Game development is the best worst hobby

[deadsuperhero]

I've been doing game development on and off for almost 15 years now (I took a long break for about 8 years after my last major failure). I've had a lot of failed projects, some of which actually got pretty far along. But, I've released almost no actual games. The stuff that remains online is often not anything to be proud of, and my efforts to actually make things just takes longer and longer and longer.

And you know what? In principle, that's fine - because for me, the process of making games is the hobby. I'd love to have actually tangible results that I could share with people, and maybe one day I'll get there. There's nothing like having an idea in your head, a pencil sketch, and thoughts that follow you around all day long on how to approach a particular problem. That is to say, there's nothing like making those things real.

But, it's such a maddening hobby. Game development is a fucking nightmare. It's right up there with writing a book, composing an album, directing a TV series, and making a board game. Maybe it's all of those things mashed together, except you're both the executive producer as well as the unpaid intern who gets the producer coffee. And, for giggles, you're the artist and the programmer too!

To me, the real kicker here (and it's something I've come to appreciate very much about completed games) is that everything takes a huge amount of effort. Even small things take insane amounts of time, especially if you're doing everything yourself. Developing a good story with believable dialog and amazing plot points is insanely hard. Sometimes, it's easy to go deep into developing UIs and game mechanics, and realize that in all practicality, your protagonist can still only go to the grocery store to pick up his paycheck. Sometimes I'll spend an hour or three trying to teach myself how to do sprite animation, going through all the steps (har har) of making a character walk, only to realize by the end of it that something is horribly wrong with how a character's legs move. Or, I'll develop a whole concept and realize that actually building out the core mechanic (say, writing tons and tons of dialog for infinitely many options) is absolutely exhausting.

I feel like I'm going crazy, but I also can't stop. The euphoric high I get from turning ideas into reality, and crafting a unique story told in my own voice, is overpowering. But often, I feel myself banging my head into the wall, getting burned out, and wanting to cry my eyes out from playing the same shitty unfinished game over and over again. (I take lots of breaks, and switch off between 2-3 projects now). I've grown a lot as both an artist and a programmer (hell, even as a musician!), but oh my god, I feel like Sisyphus pushing a boulder.

Am I alone in this feeling? Regardless of the answer to that question, how do you keep soldiering on with this? How do you keep showing up every day and not give up on your dreams of making a game?

[fire7side]

I am just getting started on AGS.  I've done a few games in the past that don't run decently on windows anymore and I don't even have copies because of crashes.  It's a hobby.  Finishing was mildly rewarding, but not overly so.  It's getting worse instead of better because there are so many people writing games.  This seems like a nice community to me.  People play each other's games.  Rate them, etc.  Good place for a hobbyist.  I don't know why it took me so long to try it.  If you don't finish, so what?  You might help other people finish and they might help you finish by encouraging or testing, or who knows what.  That's what makes it such a good hobby though,  art, writing, programming.  You have to be decent at all of it.

[outlander]

It's incredible how much I can relate to your post. You summed up the last five years of my life, in fact. Trying to create a good game for other people to enjoy and tell me about it, only to fail miserably every single time, falling into long periods of self doubt and all the stuff you probably have experienced too. I'm 20 years old now, and the amount of things I have learned thanks to trying to (finally) create that game I have a lot of faith in makes me feel like I haven't been simply wasting my time, so I don't regret too much of these past five years.

I feel like programming is just not my thing. I want to believe in the saying, "anyone can learn anything they want, if they try hard enough". Well, now I have a wealth of knowledge on art and music composition in, let's call it, "preparation" to finally begin the development process of that dream game I have put countless hours thinking about, but whenever I try to learn the game development part, I just get immensely frustrated. For example, pretty much everyone says GML (Gamemaker Language) is for babies and that it's easy, and granted, I'm able to program very simple things there with relative ease, but then I hop onto tutorials for creating, say, an inventory system, or a dialogue system or something more complex, and everything crumbles down. I don't see the dots connecting. I don't understand why that variable is there, I don't get why this number is so important, etc. I don't want to depend on tutorials for everything, just copy-pasting stuff. I feel like I'm not in control of my craft.

