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GAMES AND WHY YOU MAKE THEM
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ShortStar
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Close1. How long have you been making games?
--- 10 years? But not RPGs.
2. How often do you feel like not making games any more? What makes you keep doing it? (Anecdotes are good.)
--- having free time makes me make games. Keeping up my skills as a software designer keeps me making them.
3. What is your motivation for making games? (Do not be facile: You do NOT just do it because it is fun. Lots of other things are fun, and less work, and you could be doing them instead. So fun is part of it, but it's not the whole reason.)
--- motivation??? having free time and I'd rather make games than play them.
--- 10 years? But not RPGs.
2. How often do you feel like not making games any more? What makes you keep doing it? (Anecdotes are good.)
--- having free time makes me make games. Keeping up my skills as a software designer keeps me making them.
3. What is your motivation for making games? (Do not be facile: You do NOT just do it because it is fun. Lots of other things are fun, and less work, and you could be doing them instead. So fun is part of it, but it's not the whole reason.)
--- motivation??? having free time and I'd rather make games than play them.
Shinan
4314
1. How long have you been making games?
Since kindergarten. A lot of A4s were wasted with me drawing platformer maps in crayon in kindergarten. This continued into school. I remember in third grade I had a pile of papers all of different football fields and I had stickmen playing football and I kept track of scores and stats. By fifth grade when I got my first RPG (with dice that had more sides than I had ever seen before!) I was making all sorts of weird side-games based on that. Especially a football game loosely based on Tecmo Cup and a hockey game based on my collection of Ice Hockey Trading Cards.
So I've been making games for a long time I suppose.
2. How often do you feel like not making games any more? What makes you keep doing it? (Anecdotes are good.)
I rarely actually work on games. But I always think in terms of game design. "How could this be simulated in a game". So while I don't do any actual work. I do a lot of game designing all the time. I read a book and I think about how could it be turned into a game. I see a documentary on some aspect of warfare and I think "how could this be applied to a game". Hell I even made a prototype Quidditch boardgame thing, though it didn't go far because it was too complex. (Since that was made just in the inbetween of being hella-complex and finding "german style boardgames" where mechanics are elegant!
3. What is your motivation for making games? (Do not be facile: You do NOT just do it because it is fun. Lots of other things are fun, and less work, and you could be doing them instead. So fun is part of it, but it's not the whole reason.)
It's mostly that I want to create something. I'm a world-builder at heart and I'd like nothing more than to build a big world with all kinds of interconnected things. I have plenty of these already but it's only I who know all the things that connect it. (for example I have something I call the eSF-RPG. It has a pretty fleshed out universe and a bunch of projects set in it. Though any person have probably only seen one aspect of this universe at a time. And I'm the only one seeing how it all connects)
It's just that desire to create something that other people can enjoy. (or hopefully enjoy) It's probably some sort of escapism too. Though games... ... I don't know.
It's not like I really make games. But the games I think about are all kinds of stuff I'd like to see in games (and whenever I actually do see them in games they always fail horribly and I wonder why anyone made something like that in the first place)
1. How long have you been making games?
Since before I can remember. While all the other brats would play tag I'd have the deck of playing cards out coming up with different ways to play them. I'd crank out scenario maps for WCII where you had a paladin and a mage to your name and you had to run a gauntlet with them.
2. How often do you feel like not making games any more? What makes you keep doing it? (Anecdotes are good.)
I've never been demotivated out of game-making entirely, and there aren't enough negative reviews in the world to make me do so.
3. What is your motivation for making games? (Do not be facile: You do NOT just do it because it is fun. Lots of other things are fun, and less work, and you could be doing them instead. So fun is part of it, but it's not the whole reason.)
Don't delude yourself, I do do this for my own entertainment. I like designing a system - a list of skills, a set of status effects, a set of stats - and then designing a set of challenges within that system. Devising new and horrible ways to prevent a player from proceeding, like an enemy that raises its hit rate and starts casting Stone Gaze, or the trademark enemy that Berserks your party and casts Phys Shield. Watching players react to these enemies with first swearing, then strategy, and then watching the player dominate them on their next encounter is immensely satisfying. I'm sorry you need to have constant fellatio and praise in order to get enjoyment out of your works, Max. This is actual sympathy - anyone who can't enjoy creating for creation's sake is in a sad, sad state.
Since before I can remember. While all the other brats would play tag I'd have the deck of playing cards out coming up with different ways to play them. I'd crank out scenario maps for WCII where you had a paladin and a mage to your name and you had to run a gauntlet with them.
2. How often do you feel like not making games any more? What makes you keep doing it? (Anecdotes are good.)
I've never been demotivated out of game-making entirely, and there aren't enough negative reviews in the world to make me do so.
3. What is your motivation for making games? (Do not be facile: You do NOT just do it because it is fun. Lots of other things are fun, and less work, and you could be doing them instead. So fun is part of it, but it's not the whole reason.)
Don't delude yourself, I do do this for my own entertainment. I like designing a system - a list of skills, a set of status effects, a set of stats - and then designing a set of challenges within that system. Devising new and horrible ways to prevent a player from proceeding, like an enemy that raises its hit rate and starts casting Stone Gaze, or the trademark enemy that Berserks your party and casts Phys Shield. Watching players react to these enemies with first swearing, then strategy, and then watching the player dominate them on their next encounter is immensely satisfying. I'm sorry you need to have constant fellatio and praise in order to get enjoyment out of your works, Max. This is actual sympathy - anyone who can't enjoy creating for creation's sake is in a sad, sad state.
