MysteryCorgi

I always see people debating over terms for different RPG games, but I've devised a foolproof way to make sense of it. Once and for all, here's the new official RPG terminology:

• Western style RPGs were originally created for computers, so we should call them computer role playing games, or CRPG
• Japanese style RPGs were originally created for consoles, so naturally we should call them console role playing games, or CRPG
• Chinese style RPGs are developed in Chinese-speaking places, so we can differentiate them by calling them Chinese role playing games, or CRPG

• Analog RPGs that you play with dice and paper are developed to be played on a surface, so we can differentiate them by calling them countertop role playing games, or

Queer Games Bundle is back for a fourth year, with 500 queer games and artworks $60 (or $10+), the low-end cost of a new AAA game.

We've joined charity TTRPGs for Palestine as Featured Bundles on the itchio homepage! Check us both out.

✨ http://itch.io/b/2506

I will reiterate again that, on top of everything else wrong with games, for a programmer at least it is an absolutely terrible way to make money. A few data points in favor of this argument:

• if you exclude the salary we paid ourselves during CE's development, I have made less money from Gaslamp's thirteen years of existence than I have made at my day job for a FAANG-esque entity in the past three months. Even if you include it, it's probably less than I have made at the last six. (That salary got pretty damned non-existent towards the end of CE's development, too.) This argument could use some mild adjusting for inflation, but even still.
• Moving from game development to working for Google in 2017 basically quadrupled my total compensation, and that was after negotiating a role at Activision that was a low six-figure salary.
• Moving to my current employer after four years at Google tripled my salary, lets me do graphics research which I love, and our stock performance hasn't been bad at all.

So, if you're a programmer, and a good programmer, you can work in a labor market where the following things are true:

• you are probably making at least 50% less than you could make in non-games
• even with the recent layoffs at Google and a few other places, it's still less widespread than the recent game industry pandemic
• you can actively enjoy worse work-life balance
• you can, depending on your role in industry, race, and gender, also actively enjoy being openly despised, shouted at online, and occasionally even stalked and threatened in person, by your customers. also bomb threats
• and, harping back on this again, the major awards programs for indies actually refuse to acknowledge your existence because nobody knows what "technical excellence" is and has never bothered to define it; so it's not like I can receive the accolades of my peers either.

Or, you know, you could literally do anything else and have a nice life.

The thing that keeps folks in games is that they are rewarding to create. It is rewarding to make art! It is rewarding to make interactive media! The people in the business, in the trenches, are some of the greatest! The technology, the mathematics, the algorithms behind games are fascinating and wonderful and tremendous fun to work with and on. But, at some point, that simply isn't enough. And that's why we have no senior talent in games programming, except for a few crotchety oddballs who have already largely opted out of the system.

Again, I don't know what to do about this. I really don't.