My Motivation
I like building things and I like people using things I made and enjoying using them.
I am convinced that creating and others enjoying our creations is one of the most fundamental and natural joys we can experience. (This is probably since we humans are made in the image of a creator).
I once made a longer game for a research project during my first exchange study here in Japan in 2013. It was an RPG Maker game with a little bit of Machine Learning added to select one of two final scenarios based on the players preferences which were derived from data collected throughout gameplay.
Making the game was also fun but also hard - for the final part I had quite some help from my brother. And in the end the science employed during the game had more than just a few holes conceptually. But the thing that made the biggest impression on me was actually conducting the user studies and watching people (half of them my international student friends... the other half random people from campus) play the game I had made. Seeing their reactions - joy, frustration, satisfaction when overcoming a challenge... That made a very deep impression on me...
I would like to make games that deeply resonate with people (at least some people)... I don't know, that probably why anyone makes games....
Maybe to capture that magic spark that I myself experienced when I played my first video games as a child (Secret of Mana & Breath of Fire 2 come to mind as exampels that made a profound impression)... Or even later in life when you play a wildly innovative games like Outer Wilds.
I want to grow my own little branch on my creative genealogy (to use Austin Kleon's words).
I partly want to make games because I wish such a game would exist.
Getting any money for that and possibly even be able to live from that would be a big bonus - though I have to say that I despise the idea of having to work my creative motor and my games as a business and/or focused on surviving from that....
So unless I'm blessed with a wild success either career-wise or with one of my games I guess want to aim for a living situation that is well-paying and not too time-consuming (for example an established freelancer) while having lots of time to hack on games......
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