Competition Fuels Passion
In 2012, I joined my first Game Jam. It was hosted by Smart DevNet and Unity Technologies at my school, the College of Saint Benilde. Since I was just starting out with Unity development, I had no idea how to approach a Game Jam. I saw this as an opportunity for me to prove myself as a serious developer, while also a chance to gauge the competition.
I talked about this in a previous post, but I'm going to use this entry to touch on competitiveness.
One of the best features of Benilde is our closeness with local industry. Our professors are industry professionals, having already worked on projects in the "real world". Not to mention, our chairperson is the Head of Education on the Game Developer's Association of the Philippines's board of directors. This tightness with industry provided us countless opportunities to showcase our skills as game developers and bring glory to our school.
Being a new course, the org didn't have much experience yet with events and there weren't many opportunities for us to meet the upperclassmen.. We heard stories of our upperclassmen competing in events and bagging the prizes, but never really got to see their work. I attribute it to a lack of a proper avenue to showcase student works and a paranoid reluctance to be judged by others. This lack of an overwhelmingly successful figure allowed my batch to fully exercise their skills with no pressure to fill in the shoes of those that came before us. There was no "right" way to do things and no "wrong" way, at least in the eyes of those in the course.
At the time, my batch was full of unknowns. Nobody really knew each other and we haven't really had a chance to prove ourselves in the actual creation of games. It was around the middle of 2nd year and we were just getting into Unity development. We had just finished Basic Programming, which taught us basic gameplay concepts like Collision and Physics, but we barely had any experience using a game engine. Unity was a strange new beast with its own interface and logic, getting into the mindset of Unity programming is a Eureka moment that takes a lot of practice and experience to get to.
My blockmates knew me as someone that's really good at programming, having gotten 4.0 in all of our programming subjects up to that point. I was very eager to prove myself; I took pride in my ability to quickly analyze systems and break them down into their moving parts. To me, games are interactive theater shows; with actors entering and exiting the stage, players serving as conductors, and the developer as the man behind the curtain.
I saw this as my chance to practice my skills and gauge the skill level of those around me. By being thrust into this challenge, we force out of ourselves the passion and spirit that defines us. Videogames are my life. Videogames define me. I was raised to chase my dreams, encouraged to pursue my passion. I told myself that if I did not do my best, then it would have all been a waste.
Of course, some would say thinking that way is dangerous. If we set such high standards for ourselves, then we would only be disappointed for not reaching them. Putting such great importance and value into something only exposes us to the threat of massive failure. Why get your hopes up, if there's so much risk of crashing?
I say, why not?
I believe that experiencing emotion is how we live. What is the point of pursuing our passions if we do not invest every fragment of our soul to it? It is in these moments that we gain actual experience, where we can glean lessons from our interactions with the people around us.
Actual experience is how we learn things, but having actual feelings is how we grow as a person. The problem is that people do not recognize challenges as opportunities to grow, only as more hassle in a world where they just want to get by. This I believe is brought about by the culture of the GDD course. People were coddled, their failures were buried, and successes were downplayed.
At the time, I struggled to connect with the upperclassmen. My competitiveness was seen as aggression, my confidence as arrogance; my passion was deemed childish and I was told that I took the course too seriously. Competition was frowned upon, it only hurt people's feelings and caused others to give up.
I read an article recently that talked about politeness in the indie filmmaking scene. Directors and creatives are too afraid to criticize each other publicly for fear of seeming anti-local. That they subconsciously lower their standards to blindly support any local endeavor, losing the objectivity that's required when judging a work on its own. This I feel is the mindset that permeated the GDD community.
We are too afraid to call each other out for fear of looking like the bad guy. Criticism of an idea is shooed in favor of overwhelming praise. We are giving everybody medals for simply showing up. And while showing up is a challenge in itself, we aren't giving enough importance to making games that are -actually- good. The conversation is non-existent. Self-improvement is impossible because of the lack of proper feedback.
In my opinion, competition brings out the best in everyone.
Only when we are faced with competent opposition are we pushed to the limits of our potential. Not only are we driven by the fear of failure, but by the love of victory. I believe many people don't put enough value in doing their best. It's often dismissed as a waste of time or seen as too self-serving, but I reject that. It's honestly ridiculous to me. Competitions and contests are obvious opportunities for us to better ourselves and improve our skillsets.
Anyway. Hahaha
My relationship with the game dev community is very tumultuous. I know I've made many enemies for my rhetoric, but honestly it's really just up to them. The way they interpret my words and actions is not for me to dictate. All I want is to inspire people to pursue their passion with vigor and to take pride in their victories.
Because who ever won with a defeatist attitude?
I talked about this in a previous post, but I'm going to use this entry to touch on competitiveness.
One of the best features of Benilde is our closeness with local industry. Our professors are industry professionals, having already worked on projects in the "real world". Not to mention, our chairperson is the Head of Education on the Game Developer's Association of the Philippines's board of directors. This tightness with industry provided us countless opportunities to showcase our skills as game developers and bring glory to our school.
