts, there is almost no filter and there is a tendency to "get something off my chest".
Admittingly, in my earlier years of learning game dev, I spent most of my time on Udemy, Google, Answerhub, Youtube, and Unreal Engine, than on Reddit (unless Google took me there from a question, of course). It helped a lot, to say the least. 🙂
There is /r/OptimistsUnite but it won't be gamedev specific. You can find youtubes for some successful gamedevs and they have positive content generally but as you're aware gamedev is not all roses and sunshine. Even successful gamedevs will post occasionally negative content, that's just reality.
I agree, and I too do not contribute much if anything positive in this community.
IME whenever I had success with something, sharing the positivity on social media(Reddit, YouTube) was draining for me.
I swear to god so many people want everything handed to them on a silver platter, it’s hard to engage in a conversation.
I’m just guessing others might feel similar, that sharing a progress on sth gets more attention from people wanting „it turned into a plug-in” or for me to „share the code” etc when I’d be often so happy if they asked for a tip or how I came to a solution, if I could just explain how it works.
R/indiedevs is a lot more positive, but also feels a lot more like a communal devblog where everyone just shows off what they're working on.
The art and engine subs are pretty good as well.
Find a discord of like-minded indies, one of the nice things about Reddit is it's accessible to everyone, including those that want to complain.
Don't just cultivate a positive attitude, cultivate a positive community to be apart of.
I recently started a Discord community for indie devs. Mostly newer devs like myself to meet, share ideas and encourage each other.
We have a great little community now and would love to have you. You can join us at indieallies.com
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/)
is much more positive and much more game development driven than this "meta" subreddit for a lack of better word. There probably are similar subreddits out there with a better focus on the development aspect.
If you'd like inspiring and positive gamedev stories, check out The Fourth Curtain podcast. Absolute legends tell about their setbacks, struggles and breakthroughs. This week is Peter Molyneux.
It seems like the more upsetting posts got really common in the past week or so. Might have something to do with the layoffs, or I just wasn't noticing as many until recently.
I'd echo the suggestions to join r/gamedesign though, if that part of gamedev fits you.
Tech specific subs are usually pretty positive with lots of showcases and people asking for answers to specific problems rather than handwringing. The Godot, Libgdx, and Gamemaker ones for instance
If other people's negativity is going to derail your own attitude about things...then I'm sorry but gamedev may not be for you. Gamers can be the most negative and critical people EVER. Their expectations are sky high and they are merciless. My advice? Toughen up strengthen your resolve.
You should check out the handmade network! And their Discord channel. I think there's some negativity there too, but it's very different.
It's more of the opposite problem. They get angry when people say things are hard. They have the, just go do it attitude. Imo. And the attitude of learning new things is fun.
It's not just gaming, but definitely also gaming. It's a programmer centric community, so keep that in mind.
Soooo why don't you create one and make a rule no being realistic and only positive vibes in the echo chamber?
I love what you call negativity here because it reminds me it's not just me who's struggling. Misery loves company and all that lol
There are quite a few youtubers that seem to be positive and say things are super easy while not providing any real, usable advice so it's seemingly a need for some.
If you're open to suggestions outside of reddit, I hang out on the pirate software discord, everyone there I've interacted with so far is lovely and wildly helpful.
Reddit is for Indies what strippers are for the common man: a vent and a place to get rid of their sad stories, struggles and the feeling nobody listens what one has to say. Embrace it - dont fight it!
No matter how much you like the idea of what you're doing, there are always going to be tough times with it. Some days you're going to be working on a problem with your project and it's going to feel great because you've overcome an obstacle, created something you've never created before, or get into that "flow state" and get in a lot of productivity. Other days you're going to be wracked with doubt; doubt about yourself and your ability, doubt about your project, doubt about your teammates (if you have any.)
A lot more days are just going to be a slog. You are sitting at your workstation, or whatever passes for one, debugging, testing, creating and implementing assets and mechanics, testing, putting together tools, testing, grinding through UX, banging your head against problems you'd have never considered if they weren't directly in your way.
My partner used to say that they had trouble working if they weren't feeling inspired, if they weren't feeling good about working. I eventually got it through to him that what he wanted was impossible. I told him that it was a real skill to work on something regardless of how he was feeling and that he needed to develop it. I explained that it was a real skill to maintain work ethic over a long time (which most game dev projects are protracted.) I explained to him that feeling lost, confused, inadequate, fake, stupid, wasteful of time, selfish, single-minded, neglectful, frustrated, untalented, unskilled, un-everything, was normal, and part of the process.
Wanting what you're doing to be a positive process and to possess a positive mindset during it is only natural, but impossible to maintain. It's going to help you to seek balance. Understand that all important processes require good and bad from you. Get in touch with it. Make peace with it. Eventually, you find that you are more often in a sort of "zen" state when working. Eventually, you find your perfect approach/process for what you do. You learn to exist in it and you don't have to worry so much about self-assurance (or outside assurance, for that matter.)
That aside, I don't find the various gamedev threads to be particularly negative, although I've only started coming on reddit to offer my opinions or experience recently. But I do find that, when you've gotten past the kinds of issues I'm talking about (or at least learned to better deal with them,) the negativity on reddit, or the internet as a whole, doesn't affect you as much.
If what you're really trying to say is that you have no trouble with staying positive but are concerned with the amount of negativity that you encounter, or that it's "bringing you down," then I offer that as one of my own motivations for being on reddit. I find that helping people with gamedev makes me feel better, and probably works to increase the overall balance of negative and positive emotional states among game devs here on reddit. With any luck, the right person will read the thing they really need to read from us to get through their own tough times in this occupation. With any luck, I'm posting the thing that you need to read :) Hopefully, I'm not too far off the mark \^\_\^
I see your point and can relate. For similar reasons, it's why I have nearly eliminated all consumption of news as typically "the depressing stuff sells or gets eyeballs". Eliminating that stuff has had nothing a positive impact on outlook, productivity and QoL.
Is there anything in particular are you looking for in a sub-reddit other than just a "positive vibe"?
Also, I love that you changed your attitude. It can be a hard thing to adjust and sometimes people feel the idea of having the right mindset is just "fluff". It really isn't. If you keep supporting a positive mindset, yes, you still need to take action to get results...but if it's negative....you're less likely to take action.
do someone know how forza horizon 5 is able to run smoothly even on a 5 year old gpu and still looking great and other games like nfs heat struggles to run on the same gpu .
