I Interviewed 50 Famous Game Devs, And They All Do These 5 Things...

Okay. It's one thing to be a YouTube game game dev and you make games and you make YouTube content and you talk about like the top five traits that every indie game developer has. Uh it's another thing to just talk to the most successful indie game devs and just use Grock to determine okay what after after all these conversations I think I did 50 hours of conversations with successful game devs. After 50 conversations with successful game devs, I had Grock just scrub through all of the transcripts and come up with the top five overwhelmingly com common traits with all of these game devs. So, I'm going to go through that here. Uh, and this is meant to encourage you. It's meant to challenge you. Um, and it's meant to help you better understand what it's going to take for you to make games in 2026. [music] You can do it. It's tough. It's not easy, but but you can do it. Um, so we're going to go through all of these conversations and I'm going to find the

five overwhelmingly common traits with all of these game devs. And at the end of today's video, um, we're going to talk about, well, the one game dev, there was one gamedev. After all of these conversations I had, I think I've had 60 total conversations in the last two years, there is one dev that I'm the most impressed with after all of these podcast episodes. One single dev. And we're going to talk about who that is. And we're also going to talk about why why I'm impressed with this game dev and jump into all of these common traits that game devs highly successful game devs have. These are like very very successful game devs. So let's jump into the first one here. Number one. Number one above all they love their game. This might seem obvious, but the thing is is so many of you are thinking, man, I need to make the the game that's going

to be viral. I need to make the game that's commercially viable. I need to do research about the genre, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. But what all these game devs, um, we'll start with Jeff Vogle. All these game devs, they just make games they want to make and they make games they love. Okay? So Jeff Vogle, he's the creator of Aver and Gene Forge, when he was on the podcast, he said this. He said, "I write the sort of games I want to play. If that ever fails, I will quit this business and I will sell shoes." What a curt and poignant uh I think those are two good words for that. Uh curt and poignant sentence from Jeff. And Jeff is really he's really he's really good at crafting a single sentence that distills down what he's thinking. [gasps] Be like Jeff. Okay. Make the games you want to play. Thomas Morer. Okay. What he said here, he made he made AI and he also made No Rest for the Wicked, which is No Rest for the Wicked is currently in early access. [snorts] He said, "I work 17 18 hours a day

because I love it." Now, he's not saying grind and suffer and be miserable. He's saying, "I just want to make games. I want to make the games that I love, and I'm willing to work 17 hours a And I'll be honest, when I I've never worked 18 hours a day, I don't think, but I have worked 14-hour days. I did that for a couple months there uh last year at the end of 2025. And I loved it. I was tired, but I was having a blast. It almost felt like I was just playing video games because I love the games that I'm making. Okay, American McGee, I had him on uh in Q4 of last year. Um he's the creator of the Alice franchise. in particular, one of my favorite games, Alice Mattis Returns. He said, "I don't really think like is this a marketable or is it not?" Um, and I think that quote is kind of screwed up. He he's basically saying, "I don't really think of whether a game is marketable or not. I simply tell stories that I can wake up

in the morning and feel energized to tell." Something I noticed about American McGee in particular is it's not that he's principled um per se. it's that he has a really good eye for what's important in life. Uh American McGee, he he he stood his ground um for Alice. He, you know, maybe the he told me the publisher wanted to make Alice kind of like sensual and sexy and he didn't want to do that. He wanted to stand his ground and make a game that was a fairy tale that was dark and haunting and it had uh maturity to it. Um and it respected the players. He had to stand his ground. It's not necessarily that he's principled. is that he just knew what he liked and he knew what he wanted. Uh the same is true with how he talks about family and having kids. Um he's he's very uh precise with what is important to him. So it's not necessarily principle uh like a moral principle. It's more of like he knows what's important to him

and he that's all he's going to do and that's all he's going to focus on. And I really really respect that. uh Pony Pants, he made a game called A Difficult Game About Climbing. When he came on the podcast, he said, "I have to do what I'm interested right at the end." And I think kind of what that what he's saying there in in the context of the conversation is he's saying all the way up from the beginning to the end of the game's development, he has to be doing what he's interested in, otherwise he just can't make the game. All right, the second trait, they are psychotically relentless. They're absolutely relentless. And I will say as somebody who's I, you know, I spent five years working on this game. I spent five years working on this game. And I worked on this game, you know, through lunch, in the mornings, in the evenings before I went to work. Never that that and yeah, this was 5 years. This one took me three years. Never. Um, this is a double copy, by the way. But um, Never Song here. This took me

three years. I believe it was three years to make. You have to be relentless. And when you fall out of love with your game or you burn out, who cares? You just keep going cuz you know what the finish line looks like. Thomas Mer again there's going to be some quotes here from Thomas Mer because he he's has a really good way with words and again he made Ory and also No Rest for the Wicked. He said, "Talent is highly overrated." Right? The reason why I'm good is because I work harder than anybody else I know. He is relentless. So, not only does he work long hours because he loves his game. He works long hours because he's relentless and he works harder than anybody else he knows. Um, and look, you know, proofs in the pudding. Game looks incredible. By the way, it wasn't always at very positive. It really wasn't. He's relentless. And he his relentlessness is what got him to very positive. We'll talk about that in just a second. Julian Ball, he made a game called Lens Island. He said,

