utaklaya: Video Game Developer: A Useless Opportunity?

As a game developer, I've been troubled by these questions: what can I do for the society? How can I serve my country? I think graduating from a state university gives me those kinds of challenge. My witty response: I am a tax payer. It seemed reasonable but the problem is, so does everyone else. They might be sharing even greater taxes than me. The worse part is they're not just tax payers but they're actually serving the country! How lame is that? That's why I thought of another excuse: we, the game developers, create possible sources of entertainment.

Imagine a world without entertainment: no sports; no books; no movies; no music; no interesting discoveries; no internet! Just plain people living their plain lives. Everyday is just another day. Nothing is worth looking forward to. You just do your job today and resume tomorrow. If done, you just move on with a new project. You will have this kind of routine for the rest of your life.

It's fun having entertainment but you might be wondering, is it necessary? Well, having fun is part of being human. We just have to deal with the fact that everyone have their own sources of fun.

Of course that's not all about video games. Aside from entertainment, we can create games that can help improve your cognitive skills. They will require you to think and can stimulate your mind for learning. We can integrate subjects like Science, Math, or Grammar. With games, we can make studying more fun.

For those who can't accept that video games are good sources of entertainment and learning, just remember that you are not everybody; you're just somebody. As I've said, everyone have their own sources of fun. Also, it's not fair saying that these sort of things destroy human life. Video games do not ruin people's lives; people ruin people's lives, even their own. Being irresponsible is not the video games' fault.

Here's another thing, I'm not just helping others; I'm also helping myself. Being a game developer gives me a lot of opportunities to learn and at the same time, have fun. Everyday, we think of possible solutions for every problems or bugs that we encounter. We adapt to new ideas. We conduct endless researches for us not to fall behind from this fast developing age of technology. Helping myself is helping the society because I am the society.

I'm not saying that this is a perfect job. It just so happens that there seem to be a lot of people who can't see the relevance of what we love to do; the relevance of developing games. It's not easy developing games but at least I am not one of those who hate their jobs to the point that they even curse Mondays.