Why give up?

[Maruno]

I'm interested in finding out why so many people end up giving up on their projects, either before they've done any real work on it or after a demo release and the corresponding hype.

I know the obvious answers will be along the lines of:

• I'm too busy with Real Life to keep this going.
• I'm not getting enough attention/I don't feel there's any point to making this if no one's showing they care.
• There are better games already, and I don't want to be overshadowed.
• People's responses are putting me off, because they're doubting my (unproven) talents/telling me to abandon my 17 region masterpiece.
• It's too hard to learn how to make a game (I can't figure out how to script/event, there aren't any good learning resources, etc.).
• People aren't volunteering to make my game for me.

Things like that (although perhaps not in those exact words, and no one will actually admit at least one of those - guess which one?). But there are other reasons too, I'm sure.

What were your reasons for giving up (or considering giving up) on a project? What do you think the legitimacy of these excuses is? And what do you think about people permanently giving up on an idea instead of just going on hiatus?

 

[dxhugo]

I'm not sure either. I've been here for 20 minutes and haven't found a single playable pokemon game for RPG XP.

I'm shocked, to be honest.

 

[Blazers]

Give and example of the games please.
No offense will be taken. I could be able to answer your question to each individual game

 

[Alexandre]

I agree, back when I was in here in 2005, before Essentials, and in the time when there was no public battle system, pokedex etc. There were some fantastic games, I came back early this year to see only Raptor and Amythest being continued :/

 

[dxhugo]

Give and example of the games please.
No offense will be taken. I could be able to answer your question to each individual game

Pokemon Ocean Blue and Pokemon Light

And by not playable I mean RGSS crashed every time. It does not crash on any other type of RPG XP games, just those two pokemon ones.

I can't even use the dev kit because it crashes right after i click "new game".

 

[Neo-Dragon]

The simple answer is everyone here develops these fan games as a hobby.
No matter if your serious about games or not, a Pokémon fan game will only ever be a hobby of yours.
People can just grow out of pokémon fan game making- again, even if they study, or produce commercial games, people tend to just grow out of this section.
Most of the members are young, it's rare to find an aged game developer around here.

I gave up on my Silk series of games to move onto Protectors and the reason for that was- I released a demo, stopped the project after that and moved onto other things. When I came back to pick it up, my style of how I coded events had changed completely and I was lost in my own code. I left no comments anywhere and I had no files on what I had been doing.

So as I started to edit Silk and get it ready to show it off, I started to re code systems. By a month, it was a different game.
So I re branded it as Protectors and that's what we have today.

I nearly gave up on Protectors twice- which is why the game has been in development for so long. But a way I kept is fresh for me, was to keep the ideas fresh. Ideas that might be new to the community were annoying me to develop so I was always adding stuff, taking stuff out, and it can really suck any passion you do have left for your project.

Taking a break, like most things in game development, is a double edged sword. While it can be nice to pull yourself out of your project, when you come back you may find it hard to get back in, and your project may end up as if you might as well started a whole new game. Again, using myself as an example, I believe I'm on my 3rd build of Protectors.

Just look at my thread start date, and you'll see how long I've been developing it and how things progressed. It has been rough, and that roughness is to much for people to be dealing with in their spare time.

 

[Alistair]

Well, I gave up on my game Tales of Virtue a while ago because the hard drive in my old laptop failed, and BigUpload decided for no apparent reason to delete the demo I had posted.

Around the time when I decided to come out of lurking and create a new account, I started a game called Pokémon: Serenade of the Forest. I really gave up on this project because I did not know what entailed to making a Pokémon fangame.

 

[Ty 101]

I personally have thought about quiting my game only once after it really took off.

I always try to learn new things. I am not only developing my game as a hobby but I am also developing it to teach myself vital game making skills. And as my knowledge got greater I have thought about quiting the game to start work on a 3d game. That idea is off now as I realized that I still have lots to learn.

Everytime I think about quiting I always think that I've been making the game for about a year, It would kind of be a let down to quit now.
Another thing I think about is that in the past year almost all of my time has been spent on my game, what would I do without it?

I think the best strategy to keep on developeing a game is to go about it slowly so that you don't get bored of it. I personally have myself on a schedule, When ever I make a route I spend two days mapping it and three days eventing it. I could do it all in one night but I chose not to.

And about the most common quiting message (Life is getting in the way) my game is my life so I don't think that that will ever happen.

 

[Maruno]

One reason that's tempted me to give up on my game several times already is the state of Essentials. No battle animations, various features missing or incomplete (fishing animation, contests, moves/abilities, etc. - not that I want contests anywhere near my game anyway, though). When I think about the ways in which it's lacking, even if they're things I could eventually fix (or even if I could fix them right now, e.g. the fishing animations), it still depresses me.

I'm also concerned that I'm probably greatly underestimating the amount of work and planning needed to make a game (it doesn't help, I suppose, that I'm planning to have 3 regions). I have the plan fine, but all the mapping/eventing/extra little things like pokémon populations or NPC creation could easily spiral upwards into a tornado.

I'm also bad at graphics, which I know is something to only think about at the end of everything else, but it's still there being daunting. I'll eventually need to recruit someone(s) to help out with the art side of things, but I'm trying to get something reasonable done on my own to prove I can do so.

 

[Ty 101]

One reason that's tempted me to give up on my game several times already is the state of Essentials. No battle animations, various features missing or incomplete (fishing animation, contests, moves/abilities, etc. - not that I want contests anywhere near my game anyway, though). When I think about the ways in which it's lacking, even if they're things I could eventually fix (or even if I could fix them right now, e.g. the fishing animations), it still depresses me.