ChaosProductions, stop being a dbag please. If I didn't enjoy making games, I wouldn't be here; I have not received adequate "praise" to keep me going in and of itself since...ever. As I said in my opening post...I literally can't not do it. And this thread is not about your analysis of my motivations, it's about your analysis of YOUR motivations.
I have said stuff like this so many times. Yet I'm still here.
Glad this topic is taking off. Wish I had time to read and respond to everyone's posts.
This is the most valid and interesting response I've seen as of the point where this was posted.
Why not write for the stage? Or the screen?
This is a serious question.
I will stop it this August, because I will have no more time. But before I will release my last 2 games.
I have said stuff like this so many times. Yet I'm still here.
Glad this topic is taking off. Wish I had time to read and respond to everyone's posts.
Y'know, at one point, I might have had an answer to this that matched several other ones already here. But I've recently found that the biggest reason I like and continue making games is simply "I like to figure out stuff".
The last time I spent any dedicated time on my 4th RPG was when I hit the 'Super Porygon 3D' part of it. Because that was when I was trying to figure out how to make the platform do something it wasn't designed to do in an entertaining functional way. And that was fun as hell!
This is the most valid and interesting response I've seen as of the point where this was posted.
Writing prose is tough for me because I get impatient with descriptive language and whatnot. I just like to get right to the dialogue, and in RM games the exposition is almost exclusively handled by dialogue...plus the engine allows you to make some "directing" choices to an extent, using lighting and music and other options to create atmosphere and tone. To me, it's empowering.
Why not write for the stage? Or the screen?
This is a serious question.
Uh, excuse me? I just have an issue with Max's ego and sense of self-entitlement. Not even with Max himself, just those two aspects of him that manifest oh-so-often on RMN.
@Max: I liked your response better before it was a defense against attacks no one was making.
@Max: I liked your response better before it was a defense against attacks no one was making.
I'm sorry you need to have constant fellatio and praise in order to get enjoyment out of your works, Max. This is actual sympathy - anyone who can't enjoy creating for creation's sake is in a sad, sad state.
Yeah that doesn't resemble an attack at all.
Back on topic (PLEASE). This topic has tons of interesting responses, don't want to see it get flushed.
Shinan
4314
I think that the original statement has a very good point. You do NOT just do it because it is fun. Lots of other things are fun, and less work, and you could be doing them instead. So fun is part of it, but it's not the whole reason.
There must be a reason beyond "fun" that draws us to gamemaking. There are lots of things in the world that are fun. And different things are fun for different people. Gamemaking is a very specific kind of fun for everyone and that's probably what the original question is getting at.
Rarely do I do something just because it's fun. There's nothing I do JUST because it's fun. Not even masturbate.
There must be a reason beyond "fun" that draws us to gamemaking. There are lots of things in the world that are fun. And different things are fun for different people. Gamemaking is a very specific kind of fun for everyone and that's probably what the original question is getting at.
Rarely do I do something just because it's fun. There's nothing I do JUST because it's fun. Not even masturbate.
I had a digression of why game-making appeals to me more than anything else but it was ignored. Maybe on purpose, maybe because it's not relevant enough. Can't say for sure!
*continues analysis*
*continues analysis*
ChaosProductions, stop being a dbag please. If I didn't enjoy making games, I wouldn't be here; I have not received adequate "praise" to keep me going in and of itself since...ever. As I said in my opening post...I literally can't not do it. And this thread is not about your analysis of my motivations, it's about your analysis of YOUR motivations.
Alright, yo. *rolls up sleeves* Let's take a crack at this. Hopefully this'll come off as civil, I don't mean an attack by any stretch of the imagination, just an analysis of your response.
The first point frightens me a bit. How much praise is "adequate"? Fallen-Griever, in particular, gives a vast amount of detailed praise, probably because his taste in games is so overwhelmingly similar to yours. That's fine - he is a representative of your target audience. Not everyone is so in-tune with your taste, however, and people from outside this pool are going to play your games and might not exactly be enchanted by them! These people have as much right to say "This game was not for me" as anyone does, so long as they are civil and thorough in explaining why.
As for my motivations - well, they're just not as interesting to me as yours are =) *dons goggles and lab gloves*
EDIT: oh c'mon Sol I am ANALYSING calmly :<
Volrath
2760
Why not write for the stage? Or the screen?
I've thought about it, and maybe I'll do it someday. But even with that, unless you're directing (which I don't have the credentials for) chances are you won't get to make decisions about the atmosphere and whatnot.
The music possibilities are a BIG part of the appeal of RPG Maker to me. MotW has a bunch of scenes where the dialogue is on a timer to synch up directly with the music. I like trying to make big powerful moments out of these, but sometimes they are problematic from a gameplay POV, and after some reviews of Arc V expressed distaste for these scenes, I cut back on them somewhat, though some are still there and a few more are on the way.
Why would anyone assume you rate games the same way a game magazine would? Hell, why would anyone assume game magazines rate games the same way between each other?
