Do you want to make GAMES or game ENGINES?

Thank you to the following Patreon supporters:
- Dominic Pace
- Kevin Gregory Agwaze
- Sébastien Bervoets
- Tobias Humig
- Peter Siegmund
- Kerem Demirer

Gear I use:
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[Tehnikification]

For me making games based on unity or unreal it's like cooking frozen food. yes it's easy, cheap, time saving but it does not deliver that pleasure. Food as any other food, but cooked by your own hands is always tastier. You always can experimentate, some times fail, but ends always pays the costs. Only dive into the deep forest can give this sort of expirience.

[hypersans]

Cherno: Make 2 or 3 games before rewriting the engine

Bethesda: or 10

[WinningEmpire]

I tried Unity and Unreal and it just feels like painting a wall, whereas making the engine myself feels like I'm building the wall myself. Terrible analogy but I prefer to build the wall myself so I know how everything works.

[Garbaz]

Ey, that's like a few kilometers from my home :D It might even be possible to spot my town from one of the aerial shots.

[VivekYadav-dsoz]

If you're interested in making your own world, give a home to your imagination, tell a good story. Basically if you like the art side of games, (music, character development, story, etc.), and have absolutely no (or barely any) problem with doing programming, go and make games.

If you like knowing how things are done at their base structure, love playing with fundamental logics, and love the technical side of games, and like to build everything from scratch, then you'll probably more likely love making game engines.

[null]

Honestly I just love programming, when it comes down to it I just want to learn new stuff, I have gotten into programming through game creation but I do enjoy all aspects of programming and although I am always more driven towards a gameplay programming job I do like to have a deeper understanding of the tools that I use and are available to me and if I need a tool I don't have money to buy or simply doesn't exist being able to create it myself even if only with the most basic of functionalities its always a plus in my book!

[SketchpunkLabs]

I personally would love to make games, BUT at the same time I want to build my own engine and learn all the nitty gritty bits of graphics programming. In my learning process, knowing the nitty gritty makes creating games actually easier for the most part since you force yourself to learn all this underling math and technology. At the same time, this knowledge can be translated to augmented reality or other sorts of applications. Like you can take your base engine and make a floor plan application, or do a room furnishing app like idea. The israel military used hololens to create a AR mission command with maps showing their assets and enemy position. So the idea of building an engine yourself means you can turn around and build more then just games and you'll probably make more money building those things then games, unless you have a killer unique game idea, then you'll make some cash. Now, i'm not saying to do this for the pure pursuit of money, just ideas of what directions you can go if you love this sort of work and at the same time want to keep a roof and your plates full.

[ceskehry]

Hi Cherno, it is now 2 years of you teaching me how to program stuff in a really cool way! I got really good with java and can't wait to learn OpenGL and C++(starting today). If I learned just from textbooks and stuff, I would have never gotten so far, THANK YOU!

[sudanal-hilali]

it's amazing that you are so pure and honest ⁦👍🏼⁩

[ucmRich]

I am a game developer. I am a software engineer/architect. Your channel is exactly what I have been needing for over a decade. I wish I had all of your videos back then, I would have been something truly spectacular :-)

[greatbullet]

You are the Top One Educational Software Engineer on Youtube. Bucky Roberts is good yes but you set a new Standard.

[therobin]

I definitely agree about the difference and the amount of knowledge that is needed in both areas.
One argument I have for learning Engine development even if you want to make games is that you dont want to be be there in the future when you are making a game and you have no idea how to implement a feature, even if you ask around the web on ways to approach it you quickly see that its either way beyond your level of knowledge or way too time consuming and that you need to start looking into other solutions. this way you need to rely more on the help or generosity of people to help you.
If you are familiar with engine programming you can see how to implement it yourself or atleast see that the desired result is too expensive of an investment.

[ferrisateniese]

Actually, I'm interested in building compilers and optimization there's a lot of overlapping subjects
I really like what you're doing and your videos are very helpful thanks a lot man :)

[OlDirtyBuckus]

I primarily want to make games, but I would like to to understand how a game engine works/c++ coding in general.

[naoki]

TheBennyBox had an approach to this and had a slightly different response with it. That distinction is something he is trying address. In the past YouTube and his channel had tutorials on making engines, but making an engine is quite different from a game. Not many people had an idea what to do after making an engine and he's going over how to make games with an engine currently. These conversations are good and it's pretty awesome having creators like you having these different approaches.

[creaturefeet]

Excellent video! I've never seen a video covering this specific topic so kudos!

[aryesegal]

I slapped myself so many times during the course of this video thinking there are bugs/mosquitos everywhere. Thanks for that, Cherno :\
Seriously tho, we love you! Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge with us. Keep safe in Germany! :)

[programyourface]

This is exactly what I am and was realizing as a 17 year old programmer. I started and I thought I wanted to make games but in really it I just love making algorithms and R&D. I've recently shifted to Machine learning with applications to real time graphics and rendering.

[PuraTvOyun]

Currently i study Digital Game Design at Bahcesehir University/Turkey. I was thinking that this is what i want but recently i wasn't that sure about what i really want. Thanks to you now i have a better idea about what i want and even myself. THANK YOU!!! (By the way, i was looking for some C++ tutorials, tips and tricks when i saw your channel :) )

[alexflex]

This is a question I've been asking myself for a while. I feel like I’m a bit like you in the sense that I don’t play video games nearly as much as I used to. Currently, I’m doing an internship at Ubisoft as a gameplay programmer and even though I enjoy it so far, I realize I don’t have the same passion that my coworkers have for games in general. Luckily for me, I will also have the opportunity to do another internship at WB Games in rendering right after this one. Hopefully this will help me make up my mind!