Recent thinking about engineering job hunting reminded me of how I related to games, so I am leaving notes to organize my thoughts.

I was born in the 1980s and experienced the arrival of the Famicom, released on July 15, 1983, and the Super Famicom, released on November 21, 1990, as well as the later Sega Saturn, released on November 22, 1994, and PlayStation, released on December 3, 1994, during adolescence.

I also experienced the arcade boom that began with the arcade version of Street Fighter II in 1991. I was fascinated by Virtua Fighter, released in 1993, and became drawn to 3D games. This continued until around 2000, when I entered high school and my immersion in games, or in nuance, making games part of my identity, gradually weakened.

After that, I played console games, browser games, and social games about as much as an ordinary person, but now I hardly play. Even so, the existence of games as a concept remains very large inside me.

What fascinated me about games, using a modern term, was narrative. Narrative is an English word meaning story or storytelling, but it is often used in contrast with story. Unlike story, where everyone talks about one same plotline, narrative is a concept in which each person can tell their own open path.

For example, looking back, the existence of famous arcade players and strategy notebooks compiled at various game centers was narrative-like. Because of that, games became a concept onto which I could project myself, and they could become part of my identity.

The thing that threatened this was the internet. At first, bulletin boards contributed to expanding narratives, but gradually strategies began to be collected into one place. And the information was quite precise. Then, little by little, information was referenced like a manual, and game technique became a world of right and wrong answers, good and bad moves.

The change in experiences around RPGs was especially clear. In the early days, people puzzled over mystery-solving games and talked in communities such as school about who had solved them. Even bugs became a kind of narrative. After the arrival of the internet, I think the experience shifted to following the game story along a manual while looking up information. Games became less something to be talked about and more something to be cleared by a single best strategy, though not for every game.

I think this is why I seriously moved away from games.

Recent job-hunting and survival strategies for software engineers seem to be following the same path. People say: becoming an engineer gives you more discretion, and I want that kind of job. So I want to become an engineer as quickly and efficiently as possible. What is the best way to get hired as an engineer?

On the other hand, when I look at people close to me who seem to be happily absorbed in engineering, it feels extremely narrative-like. They have engineers they respect, or experiences they cannot fully put into words that they gained through continuing product development.

Of course, there is no need to make wasteful effort. But if software development itself feels like something painful that you want to avoid, I feel that you have moved away from the essence of the fun of engineering and making things. The joy of making a computer move, the joy of user reactions, the joy of building together with others: I feel we must not forget these.

In short, I am not saying you should not refer to strategy guides or correct methods for getting an engineering job. Rather, I think it is better to refer to them to some degree. However, that is not all there is. The real fun exists beyond strategy guides. It would be good to stay aware of that.