Get paid for playing games?

[Knuckle Duster]

I've been backup in an office handling testing before. It's no picnic, which is to say that it's much like every other office job. If you want an accurate representation of it, watch the first half hour of the movie Office Space, just imagine that the employees are given the liberty of wearing casual clothes all week, and have a second computer at their cubical which happens to run a shitty beta version of the latest Halo.

Writing on a deadline is shit work too. Being a game reviewer would be no better than testing.

Writing in itself is horrible these days, pick up any news paper and you'll see regular suckhole journalism blindly praising things while not addressing a pressing issue (usually copy-pasta hack jobs from other rags); Contrasted by op-ed's that are completely retarded, irrelevant, or stupid and unfit for blog traffic.

[17daysolderthannes]

Writing on a deadline is shit work too. Being a game reviewer would be no better than testing.

I don't see how. I mean, everyone on here "writes on a deadline" all the time when we make posts. We basically just express what we want to say about something, and that's that. The only difference is that in a formal review you can't be as abrasive and you have to spell/grammar check your work (which I usually do anyway). Spitting out a couple pages on a game you just played is something people do all over the internet for fun, just read reviews of games on Amazon, they're longer than many commercial reviews.

Writing in itself is horrible these days, pick up any news paper and you'll see regular suckhole journalism blindly praising things while not addressing a pressing issue (usually copy-pasta hack jobs from other rags); Contrasted by op-ed's that are completely retarded, irrelevant, or stupid and unfit for blog traffic.

This is only true because of oversaturation of jackasses. Everyone has a dream job of making a living by just speaking their mind, but the truth is that most people's mind's aren't worth hearing. Still, there's nothing keeping dumbasses from blogging their ass off about shit they don't understand (for fucks sake someone stop the clueless anti-GameStop bloggers "oh noes! they only gave me $5 for a horrible game I bought a month ago! boo GameStop!").

The biggest problem with journalists, and the reason I basically don't read any form of news anymore, is that you have people with a LANGUAGE/COMMUNICATIONS degree posing as an expert. Even worse than those is the "activists" like the morons handing out environmentalists pamphlets about buying hybrids when hybrids have been proven to be only marginally more fuel efficient while being nearly impossible to economically repair in a wreck due to the complexity and having batteries that are horrible for the environment to manufacture, etc. All of these "green" bandwagon jumpers can go to hell, they need to learn WTF they're talking about before they go blogging their "ideals".

[Knuckle Duster]

I don't see how. I mean, everyone on here "writes on a deadline" all the time when we make posts. We basically just express what we want to say about something, and that's that. The only difference is that in a formal review you can't be as abrasive and you have to spell/grammar check your work (which I usually do anyway). Spitting out a couple pages on a game you just played is something people do all over the internet for fun, just read reviews of games on Amazon, they're longer than many commercial reviews.



This is only true because of oversaturation of jackasses. Everyone has a dream job of making a living by just speaking their mind, but the truth is that most people's mind's aren't worth hearing. Still, there's nothing keeping dumbasses from blogging their ass off about shit they don't understand (for fucks sake someone stop the clueless anti-GameStop bloggers "oh noes! they only gave me $5 for a horrible game I bought a month ago! boo GameStop!").

The biggest problem with journalists, and the reason I basically don't read any form of news anymore, is that you have people with a LANGUAGE/COMMUNICATIONS degree posing as an expert. Even worse than those is the "activists" like the morons handing out environmentalists pamphlets about buying hybrids when hybrids have been proven to be only marginally more fuel efficient while being nearly impossible to economically repair in a wreck due to the complexity and having batteries that are horrible for the environment to manufacture, etc. All of these "green" bandwagon jumpers can go to hell, they need to learn WTF they're talking about before they go blogging their "ideals".

You have no concept of the editorial review process, or what good writing is.

Looking at this post as an example, your point ends up being lost as the train of thought (much like most of what you contribute) veers off course, into a quagmire of contempt for something else entirely.

[MrMatthews]

*smirk*

[Roussimoff]

Knuckle, I was going to say that you and 17Days are like Al and Peg, but no....

More like Brian and Stewie... You choose who is who, eh?

X - Apples ARE in fact the superior to oranges, EVERYONE knows that, STUPID!

O - Actually, oranges contain vitamin C and are FAR superior nutritionally!

X - Pshhh..yeah...if you like SOUR shit with SEEDS in it!

