The #1 Trait Of A Great Game Developer

[Music] so interesting you say that cause like that's actually something I've been legit struggling with really past two years I've been 17 games and my whole philosophy was like quantity over quality and finally after doing all that I was like okay I'm gonna go back to this project that I started a couple years ago when I was still working in my marketing company that I just I went through this really rough breakup and like yeah it started this project where I called it father phobia the fear of love and it was basically you're you you're in literal Hell where love is literal hell and all of the enemies are hearts right it's it was such a personal project and there's so much of me into it and when I started working as supposed to launch last Valentine's Day and I just I had to delay it for an entire year just because the first thing I did naturally as a game developer is just redo everything and completely do it oh yeah because that's what we do

like we can't we can't just finish a game we have somebody knows but I'm in that right now actually so so yeah so but I'm all of those 17 games I didn't have an issue with right I we I would do him on live streams we'd have fun with our audience a build we push him out see how they do we get everybody feedback it'd be a giant cool collaborative process never once did it cross my mind that the games my fail because I never intended the games to do anything right I was just like yeah I want to make video games and I'm gonna do it with a bunch of people on the internet that also want to make video games and then we can all play each other's games and we did that it was great yeah it's like this project because it came out of like my soul cuz it came out of like such a personal thing because I feel like so much of me is in it mm-hm I I think in a way my identity is being tied to it and for me like I'm not afraid of the financial failure you have the launch I don't give a [ __ ] if I if I

sell games like I you know I I feel like my calling in life really is more akin to my YouTube channel than actually be like a game developer like yes I love making games but I was teaching in and helping people I think I love what was that I think I lost you there and that say that last sentence I was saying like I feel like my calling in life is more akin to my YouTube channel than actually the full game developer route like I love teaching I love sharing I love improving myself and other people around me so I'm all about that but like it scares me that the game might not be good yeah because this is the first game that I feel like I poured myself into and then on top of that I have this whole YouTube channel where i teach stuff about game development all the time how can a dude that teaches game development make a game that's not good i don't think i don't think any way any i don't think anyone would look at that as like i think you're the only person and and i would understand where you're coming from but i don't think

your subs would ever think that because no no but that's what makes it worse for me is when i asked them what do they think they say oh it's great to him and i'm like no [ __ ] you you watch you watch my videos let's say let's say let's say your subs were like okay this game is bad I don't think they care it's the same reason why a coach can't play as quarterback it's because he's much better at leading a team or in your case I don't know whether your games are good or not I have not played your games but let's say your fear is realized it doesn't matter because they because there are people who can coach and lead even if they can't do it themselves and the team doesn't care whether the coach can throw a Hail Mary pass because I assure you most coaches probably cannot so it's I think that it doesn't really matter whether or not in in my case as well I've thought about that too because I've made some some serious mistakes with my games but I just don't care like

I know what I'm passionate about and I know that I have really good things to say and like I've learned from your channel you know I've learned a lot from your channel and applied it to my games so I don't care whether you are pumping out quality games I bet you can I'm sure you are but I'm just learning dude yeah like about back to what you were saying about how you're like this how this game is received is might affect how you perceive yourself what I'm learning is looking I love history so if you look at history artists are never perceived as quality until they die lesson learned lesson learned I gotta go die yeah and what alternatively what you do see is artists that are really popular and then die it be their work becomes irrelevant so my point is I agree with that good work

it's almost so abstract the term good work is so abstract that you almost you almost have to just throw it out all together because we don't really even know what's good and what's known yeah and that's true like it was just interesting to hear you say that from a past tense of me saying it from a current yeah exactly I was just thinking about Majora's Mask actually have you played Majora's Mask I have not okay that game was received terribly it was it was the sequel to Ocarina well I guess it's kind of a sequel to Ocarina of Time and it was received terribly it was horrible and people thought it was just a garbage game and at least that was what I remember and now looking back it's like aged like a fine wine it's got this huge cult following and so the point there is I have to i believe in pinstripe I believe it's a great game and it's it's still bringing in residual income and

it's it was successful in that you know Time magazine loved it Washington Post loved it and has a really good user score right now on Steam I think its nine out of ten but you're such a market order but but it also it didn't perform like I wanted it to and I can't sit here and say it didn't perform how I wanted it to therefore that is what it is like yeah it's performance does not equate to its quality its quality and the same is true like if you watched movies like it's a wonderful life or something you know the whole point of that movie is you don't know your value the last person to know their value is the person themselves the people who know their value totally are the people who listen to their friends and their family and say okay this is who you are so if if we're like listening to what our game is telling us and how good our game is and

even what people are saying about our game and then having that reflect on us that's just not an appropriate way to to look at yourself no I agree yeah every time I've done something in life that I feel is worth like notable it's always been from that place of like let's just do it and if it doesn't go well oh well let's just like make it happen and some of the craziest experiences my life like I never once thought I would build a marketing company that's the result of me seizing opportunities you know left and right yeah same thing with like some of the games that I've made like seriously there's been times where I've gotten on stream had no idea what we're gonna create two days later and like I've made a game with the entire stream just using a bunch of ideas like we made a game that I took like I started it started out as this Prison Break game and then someone suggested we put gnomes in it so we put gnomes in it and then someone else was like hey I have this heavy metal track we can use so then I ended up with a gnomes in heavy metal and then I was like okay well let's just shoot plants yeah and then so it

snowmachining plants the heavy metal and then just old guy that flicks you off and it's like yeah it that you have to have that like courage in that confidence to do stuff like that because if you're constantly wondering like oh well people like this what will people say like will this work will this be like it just destroys your brain well it's working it's it's what you just described was that you're being playful with your development of your game yeah and playfulness playfulness inherently includes courage like that's what it comes back to the discussion about kids you hit kids that have such an easy time being playful because they're courageous that they're not gonna get hurt and that they're not gonna Barriss themselves in front of their friends so they're just not afraid and I think that that's so if you're gonna make a damn game you better be playful otherwise it's gonna be a boring game you got to know how to play while you're making your game and so I think that's especially important to just be playful and and what I want my subs to know is that if you're making a

game that you're not passionate about good luck being playful and good luck making a good game because if you're gonna be an indie game developer you have to learn that it's gonna take you years before this game is done and if you're gonna be committed it's like a marriage right if you're gonna be committed to this for me if I'm gonna be committed to my wife I better like her you know I hope I hope that I like her otherwise it's not gonna be successful and so the same is true with your game I see so many people there like I I want to make a game about this and I'm like alright I mean are you passionate about that and they're like no but it's what I'm good at like I think they can start ups too yeah so it's like I got this idea for this app about this uber for lawnmower people and I'm like yeah but do you like lawn care yeah or do you know stuff about technology yeah like you know you do something that you love I agree it gives you that energy that you don't get otherwise like my game phyla phobias it's three and a half years going on now

Wow I'm sorry a struggle yes I know I feel as much of a struggle it is like it it is so like core to like my human my being that like it has kept me going in all this time like it's it's you need that passion I don't think passion is unlimited motivation don't make that mistake don't think that just because you're passionate like you're never gonna stop wanting to work on it you are you're gonna hate yourself for your project at some point yeah well I mean like you got a you got to do that you got to move past the fear to like I so many people tell me now it's bizarre they'll say things like Tim like I don't know if you'll know what this is like but I'm really scared to do my stuff or I'm really and I'm like no dude like of course I know what that's like I had the same oh yeah fear but like I've just been able to push past it