Rinse and repeat with other engines (AGS, Unity, Clickteam Fusion, I even tried ZScript from the GZDoom engine, a sourceport of the original Doom games for whatever reason). "This will be the one, I'll understand it and I'll finally be able to create this game!!!", I say to myself, only to get hit hard by reality. However, when I'm doing art, I do feel in control. Mostly. I'm far from being great at something in particular, but I like to think I'm "alright", and more importantly, I feel like I'm having fun when doing it. Coding is just misery to me.

Anyway. Now I'm thinking on what to do, really. Videogames are the thing I enjoy the most in this world, and I believe that they are the best medium to tell any kind of story. And that's exactly why I feel kind of uncomfortable with the idea of fully committing to just giving up on programming. I was thinking about making a webcomic since that's a very nice and visual way of story telling, but it feels like 90% of the people who consume those are only interested in generic romance stuff with cute anime guys in the cover, which is the exact opposite of what I want to do, so I fear only 3 people will read it and that'll be it, that's the culmination of who-knows-how-many-hours of work. That'd be lame. I don't really want to become a pop star but I'd like to have some people talking about that thing I made, you know?

I'm avoiding getting frustrated like I used to in the past. If I kept that up, I'd have a stroke by the time I hit 25. Anyway, thank you for sharing your thoughts, writing this was kinda therapeutic to me.

[deadsuperhero]

This seems like a nice community to me.  People play each other's games.  Rate them, etc.  Good place for a hobbyist.  I don't know why it took me so long to try it.  If you don't finish, so what?  You might help other people finish and they might help you finish by encouraging or testing, or who knows what.

Yeah, absolutely! This has been a very positive factor for me, and I actually really love the AGS community in particular for this reason. It's especially neat to see some of the community's long-term members starting studios and selling their games online these days, and there's always an influx of new projects.

That's what makes it such a good hobby though,  art, writing, programming.  You have to be decent at all of it.

Yeah, game development in particular requires quite an intersection of skills. If you're like me, a guy who just works by himself all the time, it feels like the gradual mastery of 5 or 6 different skills, rather than just one. You often have to deal with individual frustrations for each thing that you work on, but seeing it come together is often really cool.

I'm 20 years old now, and the amount of things I have learned thanks to trying to (finally) create that game I have a lot of faith in makes me feel like I haven't been simply wasting my time, so I don't regret too much of these past five years.

Incidentally, I just turned 30. I took about a decade-long break to focus on other interests, such as working in tech and learning web development, but adventure game development has always remained a really big interest. My only regret is that I was away for so long, and still haven't pushed anything out yet. In the last two years of starting up again, a lot of my work's quality has increased dramatically. My pixel art is so much better than it used to be, and although my backgrounds are often proportionally weird-looking, everything gradually gets better.

I feel like programming is just not my thing. I want to believe in the saying, "anyone can learn anything they want, if they try hard enough". Well, now I have a wealth of knowledge on art and music composition in, let's call it, "preparation" to finally begin the development process of that dream game I have put countless hours thinking about, but whenever I try to learn the game development part, I just get immensely frustrated.

Heh, I feel that way about animation and writing. Both are things I can appreciate and even enjoy in small doses, but the body of work can really stack up quickly. Programming is just something I kind of blindly stumble through, while asking senior members of the community lots of weird questions (sorry, Crimson Wizard and Khris), but getting something to work is the coolest feeling ever. I feel like tinkering with web development has made a lot of things click with game programming that used to be super super confusing. For the most part, learning to move data around and do stuff to it, then conditionally render it in some UI somewhere, is sometimes easier to deal with than JavaScript or Ruby.

One thought I have is, maybe there are just areas we're more naturally good at, and areas we're just less naturally good at. I alternate between feeling like a genius for getting something right, and going around and around in circles feeling like the stupidest person on earth. But, I will say that the nature of my problem has at least changed in one way: the problems are now on the relatively complex side of the house, as opposed to things that now seem simple to me.

