It seems that many game developers and old school gamers don’t actually play games. Miyamoto says that he prefers to spend time in the garden, playing guitar, or walking his pet dog. Jaded gamers spend hours reading about games, but don’t really play them much anymore. Me? I love my wii and there are a number of games (across all major platforms) that I have enjoyed recently.
I’m considering a move into the video games industry, but I’m a little concerned that it may diminish my love for games. It seems that the game developer life-cycle goes something like:
- Get really into games; play them all the time
- Decide to make games; work hard to get into the industry
- Make games; work hard to produce a new title every few years
The thing that concerns me is that after the first stage, there seems to be very little time to actually play games. It makes me ask a number of questions: Does making games take away the mystique (such that one is happy to make games rather than play them)? Is game development what I want to do (especially if it takes away from my enjoyment of games)? Are developers mostly inspired by games that they loved many years ago (and can they make truly innovative games in that case)?
I don’t want to spend all my time making games if it means that I become disinterested in them, or if I don’t have time to play them, or if I get so far removed that my games are stuck with outdated notions of gameplay. However, I do want to make games… I suppose I just have to be sure that I always have time to sit down and enjoy them!
