Warning: Long rant ahead.
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Point 1: A couple of weeks ago I asked the question: "Would you rather be a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond?" I didn't get any responses (or people who cared enough to answer), so I took the question down after a short while.
Point 2: Yesterday, I posted that my goal for December and 2012 was to become more of a priority and less of an option.
Point 3: I am becoming extremely disgusted with mainstream gaming franchises breaking away from their roots and putting more of an emphasis on development of graphics and visuals rather than the game-play and enjoyability of the product/game at hand.
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What do these points have in common? I guess you can say they comprise my personal philosophy and what I hope to accomplish.
Point 1: In the case of the fish in the pond question, I lean towards that of the big fish in the small pond. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being a small fish in a big pond, either. It's just a difference in opinion. But I've been leading the Selatria project for about 10 months now, and I try and make sure I let everyone have a say in development. Personally, I appreciate when my voice is heard in the group (in fact, one of my big pet peeves is being ignored) and I try to extend the same to the group. I don't think I would get that same freedom if I were working for a large game company.
Point 2: In my past, I see myself as being more of an option than a priority. There's been plenty of instances in which I've been glossed over for something or someone "better". Usually the saying in Point 2 is with regards to personal relationships in which the boy or girl should not see their potential significant other as an option, but rather as a priority. But one can use that same method of thinking in a job interview. My worst fear in life is being
easily replaced, whether it be in a job, in a family, or even in the case of a future girlfriend dumping me for someone "better". I have that fear of being replaced, so changing my philosophy to be a priority rather than being an option means that I'm going to make it a goal to diversify myself more, learn a wide variety of roles, rather than being the best. Because face it, someone is always going to be better than me at
something. It's inevitable. But being well rounded and able to adapt would make me more valuable, and unfortunately that's one of my faults. (That, and never being on time. But that's for another discussion.)
Point 3: The quality of games has decreased considerably in the mainstream market. Aside from the Nintendo franchises (their hardware has been suffering), the FPS genre is probably going to go the way of Tony Hawk. Nothing against ActiVision, but I'll never work for them. They beat their cash cows until they're dead. Remember the days when Tony Hawk was popular? There was sequel after sequel, spinoffs using bikes and snowboards, and what happened? Eventually there were 9 games in the span of 5 years and the series blew itself out. Call of Duty will soon become the same way when people finally realize Modern Warfare 7 is the same as Modern Warfare 3. In short, gaming has really lost its innovative feature I miss from the 64-bit era.
Because of all this, I'm strongly considering going into the indie game business rather than putting all of my effort into going into a major game studio. I'm either going to join a small team or make my own after graduation, and I'm leaning a lot towards the latter.
But it depends on how well Selatria is received when Chapter 1 is released in early 2012. I'm putting all of my heart and soul into the game, and up until now the only people who probably know this fact are the people who have actually seen me show them the game in person or are on the team. Because aside from some tech demos of gameplay, it's been largely kept away from public eye. I kind of want to keep it that way, it'll be ready when it's ready.
My motivation to want to start up my own game studio comes a lot from looking at a lot of the communities online that are supporting indie game developers, lots of open positions for such areas, experience for a resume, and the potential gains (and risky losses) involved. But life has risks, right?
But what inspires me most is someone who is slightly older than I am who recently came out with a game from his company "Freebird Games" called "To The Moon". Totally inspired me to adopt this new philosophy and he has instantly become one of my idols. Take a look at the video:
He's very talented. If I can get Selatria to be half as good as that, I'll be very satisfied with the project. He did a very good job with this.
So much for that disclaimer, huh? It seemed like the post was going to be much longer than it actually was.