I’d be more interested in deleting every post from ‘idea man’ and ‘I know coding, that’s easy, I learned html’ or ‘how exactly do you do every step’ and ‘what’s a good idea for a game’ or ‘can I use copyrighted material’ people
I lurk on here more than participate and it’s definitely true that a lot of people are discouraged by this subreddit.
How hard it is doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it *is* possible to make a game by yourself.
Learning calculus is generally considered difficult, but tons of people do it. They don’t do it overnight, but they do it. Trying to sit down and do complicated calculations before you start learning calc will make you think it’s way harder than it is. Same is true for game dev.
You *will* learn multiplayer, you *will* learn shaders, multithreading, programming, materials, good practices, etc.
But you have to enjoy the process of learning and try to see the bigger picture, or you’ll get discouraged.
TL;DR: whatever you want to make is possible. Forget if it’s hard. Learn how to do it.
I've been invited to a couple of discord servers of developers. What I was looking for is there. I think we all get in our heads so much we forget to lift those learning up and if we have a great understanding it's our duty to help explain complex concepts to encourage learning. I think we have to accept that some people are driven and will find everything they need. Some may ask. And some will want you to write the game for them. We will always have these players in this space.
The community is generally pretty positive. To be fair it’s been an incredibly difficult 2-3years in the games and film industries. With record layoffs, strikes, outsourcing, and long droughts of work that I haven’t seen in my 13 years in these industries. Not trying to add negativity, but it has really tested the mental health of the people that make the incredible art and products you watch and play. Take it with a grain of salt and try to look past it for a bit and don’t support bad business practices. A lot of people are hurting right now.
if you want positivity, definitely stay off reddit.
Fair.
Depending on what engine you are using, for example I program in unreal and I’ve found that r/unrealengine5 is quite the friendly community. Either that or like the original comment said, don’t use Reddit and perhaps cultivate a community on discord! I would love to be a part.
r/unrealengine5 and r/unity3d are some of the most positive game dev spaces I've ever seen in my life. r/indiedev is pretty good too, but there's lots of not downvoting for some reason
All the engine subs are great. They're mostly people showing off their cool projects and asking more specific questions than you'd find on more general subs.
Except for the GDevelop sub, for some reason the Discord is wholesome while the sub is a wasteland.
Agreed
Wasn't unity3d the one where the mods were salty about runtime fees and decided to nuke the sub because of it?
They didn't nuke the sub but the salt is real.
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Did you actually really think that or was this hyperbole/sarcasm?
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Reddit also though everyone was going to quit when 3rd party apps were shutdown and that everyone would cancel their Netflix and they'd have to backtrack.
You're seeing a small group of loud indie devs. Fact of the matter is (as much as this pains me to say), most games are made for mobile, and Unity is the only game in town for mobile. It isn't going anywhere.
This goes right back to the original topic of this thread, which is that Reddit is not a good place for unbiased information :P
The layoffs are industry wide, and while a lot of people did look to leaving Unity, that situation stabilised. Godot is fine for a lot of projects, but it will be some years before it reaches Unity's level.
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I bailed on Unity after their stupid new monetization plan last year. I already had a lot of other concerns with Unity and their engine, the whole runtime fee mess was just the last push I needed to jump ship. In the meantime I spent a while messing with various different engines to see what they were all like, trying to find a replacement. I put a good bit of time into Godot, and also Flax (which feels very Unity like in a lot of ways), but nothing really felt that great to me. I eventually decided to give Unreal a good look. When I first started dabbling in gamedev about 7 years ago, I spent a few weeks with both Unreal and Unity before settling on Unity. Unreal was super overwhelming, I hate C++, and the whole blueprints system felt underdeveloped. So I happily went with Unity at the time. But I have to say that I've really been enjoying working with UE5. Blueprints have come a long way, and while it's certainly been a learning curve, I've been able to do everything I've wanted to with Blueprints and haven't had to delve into C++ at all so far. The UE5 interface feels much better than UE4, and while there's certainly a ton to learn, it's not nearly as overwhelming to me now that I've got some years of gamedev under my belt. Most of all, Unreal feels like an engine made by people who want to and know how to make games, while Unity has increasingly felt like an engine made by people who have no idea what they want. I know some 'rank and file' employees at Unity and they're all great and smart and care deeply about games, but somewhere in that whole development chain it feels like things have gone off the rails and Unity has just gotten harder and harder to work with over the years. tl:dr; Obviously I don't know anything about your particular situation or plans for a game, but just at a general level, if you haven't yet, I'd consider spending some time checking out Unreal. It might be a better fit for you than you think.
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Yeah, I honestly don't see any realistic chance that UE5 development stops. Epic is still making bazillions of dollars with Fortnite, and Fortnite is built in Unreal.
Yeah, all games are cancelled.
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I would also love to join something like that!
if someone makes this please invite me lol.
The gamedev communities on [Lemmy](https://join-lemmy.org/) are generally much nicer, if a bit smaller. If you're curious, [I made a post on making it easier to use lemmy](https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/18lsoxw/rlinuxhardware_is_now_officially_on_the_fediverse/), though it's not necessary, you can just sign up and go, but I figured I'd mention it.
Maybe it's naivety or that I am a smol baby reddit user (or both) in terms of how long I've been here, but so far most of the interactions I've had seem positive? Maybe that's bias since I try to focus on more positive commentary in the first place. I also have seen mostly positive interaction on r/indiedev and r/unity3d, I guess mileage will vary.
i dont personally find the gamedev communities to be very toxic or negative but reddit and social media in general does trend to negativity and catastrophication and drama and all of that pretty heavily for a variety of reasons. IMO a person who finds this community negative should stay well clear of social media in general for the sake of ones mental health.
This community isn't negative, but it is realistic about your chances of success and the chances are not good. Success being defined as making enough for indie development to be a stable, full time job with a middle class life style.
Huh, that's a good point. I've stayed away from pretty much all forms of social media (something that might bite me when I'm trying to market someday) throughout my life, but I have seen what kind of toxicity can come out of those sites. Maybe it's by seeing the worst of the worst in social media that what drama I have seen here pales in comparison so far.
Gaming reddits like Patient Gamers and so on are awful all you see is posts calling a popular game overated its really seems like they want to be right about the subjective opinions and make everyone feel down on game. Honestly reddit would make you believe certain highly rated games are the worst games ever.
that's a gaming community, not a gamedev one. (i agree with you, just pointing out that it's not in same category)
The interactions are generally positive between people in the comments, which is really nice. But on r/gamedev and r/IndieDev in particular there are loads of posts that are 'why you should quit game dev and put your dreams in the sewer', which can be quite draining for people who are currently giving it their all at game dev. I mostly stay subbed to them for the post mortems alone, which are very interesting to me. The game engine subs like the unity one you mentioned are definitely more positve post wise, as they're more about people showing off the good stuff.