Anyway. Now I'm thinking on what to do, really. Videogames are the thing I enjoy the most in this world, and I believe that they are the best medium to tell any kind of story. And that's exactly why I feel kind of uncomfortable with the idea of fully committing to just giving up on programming.

My hope is to keep at it and eventually get something out there. One funny thought is that this whole thing is a process for realizing what game you ultimately want to make (it isn't immediately obvious in the beginning), through the process of making games you didn't want to make. Bad graphics, clunky mechanics, shitty writing, are all ultimately part of the refinement loop. I'm hopelessly addicted to the process; I just wish it wasn't so goddamned exhausting trying to put together a single title.

[Laura Hunt]

I don't want to get into a lot of detail because it's 7:00 where I am and it's hard to do this on an empty pre-breakfast stomach, but reading all the posts so far, it feels to me like your biggest issue(s) is trying to do everything by yourselves, which seems to be a staple of the AGS community. I know because I started off that way, and my plans were always to be a solo dev until I had the chance to work with somebody else and I realized just HOW MUCH things change when all of a sudden you're not the only voice / pair of hands working on something.

I get it. Having control over every single aspect of game development and not having anybody tell you what you can or cannot do can feel very rewarding, but it's also a one-way ticket to frustration and stagnation, unless you're like, Lucas Pope or something. Working with somebody else (and especially somebody so talented at their own thing that I would never in a million years be able to aspire to that level of competency, but I have to say I got super lucky there) is such a different ball game, and I absolutely recommend trying to find a partner who can do those things you suck at and relieve you of that pressure so you can focus on your strengths, while of course also sharing your vision and with whom you feel you can bounce ideas off each other and create something that's somehow greater than the sum of its parts.

Sure, it won't be your baby anymore. Sure, you will have to put up with somebody else's quirks. Sure, you will have arguments and there'll be times where you'll want to (or will actually) flip a table and say "I WANT A DIVORCE!", but man, is it worth it, believe me. You feel like part of something bigger than yourself, rather than just some weirdo with a weirdo hobby Easier said than done, I know, I know, especially for those who have families, commitments, little free time, etc, but so worth trying at least.

[Mandle]

How do you keep showing up every day and not give up on your dreams of making a game?

I just give up until the next time a great idea hits me and then I work on it for a while and then give up again.

[Fitz]

After making 3 games I gave up on gamedev, utterly frustrated with the amount of effort required, the failure to connect with the general audience and the media. A failure much of my own making. I made my games with little consideration for trends in gaming (the rise of the ever impatient letsplay community), zero strategic approach and just as much patience for the press, and honestly, mostly obsessed with endless soliloquies that don't go anywhere. But throughout all that I found AGS itself a great, versatile tool. A tool for something beyond gamedev. I started using it to make music videos. Difficult as it was, it was such a joy working around the limitations and learning new things to create visual f/x. It also facilitated my transition into webdev - in which, again, I pursued the gfx/vfx side of things, with the side-goal of code optimization. 3D graphics in pure html. Vector graphics. Especially the latter gives me quite the rush - since it lets me create art and animations in pure code, no assets required. It's fascinating - and so weird! For years I've found myself yearning to write stories - and yet completely paralyzed when faced with the hostile blank page every day. And even more depressingly, trying to "get out there" with my works - and failing; the more miserably the more effort I put in. Nowadays, I'm SO much happier, learning stuff like PHP and trigonometry for my own pleasure - with no particular plans to showcase them anywhere.

[Babar]

I want to make games . And...I just checked, and I realised I've been here almost 18 years.
I need to make games. Sometimes I wish for a magic shortcut that bypasses all the hard work.

[guga2112]

I'm also a completely solo dev, mostly because it's just a hobby. I'd love to earn a living from games, but I should put in too much effort and I already have a day job I love.

And yes, it's frustrating. I also started lots of projects and never finished them. I want to take care of writing, programming, art and music, and it's easy to get lost.

