Procrastination Invasion Thread

I listen to a podcast called Writing Excuses. The reason being is that advice for film, books, comics, what have you, can often be applied to games. The original version of Robert Rodriguez 10 minute film school can be applied to games or other projects. Anyway, in Writing Excuses I noticed a few topics that pop up multiple times that reflect what I see in game development around me, and one I want to talk about is procrastination.

Simply put, I noticed alot of people will work their arses off, catch a lucky break, or both, in order to get a foot in the door. With the hard part done, all they have to do is follow through to live the dream, but more often than not, they squander it.

One topic I feel strongly about in universities, and how they are not a golden ticket to the games. Some people assume this is jealousy on my part, as I was denied the chance to learn the technical skills I wanted to. However, time and again, despite learning how to code and model and animated and work under some no name developer who claims to have worked on some of the biggest games of the last 10 years, as soon as they have these skills they kick back, whine about it, and eventually get a job at a call centre or Burger King or something without ever putting out a game of their own. In Writing Excuses, they imply more than once that, once an author gets published, they kick back, procrastinate, fail to meet contracts and generally squander the opportunity.

My question is, why? Are they really nieve? Is it something about their education? It seems odd to me that these people get the once in a life time opportunity to turn their passion into a job, and almost every one of them squanders it. I used to think it was a games thing, but after hearing that almost exactly the same thing happens with books, it makes me wonder if there is something going on here.

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I think this is a pretty broad generalization. For every story (and I haven't heard many) where people squander their opportunities, there are at least two where the opposite happened--where a no-name became a someone through diligence and hard work.

As far as education goes: you're right. Going and getting a degree in game design will not win you a job simply by the virtue of your diploma. People who get their foot in the door are people who work, people who make games on the side and build up their portfolio. Shown experience has proven itself just as valuable (if not more so in some cases) than a piece of paper (remember the phrase 'C's get degrees!' Some diploma holders are not all that talented or hard-working). This all being said by me, who, for the record, has graduated from college.

In general though, I've rarely heard stories of people squandering their golden ticket. Most people who aren't given everything in life in the first place and who fought their way to that opportunity are usually hungry enough to take it and run. Awesome reference story: Bill Gates.

I think I throwed my golden ticket out the window. I went to a school about game design to find like minded people, who would be interested in making same kind of games as I like.. but I really didn't find any of that. Now I'm a complete slacker, or at least 72% according to a test I just took. Also probably one of the reasons I got through that one school was because it was only 2 years and I probably spent half the time at home, and even when I went to the school, I was half a day late, so basically, it was just 6 months worth of school...

I once heard opportunities are made, not given. And although it came from a TV commercial (which we all know can't really be trusted), I have embraced it.
It's sad to see that people who have the resources readily available don't make a good use of them, or their time. But anyway, we're a ton of people on Earth, and that's gonna mean a lot of ying, and a lot of yang.