A psychology question really .. what is it about game development in particular that makes the typical first posts of a beginner something like:

'For my first game, I want to make one like this, that took 50 programmers, artists, and designers 3 years to make, but mine will be better, obviously and like, twice as big. I don't know any programming languages or how to make art. I'm thinking of using Unity, and I expect to finish it in 2 weeks. How should I begin?'.

Not just beginners, more experienced developers and teams regularly fall into the same traps (and myself all the time ).

I just can't imagine for example, on a forum for builders, first posts like 'Hi, for my first building, I'm thinking of making one like the Taj Mahal, only twice as big and impressive. I don't know how to lay bricks. How should I start?'. Or in music composition 'Hi, for my first composition, I'm thinking of making one like Moonlight Sonata, only much more impressive. I can't play the piano. How do I start?'.

Why do we do this?

I think a big factor is that video games aren't physical things, but just data. Game development does - at least in theory(!!) - not require any money, supporters or physical resources beyond what most people (at least in rich countries) already own anyway. With infinite time and infinite knowledge, you could really create any sort of game completely on your own. You don't need to buy anything (all required software is available for free), you usually don't need to care about laws, and there is nobody you depend on who could just say "no" for whatever reason.

Compare this to constructing a building: Even if you had all the knowledge that is required for all aspects of the construction, you still need to buy land to build on, you need to buy building material and machines, many tasks are probably physically impossible to do alone, and you need to folllow a ton of regulations to avoid being shut down.

Without all these things, it is not so surprising that the efforts of game development are drastically underestimated by many people.

Two more thoughts:

- Since there is no initial risk involved at all, fantasizing about crazily huge unrealistic software development projects is just much less frightening. All you need to invest is some time, and if you fail, you haven't lost anything other than that time..

- The less you understand about software development, the less you can imagine how much work it is. Everbody has somewhat of an idea of what it takes to build a house, because you can see people doing it frequently somewhere in your town. But in a non-developer's everyday life, you usually don't see people working on video games, so how could you get a realistic impression of it?

2 hours ago, JulieMaru-chan said:

 It's a form of the Dunning-Krueger Effect, really.

This

Very good input from all of you guys. Agree there's a lot of Dunning-Krueger going on.

There also seems to be an element of that child-like 'mine is going to be better than yours' effect. I don't know whether this is something we are born with, or something our parents / schools instil in us, the need to be 'better' and impress. Certainly not all people have it to the same extent.

I have a sneaking suspicion it is something encouraged more in male children than female children, I anecdotally have heard more often males express belief that they will be 'the best footballer' or whatever. I guess society tends to reward and respect those who are better, and there can be ridicule (particularly for kids) when they are not good at something.

There is also an element of many parents often saying to their kids 'you are the greatest', so the kids end up subconsciously primed to believe that they are better than average.

Overall I don't think this competitive 'need to be better' is a bad thing, it has probably helped lead to many of mankind's advances. But there can be negative consequences too (sometimes catastrophic) so important to keep some kind of perspective.