[Veteran] What I learned from making games ...

....

Programming in .NET since 2002, programming in general since 1994, making games for the last 5 years... I've learned one very important lesson.

No one cares about your experience... No one cares to know anything about you. You are nothing to no one.

The only reason you matter is because you were able to develop a really...

... reallly...

.... really ....

awesome game (End Product, not the WIP!)!

That's what everyone on the planet wants, a fun, entertaining, awesome game they can get lost in. (I'm sorry to say, they don't want to know anything about you as an indie Developer, unless you are in a popular movie/documentary).... Fame is not our profession.

This is not their cause. They play your game because of what you produce, not because of your life story.

This,.... is a hard lesson to learn for any developer. Focus, make thje best video game on the planet, and release, let the public decide whether you are worthy. Fantasy ideas..... even though there is a forum for that... no one cares. Work 18 - 24 hours a day on your project, make it the best anyone has ever done.....

... You are competing against many large corporations, with many hundreds of employees..... (500 graphic artists, 250 programmers, 5 years time). Don't let this discourage you..... because they will never be able to make a complete game in unison, due to their varying human nature..... they are corporate, you are human, you are 1 or 5 people,..... you make the games you want,...... the reason your games are better is a very simple matter of fact notion that can be determined with one single word for a small team ..........


.....


VISION


......

 

Whatever the case may be, you get extra brownie points for the awesome and disturbingly accurate profile pic.

 

I get your point but, you're creating a small paradox here.

You see, you just told us that you're a game developer veteran and then said nobody cares about your experience.

Just sayin'...

 

I think I've been making games longer than you have and I don't even call myself a veteran.

Truth is, nobody cares about your experience... Truth is, nobody cares about you.
Truth is, nobody cares.

You can make an Infiniminer ripoff and become a millionaire. Or you can work your whole life and die in obscurity.

So, yeah, you need a little more than vision.

You need a strategy.

What's your strategy?

1) Vision!!!
2) Hard Work
3) ???????
4) Success

If that's your strategy, don't come asking me to loan you money when you end up broke in your parent's basement.

 

The thing about indies is you can do whatever you want.

 

This might apply to you, me, and most ppl (everybody) on this forum, but there are definitely ppl out there (usually real veterans of game development) that are well.. famous (not red-carpet famous)

 

You know who else can do whatever they want:


Freedom comes at a price.

 

Well homeless cant do what they want, if they wanted to code there game in there home.

 

Gvmt would provide a computer.

 

but you are missing the point of my post... no one cares about the aforementioned.... that is why I mentioned my experience to begin with. But you are correct, it's a paradox.... 1 years, 5 years, 15 years, 20 years, 30 years experience, no one cares about you until you produce something great.

That was the original point of the post to begin with =D.

I may have 20 years experience, but I am not able to compete against someone with 1 years experience, who simply makes something super awesome.

Often times in this industry, it's not about 'experience', that is the whole reason for the post, it's about what they produce, not that I have produced anything substantial, but that this 1 year vet makes a game 100 times better than a vet who has been at it for 20 years.

I hope now you see my point.

 

You can project this experience to any profession in the world, even your daily jobs...

No one F***ing cares, what you F***ing did, if it's not a F***ing hit.

 

That is 100% NOT TRUE!!!!! I sold yachts and boats for 10 years..... do you really want to take delivery of a 1.5Million yacht from me......???? even though I have only been her for 1 years?///????

It's not the same for games...

a simple user, take the simple user and say he was worth more than 99.99995% of the planet, (capalists wise)... aged 12 years old can come on here and put me to shat, showcase the best game ever.....

 

I guess I'm inclined to mostly agree that the general population has no understanding of what it takes to make a game actually work, all they want to do is enjoy the end product. They are the consumer. They probably mostly barely grasp even the slightest thing about what it takes to even make an image move on the screen, yet alone all the difficult programming and stuff that is required to get that end result. The end result really really disguises the underlying guts that make it happen.. .especially when a game is very good. Great games are like a work of art, where the development process is just a `tool` for the job of make the art manifiest, and nobody really eventually cares about the development - they just care about the experience they're having as they play. People who buy and play games are *mostly* not developers. So you're right they probably have no concept or nor care about what it took to make stuff happen, how many hours you put in, how amazing your technical advances are, or what it took to get the thing finished. All they give a crap about is what they're going to get out of it and whether they like the end result.

 

@realghetto
Based on your explanation, I can see you took my 2 sentences specifically meant towards you. This wasn't my purpose. It was a generalization, meaning that people generally don't care what other people do as a job or how much work it takes - unless it's something they recall great or have heard from in the media.

In French there is the word "on" (which is an unpersonalized "we"), but in English there is no expression for that, only saying "you" - even if not "you" were specifically meant. Sorry, next time I will choose my wording better.