How Game Development Can Affect Your Life

I saw this on the front page of Reddit and found it interesting as similar issues are faced by those into game development.

The things he was saying can relate to those aspiring game developers that don’t get anywhere after several years and become fixated in becoming the next indie success thus having negative consequences on their lives.

I maybe baised but I believe making games is far more tedious and complex than streaming or making youtube videos. Depending on the complexity of the game it can take months to years making a single game.

What are your thoughts?

 

You don’t get rewarded by just doing something you need do something well and well enough for other people to be engaged with what you are doing. Not once in that video did he talk about why anyone should watch him, or what others who were successful were doing that he wasn’t. Just kept playing and seemed to think he would get lucky. Social media stuff like that is entertainment, you need to be entertaining or be doing something that people want to watch or be really good at it. Nobody wants to watch random person play a game. They want to watch funny, entertaining people play games, or people playing games amazingly well. He made no mention of those area or improving his content, just doing more. Sucks for him, but, but it’s his choice. Wanting and doing aren’t the same thing.

The same is true for game development. If you have made a bunch of games and they are not succeeding or improving, you need to figure out why and improve or rethink your choices. If you are spending years and never completing a game, well, that is all on you and has nothing to with game development. Like all creative fields, you don’t get paid for showing up, you get paid for being good and creative.

 

He didn't seem to mention what I take to be the most important thing, which is being entertaining and having a popular type of personality. People don't watch for the game, they watch to watch the person as they play the game. The game is pretty much just a prop.

I think the main takeaway from that (which also applies to game development) is "know what your audience wants".

 

He is open and honest, able to touch people emotionally. That is ability (or trait) of it's own. I believe that is where his focus should go. (Maybe motivational speaker?)
We should try to exploit our strengths in life, not our weaknesses... But sometimes we are not aware of our strengths for very long time in life.

 

One of the things it done too me, was that I no longer want to play games, I want to make them. Sure I will play games, but as I am playing, I am thinking about games I could make.

 

I would be inclined to agree with that (not knowing anything of him other than that video).

But is that really his call to make, would you say? If someone came to you and said "be my friend because I am absolutely hilarious to be around". Would you think that they are a really entertaining person or would you think "I'll be the judge of whether you are funny or not". I would think that about someone who told me they have an entertaining personality.

To be fair to the chap, he did say that he had "tried lots of different things". He listed things such as "being there when a new game is released" and playing both popular and lesser known titles (maybe the latter is something that not many other streamers do?).

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Watching streams is just not my thing, but he came across as a reasonably decent speaker to me. So I personally could imagine him as being potentially watchable. Two big things, from my point of view, (1) he didn't once say "umm"- which has a tendency to lose my interest as I focus only on the umms. (2) He didn't talk at a million miles an hour like a lot of people in YouTube videos seem to.

Something that hasn't been mentioned though and is surely a major player - is raw, unadulterated luck. He could be the most entertaining person on the planet and yet still not make the big time.

So I think my takeaway from this would be : get a job that you can bear doing that pays your bills. Try out your hobby to see how it goes in terms of having career potential. If, and only if, the possibility of a reasonable salary arises, then start to lessen the dependency on your 'real' job over time as your hobby flourishes into a career.

 

Bravo for all the guys who didn't mention the guy or making fun of him for having face tattoos (as I have myself - some being lasered, some not - and the minute this was posted I thought... "here come the comments of 'this guy is an idiot', 'he should kill himself'". I should probably avoid this one) as I have received myself on the internet. Never in person. Instead people are listening to him talk. Thumbs up for the community.

 

Of course it's not his call to make, but nonetheless the ability to draw people in with your personality and put on a show is the most important factor in determining success on something like twitch. If you want to make a post-mortem without at least mentioning that, and instead focusing on less important things like whether or not you streamed 7 hours a day or whatever, seems to me to be a case of focusing on the wrong thing.

It's like being a radio personality or something. It's certainly not enough to simply be there for the latest news, or talk for the whole day. Anyone can do that (and frequently do).

I don't know this guy or what he's like on twitch, but I would have expected he'd at least be a bit introspective on this point if he's not getting the views he wants.

 

Dude can't even hold the camera the right way up to support the YouTube format. Why should I give a damn about him? This is typically the mark of very low effort, low quality content.

The only thing that seems impressive is how many people watched the video. Looks like he got lucky with virality.

 

Well on the bright side he might have realized that you have to be dramatic to get people interested.