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Haha, found this on a research study. This is the average mobile developer.

Personally, I think the 'average personality' of a mobile developer is more that of an indie developer, because apparently 63% of mobile developers are what could be described as indie.

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GENDER Male
AGE 20-29

WORK VALUES
Takes pride in his work

LIFE VALUES
Freedom of speech, lack of censorship, individuality, free flow
of information, creativity and innovation, human rights and
humanity, beautiful design, the environment

PASSIONATE ABOUT
Fighting corruption, politics, ending poverty, corporate greed

CONCERNED ABOUT
Lack of empathy, selfishness, global warming, unethical
practices, ignorance, censorship

COMPANY SIZE
Almost 32% are independent developers, citing 1 employee
in their company
31% work for companies with fewer than 10 employees
28% work for companies with between 11 and 999 employees
9% work for enterprises with more than 1,000 employees

AGE
38.4% are in their 20s
79.2% are under the age of 40

GENDER
96% are male
4% are female

I too, am 96% male.

I am 91% mobile gamedev

You had me ...


... but then you lost me.

What worries me, is that when I turn 30, I'm no longer a mobile developer ... what am I then?! :shrug2:

Well, you've seen/read Logan's Run, right?

I have not, but I'll be sure to do so. Thanks!

If you're and value making iphone games is probably about the worst thing you can do for a living.

yeah.....

Switch the gender and it could pass as a Miss World résumé.

Most of the values are vacuous and pointless. I mean who doesn't value freedom of speech, and human rights? And who wouldn't love to end poverty if they could? Mentioning them seems kind of superfluous.

^ Exactly. It's all about being seen as concerned & enlightened by parroting opinions uncontroversial among one's peers. "Concerned about ignorance" is telling.

We're social status fiends.



To be fair they didn't mention "hyopcrisy" as a concern.

I'm pretty much that except everything in the "passionate about" column.

I don't know how anyone could possibly concern themselves with this kind of thing when they have no chance of ever changing it. If anything, corruption should be something you should take advantage of to do good.

I would feel like an idiot being passionate about politics because there's simply too many variables for any one man to consider when it comes to making political decisions; not to mention being passionate about politics groups you with other people passionate about politics - namely people who read Reddit or Fox News and are solidly democratic or republican just because of what they're told from one biased news source.

For most people, ending poverty means throwing money at poor people in third world countries, which does much more damage than good.

Aye, politics are stupid.

But how does helping 3rd world countries make more damage than good? I know there is corruption at all levels but at least some of the money goes for good use.

I find the wording of this description of "mobile developers" amusing.

Like they're a bunch of consumers to be marketed to.  :yawn:

I thought mobile developers were just developers that moved around a lot. :ninja:

(•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
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That is either agile development or dynamically typed language.

This is an excellent question. Donations to third world countries have gone beyond donations, they have become revenue streams for such countries. By providing money to them every year, without any repayment necessary, they consider the money a revenue stream and spend it in expendable goods such as food, water, and medicine. Now the country is dependent on said revenue streams to feed and clothe its people, and there is no incentive for them to change that.

It's like that one saying where if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but if you teach him to fish, he feeds himself forever. In this case, the better way to help developing countries would be to loan them money, rather than just giving it to them willy nilly.

Here's an example case that exemplifies how helpful loaning would be:

Donation scenario: Fred is a sustenance farmer who barely makes enough food to feed his family. You give him 100 US dollars. He uses that money to buy more food to stockpile for hard times.

Loan scenario: You loan Fred 100 dollars on a 5 year loan. Fred can't spend that money on extra food because then he will have no way to pay back the money. Instead, Fred purchases a  donkey and a horse-drawn plow. Using these new tools, he can farm many times as much as he could before, feeding his family and making himself enough money to pay back the loan. Once the loan is paid back in full, he can take all that extra money he makes and pocket it, or even spend it on another valuable farming tool.

The critical difference in these two scenarios is that when money is just given away, people will spend it on stuff that's immediately important such as food or clothing, stuff which isn't a capital good, and will not help the people in the long run. Loaning the money forces the loanee to spend the money on a capital good, or some kind of product that will help them pay back the money, thus increasing producivity.


That's why donating to third world countries is bad. It removes incentive to spend money on capital goods, thus creating a dependency on the donor.

That's incredibly simplified though. Emergency help is always needed somewhere. And "Throwing money" at school building and well drilling projects does long term good.
Foreign corporations basically stealing the local resources and destroying local markets is the real issue that needs to be solved. Along with achieving political stability which the former does nothing to help with.

Don't make excuses to not help people, just make sure you're well informed about what it is you're giving to.

there's something ironic about the tendency for only those of us who are over 30 to have seen logan's run

Emergency help is completely different from the "pay 5 dollars every month to adopt some kid" charity groups that there are out there. I'm completely okay with emergency aid, it's a very different kind of aid than the kind that inhibits the production of capital goods.

Considering I laid out a solution to the problem that still helps people, this point is invalid.

there are different kinds of charities. one of the ones i like is where you pay to build a well in an area that doesn't have access to clean drinking water. the well could last decades or more. i agree that those 'adopt a kid' things aren't that great of a use of a money, but that's not the only option, there are a bunch of different kinds

generally improving infrastructure has a lasting long-term benefit, whereas just paying for food never ends since they'll still be hungry next year

Yes, definitely! Infrastructure can be considered a capital good that services the community, so it would be completely fine to donate that kind of thing.

