Learning C++/Unreal Engine After C#/Unity

Ah, the classic indie game developer financial strategy! Why struggle with bootstrapping when you can just burn through a fortune instead? The gaming industry's version of "how to make a small fortune in aviation: start with a large one." Most indie devs are out here eating ramen while debugging collision detection at 3 AM, but apparently the secret sauce was just having a billion dollars to begin with. Silly me, I've been doing it all wrong!

Going to prison in 2009: GTX 480 was cutting edge. Coming back in 2023: "DLSS? Ray tracing? 40-series? Is this even the same planet?" The hardware acceleration gap hits harder than prison food. At least in jail you expect to get stabbed - graphics card prices these days are the real crime.

Game devs scrolling through Unity Asset Store or Unreal Marketplace at 2 AM be like: "Ooh, a photorealistic medieval tavern pack for $89.99! My game is set in space, but I NEED this." The rational part of your brain knows you're making a 2D puzzle game, but that AAA-quality dragon model is calling your name like a siren. Next thing you know, your project folder has 47GB of unused assets and your bank account is crying. The struggle is real—you're literally drowning in temptation, desperately trying to escape before you click "Add to Cart" on that anime character bundle that has absolutely zero relevance to your survival horror game.

The perfect encapsulation of game developer paranoia! When someone asks about their game's progress, they immediately assume the person has heard some terrible news. That nervous smile says it all - "My game is totally fine and definitely not a buggy mess held together by duct tape and prayers! Why? Did GitHub leak my commit messages about the physics engine being 'temporarily' disabled since 2021?" This is the digital equivalent of responding to "How are you?" with "Why? What have people been saying about me?!"

The irony of NVIDIA DLSS in a nutshell. Left side: crystal clear landscape. Right side: same landscape but blurry as hell with the NVIDIA DLSS logo proudly stamped on it. Apparently "next-gen gaming" means trading actual clarity for the privilege of your GPU fans sounding like they're preparing for takeoff. Remember when we optimized games instead of just smearing vaseline on the screen and calling it "enhanced"? Those were the days when 60 FPS didn't require a second mortgage. Now we're paying premium prices for the honor of squinting at fuzzy textures while our electricity bills fund a small nation.

Remember when NVIDIA politely asked you to upgrade your graphics card? Those were the days. Now they sit on their silicon throne, looking down at us mere mortals with contempt. "Buy our $2000 GPU or continue living in your pathetic low-polygon world, peasant." The transformation from humble tech company to aristocratic overlord is complete. And we just keep throwing money at them like the desperate frame-rate addicts we are.