Motivation is a tricky issue, so i thought id make a blog post about the reasons I make games and what motivates me.

Basically i understand everybody cares about different things, lots of people do it out of spite and lots of people do it because they want a game to play themselves, and lots and lots do it so they can be GMs of a game. However I dont care about in game power, and i dont have time to play the games i make very often at all. However there is a lot of entertainment in the developement itself, and things like a loving fanbase is more seen as a perk to me than the prime motivating factor.

The most entertaining thing that i find, is having a game with a large amount of players, and adding new content in or doing balance tweaks and seeing the way the game reacts! When i add a new skill you see how people will change their strategy around it, adding in or tweaking content is like playing god, having a civilization of people and handing one of them a spear. Its hilarious to see how things get utilized, because the players are ingenuitive at coming up with combinations, strategy and player builds. Its the most entertaining thing ever! I used to like games like Black and White and such, but i have to say the social experiment that is Naruto GOA has been way more fun to me.

One more fun thing, coding in graphical effects or skill effects. For some reason coding in the poison smoke effect was a lot of fun, the way the swamp spreads or the projectiles work and clash and stick into dense objects. Its really entertaining to me, i guess that makes me odd huh, but some of you guys play video games and I dont lol. I find this to be a lot more fun when im bored, Creating AI was a blast too and i think ill work on revising it soon. Its just too much fun to see how a few hours of work can effect a game-society of players. Its a blast, if your making a game for GM or for recognition then i suggest you quit right now. You must find fun in the little things! like how much prettier the game looked when i made new water, and stuff of that nature. When you get a game made, changing components of the code has a snowballing effect and you can start to change the game a significant amount really quickly.

What is your rational for making a game? What do you enjoy about it?