"You're going to have to lock in and do it." Sometimes you get to those points that seem that seems that we're at now. He was at a point where he was exhausted and really burnt out, which is yeah, you have to forcibly be creative and perform to your creative highest even though you don't really want to. So, there is a there is a toughness there's a toughness to the game devs who are successful. And I I'm not of the mindset I'm not in like the grinding mindset per se, but there's a point that most game devs, most hobbyist game devs, they get to a point where they think it's too hard. The heat is getting a little too hot. They're exhausted and they stop here. Whereas people like Julian Ball, he stops here. It's just that final 1% where they continue to power through and they finish their game. Right? That's what these game devs are good at. They're relentless to the finish line.

Toughen up. [laughter] That's what I have to tell myself, too. Toughen up. Freedom and Alman Rotor uh when I when I um interviewed him, he had not released Slots and Daggers. And by the way, Slots and Daggers did very very well. Um and he didn't even mention it, I don't think, in the podcast. There was no push for that game. I don't even know if he was working on it because that game was made pretty quick. I filled in a lot of brackets here kind of filling in this because it was kind of a free flow free form conversation. So, I'm going to try and make this concise here. Um, but it says you just need to push on and realize that you will also arrive at some point where it just feels like you won't be able to finish it. I think that's one of the biggest things that you need to learn as a game developer is persevering when it's really, really difficult. I don't really have any more comments for that. That's good. Okay. Number three, they test test. This is something I'm learning for my third commercial release, Twisted Tower.

How important it is to test your game. Not you. Not beta testing or alpha testing necessarily, but just play testing with friends and family and team members and Discord servers. Constantly testing your game as you create it. Tom Francis, uh, he made a game called Gunpoint and Heat Signature. He was on the podcast and he said, "I'm also like, um, very iter iterative and experimental." So, I try to see if they work and then change. So, he's basically saying he tweaks and tweaks and tweaks as he's making the game. So, I think a lot about what I want to do and what I'm trying to achieve, but once I try it, if it doesn't work, then I pivot, right, right away. And this is so true with play testing. If players just are not getting a concept, it's just not working. For some reason, it's not working. People like Tom Francis, they have the humility to just change it without even thinking. They don't they don't treat it

like it's their baby. They don't treat it with a ton of respect. It's not the Constitution or the Bible or something. It's not a religion. It's a silly game, right? And they change it. If the feedback is not coming in positive, they fix it, right? It's kind of a humility thing. The will the the ability to test test test is a humility thing. Ken Lavine when he was on and by the way he made he's making a game called Judas. He's been working for 10 years on that. And then also he made Bioshock. He said testing is so painful but it's your best friend in the world. Just putting the product in front of people. Um we find we've been testing a game for about 3 years now. The game keeps getting better and better through testing. And I found that to be true with my own game, Twisted Tower. The testing is really what's going to make the game shine. Fingers crossed, hopefully. All right, number four. All right, remember we have five traits here. We're going to we're going to get to number five in a sec. And then again, at the end of this video, I'm going to talk about the developer that I was most

impressed with of all the podcasts I've done. The developer I was most impressed with. Number four, their team players. And this is hard for me to hear. I don't I don't love working with people sometimes because I have kind of an ego and I know that about myself and I'm also I also think I know what I know and then I find out that I don't know what I know. So it's it's very painful for me to get feedback. It's something I'm I'm growing and still working on. Um but they're team players. I had Jonas Tyrroller on. He's the creator of Thronefall. Um he said what actually matters is not the size of your team but the uh talent density you have in your team. Um if you bring somebody in who can do something much better than you. And by the way um William Dubet mentioned talent density as well. Um it's not the size of your team, it's the skill of your team um and how long they they've been working on a project and how well they know a project. He said,