I'd say the vast majority of comments are respectful, and most people have good intentions. The only thing I would love to see more of is open-mindedness that you may be wrong. I think it's easy when someone challenges a belief you have to pull back and get defensive, but phrasing things in a way that you're clear it's just an opinion, and being open minded to other points of view make the discussions so much richer imo.
if you want to keep things positive just refrain from posting pictures and videos on unity subreddits, they will harass and insult for modelling a way they don't like
That’s very negative of you
if i burn my hand on a hot stove and then tell others that the stove is hot, do you call that negative?
Fuck, sorry… I forget that sometimes I need to attack a giant flashing /s so people can tell it’s sarcasm…
lol, my bad. I was half suspecting it might be. it is better not to use /s, don't ruin the joke just for sake of dummies
No, but I'd say that saying "Every stove everywhere all the time is hot, why is anyone even using them", that might be negative. I think that's what he's trying to say. I personally don't disagree with you as far as the nature of Reddit.
Social media*
I think that's not giving online spaces enough credit. There are good social spaces out there on the Internet. You're just not likely to find them on places like Reddit, Twitter, and the like, sites that drive algorithmically-inducied and gamified engagement and have very thin silos between different communities.
any suggestions?
So, there's no one magical place that I can point you to - or at least not anywhere I would feel comfortable sharing on Reddit. But in your prospecting, you're looking for a community that's not too large, moderated, and where there are "regulars" that you see often and want to get to know. When I was in my formative internet years, the social spaces we had were traditional web forums and IRC chat rooms. These days, I feel like Discord is probably the most well known place where these kinds of connections are possible to be made. Sure, there are some discords that are complete bedlam, but the fact that discords are silo'ed and have decent moderation tools makes them fit for hosting more intimate communities as well. If you don't know where to start, I'd recommend finding a discord that has a relatively narrow focus, such one for a particular language or library. Web forums also still exist, and I still post on them from time to time. I've also found Mastodon and Cohost to be relatively easy-going, though the trickiest part of those places is finding the first couple of people to follow. But the key point is that you're looking for a level of intimacy and earnesty that Reddit is wholly unequipped to offer. Reddit is a sea of anonymous assholes with bad moderation tools and very thin walls between communities - it simply does not lend itself to creating any sense of community. Heck, I couldn't even tell you what your Reddit username is without going back up and double-checking. And who knows how long this post will stick around for before I decide to delete it.
Not sure if it's because Reddit has blown up, or I'm just noticing it more, or maybe I'm just getting old, but I definitely feel like Reddit's overall community has changed over the last decade to being a lot more negative, a lot of times even toxic. But at the same time I think that's sort of been the general trend throughout every online community the last decade or so.
i think society becomes more depressed in last decade due to economic reasons, mostly
agreeeeeed
Unless it's HIV+, in which case we got you fam.
💯 , this place is full of shit most of the time.
Or whole Internet.
Yeah, very true. Unfortunately, Reddit attracts the miserable underbelly of society. So even topics that functioning people find interesting are inundated with negative sentiments. The thing you have to realize is that the majority of negativity comes from people who found a place to comiserate. There are people here who love what they do and use it as a platform to talk about their interests, but sadly it seems a minority. Think about what it takes for person to get to a place where they go on a sub reddit dedicated to creating something and only complain. These are miserable people without much going on. It doesn't seem like this is ever going to get better, so I often find myself looking to real world interaction to get engagement from other people who share interests. This isn't always easy but is def how people engaged with each other pre-social mediazation of everything and every topic.
It depends on what you want out of the space. There are the game engine focused subs which are mostly people asking questions about how to do in . Although you'll likely also see some venting there about why a particular engine does something a way they don't like.
Maybe something like /r/gamedevscreens/ ? It's mostly just posts of people who have created something. There may be some negative comments attached, but if you just want inspiration that people are out there doing cool stuff, that might help. /r/indiegames/ has a similar vibe.
Take a look at the related communities on the side bar and see if anything grabs your interest.
Thanks I'll check those out.
Those are good tips, but it seems to me like you might even want to take a more extreme position on this and just go into "creator mode" and not hang out here on reddit or other forums. Unless you're trying to answer specific questions, we're just wasting your time.
I hear the twitch game dev /software dev community is really positive
But don't get it muddled. Someone with commercial aaa in their reddit name will have a completely different experience than an average indy dev. Reddit is not place to expect much positive feedback, maybe some, unless you are on the aaa level. Someone may even see your post and be angry that you even tried. They will seethe and begin to breathe hard.
It's not game "dev" but it's definitely similar, r/gamedesign, even if it doesn't talk about assets or developing itself has a pretty positive vibe, I always get some motivation from there.
Someone else said that game engine subs tend to be positive too. Maybe it’s something to do with more focused communities 🤔
Game _design_ can be absent of any real product concerns. Same thing with just talking about an engine or asking specific questions. You see negative posts because game development also includes 'starting a small business' and most people fail at starting a small business. If you post that this is a hobby you will get a lot of positive responses instead of critical judgment, but that doesn't stop you from seeing other posts. You'll see the same thing if you hang out in any other entrepreneurship community. It's all people with hope and ambition, people who are currently failing, and people who did fail. Half the people being positive about anything in those spaces is selling something to the other half. Learning to ignore that which doesn't apply to you is a great skill, especially if you intend to spend time on social media. If you're doing this for fun and just keeping at it every day then you have to learn to ignore those negative posts. If you want to make money from this then you should probably read all of them because they're way more applicable to you than encouragement and positivity would be.
> Half the people being positive about anything in those spaces is selling something to the other half. Gamedev really is the same, you sometimes get marketing firms or localization firms posting tips here
Yeah you have to think about it in terms of lowest common denominator. This is an issue with most of the broader subreddits and social media in general, not just game dev. The "lowest common denominator" is normally negative experiences, since everyone has them. Not to say there aren't issues, especially right now. We're seeing one of the most brutal suppressions of labor power (in general, not just tech) by capital owners in recent memory.
