Pragmatism vs Idealism?
May 8th, 2009
Whoops, I haven’t been posting much lately, have I. My apologies for my recent absence. I just wanted to check in, let you know I’m still here, still working, and give a bit of an update on what I’m working on.
I haven’t been posting much lately, mostly because I haven’t felt like writing on the blog. I’m actually working on a chapter for a new book, which shall remain nameless for the time being. It’s been really fun doing this kind of technical writing, but it’s been taking up all of my time, and I really haven’t felt like writing much else. I hope you’ll understand. I’ll provide more details on my chapter once I’m sure it’s ok to talk about it.
I don’t have much news in the way of Dapple. Things are still doing what they were doing a week or two ago; not much has changed. I’m starting to work on some things for the 1.2 update, but I can’t talk about some of them just yet. It’s a secret…shhhhh…
I’ve also been obsessing over ideas for my next project. Right now I have two ideas for games I desperately want to make, and one idea for a little non-game app that I want to make. Every day I want to work on a different one. At some point, once this chapter is done, I’ll have to make a decision and start working on one. The little non-game app will probably win out, as I think it’s something I can build quickly that will be fun to do. After that I’ll have the harder decision of which game to build.
As for that game decision, it’s a tough one. One of game ideas kind of falls under the “art game” umbrella. And honestly, I’m not sure if there’s any market at all for that on the App Store. I really want to make this game though! The other game is still a little out there, but it’s much more in line with what people traditionally think of as a game. Neither game will be remotely like Dapple.
I had an interesting experience with all of this. I posted a question on Twitter asking people whether I should make the game I really want to make, or the game of which I thought could sell more than 2 copies. What a flood of responses I got from other developers! I got responses supporting all kinds of strategies. But honestly, I was shocked by the high percentage of people who said: “make the game that will make you money!” I’m not sure why it surprised me. Maybe I thought we were all romantics at heart who put the art before the money. I guess most people are more pragmatic than that. That’s not a bad thing; it’s important if you want to create a sustainable business. But why does pragmatism and idealism have to be mutually exclusive? Can I find some way to do both? I don’t know the answer to that yet.
Ultimately, it’s not as hard a decision as I’m making it out to be, as I do really want to make both games. Either way I’m going to be making a game that I care about. It’s just tempting right now to try to make something that lets me express something that’s important to me. And really, isn’t that why I went indie in the first place?
Wow, I kind of rambled all over the place there. It must be Friday. Have a great weekend!
Owen
This entry was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 10:39 am and is filed under Business, Design, iPhone, Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Very interesting article once again
.
As for being surprised by the numbers of people who suggested go for the money, I think you shouldn’t have been. Since most indie developer have decide to leave their current paying jobs they will still to pay for their living (for example mortgage, grocery, etc…). So if the developers decide to only concentrate on some very artsy project he love but have no market, this might become an issue later on.
But like you said I don’t think those are necessarily mutually exclusive. It should be possible to combine both, but this will depend on the market. Can they be attracted to your new concept, will they enjoy it? If you succeed doing that then it could be sustainable to do this kind of projects. Maybe if you could find investors to invest in those projects (either individual or a publisher) then you could definitely concentrate on your ideas without worrying too much about the financial.
I know those kind of decision aren’t easy to take, for us (me and my 2 other friends) our current philosophy for our gaming project is to make something we enjoy and think other will find fun. If we make some $ out of it, great, if we don’t then we would have still had fun doing it and gave us some great experience. We are able to do this since we do this in our past time as a hobby. The situation will be different if those project were what will pay our salary at the end of the month.
I think what you could do, is try to balanced time pass on the project that are dear to your heart and the project that market wants. Maybe working on the regular project during the days and on your special project in the evening and/or week-end. Also you could do maybe some contract/consulting work for let say 2 days/week (just enough to support your finance) and the rest of the week work on the project you love (I once worked with a consultant that was working hard for 6 month, then took 6 month off to travel around and do thing he enjoy in life).
I sincerely hope you can find that right balance and do thing you really enjoy without feeling too much stress from the finance.
Sincerly
Fred
THink of it this way. At some point in your life you’ll have the time and money to write the game you want to write for the joy of writing it — assuming you actually want to write it. =) Just make sure the bills are paid.
I think it’s absolutely true that you are able to do both. But then I’ve been called an idealist before. As Fred stated, it’s different if you’re doing it to do it than if you’re doing it for a paycheck. If you can combine the two, so much the better, but like everything each side of things will require effort.
Looking forward to an announcement.