Here’s my anecdote: I’m not a game dev but I dabble whenever I’m between jobs. I also don’t really game very much, maybe 2 or 3 hours every couple weeks. So for awhile I sort of identified as a shade-tree gamedev and super-occasional gamer. I wish I gamed more, but honestly a lot the games that I’d like to play … don’t actually exist . So my motivation for making games was always to pull from those ideas to build something that hasn’t been built before. Of course, having to blaze that trail is technically difficult, so though I’ve spent 100s of hours in unity I don’t have much to show for it but a handful of janky demos collecting dust in my harddrive. I haven’t done any gamedev in years now, you know cuz of life.
Another anecdote, when I followed the game dev subreddits back when I still used Reddit, I noticed that the hardcore-gamer gamedev’s projects tended to be reflective of the games that they enjoyed. That’s not strictly a problem, especially when learning, but it does make their ideas…derivative. A Zelda-clone, a souls-like, yet another puzzle platformer about depression. It’s kind of no wonder to me that so few make it in indie gamedev; a huge portion of projects I saw were just a worse version of something that already exists.
That’s definitely an interesting perspective, thanks for sharing!
I noticed that the hardcore-gamer gamedev’s projects tended to be reflective of the games that they enjoyed. That’s not strictly a problem, especially when learning, but it does make their ideas…derivative.
As someone who dabbles in electronic music, guilty as charged. I like to think that the stuff I copy tends to be niche enough to still be somewhat fresh, but y’know. Plus I’m not actually that good at copying.
Here’s my anecdote: I’m not a game dev but I dabble whenever I’m between jobs. I also don’t really game very much, maybe 2 or 3 hours every couple weeks. So for awhile I sort of identified as a shade-tree gamedev and super-occasional gamer. I wish I gamed more, but honestly a lot the games that I’d like to play … don’t actually exist . So my motivation for making games was always to pull from those ideas to build something that hasn’t been built before. Of course, having to blaze that trail is technically difficult, so though I’ve spent 100s of hours in unity I don’t have much to show for it but a handful of janky demos collecting dust in my harddrive. I haven’t done any gamedev in years now, you know cuz of life.
Another anecdote, when I followed the game dev subreddits back when I still used Reddit, I noticed that the hardcore-gamer gamedev’s projects tended to be reflective of the games that they enjoyed. That’s not strictly a problem, especially when learning, but it does make their ideas…derivative. A Zelda-clone, a souls-like, yet another puzzle platformer about depression. It’s kind of no wonder to me that so few make it in indie gamedev; a huge portion of projects I saw were just a worse version of something that already exists.
That’s definitely an interesting perspective, thanks for sharing!
As someone who dabbles in electronic music, guilty as charged. I like to think that the stuff I copy tends to be niche enough to still be somewhat fresh, but y’know. Plus I’m not actually that good at copying.