I just rant about donating in general because you usually get donation agencies trying to legitimize themselves by publishing pie charts of where all the money goes, and it's usually all stuff like food, clothes, medicine, bed sheets, that kind of thing, where in all honesty donating that kind of stuff doesn't help people at all in the long run.

Wherever something is provided for free that would otherwise be bought locally, local markets are destroyed. Nobody can compete with free.

Interference of foreign corporations certainly isn't desirable, but it's along the same lines as the kind of foreign 'charity' and 'aid' zalzane is talking about. Just another tendril of globalization. How do you intend to impose political stability on a foreign people?

I wasn't arguing for giving people food for free, but against the notion that permanently giving anything to third world countries is harmful.



Turns out nobody's disagreeing with anyone, we're just bad at being clear.

From this point on I can foresee a very long and tiresome thread.

:wizard:

i'm not sure this is always the case, particularly if it's given only to those who can't otherwise afford it.

as an example, in the US, food stamps did not "destroy" the market for food. neither did medicare and medicaid destroy the market for health insurance. people still buy food and health insurance despite food and health insurance being given away for free to the poorest people.

not saying that food stamps and medicare/medicaid are good things, of course, or that they had zero impact on the market. just that they didn't "destroy" those markets.

Actually, now that I look at it, this does symbolize a stereotypical iOS developer more than anything.

Also you guys seem pretty passionate about politics and poverty from here :gomez:

None of us talking about it make mobile games afaik

LOL, sounds somewhat like me, though I don't develop for mobile platforms... yet...  :whome:

Neither do foreign corporations literally destroy local markets. I just copied Schoq's rhetorical device.

The point is remote economies of scale often flatten smaller local economies in competition, with devastating consequences for the agency and dignity of locals. There are certainly ways remote intervention can help people without such intolerable fallout, but it does imply you have to be very careful with the kind of charity you support (and that gov't food aid is kaput).



True. Looks like this could go on for a while though...

As a former political studies major....

 :beg: please lock this thread :beg:

People are having a pleasant discussion here. The thread can be locked once the thread has devolved into a flame war.

as a former political studies major

please contribute to a political discussion if you disagree with anything





also, i be mad donatin' cuz i dont fuck wit dem perfect solution fallacies

Has nought to do with perfection. Much charity is a net detriment. Paying to harm people is crazy.



As a sophomoric dropout, it should be your duty to inform us know where we're wrong.
please rate this burn. your feedback is valuable!

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say, let alone how it would refute his argument in a spectacular way. 2/10

Welp! The scenario zalzane described doesn't actually occur very much and that was my problem.
Bill Gates, USAID, or nearly any non-profit would refuse to just give money or free things to people anymore. It's all money for projects or loans (microfinance, like giving a farmer money for tools, has become incredibly widespread over the last 20 years).

Problems with a Cold War term like "third world" aside, corruption and graft are not a reason to not donate money to aid organizations in an emergency or on an ongoing basis. It's just a reason to target your money better and I'm glad that was said by a few posters.

Ending poverty has a lot more to it than just developing nations, because, erm... there's a fuckload of poor people in developed nations too. It's just that we have more substantial safety nets (food stamps, community action agencies, unemployment insurance, etc.) than other, less well-to-do nations.

The point of my complaint was that the OP's survey didn't say location, class, or race--actually let's just leave race out of it-- but I'm guessing those would be similarly homogeneous. These are significant factors when you open your mouth in a public forum, even if they weren't included.

Sorry this was just my careerish before gamedev!

Woulda been a wicked sick burn except I did get my degree and all I have to show for it is a fat paper about Chinese aid in Africa :/

This is the best part of the thread so far.  :handclap:

Ah, that's good to hear. I thought microfinance became widespread much more recently than that.

It's just hard to believe things are hunky-dory when you see tons of ads for bullshit like Christian Children's Fund on the boob tube (nothing against Christian generosity, it's a bad charity, at least as they present it in the ads), and read of shenanigans like this (http://www.wsmv.com/story/19398687/families-of-co-shooting-victims-question-fundraising-in-their-names) all the time. A few years ago my local newspaper had a scathing investigative piece on charities based nearby whose bigwigs were paying themselves handsomely.

Charities are immediately dubious because they claim to help people. Yet at worst, you entrust money to a middleman who pockets it or wastes it, with neither provider nor middleman considering the supposed recipient of the charity. You can contrast this with for-profit corporations, which legitimately claim to provide good products and services in exchange for money, despite their methods being unethical (or amoral) most of the time. You can trust a corporation to do whatever it takes to make a buck. With charities it's up in the air. There's nothing systematically optimizing charities to do what they're meant to. Some do, some don't. Nothing forces under ones that don't.

How do you make average Joes and Janes cautious about what they give to without putting them off donating altogether? You gotta have some kind of contingency as our society slides from high- to low-trust.



True. However, most safety nets in developed countries reduce people to strictly economic terms, so lie somewhere between inadequate and nefarious.



LOL I regret going to uni. Might as well give my degree to high schoolers as top-tier roach paper.

Hope you at least don't shoulder massive debt.