One thing that changed me were game jams. I had a bit of spare time in 2020 and took part to two 14-day game jams, and I found out that my main problem was that I was too focused on making something "perfect". With the time limitation of a game jam, I had to make compromises with myself and accept that what I was doing was "good enough", and in the end, I'm pretty proud of the games I published.

I'm now thinking of working with someone else. But I'm having a hard time finding the right people.

[Blondbraid]

It's rare to see a thread where every single reply feels immensely relatable to me personally, but this one sure is.

[outlander]

-"It's dangerous to go alone, so don't, idiot"

Yeah, that does sound great, but ALL my friends with artistic skills do their own thing, they LOATHE working in teams/pairs... Like me. I see where you are coming from though, I feel like it'd be pretty sweet to work with someone who shares similar ideas to yours... I know I'd kill for an okay programmer to stumble into my life and whisper in my right hear with delicacy, "yeah baby let's make this game.." but that hasn't happened yet.

EDIT: By the way, guys, do NOT get sad or depressed or anything like that. Chill and take it easy, look at the nice things and don't get stuck in an endless loop of thinking on the bad. That's the worst thing you can do, so relax, alright? Alright.

[Honza]

One thing that changed me were game jams. I had a bit of spare time in 2020 and took part to two 14-day game jams, and I found out that my main problem was that I was too focused on making something "perfect". With the time limitation of a game jam, I had to make compromises with myself and accept that what I was doing was "good enough", and in the end, I'm pretty proud of the games I published.

I second that, AdvXJam helped me finally push a game out and it felt really good at first... but in a weird way, it's backfiring now. Seeing how forgiving low-res can be and how it's actually possible to finish a game if you set reasonable goals, I've been having trouble returning to the endless, impossible, stupid overreach my bigger game seems to be compared to that. I still have plenty of extra time on my hands thanks to covid, but I haven't really touched Truth be Trolled since Christmas, and the procrastination guilt is piling up :/.

[Blondbraid]

One thing that changed me were game jams. I had a bit of spare time in 2020 and took part to two 14-day game jams, and I found out that my main problem was that I was too focused on making something "perfect". With the time limitation of a game jam, I had to make compromises with myself and accept that what I was doing was "good enough", and in the end, I'm pretty proud of the games I published.

I second that, AdvXJam helped me finally push a game out and it felt really good at first... but in a weird way, it's backfiring now. Seeing how forgiving low-res can be and how it's actually possible to finish a game if you set reasonable goals, I've been having trouble returning to the endless, impossible, stupid overreach my bigger game seems to be compared to that. I still have plenty of extra time on my hands thanks to covid, but I haven't really touched Truth be Trolled since Christmas, and the procrastination guilt is piling up :/.

Don't beat yourself up too much, I haven't done a non-Mags game since 2018, and I still haven't found the energy to restart something more ambitious yet. I think the most important thing to try to do is to find a small sub-task to start with to get back to contributing to the bigger stuff, though I'm not exactly following my own advice right now... 

[Hobo]

I guess my experience differs from the norm a bit. When I started about 7-8 years ago, I had no background or skills in any of the required fields of game development. So, at first it was all new and interesting and that probably motivated me a lot in the beginning, since I like learning new stuff, but over the time it has simply become an enjoyable and relaxing activity. Currently I enjoy making games more than most of my other hobbies. It's more fun than playing games for me, I prefer it to watching movies or reading books, I think basketball is the only thing that can give me comparable enjoyment.

I think that in some ways I can compare it to playing a great game, there are parts that are challenging, there are places where I get stuck, but there's never any real frustration, it never feels like a chore or grind. But at the same time I don't think I've ever gotten any euphoric highs from developing a game, it's just a stable good (or sometimes neutral) feeling all the time. I don't mind if things take a huge of amount of time to finish, because that only means I spend more time doing what I love. The process of making games is certainly more fulfilling to me than actually finishing or releasing something. And if other people enjoy the end product and have fun playing my games then that's simply an extra bonus.

