Mar 21, 2016. Why game programming?

  I think I should remain the record of yesterday's contemplation on my future. I was seriously confused about what to focus when studying. My mind said to dive into game design, my brain into game programming, and my dad into AI. My dad's advice was quite recent(after Alphago have won over Se-dol Lee), but consistent and frequent enough to confuse myself on what I should do. Fortunately, yesterday's contemplation made it clear; the area of AI is really really prominent, but if I was going to follow external rewards - or how the area is going to be bright in the future -, I would have been doing something other than programming. External rewards haven't really attracted me much since my early youth, and therefore were not considered at all when I was deciding to go to Korea Game Science High School. The only factor that made me take a step toward programming was the possibility of games as mediums and that programming was the only method to create games. I am going to move to game design in the end, because game design is actually about using games as mediums, but I am going to concentrate on game programming while studying at Digipen. Having an idea is easy and everyone can do that, but convincing it at its raw state is really hard. An idea that is actually implemented and visualized, that actually became visible and tangible, is much more convincing and persuasive. Above this, prototyping proves/disproves the validity of the idea and makes you see what's in it beyond the idea. Also, it is a *safer path for either getting a job or for beginning a start-up, which I will probably do after graduating Digipen.