Nice read. Makes me excited to build a video game company/be surrounded by creatively driven people.
I've been developing a city builder game "Metropolis 1998" [1] for over 3 years. My life has been constantly pulled in two or more different directions (e.g. creativity/artistic expression vs. logic/software). Most of the time the environments that allow these forces to thrive are incompatible with each other.
Since working on my game, I've been in a happy place where I get to go full throttle on both of those. I've created my own engine and I am designing the game, directing the art, handling sound design, marketing, UI, UX, environment design, etc, etc.
“Early access… usually happens just 1–2 years before release.”
I had a good laugh at this. So many titles have taken money and silently failed or seem to figure they can stay in early access indefinitely. On the plus side early access seems useful to smaller devs that are close to finishing but need a bit more cash and free QA. But is also a bit of a scam the way is it’s used for many others unfortunately. Find a genre with a passionate fanbase, make a prototype, collect some cash and fade away.
Any way, not to suggest it’s a bad writeup as I enjoyed reading about the author's experiences.
> Today, it’s absolutely possible to work in GameDev without a deep passion for games, or gaming background.
There is room for a range of people with creative or technical backgrounds, but as someone who likes playing games that are actually good, I hope that there are some people working in game development who do have a deep passion for games. Otherwise you can end up with something that looks and sounds great, has solid performance and responsiveness, runs reliably, and simply isn't fun to play. Or a game that is ruined by aggressive monetization, or is basically a glorified slot machine whose primary purpose to hook "whales".
I’m always struck by how different the software engineering culture is in the gaming industry compared to the rest of tech. Maybe it’s because games are usually self-contained, end-to-end products, while most SaaS platforms are in a constant state of iteration and never truly "done"?
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 25.9 ms ] threadI've been developing a city builder game "Metropolis 1998" [1] for over 3 years. My life has been constantly pulled in two or more different directions (e.g. creativity/artistic expression vs. logic/software). Most of the time the environments that allow these forces to thrive are incompatible with each other.
Since working on my game, I've been in a happy place where I get to go full throttle on both of those. I've created my own engine and I am designing the game, directing the art, handling sound design, marketing, UI, UX, environment design, etc, etc.
[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/
My Steam page is perpetually far behind the current state of development: https://x.com/YesboxStudios
I had a good laugh at this. So many titles have taken money and silently failed or seem to figure they can stay in early access indefinitely. On the plus side early access seems useful to smaller devs that are close to finishing but need a bit more cash and free QA. But is also a bit of a scam the way is it’s used for many others unfortunately. Find a genre with a passionate fanbase, make a prototype, collect some cash and fade away.
Any way, not to suggest it’s a bad writeup as I enjoyed reading about the author's experiences.
How is that possible? There was no competition at all?
Making games is incredible but also very challenging. That’s part of its appeal. Highly recommended.
There is room for a range of people with creative or technical backgrounds, but as someone who likes playing games that are actually good, I hope that there are some people working in game development who do have a deep passion for games. Otherwise you can end up with something that looks and sounds great, has solid performance and responsiveness, runs reliably, and simply isn't fun to play. Or a game that is ruined by aggressive monetization, or is basically a glorified slot machine whose primary purpose to hook "whales".