I mainly did start making games because I had a bunch of stories, fictional worlds and characters in my head that I wanted to bring to life, but I haven't actually started with any of those dream projects and that's fine, I'm not in a rush. I knew that I wasn't ready to tackle them back then and instead concentrated on short jam games based on random flash ideas. I do plan to move on to bigger and more personal projects and it's possible that it gets harder and frustrating then, but I feel that I have learned to love the process too much by now and have reached a sufficient skill level in most categories that it most likely won't be an issue.

So, yes, I definitely recommend doing game jams and smaller projects at first and not put too much pressure on yourself. Maybe try to focus on the parts that you like more. For example, if you like writing and drawing, make a visual novel or if you enjoy programming more, create something that's visually very minimalistic (or use pre-made assets), but offers unique gameplay and technical solutions. And as Laura mentioned, working in a team can also be a good solution to stay on track and be motivated. Although, for me personally, working in a team actually creates the unwanted pressure to perform better and meet the expectations, especially when I'm in a lead role, then the planning, communicating and responsibility becomes mentally so exhausting.

Kind of sucks to see that so many people are struggling with hobby dev. I really do hope that you either find compatible team members to help you focus on parts that you enjoy more or are able to rethink and restructure your goals and work process in a way that it becomes more enjoyable.

Wasn't there like an AGS support group initiative or something a few years ago?
This one: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=50930.0
What ever happened to that?

[Cassiebsg]

I guess it felt into the same "hole" that people suffer when struggling to keep motivation up to make games.
Our group kind of lost track when some of the group finished their game and they moved to other projects (non-AGS) and the rest disappeared, most anyway.

[deadsuperhero]

Wow, there are so many great and thoughtful responses! 

It seems a recurring theme here is that a lot of people are solo devs, which can be a real source of pain. I've been thinking on and off about the possibility with collaborating with more people on a project, but it's honestly been such a long time since I last tried. I had some pretty cringey moments in the early 2000's, where development was kind of haphazardly managed on a message board with no real concrete goals or management. But, collaborative tools are much better now, so maybe it's not totally out of the question.

Honestly, I wouldn't at all mind paying an artist for their work and giving fair credit. Asset creation is something I feel passionate about...but good lord, it's a slow process.

On a separate-but-related track, I'd probably benefit more from a writing perspective of I could better understand how to plan the story and puzzles, and flesh things out.

[FormosaFalanster]

Am I the only one who doesn't relate?

Granted I am only working on my second game but I never thought about it as a painful. It is only a fun thing for me so far. I enjoy working on a personal project instead of working for someone else, for a start!

I think the problem you have here is the reluctance to delegate, like Laura Hunt said, and itt is not even necessary to find someone else. So far I decided to use open source art and it was probably a great idea, it was very liberating and made it fun to work on. There should not be any problem with using open art when it is readily available for a reason: for you to enjoy it and turn it into something great!

There are plenty of free resources online waiting for you to mix them up into a game. This is the way of the world today, you do not have to stick to the past when everyone was doing everything from scratch. Embrace it, indie dev in the 2020's include a lot of things that you did not make yourself and it is a good thing!

Edit: it reminds me of an interesting concept I read about recently: the "Not Invented Here" bias. Read about it here. Basically the idea is that you prefer something that has been made in-house and not externally. There is also a reversed bias, it is very interesting. It has been an obstacle in a lot of projects. You should take a look!

[Honza]

Don't beat yourself up too much, I haven't done a non-Mags game since 2018, and I still haven't found the energy to restart something more ambitious yet. I think the most important thing to try to do is to find a small sub-task to start with to get back to contributing to the bigger stuff, though I'm not exactly following my own advice right now... 

Thanks! The dilemma is, continue working on the thing I've already spent three years on for potentially many more years and lose all that time in which I could be actually publishing smaller games, or start something new and risk I'll never return to the big thing and those three years (and the story I want to see told) will be wasted. My brain's solution: do nothing .

I think the problem you have here is the reluctance to delegate

The desire for the final product to be my baby is definitely a big part of it, but delegating also takes time and a different kind of effort. The ability to sketch an animation, immediately test it in the game, adjust it 10 times and get 10 new ideas in the process is priceless, and doing all that over e-mail takes a lot of time (and makes you look like a horrible control freak). But yeah, sooner or later, I will have to get more people on board - I just have to finish a significant chunk of the game first to have some sort of template for the rest of it.

