3 Game Dev Excuses & Why They Suck

so you want to make games right you want to make those cool indie games that you play on Steam or Nintendo switch but you find yourself constantly making excuses why is that well I'm here to tell you what those excuses are and why you're really not allowed to make them so my name is Thomas brush I made a game called pinstripe I'm also working on a game called Once Upon a and I worked from my parents basement at least for now me and my wife are in transition right now I'm removing and I'm kind of taking advantage of what's around me the space is available to me to actually make games and I felt like it was a really good opportunity to spread this message of you can't make excuses anymore you can't keep making excuses especially now in this time in history and I just want to give you an example of or three reasons why you really shouldn't be making excuses especially now in human history so first there's a

ton of software and a ton of tools available to you to make games a lot of these tools are free or they're just inexpensive right I mean you've got unity which is a tool to port your game to pretty much any platform imaginable Xbox Playstation switch Steam Mac PC and Linux iOS Android you name it it's all available to you and you can download it for free right now now it's also cool because there's a ton of tools that you can get with unity that are free or at least very inexpensive on the asset store a friend of mine named David well I think is how you say his name spelled weh le he made a game called the first tree did really well on Steam and it's out on console as well and David made the game without really learning any code and he just downloaded some cool tools from the Unity store the unity asset store and made a great game it's really a

incredible time in history to make games you can also download blender which is a 3d modeling tool that's free and also Photoshop and illustrator and a lot of the Adobe tools are so free or really inexpensive if you're a student so that's the first excuse right there's a ton of tools available to you and you can't really make that excuse anymore I think maybe thirty years ago people like me who I'm not necessarily the greatest that taking my finances saving my money and then and you know putting that money into places that I can utilize my skill sets the way I do it now is I kind of just guess and check what tools are good and what I like and I don't really make investments in software because I'm just not good at that it's all free to me so I'm just gonna guess and check what's what's gonna work for me and I make a lot of mistakes and fortunately it doesn't cost me anything and I think thirty years ago

I probably couldn't have done that because if you wanted to make films or games you really had to know what tools you were you were gonna use and learn those tools and invest your time and your money in those tools so that's the first excuse the second excuse is we think that you know our game won't actually fit in to a certain storefront or a certain category but the truth is is right now there is a place for pretty much every game genre and idea so right now you might have an idea for a game that you think is kind of silly right you like it but you think people will precede it as silly well I think now in human history there's probably ten thousand people out there minimum who like your idea and who are probably similar to you I think the best audience to build for is yourself and the reason why is because you can be honest with

your development with your characters with your story with your music you could be honest because it's who you are right and so if you're building a game for you it's gonna come across as honest and transparent and real and I think it's also the best way to be creative creatively energetic because if you love something you're probably going to pour your heart soul and mind into it now the cool thing about the hit where we are in human history right now is that there are probably 10,000 people out there just like you who are gonna love your game so if you're being honest with yourself you're also gonna be honest with 10,000 audience members I don't know exactly what the number is for pinstripe for example which is my first game but we did a humble bundle and it's also performed well on Steam Nintendo switch and in various consoles so I'm pretty sure the number is much higher than 10,000 people and that's a really cool thought so take some time like maybe right now okay and just imagine think right now about

your game being in the hands of 10,000 people I mean have you ever seen a crowd of 10,000 people I would I would Google image that right now see if you can find a crowd of 10,000 people now imagine your game being in the hands of those people I mean obviously there's financial benefit there but just think about how good that feels this is called visualization right now by the way which is what we're doing visualizing your future vision visit visualizing your dream and seeing it come to reality and this helps you not make excuses when you think about exactly what you want to achieve and in this case 10,000 people playing your game and not only that 10,000 people appreciating your game right we're talking about people who are just like you you yourself appreciate your game right because you think that the idea is cool well there's probably 10,000 people out there who will also do that so that's the second excuse right there's really no no reason to think that your game can't find a place no

obviously it is difficult out there it's especially difficult on places like Steam there's a ton of games to compete with but new platforms are kind of popping up all over the place so I think it's your job it's my job to constantly keep our eyes open for new platforms that are available to us to release our games and I think that those platforms are probably gonna get more and more prominent and more and more available to indie game developers as we move on into the future with technology alright here's the final reason why you have no excuse to not make games it's cheap it's really cheap now I know I know time is money but if you are maybe single maybe you don't go out in the evenings a lot maybe you have to work you come home and you just maybe watch Netflix if you're anything like I used to be come home watch Netflix or

sit on your phone the truth is is that time isn't really money all the time especially if you're just coming home and not doing anything so we all have plenty of time on our hands probably to make games I think we're probably not as busy as as we think we are I can't remember exactly what study it was but there was a study I think it was in a study on Americans who said that they were way busier than they could handle but these people actually during a study actually wrote down exactly what they did during the day every hour by hour exactly what they did and what they found is that they actually had a lot more time on their hands and maybe even wasted more time than they thought they did think about your normal evening or maybe your day how much time do you spend on your phone on Instagram or reddit or YouTube how much time you

spend on Netflix when you come home from work or from from your classes we probably have a lot more time on our hands and because time is money yes I understand that spending a lot of time working on a game could be perceived as expensive but again you know if you're not doing anything with that time to begin with then it's actually not expensive now maybe 30 years ago time was much more expensive right but if you are maybe in a Western culture or you're in a culture that's prosperous which let's be honest most of us watching these videos are probably in a prosperous culture if you're one of those people then you have a lot more time on your hands than humans in moe of human history so take advantage of the time that you were plopped down into

we're so lucky to be alive in this time right now with all this technology available to us meaning all this time and freedom available to us to do whatever we want especially if you're you know in your teens in your 20s time is a lot more available to you I know that my time is slowly shrinking I have a wife and a daughter and I'm totally excited to have that time being taken up by a wife and a daughter but it is being taken up so time gets more and more expensive the older you get so if you're in your 20s right now now's the time now is the time to take advantage of your time because it's cheaper so those are the three reasons why you really don't have an excuse you really don't have an excuse not to make games or if you don't want to make games maybe make films write a book write write some comics write some music tell stories be creative it is the

best time in history to be creative so without further ado those are my reasons again my name is Thomas brush I make games for a living please hit the subscribe button if you like these videos I'm gonna try and post every day from now on we'll see how that goes but leave a comment subscribe and finally I just want to give a big shout out to my patrons the most recent patron Jeremy Mike Matthias and Nate thank you guys so much you guys Rock if you want to see some exclusive content head on over to patreon it supports this channel it also helps me make games thanks everybody see you later bye