Dreams and Fears

Is creativity even valuable?

I’ve recently decided to press pause on a passion project - one that I hoped would become something great, but which would have taken years to bring to fruition in a market that has a low success rate. My single player game, as the least likely thing I’m doing to pay off, has bit the dust.

It wasn’t easy - mostly because I really enjoy programming and designing levels. But if I’m honest, my taste for games is pretty niche, if not dated.

I’ve long been unsure on when and how to ditch a project - mostly just following my nose without much commitment. Not a recipe for success. In this case, my decision to start making this game was born in a similar way as these ideas - during writing. I was discussing the same topic, and wondered if a good way to choose projects on was to envision my life after the project had succeeded.

I imagined myself with a small team working out of a converted warehouse in the inner suburbs, enjoying the mix of technical and creative challenges that game dev brings, while raking in the dollars. Something like Halfbrick (Brisbane base, and of Fruit Ninja fame), seeing as they seem resolute on ignoring me.

I was encouraged by the concept of ‘imagine if money was no object,’ but in reality a very small percentage indie of games recoup their costs (especially in time), and if I wasn’t happy to make this as a passion project, then I probably shouldn’t bother. And it turns out, I’m not really happy to make this as a passion project, because put simply, I’m not that passionate about it. That’s in contrast to my longstanding indie project Glitch Arena, which has been out in the world for years, makes no money, and which I am quite happy to contribute to forever because I enjoy it.

Glitch Arena is a FPS - worse, an Arena FPS. Which means the only way to enjoy it to is play agains someone very close to you in skill/experience. Otherwise it simply isn’t enjoyable (Deathmatch aside, but I’m not passionate about making a free-for-all game and prefer the strategy of Duel/1v1/p2p).

Better late than never, but oh why does it take me so long to realise these things.

My idea now is to keep working in this vein - creative projects with commentary on being creative and the issues it… causes (or I guess, can potentially cause) in a world that values… value. Yes, that’s right, creativity has no intrinsic value because it doesn’t solve problems unless applied to a problem. So creativity needs to be manifested, as entertainment, as design, as science. You get the idea.

I have a project in the works that will take some time, but not years, will challenge me creatively as well as (potentially, one is never certain) create value. There is groundwork to be done in terms of refining the idea and the problem solved, so make sure you stay tuned.