«У детей-геймеров будут проблемы с общением»: опровергаем 5 мифов об играх, геймерах и создании игр
Is it possible to become a developer alone? What do game testers do? Is a gamer child good or bad? We asked Konstantin Klumotsky, Kodland Senior Methodologist to confirm or refute five known statements about child gamers, games and their creation. Let’s see what we have got.
1. «If the child plays a lot he/she will lose motivation and interest in studying»
Everything needs a measure. In my opinion, an hour of video games a day is okay. Of course, if your child prefers games to studying then she/he will be less stressed and will develop other skills like attention, reading in English as well as multitasking. Children used to play chess or video games, read books and they have video games and phone games now. It’s the same passion” says Konstantin.
2. «Gamer children will have trouble communicating and dealing with emotions»
Konstantin: “Children can communicate in chat rooms, find friends from other cities and meet for the first time on interests. There are some concerns about censorship because not all games are moderated. Yes, a child may encounter an obscene vocabulary online, but she/he may as well hear it on the street”.
3. «Being a game tester is interesting»
Konstantin: “Testers have many routine tasks like filling in reports and documents as well as working on algorithms. These specialists are also less in demand and earn less than programmers or, for example, site developers. Increasingly, games are tested for free on real people, then their behavior is analyzed by metrics to refine the game.
4. «There is little work for game developers in Russia that is why this profession is not in demand»
Konstantin: Many professional conferences are held in Russia for game developers and creators, where companies look for their employees and share their experience. There’s a lot of work, especially in the mobile games sphere. Another question is that the lifespan of the game is short. It can lead the top downloads for a month and no one will remember it in another month..
5. “You can’t create games alone. You need a development team to do it"
Konstantin: That’s not true. For example, Minecraft was created by a single developer. In 2016, there was a famous story about a 14-year-old gamer and programmer from Moldova who had earned money on his own Steam game. The difficulty is that creating games requires skills in several areas. You have to be able to make graphics, work with sounds, do programming and also can think about promoting the game. In general, the first projects people do alone, but naturally, you need a multidisciplinary team in order to move to a new level.