O - Actually, if you check your FACTS, you will find that many varieties of citrus are quite SWEET!

...and etc...

Great stuff! Gives me a laugh without fail!

[Why-Disciple]

Even that's not what you probably think it is. At one time, games were made with just an artist and a programmer: the artist decided the story and gist of the game and did all of the artwork and the programmer fine tuned the gameplay and made the whole thing work. Now, every game is so huge in scope that a programmer's entire contribution might be to make a character's shirt flap in the wind realistically. Furthermore, you don't have any say in what the game is or is about, you just kind of take whatever the higher ups say they want to make. Indy developers are the only ones that are really making exactly what they want anymore.

That's why I wanted to do it as a kid. Back then that's basically what it was. Nowadays, I still wouldn't find it as bad of a job since I'm going to major in computer engineering, so learning to program would still make a better job than moving a character around and writing reports.

(I put "good" in quotes because I personally don't understand any appeal in wandering around reading pages of text "dialogue" and then fighting monsters that consists of hitting "X" to select the "attack" and then watching the same animation over and over again).

Rep.

[17daysolderthannes]

You have no concept of the editorial review process, or what good writing is.

Looking at this post as an example, your point ends up being lost as the train of thought (much like most of what you contribute) veers off course, into a quagmire of contempt for something else entirely.

The posts I make on this forum are not an example of "exemplary writing". Most of the time I forgo proper grammar for the sake of compacting my statements (my posts are plenty long as is) and because I really don't feel like extended proof reading (beyond horrendous sentence structures and misspellings) when I don't need to.

Still, writing reviews, etc. is not that difficult and if the editorial process is "hard" or "difficult" to you...you're an idiot.

Did I just contradict myself? no. Editing=somewhat time consuming and me=not willing to do that for the sake of a forum post.

God dammit, why am I even entertaining your post with a response? you're a worse troll baiter than Robivy.

Nowadays, I still wouldn't find it as bad of a job since I'm going to major in computer engineering, so learning to program would still make a better job than moving a character around and writing reports.

Prepare to be surprised. I don't know much (or any) of C or any other language used by game makers (btw, does anyone know if they program in C or do they use some kind of "game maker" utility?), but I used to make websites in pure HTML back in junior high and to call it extremely tedious is an understatement. Also, don't think all you'll be covering in that major is game design, computer engineering is pretty broad in scope and there will be math that will make you wonder if you're reading an alien language. Talk to someone that's a junior/senior in the exact major you want to go into before signing up to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into.

[MrMatthews]

Knuckle, I was going to say that you and 17Days are like Al and Peg, but no....

More like Brian and Stewie... You choose who is who, eh?

Except Brian and Stewie actually like each other, despite how they talk to one another.

17 & KD don't.

[Knuckle Duster]

The posts I make on this forum are not an example of "exemplary writing". Most of the time I forgo proper grammar for the sake of compacting my statements (my posts are plenty long as is) and because I really don't feel like extended proof reading (beyond horrendous sentence structures and misspellings) when I don't need to.

Still, writing reviews, etc. is not that difficult and if the editorial process is "hard" or "difficult" to you...you're an idiot.

I never said it was, I've just pointed out that you need only look at your unedited post as an example of bad writing. The editorial process of refining a written body of work is fundamental that proves to be time consuming, and only a problem when deadlines are involved.

Is it hard? No.
Is it shit work comparable to the shit work of being a game tester? Yes. That was the discussion, no?

Did I just contradict myself? no. Editing=somewhat time consuming and me=not willing to do that for the sake of a forum post.

It's too bad you can't apply that logic to understand what you're arguing against with this response.

God dammit, why am I even entertaining your post with a response? you're a worse troll baiter than Robivy.

Because you obviously feel compelled to elaborate endlessly about your opinion on a subject, to almost any response.

Prepare to be surprised. I don't know much (or any) of C or any other language used by game makers (btw, does anyone know if they program in C or do they use some kind of "game maker" utility?), but I used to make websites in pure HTML back in junior high and to call it extremely tedious is an understatement. Also, don't think all you'll be covering in that major is game design, computer engineering is pretty broad in scope and there will be math that will make you wonder if you're reading an alien language. Talk to someone that's a junior/senior in the exact major you want to go into before signing up to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into.

Programming languages are portable, most developers use something like Eclipse to write in, export the code to whatever dev kit tools they need to run it via plugins and test it that way.

That's not always the case, but it's usually how it works.