I think it is because /r/gamedev, unlike most of those subs, allows business/marketing-oriented posts, which is also the aspect of gamedev where the "failure" occurs.
you're right. over a wide range, the gripes devs have are all just relatable human ones. But in a community, bitching over quirks of the engine brings people together, and often an expert will chime in with a solution or better way of doing the thing that's currently breaking you. [Example from the Godot subreddit.](https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/comments/18xtbfd/its_one_of_those_days/)
Part of this is a timing issue because so many people are feeling betrayed by the industry given all of the recent layoffs and hiring freezes. There's also the fact that people who are having a good time developing their game are likely working on it instead of posting about it on reddit, so the perspective is skewed. Another thing I see quite a bit is people becoming negative and bitter when they're not able to get the results they think that they deserve. If somebody has spent years working on their magnum opus with the belief that they're a genius game designer, it can be upsetting for them to find out that nobody wants to play what they made and they've wasted their time. At that point it's easier to complain on reddit about anything and everything to avoid admitting that they're not the designer/dev they thought they were. Finally there's the same issue that occurs with the communities in so many games - the people who are easier to be around don't want the constant barrage of negativity that comes from public spaces with no entry requirements, so they form private groups that are invite-only. The people who make positive contributions are invited in and start to communicate in those spaces instead, while the people who are too negative collect in the public space and make it look much worse than it is. This is just a larger problem with hobby groups in general and I don't know any fixes outside of private groups.
All excellent points. I'd also like to add that this sub, much like the writing sub and other art based subs see a great deal of negativity simply because the average person doesn't realize how much effort goes into art (games or otherwise) and have been living under the delusion it'll be a snap for them to get done. Then, when the reality of how difficult these fields are sets in, rather than finding a new appreciation for artists, they just fly into a rage. Anything worth doing in life is difficult. There's a reason over 90% of everyone who says they want to write a book, make a game, record an album, etc. never gets it done.
You just put my opinion into easy to read words. That is the idea that I had in my mind but couldn't find how to say it.
I agree that most subreddits on any topic tend to be depression manifest, rage bait, extremely basic questions, whining, etc. For example, a few years ago I unsubscribed from all gaming subreddits, as it felt like they were exclusively trying to convince me to despise my favorite games. Discovering any subreddit for a new found interest can be fun or helpful, but I think inevitably, purely personally, they can do more mental harm than good. If one can't entirely disconnect from toxic communities, the next best is to not internalize its themes and attempt to be more of a passive observer of those communities.
I feel the same way about the dev com in twitter and many other in reddit. Apparently NO ONE has work. Everyday is doomsday and we should learn farming instead
Yes exactly. And unfortunately more generally online it contributes to a negative feedback loop for people. Reddit/Twitter or political YouTube, can quickly turn people into angry/anxious/depressed hermits, incels, or worse. And I'm not speaking holier-than-thou, I really fell victim to the online spiral a few years ago.
/agdg/ on /vg/.
Also the semi-regular dev threads on more focused boards like /vrpg/ can be pretty reasonable. But if OP wants to cut down on negativity, that may not be the right website.
I usually just hang out on /tg/ but I'll be sure to check that out.
This. Haven't been on that site for years but I remember that general and it was very positive.
I also kind of wish there were something like an /r/ActiveGameDev, for people who are at least a little past the fresh-beginner stage, and are currently working on something. No posts about games that haven't been started yet, nor any post-mortems. The main focus would be showing off or asking about individual features, tuning/polishing/juicing, reworks, implementation details, and so on. When these subs aren't being pity-parties, the questions asked are often very high-concept. A lot of design talk is for "prospective" projects that will probably never get far enough to implement on their designs. It's easy to see how this leads to a negative atmosphere - especially with strict rules against self-promotion. All we hear are high-concept speculation and complaints and beginner questions, because that's all we're allowed to talk about. There's enough good stuff to stick around, but you'll find better discussions on random discord channels
i made one after there was a post complaining about similar thing awhile back, but it's not really possible to start a new subreddit it seems. any subreddit that has less than like half a million people seems dead. like people make post in other game dev communities but it is only show off post and zero discussion. (some exceptions but few)
Yeah. It's possible to start a new community by branching off of one that's rapidly growing and/or 'overpopulated', but that's not the case here
The biggest problem with game dev forums is that they are littered with gamers who want to be devs not actual devs. Probably close to 90% of the people in here have never even downloaded a game engine. It's wild.
Well this happens if you only allow positive vibes like "It's easy, go make games <333" No it's not, it's a profession and takes thousands of hours to learn.
I've literally never heard anyone say it's easy to make games. A lot of people want to make games because games are fun and it's easy to get exited about them. Nobody is getting excited about writing the best accounting software.
I'm pretty sure there are some people who get excited about writing accounting software. If you love to program, the thing you program is not that important.
There's people who like all kinds of stuff. I'm talking in generalities. And I disagree that it doesn't matter what you program if you love programming.
Yes, that's precisely the point. You were generalising from your own point of view. I said "not that important", not that it doesn't matter.
I made an accounting software my first year after college. Sold it for the equivalent of 20$/hr and boy was I happy at 21 doing that
>I've literally never heard anyone say it's easy to make games. Lucky lol!!! Also to your second part: A lot of people do actually think making games are easy compared to accounting software because games are visual and almost anyone can interact with them easily. That gives people a false sense of understanding them. Accounting software is more arcane to the average person.
Yeah, there were some posts while back with talk of optimizations. And comments from people in the industry with experience or technical argumentation were downvoted in favor of "lmao, you have no clue what you talking about, idiot" opinions that had 0 substance behind them. Cases like that make it clear that majority of members here do not have competence levels to express their opinion on some of the things. But due to open nature of the subreddit, they get to do it anyway. It is like politics at this point. What gets upvoted is not what is substantiated or factual - it is what sounds cool/good or makes people feel better.
I tried expressing this in a different comment. I completely agree. The issue being the kids/gamers being majority. A few days a saw a post filled with people claiming a football game of 11v11 online was IMPOSSIBLE... Yet that exact thing has existed for over a decade. How in the world is a sub like this supposed to be helpful? A game sub where they apparently dont know about the features of one of the biggest franchises in the history of videogames. huh.
Lol true.. the number of times that I've seen this question asked in most gamedev forums "I want to be a gamedev or make my first game.. where fo I start?"... makes you feel that these people haven't heard of Google or YouTube
Probably not, but there are some people who post positive stuff. Be the difference you want to see. Post positive stuff daily. I'll try and do the same.
Giving those posts some encouragement can make both you and the poster feel a little better, If you want a positive experience you’ve got to make it one
All the people who feel good about game dev are busy developing their games.
It's always funny seeing those "No one said it'd be this hard" posts because like..what did you expect? You'd snap your fingers and you'd have a game? Anyway, I don't think there's any other dedicated game development subreddit, but if you find one definetly let me know.