[BarbWire]

As an avid games player/tester and not a game producer, I can't begin to tell you what admiration I have for such talented people.

I have the pleasure of being good friends with one of these individuals and am fully aware of the hours spent, hunched over a keyboard,
churning out thousands of lines of programming and endless art work, to deliver a polished product. 

It must be soul destroying, after all the effort invested, to witness a complete lack of interest in work that may have taken years to complete.
Of course, the publisher will probably say ' Never mind, I did it because I enjoy working on a project, not for the recognition.'

It must be very difficult to gauge what is a universally accepted game. Even well known companies are constantly updating early access titles,
because of constant criticism from players. One likes this, one likes that, another doesn't like anything. In consequence a perfectly good game
is eventually ruined by constant changes.

One of the problems, nowadays, is that people can't be bothered with a game that takes too much time to complete, solving puzzles etc. They
want something short and simple. Fortunately, I do not come under this category, and enjoy a challenge.

I have played many excellent AGS games and hope to play many more in the future abw. So, please, do not give up on your ventures, keep
releasing games, and make me a happy woman. You will have my everlasting gratitude 
   

[WHAM]

Reading all of this makes me think it might be interesting to create a new thread, probably in the Rumpus Room, where people can post about "the lost projects". I have at least a dozen projects of my own that reached various stages of prototyping and documentation, but died out, or have been on hold for years and years. I might make one over the coming week, to see if people are interested, unless someone beats me to it.

The complexities of developing a game, the workload required combined with a whole host of other pains that come with creative hobbies, sort of invite this kind of disaster.
In my view it mostly comes down to project management skills, segmenting of work, motivation and the people working on the project. Trying to work alone means a larger workload and more stress, and a single setback can collapse an entire project, while distributing work to a wider team consisting of multiple people creates a whole host of uncertainties and risks one simply cannot reliably manage without a vast financial budget at their disposal.

It's not the most helpful advice, I know, but all I can really say is: keep at it! Keep starting new projects, smaller or bigger, and see where they lead. Keep going back to old projects on hold regularly, and see if they might feel worth building on again, or perhaps could be converted to a new idea that takes advantage of old work. And most importantly: try to make sure you have fun all through the journey. While it's a great feeling to finish and release a game, it isn't worth it if the journey to get there was too painful and unpleasant to make.

[BarbWire]

Hear! Hear! Wham.  It is so nice to see that video gaming has really taken off over the last year. Far from being the bad influence, once thought, encouraging the
populus to get up to every unspeakable attrocity, it is now being recognised as a great stress reliever and a way to ward off altzeimers. An accolade rightly deserved   

[Galen]

The true and unfulfilling answer always relies on reducing scope. Make your adventure game 5 minutes long. Your book a short story. Your movie with two friends and your smartphone. Your grand painting a sketch.
Picking massive projects by yourself that you don't have the time and inspiration for is a recipe for never getting there. Even authors with 30 novel series only ever wrote single books at a time.

Something very short may pale in respect to the magnum opus in your mind, but even getting small projects out of the door is pretty rewarding. Gamejams,
NaNoWriMo, etc are all a good way to actually get things out into the world.

[WHAM]

Something very short may pale in respect to the magnum opus in your mind, but even getting small projects out of the door is pretty rewarding. Gamejams,

This is true if the goal is to release something and get that fulfillment out of completing a project, but if one sets out a goal to, even once in a lifetime, to build something bigger and more complex, then it doesn't quite work.
Knowing what the project is, and setting goals you can reach and a timeline you can follow to reach that goal are important, and come right back around to project management skills.

[LimpingFish]

Yes. Yes it is.

...

Having said that, I've recently been making some long overdue progress on a project, and it feels SO good!