"Mhm, you can just let that person do that one thing, then it's like an upgrade for the team." So, it's focusing focusing on singular elements of your team and and and and fine-tuning those singular elements and talents and it's instead of trying to spread it across tons of team members, it's having team members that are hyperfocused on a few things that bring um a few a few small things about your indie game to light and and polish those few things, right? So, it's talent density. Thomas Mer again creator of Ary and No Rest for the Wicked when it comes to team members he said if we work together we can achieve things that we couldn't do by ourselves and there's magic in that I think that's how humanity survived and just like did better because well how I know how to make a house or maybe you know how to cook the other person knows how to fight now we become a little town and you know things grow I see that in Moon as well moon is the the studio he he owns like hey

together we're better than we would be alone. And that's a huge reason why you would not work as a solo dev, right? But actually work with people because there's magic that happens when two people come together or more people come together and they all have this common goal and everybody can help with their individual talent. Does Yeah. Well said. Will Dubet same thing here. He's a creator of Jotin and also Spirit Farer. said the PE and and he's a huge team player because now he sort of just directs large projects um and his his from what he mentioned his fingers aren't like inside of Unity. He's more just sort of helping the team collaborate and build a game, right? The [snorts] people and that's I think he mentioned that was kind of a humbling thing because he's no longer in the weeds of the game but more outside of it, right? The people you have on your team will influence the result. Especially when you're in a

small team like we we are around 15 people. The influence that each person has on the result of the game is going to be enormous. Okay. Number five. This one's interesting. They are investors. Okay. They have a mindset of investing. Sure. They're artists. Um, and they they're taking a gamble, but they think about their games like investments. And they may not say this out loud, but the way they talk, they're always thinking about, well, is this going to return my investment? Am I going to have an ROI? Right? Here's what I mean. Zavir Nelson Jr., this was I love Zavier and I had a great conversation with him. He made a game called El Paso Elsewhere. He's made a lot of games as well. Um he he makes games fast. Uh he said you can make a

game in 3 days if you build the type of game you can make in 3 days. I love this. It's like some like proverb almost. Um, what he's saying is you need to plan how long it's going to take your game and to make and determine the scope of your game based on that schedule or think about the scope of your game and then say, "Okay, how long is this going to take?" It seems obvious, right? Anyone else in the world like like a contractor who builds houses, they would think this way, right? But for some reason, game devs think t too artistically about their projects honestly or or they're purists and and they it takes as long as it's going to take, right? And I think this way sometimes, but often times I wish I was more like Zabir where I could say, you know what, I'm going to I'm going to make a game that takes five months and I'm going to make the scope of the game

a fivemon game. And honestly, this takes practice and this takes experience. If you've released three games, for me it'll be three games this year once I finish my third third commercial release, Twisted Tower. Once I release that third game, the fourth game is going to be so much easier for me to do what Olivier is saying here and scope it out, right? Jake Perquette, he's uh working on a game called Forbidden Solitire. He said, "Avoid rolling the one big die and getting a one. Instead, learn to roll, I guess, making smaller games and learn to make just one game that's profitable as opposed to going all in on one big game." Now, I don't necessarily agree with this 100%. I agree with it for most people. I think most game developers, especially when you're first starting, should do exactly what Jake is saying here. Um, for me personally, I don't know why, but I like to roll the big

die. I like to spend a long time on projects. I hope that I'm doing this less and less and less, but it is my predisposition to do this. Um, because my games are art focused and music focused and story focused and voice acting focused. They're very human and they're very um they are a lot like films or art pieces. So, it's hard for me. It's hard for me to follow this advice, but I do agree with Jake um for most devs. Dave Gilbert, he made the g uh the Blackwell series and also Unavoued. He said, "The first game I sold commercially, the Shiva, was tiny. It takes maybe an hour tops to play through. I kept the time frame and the budgets and the scopes extremely small." Now, what does this have to do with being an investor? Well, when you're an investor, right, you start small and you start practicing investing in maybe stocks or real estate or land. Okay?

And you scale based on your what experience. Did this investment work for me? What did I learn from this investment? Oh, that didn't work. Maybe I need to pivot to this one. And you start small and you figure out what what works. This is also true with a business owner, right? You don't just invest $5 million in a restaurant, right, that you want to build. Um, instead, you you figure out if you're good at cooking. You figure out if your recipes are good. Uh, you rent a small building, right? Some hole in the wall, and you see if customers start coming in. And then you fine-tune your recipes. You hire people. You hire a cook. You're no longer doing the cooking. You're now the manager. Then you hire a manager. So, you're scaling slowly. And that's what Dave has done here. He started very small and started to scale based on his experience and what he has learned that works and what doesn't work.