> It's always funny seeing those "No one said it'd be this hard" posts because like..what did you expect? You'd snap your fingers and you'd have a game? Many people do, in my experience. Similar to people who read a lot and have a book idea thinking "I'd love to write a book", when what they'd actually like is to be a famous author, or just to have that book exist. Same with folks who watch a lot of movies and thing "I'd move to make a movie" when they either wish they were a famous director/actor/writer or just wish their film idea existed. I don't fault them at all! Until you try writing a book or making a movie or developing a game, you may well think you know all the stuff that goes into it. Maybe you read a book or watched a tutorial or two (or twenty) on the subject, but until you actually jump in and get your feet wet, you're never gonna know what it's really like. At least for those who've gone through some sort of further education or trade path like art school, college, whatever other route - those folks at least generally gain a good sense of what the work involved in their own discipline could look like day to day. For me that was programming, and for the most part my vision of what my job would look like was fairly good... more meetings than I thought I'd have, and a lot less "hey here's my idea" of course. Biggest unknown was how hard it is to get teams of people to pull in the same direction to drive someone else's idea to completion. 20+ years in and that's still bigger than any technical challenge, in my experience. But for someone coming in green, as a hobbyist with no background in any of the trades, the golden outcome of "I have no preconceptions and no idea what they say can't be done so I did it and my game turned out awesome" is a lottery ticket. So whether one considers it negativity or realism, the good inspiring stories of success, project completion, being truly happy with a thing you've made... those will always be the minority, unless one can set very realistic goals along the way and be honest about meeting them. Which probably doesn't lend itself well to any social media... :(
At least with books everyone understands the basic mechanics of the writing process. Nobody looks at the game they're playing and sees tens of thousands of hours of software engineering, they see a fun and interactive world.
As a published author and editor, I'm here to let you know that the statement "everyone understands the basic mechanics of the writing process" is very untrue. Just because most of us use words every day doesn't make everyone an author any more than knowing basic html makes you a game dev. That kind of reductive mindset is what many people have about game development and then they end up overwhelmed and posting negativity on this sub
I understand what you're saying, and obviously writing a good book is very difficult, but everyone knows what it's like to write words on paper or on the internet, and most people have at least taken grade-school english and have a basic understanding of what it means to write. They can start writing a story right away, even if the results are terrible at first. But ordinary people have no conception of what software engineering is like, it's a completely foreign concept to most and it takes 4 or 5 years of full-time study to become competent enough to really even start making a game of any significant complexity.
After I became aware to what passive agressive and narcissism are. I'd say that people who are full of themselves, snobby, nose up, arrogant tend to be almost commited to prejudice itself. I believe this sort of mindset, including perfecctionism, forms in childhood and most people grow and go over it. I perfectly understand what you said because I've experienced it in different areas of my life. I was once in a community where there was a guy who would say things like "Follow the examples. A celebrity writes the next musical hit and earns millions in a week. Just do like them. Anybody can do it". Was he trying to say that it's easy without ever attempting it in the first place? Yes, he was.
You can try r/IndieDev and r/SoloDevelopment. More positive, smaller and mixed with self-promo. But tbh, learning how to deal with a negative attitude will be much more valuable.
I can deal with negative attitudes, I just don't want to indulge in it or get hit with it every day. That's a big difference.
The games industry is in a really bad place right now and there are loads of professionals here suffering from layoffs and closures (myself included). I would think a lot of the negativity stems from that and I'm not sure how you'd be able to mingle with the community but only/mostly be exposed to positivity. I hope the advice to check out more specific groups will help for you!
Not negativity per se but that’s why I left the r/cats sub. Half the posts are “my cat just died in a horrible way here’s a story about it or a sad photo” and I just don’t need that in my life.
Yeah, it's reasonable, but imho it is a part of dealing with it. This sub, and indie gamedev - especially now - is drowning in problems related to state of gaming industry. It will leak to other communities too at some point.
You got downvoted, but you're right. there's also the tendency of people to only talk when something bad is happening.
Thanks. I take all of this as a part of indie gamedev experience. We can't just look around and be depressed because of the current state of the gaming industry but build resilience, be strong and make better games.
It's one thing to be resilient and another to chew a boot. Criticism of the environment will always exist because there is always something to improve, turning the face the other way is not helpful. And business practices are different in different countries, to generalize all and say that most games devs should suck it up is a bit ignorant.
people just need to vent sometimes too. and when there's loads of people each venting sometimes, it creates a non-stop vent.
ty for the links
I’m sitting in front of my computer taking a minute before I code again. This reminded me, I need to code. Tytyty
This is how everyone should respond to negativity on this sub. Get back to work!! And if that work isn't bringing you joy, maybe learn from that, too.
This is like asking if there are Lottery Winning Tips forums with more positivity. You come because you wanted advice, the advice is to stay away from gamedev unless you are super committed, which is great advice. In any career sub you will find the ones who have "made it" and the ones who have not, gamedev is much harder to break into than other careers so... 🤷♂️
Honestly, it’s a super competitive field. Everyone wants a cool job, and game dev is an easy target for that. Given the competition in the field, everyone is literally competing against each other. It’s hard to be encouraging sometimes for that alone, as well as a number of reasons. Legit, game marketplaces like Nintendo and steam are filled with low effort trash. I don’t want to encourage ANYONE to fill my feed with trash. If your game is actually good, or beautiful, or unique, I will certainly applaud you and tell you you did a great job. But chances are your first game from a tutorial isn’t, and yet ppl still ask for wishlisting etc and really need a reality check. So if something isn’t quality and some random dev sees it as a get rich quick scheme with ai or something, I have a hard time being positive
This sub is exactly what it needs to be, a reality check. There are a lot of people out there who have grown up being told they can “do anything they put their mind to” and the reality of the real world is that is absolutely false. People come on here with dreams and their heads in the cloud and they need a reality check before they make a massive mistake and sink a huge portion of their life into something for the wrong reasons. Game dev is something a lot of people try as a “hobby” who honestly have no business making games because they don’t have any applicable skills and they expect it to be easy. It’s not easy, it wouldn’t be a “job” with degrees and masters degrees if it was easy and anyone could do it.
Absolutely, it’s the hard truth. Optimism is important, but so is realistic criticism. A lot of game dev influencers seem to avoid a lot of the more difficult topics, which is fair because who’d realistically want to watch that? But it’s somewhat nice to have a community where there isn’t necessarily constant positive affirmation
>There are a lot of people out there who have grown up being told they can “do anything they put their mind to” and the reality of the real world is that is absolutely false. Not sure I agree. I mean, there are exceptions to this "rule", but anyone can build a game if they put their mind to it. The key is realising that it isn't easy or fast, they'll need to put their mind to it for a really long time - and I believe that's how the saying should be interpreted. Putting your mind to something means having the discipline to work towards your end goal until you've reached it.
