To begin with, this subject overall went (relatively) quite a bit better than education did, despite its somewhat misleading title. For recap, the subject was about when young people want to become game makers.
Rando Post No. 4: You Can Ce Whatever You Want to Be*
I forgot to mention how there are reasons other than parents implying otherwise that this isn’t true. For instance, I used to want to be a fighter pilot, thanks to Ace Combat 5.
Last week, I wrote about how children shouldn’t be discouraged from getting involved in making games when the popular opinion is that they shouldn’t, and how people shouldn’t actively discourage them. However, some people would find this a rather naive argument. So, here I consider their side.
It’s alright for a kid to try it out, but not every kid who does is really cut out for making games. In fact, most of the time, they aren’t.
Last week, I ended by asking you to remember a certain statistic – that the future career of “game designer” is among the top three choices among children aged 8 to 10, as reported by this article. This week, I plan to talk a little bit more about that specifically, and how it drops off the chart afterwards.
Many children play video games [citation needed]. At some point, a fairly large number of them want to make some of their own, primarily when they are between ages 8 and 10, as stated before. However, most of the time, they find other things that they find that they would rather do.
As an aspiring game developer, I value the importance of dreaming big when it comes to what one wants to do with his/her life. I value doing whatever it takes (within reason, and legal) to achieve long-term goals. But there is a caveat to all of this that adults don’t tend to consider when relaying this to children. Hints: the parentheses earlier, and the asterisk in the title.
This topic came to me when I saw this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal comic. As a little tangent, you may be seeing that publication referenced quite a bit here at CWG.