[Danvzare]

Hear! Hear! Wham.  It is so nice to see that video gaming has really taken off over the last year. Far from being the bad influence, once thought, encouraging the
populus to get up to every unspeakable attrocity, it is now being recognised as a great stress reliever and a way to ward off altzeimers. An accolade rightly deserved   

*Picks up cane and starts waving it around like a madman.* Gaming died over a decade ago!

Ahem. Now I've gotten that out of my system. I honestly didn't realize gaming had taken off last year. I'm pretty sure games had become well-established mainstream nearly two decades ago (roughly around the time "AAA" became a common term). Did Covid really bring that many new people in?

[deadsuperhero]

Having said that, I've recently been making some long overdue progress on a project, and it feels SO good!

Nice! I hear you there - I've recently caught a second wind in development by focusing on small parts that excite me. I built a method for traveling around the game that feels goofy and fun, and it's kind of motivating me to develop entirely new areas and stick them together. There's still not a whole lot for players to actually do, but connecting isolated scenes together feels like progress.

Did Covid really bring that many new people in?

I can't really point to any specific figures, but I will say, anecdotally of course, that there's greater demand from people buying gaming hardware...and one could guess by extension, games as well. There's also a bit of a silicon shortage, though, due to the pandemic.

I will say that I've been playing way more adventure games than ever before!

[Blondbraid]

Hear! Hear! Wham.  It is so nice to see that video gaming has really taken off over the last year. Far from being the bad influence, once thought, encouraging the
populus to get up to every unspeakable attrocity, it is now being recognised as a great stress reliever and a way to ward off altzeimers. An accolade rightly deserved   

*Picks up cane and starts waving it around like a madman.* Gaming died over a decade ago!

Ahem. Now I've gotten that out of my system. I honestly didn't realize gaming had taken off last year. I'm pretty sure games had become well-established mainstream nearly two decades ago (roughly around the time "AAA" became a common term). Did Covid really bring that many new people in?

It kinda reminds me of those who still treat the comic book and superhero fandoms as these obscure nerdy underdogs, even after a full decade of blockbuster Superhero flicks dominating cinemas.

[FormosaFalanster]

Hear! Hear! Wham.  It is so nice to see that video gaming has really taken off over the last year. Far from being the bad influence, once thought, encouraging the
populus to get up to every unspeakable attrocity, it is now being recognised as a great stress reliever and a way to ward off altzeimers. An accolade rightly deserved   

*Picks up cane and starts waving it around like a madman.* Gaming died over a decade ago!

Ahem. Now I've gotten that out of my system. I honestly didn't realize gaming had taken off last year. I'm pretty sure games had become well-established mainstream nearly two decades ago (roughly around the time "AAA" became a common term). Did Covid really bring that many new people in?

It kinda reminds me of those who still treat the comic book and superhero fandoms as these obscure nerdy underdogs, even after a full decade of blockbuster Superhero flicks dominating cinemas.

That is not in every culture. There are many different cultures in Mainland Europe or East Asia that are not sensitive to superhero stuff. If only because they have their own brand of pop culture and do not need Marvel. It is seen there as an American oddity with very heavy marketing, and only a very niche audience is showing interest.

As per videogames it has been established for very long. What we observe though is a huge rise in independent developpers. In its infancy the videogame industry was made by small teams or solo developpers, then came the age when you could not do a game unless you were a Hollywood-size studio, then we reverted to an age when big studios and small independents are coexisting. Which is good for players and hobbyist developpers alike.

Movies have been the same though, there are lots of independent movies that appear here and there. Even in the US the independent cinema industry is rather flourishing and it is popular abroad.

[Creamy]

Reading all of this makes me think it might be interesting to create a new thread, probably in the Rumpus Room, where people can post about "the lost projects". I have at least a dozen projects of my own that reached various stages of prototyping and documentation, but died out, or have been on hold for years and years. I might make one over the coming week, to see if people are interested, unless someone beats me to it.

I'd like to see the release something thread come back. I bet we all have unrealized deas.

Having said that, I've recently been making some long overdue progress on a project, and it feels SO good!

Sometimes, I still toy with old projects that have been baking for years.

I work on a computer all day long so my eyes won't allow me long sessions in the evening.