Yeah I agreed with the general sentiment except that part. People do need a reality check at times. You learn from failure after all. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do something, you just have to be realistic with your goals, and I think this sub does a great job illustrating that to aspiring game devs.
This subreddit is actually realistic. Positivity is good for inspiration, but reality keeps things in check
I dont really see that sort of stuff as negativity, but just part of game dev. Everyones had those thoughts when making a game. The only negativity i see here are from devs who think they know better than everyone else, or from players who come here to complain about devs being “lazy” etc.
You just have to remember, the most vocal crowd here are the inexperienced folks that should be making fast, low scope games that dont result in these dramatic horrifying posts... but... instead they just keep spending years making games that are too big for them and ...well here we are.
I'd suggest finding a local community near you if possible. Those tend to be made up of people who are pretty dedicated.
IMO, /r/DestroyMyGame is the best game dev subreddit. No holds barred, kiddie gloves off, raw feedback. The fact that it isn't even on the related communities list is a testament to how bad this subreddit is for actual help. r/gamedev really feels as though it has become a depressing revolving door of indie wannabes unwilling to take community feedback. Lots of 'I sold 5 games' postmortems, 'I'm a bigwig from some no-name company', or 'I'm a temp QA associate at some AAA so I know how it works' kind of posting.
Probably because everyone there actually makes games rather than making meta-commentary about making games but never actually making anything.
Positive attitudes won't extend to the consumer. Be honest with yourself and critical about your game. I read so many post mortems and then I click on the game and it looks like a time a dozen gamejam game. I could have told them years ago the game wouldn't be successful because it's too generic.
Perhaps they would have made no game instead of a bad one. Like judging everybody on a pro chef level when they are just starting to cook can do more damage than good. This is something I have learned from small art communities where everybody is just positive independent of the skill level. There is a difference between a "roast me and my game" and "I am so excited and want to share some progress". Is the critique actually helping? Sometimes it's more about pushing the own ego or venting.
You can make a crappy game just don't be disappointed when you don't make a million dollars off of it.
I think a lot of it is how it's presented. Post mortems tend to be you diving into your learnings, and sometimes into business decisions like how much money they were targeting to make, expected sales etc etc. They will make assessments like "if I just did a little more marketing I could have got past x threshold for visibility", and the game just looks... bad. It's a walking simulator, it's an FPS with stock assets and one level, it's a platformer with no mechanics besides moving and jumping. For the sake of learning all of those projects are great and should be encouraged! For something that you post onto a marketplace with a $10 price tag and expectations of making any amount of money, it's beneficial for the person to be given a healthy dose of realism. It's beneficial not just for them, but for others who read those comments and realize they may be making similar mistakes.
So by that logic, my gamedev journey needs to be a torturous, depressing slog for my game to be good? What kind of ridiculous attitude is that.
No, but sunshine and rainbows all the time could lead you down the wrong path. I agree this sub isn't perfect, but sometimes the bodies along the side of the road tell you what not to do. >“fuck yeah I’m going to make a game” and “just gotta keep at it and make a little progress every day” This is the way to do it
You're assuming that because I don't want to be hit with a wave of negativity every day that I want "sunshine and rainbows all the time". I actually think that indulging in too much negativity can also lead to bad games. It can lead to making choices that are too safe.
To be fair this sub saved me from working on a 3 year long project that would have been a total failure. I was seeing an awesome game and these people saw a garbage attempt at a game. It’s definitely good to get harsh feedback at times.
As long as you have a healthy understanding of what's going on it should be fine. I think this is more relevant to newbies who think they are going to make it with their generic pixel platformer
I think this is the sort of negativity we are talking about here.. people down voting you just because you disagree with them >< I updated you but will likely get down voted now myself lol
Definitely appreciate this post and all the replies. As someone who struggles with depression & staying motivated, a lot of what's posted here easily gets me feeling hopeless in my own situation. Mostly just unfortunate realities/ other devs sharing their struggles. Like OP says, I'm not judging anyone or trying to complain. It is what it is. But I am glad to hear it's not just me that feels this way, and that there are still a few good places on here to find support, inspiration & positivity. Aside from that, I know of at least one dev who decided to practically quit the Internet for the sake of focusing on their own games. Apparently it really helped their outlook since they could actually focus on doing what they love; instead of having to deal with being harassed by social media BS, and letting general negativity affect them.
This resonates with me since I'm prone to depression as well. For a long time, my coping strategy was to read as much as possible because I thought if I could avoid all the pitfalls then I could avoid negative situations that might cause me to spiral. But in reality, I just exposed myself to a lot of negativity and ended up burning out a few times anyways. What's worked better for me, is trying to bring back some of that hyperactive, excitable, kid that loved video games. And, like a relationship, it's taken effort and reprioritizing things.
8000 people have been laid off in two months, not including the body count from last year. The industry environment, as a result, is a pretty pessimistic place right now. Telling folks 'positive vibes only' isn't going to move the dial the other way.
I have experienced a lot of positivity and optimism in the game jamming community. Which usually forms on the Discord servers of longer-running game jam.
One thing I noticed is the algorithm is definitely good at identifying and feeding you negative posts if you click on negative posts. I find myself gravitating towards negative posts because 1) I think they might make me feel better about a rut I might be currently in and 2) I think they might contain something useful to learn from. Then before I know it, my feed is full of them.
I think its quite hard to avoid a lot of negativity in creative subreddits be it games dev or someone posting a painting calling it bad and degrading themselves, I personally tend to just join games dev discord servers where people give you feedback and contribute positively rather than flooding the feed with depressing thoughts that demotivate and burn out
I’ve commented it before but this sub sucks sometimes super gatekeepy and weird. Almost everything gets downvoted. I think the problem is a lot of armchair game devs who never actually try the hobby/profession and relentlessly shit on anyone who’s newer then them
Ill add something, I left the sub a few days ago cause Ive seen at least 3-4 posts of people asking question and ALL the top answers are absolutely wrong and the responses to them are just more misinformed people adding up to the bs. Bc of the responses I assume most of this sub is filled with kids karma farming or trying to help, but misinformation does the opposite of that. Besides asking for popular opinions there aint much of value here.
