I've recently realized that I haven't felt comfortable with doing anything for its own sake.
This revealed itself as I was working on a game engine reimplementation. For two years I was personally satisfied with myself by being able to return to a hobby and actively enjoy my time programming, and I thought I had managed to find something I was comfortable with doing just for myself.
It turned out that I was deceiving myself by saying that I was in it for the personal enjoyment. This was false. I was ultimately working towards a goal that I didn't properly define, which was releasing the engine. This is the goal that everyone talks about when discussing game development, and it is a goal that carries value only because it involves other people - people that learn about and play your game.
So in the future I will have to be more perceptive of the goals I'm hesitant to admit exist. From the beginning, I was only ever going to work on such a project with the eventual goal of making a release, as in making my project have an effect on people other than myself. That meant I was only working on my project for other people, and not for myself. The enjoyment I found in working on it was nothing more than a prerequisite to getting to work. It makes you feel virtuous to think otherwise, but it's nothing more than an elaborate lie.
I don't understand how one could possibly develop games just for their own sake if shipping the finished game to other people is the point of game development.
I guess I would say that if you aren't willing to permanently delete everything that you've worked on the moment you've finished a project, then you're not actually "doing it for yourself". That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you have to be honest or perceptive enough to be able to admit the truth.
Well, you shouldn't deceive yourself about your goals. I don't think a goal that involves other people is inherently bad. Nothing wrong with wanting to impact the world IMHO.
Unless you create a game that has infinite replayability and you find playing it fun you're right that game development is ultimately FOR someone else. But there is nothing wrong with that.
Ultimately you have to find a project whose goal is worth the effort. Honestly part of why I got out of game development was because I wanted some more reasonable projects.
This revealed itself as I was working on a game engine reimplementation. For two years I was personally satisfied with myself by being able to return to a hobby and actively enjoy my time programming, and I thought I had managed to find something I was comfortable with doing just for myself.
It turned out that I was deceiving myself by saying that I was in it for the personal enjoyment. This was false. I was ultimately working towards a goal that I didn't properly define, which was releasing the engine. This is the goal that everyone talks about when discussing game development, and it is a goal that carries value only because it involves other people - people that learn about and play your game.
So in the future I will have to be more perceptive of the goals I'm hesitant to admit exist. From the beginning, I was only ever going to work on such a project with the eventual goal of making a release, as in making my project have an effect on people other than myself. That meant I was only working on my project for other people, and not for myself. The enjoyment I found in working on it was nothing more than a prerequisite to getting to work. It makes you feel virtuous to think otherwise, but it's nothing more than an elaborate lie.
I don't understand how one could possibly develop games just for their own sake if shipping the finished game to other people is the point of game development.
I guess I would say that if you aren't willing to permanently delete everything that you've worked on the moment you've finished a project, then you're not actually "doing it for yourself". That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you have to be honest or perceptive enough to be able to admit the truth.