Recently, a game called "I Dropped Out of School at 16 to Make Games" appeared on Steam. Although the game has not yet been released, from the screenshots, the developer's name, and the game description, it seems more like a performance art piece attempting to discourage people from dropping out of school to make games than a commercial game for sale. In fact, the game appears to be a response to a middle school student and Bilibili content creator who dropped out of school to make games.
The screenshot of the game’s Steam page shows it will be released in April
A 16-year-old high school student named "Silence"(默不作声) uploaded their first video on Bilibili on December 13, 2022, introducing a 3D narrative game they were developing. Players would assume the role of a Chinese student experiencing school life, and the game's storyline was based on real-life experiences, reflecting real problems in school life. The content creator had previously developed mods for the Chinese version of Minecraft and had earned some downloads and revenue. They were confident in their ability to make this game and received much encouragement and advice from their audience.
Silence’s first video has over 1.3 million views.
However, a month and a half later, on January 30, 2023, the self-proclaimed developer released a new video announcing that they were dropping out of school to focus on game development. “Silence” complained that going to school was purposed to learn useful knowledge for oneself but they only gained frustration and defeat. They chose to leave school to focus on game development. As a result, tons of comments of criticism and discouragement showed up in no time.
Some people believe that while everyone has the right to decide their own life direction, "Silence's" statement makes them feel that that content creator has not thought through the seriousness of their choice. They believe that "Silence" choosing to drop out of school to make games is simply a way to avoid academic pressure.
A screenshot of Silence’s game demo
Others believe that "Silence's" overconfidence in their own abilities, as well as their behavior of publishing videos on public platforms, may mislead other students into also giving up their studies.
Some people with game development experience also gave their own opinions. For example, AZGames, the maker of "Pottery Master," used his own experience to warn "Silence" that choosing to make games does not require dropping out of school. Others cited the education experiences of HoYoverse’s co-founders to demonstrate that pursuing dreams and continuing education are not mutually exclusive.
The creator of “Pottery Master” shared their own story and got nearly 40K likes.
Some people's "persuasive" methods were not so friendly. There were content creators who played the demo of "Silence's" game and gave harsh critiques of its content.
There are even some people who have started a special speedrun: to recreate this demo from scratch in Unity, starting from zero, in the shortest amount of time possible, and then post the video of the process online. In most videos, the creator only took a few minutes to replicate the majority of the demo.
There were lots of people who participated in this weird sarcastic speedrun.
The game "I Dropped Out of School at 16 to Make Games" on Steam appears to be an extension of this action. From the game description, there are only two storylines: dropping out of school to make games and failing, leading to a bad ending of only being able to make a living doing physical labor, or going to college, becoming an entrepreneur and making games, leading to a good ending. The only available screenshot shows a factory assembly line, which may be a scene from the bad ending. Another hint is both the developer's name and the publisher’s name are "Go Back to School."
Clearly, Silence has their own thoughts. On February 4th, they released a video apologizing and stating that they didn't know it would have such a huge impact. They also provided some evidence to inform everyone that it was not a fake setup.
They still insist on continuing, which is their own choice. Silence also mentioned that the popularity of this video has caused many problems for their studio.
Since then, up until today, Silence has not released any more videos or responses.