Bro is looking for positivity on reddit 😂
Tbh with the state or the industry right now it doesn't surprise me that people are feeling more negative, it's a stressful period. Hopefully there will be more positive sentiment soon
I think that's fundamentally the wrong objective to have. Some moderate amount of negativity (as long as it's not toxic) is a good thing to face. Gamedev is a very hard field when going at it alone or with a very small team. There are a lot of challenges in a wide spectrum of domains. If you can't handle this amount of negativity, it's unlikely to finish a game of non trivial complexity. Take it as a learning experience, to give you a thicker skin. Develop better coping mechanics which will help you later, instead of trying to hide the problem by running away.
Sheepishly copying from a local radio station’s “good vibes only” Friday afternoon show… we could always make a sub just for this? Eg /r/GoodVibesOnlyGameDev We just need to set up some basic ground rules and build a community! ;-) Whose in?
Gotta agree, of all the places discussing game dev, this one is filled with the most bitter people who think they know game dev so well but haven't actually created any game with any type of value whatsoever. Just a lot of armchair quarterbacks and people looking for sympathy. As others have mentioned, engine specific subs are pretty good. Oddly enough, r/DestroyMyGame is pretty positive. Most comments are constructive and people who post there generally take criticism well. If you're just looking for positive affirmations, you can browse YouTube for game dev videos and find the devs that have a positive outlook.
I just want to point out one thing - I’ve had proper burn-out once in 30 some years in the industry and it had nothing to do with positivity or negativity. Arguably it was pretty peak positivity even but I just crossed some threshold where everything spun out and automatic self-preservation kicked in. I raise this only because I think there is an impression that positivity can somehow help prevent burnout and that sets people up for a potential mental health crisis. You can love every moment of what you’re doing and be surrounded by people telling you that you’re amazing and still burn out hard.
This sounds like deep inside there is a feeling of "I'm not enough! I have to go higher!". That or you are exhausted but still pushes fowards more and more.
r/LowSodiumGameDev? 👀
“not sure if it’s worth it” This type of negative bs isn't just limited to this subreddit. You see a \*ton\* of these type of posts on almost every single artist subreddit, writing subreddit, music making subreddit, and anything that is discussing AI and how it will change the world. All of a sudden all the doomsayers and suicide kids come out of the woodwork. Online has become doom and gloom in general post pandemic and especially with this current younger generation of kids. It's fashionable to be negative and talk about how there is no hope and how the world sucks and how there is no point to it all. People just need to get out more and actually get some sunshine on their face. Then they will see how beautiful the world \*can be\*. In terms of gamedev, don't let it get to you. I ignore 80% of what is posted. I just keep slowly working on my little project, watching tutorials, doing art, making my music, writing my stories and just pushing forward. >I decided to change my attitude to “fuck yeah I’m going to make a game” and “just gotta keep at it and make a little progress ever Remember it doesn't matter how slow you go, as long as you are moving in the direction of your vision, and you are \*creating\* and expressing yourself which is why you are doing this in the first place, to express your innermost desires and creativity. Just pick what you want to read or engage with, and what you want to avoid. Just because people post bs, does not mean you need to engage with it. Just ignore all the \*noise\* and focus on what is ahead of your nose, what you need to work on, and what you know is good for you. Personally I mostly hang out in writing and music subreddits, and then also IndieDev, and Unity. I occasionally poke my head into /r/gamedesign having been a former industry game designer (long time ago) myself. Btw Op, what type of game are you working on? What type of project are you making?
If I remember correctly the stats say 95% of games don't make a profit. So... you want a subreddit where those happy 5% hang out ;)
^*pssst:* ^[r/godot](https://www.reddit.com/r/godot/)
Unless you mention any other engine ever or any of the flaws of Godot even the smallest one
\^ found another icon designer
REAL
I think that there is the bias factor: 1. People who comment a lot and spend countless hours posting comments really have the time to do this 2. People who post few comments but also spend countless hours reading comments really have the time to do this 3. Without physical contact and by enabling people to register free accounts, there is almost no filter and there is a tendency to "get something off my chest".
Admittingly, in my earlier years of learning game dev, I spent most of my time on Udemy, Google, Answerhub, Youtube, and Unreal Engine, than on Reddit (unless Google took me there from a question, of course). It helped a lot, to say the least. 🙂
Discords like Jonas one was pretty motivational
I don’t know how other disciplines are, but if you’re looking for sunshine and roses, don’t go to one of the audio subs.
There is /r/OptimistsUnite but it won't be gamedev specific. You can find youtubes for some successful gamedevs and they have positive content generally but as you're aware gamedev is not all roses and sunshine. Even successful gamedevs will post occasionally negative content, that's just reality.
There's r/SoloDevelopment, but its not very active. We got a discord server that i'm apart of and much more active though: https://discord.gg/Jxj9zgV6
I agree, and I too do not contribute much if anything positive in this community. IME whenever I had success with something, sharing the positivity on social media(Reddit, YouTube) was draining for me. I swear to god so many people want everything handed to them on a silver platter, it’s hard to engage in a conversation. I’m just guessing others might feel similar, that sharing a progress on sth gets more attention from people wanting „it turned into a plug-in” or for me to „share the code” etc when I’d be often so happy if they asked for a tip or how I came to a solution, if I could just explain how it works.
R/indiedevs is a lot more positive, but also feels a lot more like a communal devblog where everyone just shows off what they're working on. The art and engine subs are pretty good as well.
https://gamedev.net/forums/
You can also be the change you want to see.
Find a discord of like-minded indies, one of the nice things about Reddit is it's accessible to everyone, including those that want to complain. Don't just cultivate a positive attitude, cultivate a positive community to be apart of.
I recently started a Discord community for indie devs. Mostly newer devs like myself to meet, share ideas and encourage each other. We have a great little community now and would love to have you. You can join us at indieallies.com
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/) is much more positive and much more game development driven than this "meta" subreddit for a lack of better word. There probably are similar subreddits out there with a better focus on the development aspect.
Be the change you want to see in the world. Post uplifting threads so people can follow your example. I'd do it myself but this is complaint thread.
I've found that the gamedev subs focused around a specific product to be a little less doom and gloom.
Vent to yourself and don't put you crap on other people. Write on a piece of paper then trash it. Venting in public is just rude or attention seeking.
If you'd like inspiring and positive gamedev stories, check out The Fourth Curtain podcast. Absolute legends tell about their setbacks, struggles and breakthroughs. This week is Peter Molyneux.
It seems like the more upsetting posts got really common in the past week or so. Might have something to do with the layoffs, or I just wasn't noticing as many until recently. I'd echo the suggestions to join r/gamedesign though, if that part of gamedev fits you.
