Remembering why we are game developers

Disclaimer: This DevLog is intended to help anyone, who is in a similar situation we are in at the moment. Everyone has to make their own decisions. This merely is our own honest view and opinion, based on our experience. We would love to hear from you, what you think about it all. We wish you all the success and fun you deserve with the development and release of your game! eXplore Studio

Nowadays, when children are asked what they want to be when they grow up, the most frequent answers vary from astronauts, via police officers, football players, doctors, engineers to teachers. Yet, new professions have emerged. Children could easily see themselves as YouTubers, influencers, gamers, or game developers. It is of course not surprising, considering that more and more children play video games from a very young age and start learning computer programming skills at school or by themselves. Moreover, like some children follow their preferred singers or artists, others want to imitate their favourite game developers and create their own game. Many children claim that being creative is definitely one of the reasons why they want to be part of this growing industry, closely followed probably by the aim of making huge profits and becoming famous like some of the makers of extremely successful AAA games. Fair enough, especially when we acknowledge that the international video game revenue in 2022 was over $142B, almost double the revenue of the international film industry during 2023 so far (*). Yet, the gaming industry is not all about money and has much more to offer, as it conveys incredible, positive values for us and our players/followers/viewers.

The process of releasing a game on the market is surely long and tedious, yet it is incredibly rewarding. We create pieces of art for the world to see, and like paintings or films or songs, they can be so varied in genres that everyone can find something they like and enjoy. Whether we are developers of horror games or casual games, some people will appreciate and value our work. For some of us, success and recognition come quickly, for others, it might take a little bit longer. Moreover, our creative skills allow us to deliver messages and speak up about issues we have at heart in a manner that we possibly could not do in a different environment. For instance, some neurodivergent developers are introducing their main characters as hypersensitive to different stimuli like sounds or visual effects in order to raise awareness about people with this condition. Isn’t it a great opportunity to implement our creative skills in a game to promote a cause we feel truly passionate about?

It definitely demonstrates how inclusive, diverse, and welcoming the video game industry is. Whether we are young or less young, have a degree or not, can code or model, have lots of resources or few resources, have ten or thousands of ideas, we can be a video game developer and feel that we belong to this fast-growing community.

So, next time we have some doubts about why we are doing this job, let’s try to remember the many ways we are using our skills to make a difference, not just for ourselves, but for others as well.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_industry#:~:text=for%20the%20industry.-,World%20trends,and%20Japan%20(%2419.1B).