Being a new course, the org didn't have much experience yet with events and there weren't many opportunities for us to meet the upperclassmen.. We heard stories of our upperclassmen competing in events and bagging the prizes, but never really got to see their work. I attribute it to a lack of a proper avenue to showcase student works and a paranoid reluctance to be judged by others. This lack of an overwhelmingly successful figure allowed my batch to fully exercise their skills with no pressure to fill in the shoes of those that came before us. There was no "right" way to do things and no "wrong" way, at least in the eyes of those in the course.
At the time, my batch was full of unknowns. Nobody really knew each other and we haven't really had a chance to prove ourselves in the actual creation of games. It was around the middle of 2nd year and we were just getting into Unity development. We had just finished Basic Programming, which taught us basic gameplay concepts like Collision and Physics, but we barely had any experience using a game engine. Unity was a strange new beast with its own interface and logic, getting into the mindset of Unity programming is a Eureka moment that takes a lot of practice and experience to get to.
My blockmates knew me as someone that's really good at programming, having gotten 4.0 in all of our programming subjects up to that point. I was very eager to prove myself; I took pride in my ability to quickly analyze systems and break them down into their moving parts. To me, games are interactive theater shows; with actors entering and exiting the stage, players serving as conductors, and the developer as the man behind the curtain.
I saw this as my chance to practice my skills and gauge the skill level of those around me. By being thrust into this challenge, we force out of ourselves the passion and spirit that defines us. Videogames are my life. Videogames define me. I was raised to chase my dreams, encouraged to pursue my passion. I told myself that if I did not do my best, then it would have all been a waste.
Of course, some would say thinking that way is dangerous. If we set such high standards for ourselves, then we would only be disappointed for not reaching them. Putting such great importance and value into something only exposes us to the threat of massive failure. Why get your hopes up, if there's so much risk of crashing?
I say, why not?
I believe that experiencing emotion is how we live. What is the point of pursuing our passions if we do not invest every fragment of our soul to it? It is in these moments that we gain actual experience, where we can glean lessons from our interactions with the people around us.
Actual experience is how we learn things, but having actual feelings is how we grow as a person. The problem is that people do not recognize challenges as opportunities to grow, only as more hassle in a world where they just want to get by. This I believe is brought about by the culture of the GDD course. People were coddled, their failures were buried, and successes were downplayed.
At the time, I struggled to connect with the upperclassmen. My competitiveness was seen as aggression, my confidence as arrogance; my passion was deemed childish and I was told that I took the course too seriously. Competition was frowned upon, it only hurt people's feelings and caused others to give up.
I read an article recently that talked about politeness in the indie filmmaking scene. Directors and creatives are too afraid to criticize each other publicly for fear of seeming anti-local. That they subconsciously lower their standards to blindly support any local endeavor, losing the objectivity that's required when judging a work on its own. This I feel is the mindset that permeated the GDD community.
We are too afraid to call each other out for fear of looking like the bad guy. Criticism of an idea is shooed in favor of overwhelming praise. We are giving everybody medals for simply showing up. And while showing up is a challenge in itself, we aren't giving enough importance to making games that are -actually- good. The conversation is non-existent. Self-improvement is impossible because of the lack of proper feedback.
In my opinion, competition brings out the best in everyone.
Only when we are faced with competent opposition are we pushed to the limits of our potential. Not only are we driven by the fear of failure, but by the love of victory. I believe many people don't put enough value in doing their best. It's often dismissed as a waste of time or seen as too self-serving, but I reject that. It's honestly ridiculous to me. Competitions and contests are obvious opportunities for us to better ourselves and improve our skillsets.
Confidence and skills are not special stats that you are born with. They are built and strengthened by dropping ourselves into challenging situations and dealing with the result, be it failure or victory. Competitions provide us the opportunity to hone our skillsets, explore the limits of our imaginations, and deepen our relationships with those around us, friends and foes.
Based on what I’ve observed in my 5 years in the GDD course, the best quality work always comes out when there is a desire to win. When we are conscious that other people are doing their best, we squeeze our brains and make the most of the resources we have available. We push ourselves more. Not only that, but we grow more confident with ourselves, and that is vital to our growth as not only game developers, but as healthy humans.
There seems to be a looming cloud hanging over our heads, that when someone addresses the passion they feel for something, someone would always say: “Who cares?” or “It’s just an award.” Excuse my language, but FUCK that noise. Sorry, realists. Defeatist attitudes only want to pull down and undercut the effort put into making something of ourselves. These competitions are NOT just for awards or titles, they are our chance to immerse ourselves into the game. The attitude towards these events always irked me because, for some reason, it’s “cool” to not care about things. This hurts the community as a whole by killing the genuine passion a lot of people feel and cannot express for fear of being ridiculed.
Anyway. Hahaha
My relationship with the game dev community is very tumultuous. I know I've made many enemies for my rhetoric, but honestly it's really just up to them. The way they interpret my words and actions is not for me to dictate. All I want is to inspire people to pursue their passion with vigor and to take pride in their victories.
Because who ever won with a defeatist attitude?
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