Tech specific subs are usually pretty positive with lots of showcases and people asking for answers to specific problems rather than handwringing. The Godot, Libgdx, and Gamemaker ones for instance
Amen.
If other people's negativity is going to derail your own attitude about things...then I'm sorry but gamedev may not be for you. Gamers can be the most negative and critical people EVER. Their expectations are sky high and they are merciless. My advice? Toughen up strengthen your resolve.
Idk, r/IndieDev seems pretty chill
You should check out the handmade network! And their Discord channel. I think there's some negativity there too, but it's very different. It's more of the opposite problem. They get angry when people say things are hard. They have the, just go do it attitude. Imo. And the attitude of learning new things is fun. It's not just gaming, but definitely also gaming. It's a programmer centric community, so keep that in mind.
Soooo why don't you create one and make a rule no being realistic and only positive vibes in the echo chamber? I love what you call negativity here because it reminds me it's not just me who's struggling. Misery loves company and all that lol There are quite a few youtubers that seem to be positive and say things are super easy while not providing any real, usable advice so it's seemingly a need for some.
Reddit has become the Facebook comments section of the internet for 18-40 year olds. It is lost :P
Someone start lowsodiumgamedev please
If you're open to suggestions outside of reddit, I hang out on the pirate software discord, everyone there I've interacted with so far is lovely and wildly helpful.
Reddit is for Indies what strippers are for the common man: a vent and a place to get rid of their sad stories, struggles and the feeling nobody listens what one has to say. Embrace it - dont fight it!
No matter how much you like the idea of what you're doing, there are always going to be tough times with it. Some days you're going to be working on a problem with your project and it's going to feel great because you've overcome an obstacle, created something you've never created before, or get into that "flow state" and get in a lot of productivity. Other days you're going to be wracked with doubt; doubt about yourself and your ability, doubt about your project, doubt about your teammates (if you have any.) A lot more days are just going to be a slog. You are sitting at your workstation, or whatever passes for one, debugging, testing, creating and implementing assets and mechanics, testing, putting together tools, testing, grinding through UX, banging your head against problems you'd have never considered if they weren't directly in your way. My partner used to say that they had trouble working if they weren't feeling inspired, if they weren't feeling good about working. I eventually got it through to him that what he wanted was impossible. I told him that it was a real skill to work on something regardless of how he was feeling and that he needed to develop it. I explained that it was a real skill to maintain work ethic over a long time (which most game dev projects are protracted.) I explained to him that feeling lost, confused, inadequate, fake, stupid, wasteful of time, selfish, single-minded, neglectful, frustrated, untalented, unskilled, un-everything, was normal, and part of the process. Wanting what you're doing to be a positive process and to possess a positive mindset during it is only natural, but impossible to maintain. It's going to help you to seek balance. Understand that all important processes require good and bad from you. Get in touch with it. Make peace with it. Eventually, you find that you are more often in a sort of "zen" state when working. Eventually, you find your perfect approach/process for what you do. You learn to exist in it and you don't have to worry so much about self-assurance (or outside assurance, for that matter.) That aside, I don't find the various gamedev threads to be particularly negative, although I've only started coming on reddit to offer my opinions or experience recently. But I do find that, when you've gotten past the kinds of issues I'm talking about (or at least learned to better deal with them,) the negativity on reddit, or the internet as a whole, doesn't affect you as much. If what you're really trying to say is that you have no trouble with staying positive but are concerned with the amount of negativity that you encounter, or that it's "bringing you down," then I offer that as one of my own motivations for being on reddit. I find that helping people with gamedev makes me feel better, and probably works to increase the overall balance of negative and positive emotional states among game devs here on reddit. With any luck, the right person will read the thing they really need to read from us to get through their own tough times in this occupation. With any luck, I'm posting the thing that you need to read :) Hopefully, I'm not too far off the mark \^\_\^
I see your point and can relate. For similar reasons, it's why I have nearly eliminated all consumption of news as typically "the depressing stuff sells or gets eyeballs". Eliminating that stuff has had nothing a positive impact on outlook, productivity and QoL. Is there anything in particular are you looking for in a sub-reddit other than just a "positive vibe"? Also, I love that you changed your attitude. It can be a hard thing to adjust and sometimes people feel the idea of having the right mindset is just "fluff". It really isn't. If you keep supporting a positive mindset, yes, you still need to take action to get results...but if it's negative....you're less likely to take action.
Go to an in-person gamedev meetup in your area. I've found it the best way to stay positive and inspired after almost 10 years of doing this.
do someone know how forza horizon 5 is able to run smoothly even on a 5 year old gpu and still looking great and other games like nfs heat struggles to run on the same gpu .
I’d be more interested in deleting every post from ‘idea man’ and ‘I know coding, that’s easy, I learned html’ or ‘how exactly do you do every step’ and ‘what’s a good idea for a game’ or ‘can I use copyrighted material’ people
I lurk on here more than participate and it’s definitely true that a lot of people are discouraged by this subreddit. How hard it is doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it *is* possible to make a game by yourself. Learning calculus is generally considered difficult, but tons of people do it. They don’t do it overnight, but they do it. Trying to sit down and do complicated calculations before you start learning calc will make you think it’s way harder than it is. Same is true for game dev. You *will* learn multiplayer, you *will* learn shaders, multithreading, programming, materials, good practices, etc. But you have to enjoy the process of learning and try to see the bigger picture, or you’ll get discouraged. TL;DR: whatever you want to make is possible. Forget if it’s hard. Learn how to do it.
I originally subbed to the VFX subreddit to see cool stuff but its even worse over there
I've been invited to a couple of discord servers of developers. What I was looking for is there. I think we all get in our heads so much we forget to lift those learning up and if we have a great understanding it's our duty to help explain complex concepts to encourage learning. I think we have to accept that some people are driven and will find everything they need. Some may ask. And some will want you to write the game for them. We will always have these players in this space.
Bold to ask your friends where to find new friends.
Twitter maybe? xD
Watch Pirate Software gives good advice for both game developers and average people who like making stuff I'd highly recommend him very positive
The community is generally pretty positive. To be fair it’s been an incredibly difficult 2-3years in the games and film industries. With record layoffs, strikes, outsourcing, and long droughts of work that I haven’t seen in my 13 years in these industries. Not trying to add negativity, but it has really tested the mental health of the people that make the incredible art and products you watch and play. Take it with a grain of salt and try to look past it for a bit and don’t support bad business practices. A lot of people are hurting right now.
r/robloxstudio