Passion Vs Profit - A lecture at Casuality 2008

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/passion-vs-profit-photos-from-casuality-2008/

Here's another post for the non-existent Indie forum ;-) I thought that some of you may find this info interesting. I really enjoyed the lecture and found it backed up my own theories about making a game that you are passionate about but which is also financially viable.

I'm not sure how you can get passionate about a game you're just doing for profit, unless it happens to be a genre you're interested in.

I also don't know how you can combine passion and profit. I've never been able to, because they invariably pull me in different directions. I suppose balancing passion and profit means going with passion on some decisions and with profit on others, but to me, that just means you end up satisfying neither motive.

I suppose one solution would be to become passionate about making money :P

Build it and they will come? Naaah... but generally speaking doing something for maximum profit in mind is dull and boring. Doing something you're passionate about is much more fun, and that HAS has to show in the game/whatever too. I bet you could name few big game companies and see easily who does thing for money mainly.

If I wanted to do coding for profit only, I'd try and get a corporate gig.

I agree, and, I agree.

haha, agreed. I'm passionate about that, but only by providing good value to others (not via swindling or something (like most ISPs ;-))

Well I've managed and so have the two companies in the article (and so have others). You just pick a genre that you know is profitable that you also personally enjoy and then you make it (providing it's possible with your team size). Plus if you enjoy finding solutions to problems and design work and polishing, you can enjoy that as you make the game. AND if you have an end goal of making money and you enjoy thinking about that, then it will make the project more enjoyable. If you can't find a profitable genre that you enjoy (or you think making money is "evil"), then crap knows... ;-)

I'm lucky this way, I just enjoy coding/designing software. It does not really matter what the software does. I do the game coding and graphics things because I think that is also fun. The paycheck comes from the corporate work, if I can learn a little extra by doing games then that is great too.

Yup, I too have to do the "day job" bit. Wish I could keep myself motivated enough to finish a profitable project, but the fun ones just keep calling :)

BTW,there's another measure that's not in that talk and that's the unmeasurable success in "critical acclaim". Now, I don't think critical acclaim pays the bills, but if you look at Wik, which was listed as "barely profitable", you'll also see that it's the "most critically acclaimed". In some cases, the PR is worth taking the financial hit, to help build awareness for your company/team.

I do the "profit" thing in my day job, to keep the lights on and all that, so I can do the "passion" thing when I find the time.

Of course, both my day job and night job happen to be; videogame maker, so I guess you *can* combine "profit and passion". ;)

Yep good point, I've bought Wik and see why it had critical acclaim. Building the brand via PR is certainly a good way to go...

See, right there alarm bells start going off in my head. If I have to pick a genre that's profitable, I've already compromised, and I haven't even started the game yet.

I was thinking about this thread and the article over the weekend, and trying to come up with an eloquent way of putting across my views on compromising passion for profit, and then today I read an article which puts it better than I ever could. It's not specifically on point, it's specifically on marketing, but the sentiment was exactly the one I was trying to get across. So now I don't have to. Only problem is, there's a rude word in the URL, so I don't know if the site is going to stop me linking to it. Let's try.

Jonathan Blow Interview

EDIT: Oh, it does work. Yay!

Ah but you took that snippet out of context as the whole sentence was "You just pick a genre that you know is profitable that you also personally enjoy". So it's not a compromise if you enjoy it, unless you only enjoy it a little bit instead of a lot...

Thanks for the link to the article. Good read. I hear where he's coming from but I happen to like making casual games, so that's OK. But not everyone does, and that's fair enough, but it may be hard for them to make their "dream game" and survive in the real world penniless at the same time...

I did only quote the first part of it, but I didn't take it out of context. If I had then I couldn't have used the word compromise, because there would have been nothing to compromise *with* without the second part of the sentence. My point was that the minute you have to decide if the genre is profitable, you've compromised.


It's not about whether you enjoy it a little or a lot. It's about how you made the decision. If you made the decision without consideration of profit and *then* you had a look to see if it's profitable, you haven't compromised, but if it's even a consideration when you're picking, it's a compromise.


Sure, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy.

Ah yes I thought of that, and you are correct. But I thought I'd point out the whole sentence for the benefit of other readers. For me it's a compromise I'm fine with because there are other rewards...

I wouldn't say that - going outside in the sun for a walk is worthwhile and it's easy (in the summer), but I know what you are saying ;-) I also think that if you compromise and make a game for profit and passion and make a big effort and it does well then that's worthwhile as well.

I think you can do both; make games in genres that you know are going to be profitable (or at least well-received) and have passion.

I was thinking of making a Sudoku game, because I thought it would be easy, make some $ and make my wife happy, since she hasn't played a game I've made in the past 10 years.

I was wrong, because I just couldn't get into it. I don't play Sudoku and don't "get it", so I wasn't going to make a good one.

Now, my wfe loves solitaire, but Grey's pretty-much got that covered right now. ;)

She does like match-3's and seek & finds, so I'm looking at one of these 2 genres, which just-so-happen-to-be popular and possibly "profitable".

As a person that makes games for a living, it's important to balance "passion & profit", because if there's no profit, no amount of passion is going to overcome the bill collector and ultimately, I have to keep the lights on so I can work on my platformer.

Yeah. Another approach is Day job: make profitable games (that you are also passionate about). Evening Fun: Make pure 100% passion games :-) (like platformers)