Jeff Vogle again a great quote from Jeff Vogle here. Uh again he made a vernum and gene for F forge. He said time is money. Your time is the most valuable asset. And the older I get the more I'm learning that this is true. You can't polish everything because if you do, your game's never going to come out. That's an investor's mindset. That's He is an artist for sure, but he knows that time is very valuable and you can't always be just an artist. You need to realize that eventually the amount of things that you polish in your game is going to have diminishing returns. Great quote from Jeff. All right. So, which dev which dev impressed me the most in 2025? And by the way, this is not the dev that I think is the most talented. This is not the dev that I liked the most necessarily. I'm not going to say if he is or he isn't. Um, I'm not going to say I agree with everything he said. It's mainly the dev that I'm like, man,

this dev really impressed me. And and there's a lot of things about this dev that I'm like, I wish that I could be more like this person. and I'll talk about what those traits are. This developer is, drum roll, three, two, one, Thomas Maler. Okay. And this is after 60 episodes. And I' I've talked to some some g some game devs that are legends that I am just so thrilled with. And and those conversations were incredible and they made me feel great and now they're my friends. Thomas Mer, he impressed me the most. And it's mainly because of his toughness, his forward thinking, his courage, and his recept his receptiveness. Receptiveness to feedback. He has this approach to game making games which is very brazen that I really admire. [snorts] Um, here's what I mean. No Rest for the Wicked, which is this massive Diablo like game and it's still in early

access. when I interviewed him first, No Rest for the Wic I think maybe I've interviewed him twice or maybe it was just one time. I think it was twice. I can't remember. But anyway, the time the first time that I've ever interviewed Thomas, No Rest for the Wicked had mixed reviews and he was like, "Yeah, I'll come on." And he came on the podcast and it was like kind of no big deal to him because he he had this level of confidence that a leader should have where he was like, "It's going to be better. It's gonna it's going to get better." One of my biggest fears that I have as a game developer is launching a game to mix reviews. And I've seen my friends launch games to mix reviews and it's devastating. Their credibility is shot. All of the sudden their world collapses around them because, well, they thought they were good at making games and then it turns out that they maybe aren't. And so No Rest for the Wicked launched to mixed Steam reviews and plenty of negativity came in, right?

Thomas has gotten a lot of negativity in the past and somehow he came on the podcast with his chin up, very confident. Not only that, Moon Studios, they became fully independent, meaning they probably had to spend a lot of money to get No Rest for the Wicked's publishing rights. I don't know what that number was, but that's a big risk to to pour money into the project to buy it back and to say, you know what, even though we got mixed reviews, even though our publisher wants to sell it back to us, aka the publisher doesn't believe in the project, we're going to go for this and we're going to make this great. That that level of confidence, it's kind of like a warriors mentality. I really admire that because frankly and may let me know in the comments if you if you kind of know what I'm talking about here, but I I sometimes panic.

I sometimes have imposttor syndrome. I sometimes lay awake at 3:00 a.m. and think that I'm an idiot and I think that I'm going to fail and that I'm going to flop and that the ice is thin and I'm going to break through the ice. Metaphorically speaking, I feel that way all the time. And I wish I had the level of brazeness and courage that Thomas Maller has here to just say, you know, this game is going to be good. I don't care what the press says. I don't say care what reviewers say. I don't care what my publishers say. Give me the project back. I'm going to make it great. Watch. And that's what he did. Again, the game is still in early access, but now it's at very positive with 18,000 reviews. And by the way, that's millions of dollars. What what he did was he said, "We need

to turn this ship around. We launched with mixed reviews, but we're going to turn this ship around." So, he launched something called The Breach, which was an update to No Rest for the Wicked. and they made a beautiful video showcasing all of the updates to the game and they listened they listened to their audience. They listened to the reviews. They listened to the community section on Steam and they just went hardcore and made a great game. Now, I don't know how it's going to launch. I don't know what 1.0 is going to look like. But I'm just really impressed by his willingness to just be confident and to power through the negativity and make something amazing. That is tough to do. That is really, really tough to do. [snorts] And that's one of my resolutions for this year is to power through well lies that frankly I tell myself. Most of the time it's not people. It's not people that

make me doubt myself. It's actually just me. It's it's me lying to myself and saying, "You're an idiot. You're stupid. Your game's going to suck. What are you doing? Uh, how did you get to the position where you have a following on YouTube?" And and that was a fluke. and getting very positive reviews on Steam for my two commercial releases. That was a fluke. Uh getting positive reviews for my Twisted Tower demo, which is my third game. Very positive reviews on Steam. That's a fluke. It's all these lies that are just constantly amplified in my head. And I love people like Thomas, not me, but Thomas Mor because it's almost like he knows how to just crank down the volume of of of negativity and just go, "This is what we're doing. I want to be more like that. And so again, it's not that I uh think Thomas Meer is the best gamedev in the world.

It's just the game dev I've been most impressed with. Um that's that's just a monumental thing that he's