I’m feeling really tired right now; I’m not sure I should continue with my game project.
I want to end but my need for money right now is also a conflict.
I don’t know what to do. At this point in my life, I’m seeing it with less and less enthusiasm.
The worst part is that even if I finish it… I don’t know how to promote it, and I’m afraid that will ruin it.
When things got weird, I wanted to scrap it and make another one, but I couldn’t and had to go back;
I’m thinking of selling it for just $5 each, maybe around 750 sales would be enough…
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Enthusiasm comes and goes. Maybe do something else for a while until your enthusiasm returns. Promotion and sales price can be difficult hurdles. I’ve made games that I give away, and have had zero downloads. Maybe I have a promotion issue, or maybe those games suck. I’ve also made a game that I have zero interest in, but has been my best seller (all dozen copies).
Game making is hard and thankless. Most of us have bad days, weeks, months, years. It will pass.
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I know, especially because of Scott Cawthon;
The thing is, this is my first time creating a game, and I want to do the best job I can. However, my biggest fear is the publicity.
I’ll probably have to become a YouTuber first, lol
I’ve published more than one complete and utter bomb, and not the good kind. One of them I made with the intent to fail on purpose to make a point.
My advice is to publish something you’re proud of, and expect it to bomb. Hope it bombs. Expect people to hate it. Expect no one to buy it. Expect people to tell you your game sucks (my first VR game had a sole review of “It’s soooo bad”). Get the experience out of the way on your schedule, then move on to your next game. Haters are inevitable, and the sooner you’re able to learn to handle the emotions that haters invoke, the less you’ll be affected by them.
Don’t get emotionally attached to your games. You’re going to learn a lot with each game you make. Each game will be a showcase of all the things you don’t know yet, with the first one being the most exciting and the most aggravating.
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yup, Scott cawthon has a story like that
Ask yourself, why are you making a game?
If it’s mainly because you normally enjoy making games, just take a break, and motivation will seep back. You have no reason to hurry or worry.
If you’re mainly making games to make money, I’m sorry to say it’s very difficult, and even established, professional studios can struggle to turn a profit. Simply working a day job is much more stable, and often more lucrative, than making games.
For example, I used to be a producer, constantly stressed, working overtime every single week, with lousy pay - I later worked as a librarian, easy hours, no overtime, and almost twice the salary.
Regarding publicity, the one thing that your potential customers all care about, is the game. No marketing campaign will make a bad game good, and a good game can carry itself - in all of human history, word of mouth has never carried further and faster than today.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t promote your game, just that it’s secondary to the game. Make something amazing, and you’ll get an amazing reaction.
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Let’s face things directly, if you’re already demotivated, and you are creating your game for money, you can already forget about that.
As Phoenixdk already said, the video games El-dorado is over.
With more than a thousand new games on Steam each month, this is getting more complicated with each passing day.
Sorry to say this like that.
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This is good advice. I now hop between game projects at will, and start new ones at will too. It’s fun! As soon as I start getting bogged down with head scratching issues, or devious little hard to find bugs, I walk away for a while or hop onto another project. When you come back, you will be surprised how many times that bug just isn’t important any more, or you solve it really quickly, or you have a new revelation about the game mechanics entirely.
This also forces me to keep my code clean enough that when I return I can follow it and get going again rapidly.
This minimal emotional tie to any one project keeps me brighter, more productive and happier. It is like prototyping heaven!
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