I'm also concerned that I'm probably greatly underestimating the amount of work and planning needed to make a game (it doesn't help, I suppose, that I'm planning to have 3 regions). I have the plan fine, but all the mapping/eventing/extra little things like pokémon populations or NPC creation could easily spiral upwards into a tornado.

I'm also bad at graphics, which I know is something to only think about at the end of everything else, but it's still there being daunting. I'll eventually need to recruit someone(s) to help out with the art side of things, but I'm trying to get something reasonable done on my own to prove I can do so.

Yes essentials is lacking many things and roms have everything, the only problem is that roms are really hard to work with.

I Only have two gyms in my game and I have been developing for a year.

I like your thinking:
Do work on your own so when you ask for help you can have stuff to show people.

 

[zirico]

People's responses are putting me off, because they're doubting my (unproven) talents/telling me to abandon my 17 region masterpiece.I

You talking about The Lost World?

 

[Ty 101]

You talking about The Lost World?

have you ever looked at the plot and story space?

In there you will find about 100 threads from people planning to make a game with every region.

 

[T3h Kaiser]

This is something I've been wondering since the days when I just lurked around here. For as massive as the game development crowd is here, there isn't alot to show for it. Lornami and I were just discussing it a few days ago, actually.

have you ever looked at the plot and story space?

In there you will find about 100 threads from people planning to make a game with every region.

^This.

From my experience with various other fan-content communities and even simply dealing with the younger staff members of my gaming news site, the younger you are the quicker you are to burn-out. I've noticed a fair amount of the people here are rather young, as Neo said above, and perhaps they simply put too much effort into their projects. They work and work and work until... they just get bored.

Sure, my own Zirconium is not very tangible in it's current state, but one of the things that has kept me from dropping it is to just keep a pleasant pace; I hate rushing things. Whether it be due to too much passion or pestering from people wanting demos/screens/videos/releases/whatever, the Showcase threads get bumped every single day. If I put in work on Zirconium every single day, I'd go crazy. We're not professional developers, we aren't on any time constraints. Taking it a bit slower would probably keep alot of great projects alive.

The lack of spriters within the community is also a major hurdle, and one that I am very familiar with...

 

[Maruno]

You talking about The Lost World?

No, actually. I stick mainly to the Plot & Story Space part. I'm just a light browser here, and besides, seeing actual and much better games than I can manage will just put me off.

As T3h Kaiser said, quite often there's someone who posts an "all regions!" idea in there, and promptly abandons it.

 

[Ninja Tree]

• I'm too busy with Real Life to keep this going.
• I'm not getting enough attention/I don't feel there's any point to making this if no one's showing they care.
• There are better games already, and I don't want to be overshadowed.

These three are the best reasons to give up on a game. Wasting time on a seventeen region "masterpiece" really gets in the way of real life things even though it's on free time. Why keep working towards something that will never get released? If they see it's not ever going to get finished, they WILL give up.

 

[<~F.M.P~>]

These three are the best reasons to give up on a game. Wasting time on a seventeen region "masterpiece" really gets in the way of real life things even though it's on free time. Why keep working towards something that will never get released? If they see it's not ever going to get finished, they WILL give up.

Honestly I don't see those as good reasons at all. In my opinion, building a game is to fulfill a dream, take up spare time if you happen to be bored(Hobby), prove something to people, or even bring your own Ideas to life. My real life is jam packed with turmoil and fun. Most of my real life is spent in school for 13 hours a day, I'm a really deep thinker, talking to friends, and I'm not gonna lie...Flirting Ha ha ha, but I still always find time to work on Carbon somehow...as well as DWA now that that's under my belt lol. If they give up, they're really just giving up because they just got bored with it because they're moving to fast or aren't willing or able to take on something they've assigned themselves with. There have been MULTIPLE( more than 10x) times where I've wanted to give up on both Carbon and Alpha, but then I realize that if I do...I'm kinda giving up on my dream(Graphic arts designer) as well as letting two good games fall, and letting fans down. Got off topic, sorry

The main point people give up is because carrying the weight of real life and trying to learn so many new things can be a huge burden to carry, or they just aren't getting to much attention for their project which can really be a downer...I hope I didn't come off as offensive or not make any sense lol

 

[BlazingLink]

I've given up my fangames do to Inspiration issues.

I've often gotten bored of making my game, and have no real motive to continue working on it, so I just quit it.

 

[Riceeman]

I just have a downright lack of commitment. I can't finish anything. It takes strength for me to even finish writing this post! So for me, it's just a mental barrier thing. I really hope I can finally get a game together.

There is a lack of spriters, certainly, me being one, but the best thing to do is - BECOME A SPRITER. I'm sorry, but being a Spriter and Game creator is the most useful thing - You don't have pesky spriters who come and go, you don't have to wait ages before impementing something. Spriting and Game Designing go like Butter and Bread. I didn't instantaneously become a good spriter. I just kept doing random stuff, from recolours and fusions, now to Tiles, Fakemon and Trainers. It all helps. (No, you cannot ask me to sprite for your game -_-)

 

[Luka S.J.]

Heh...I haven't given up once (mainly because Blue Chrome is the first game I'm making :P) but appart from that I enjoy making games. Personally I despised people that lost their game progress due to hard drive failure or something like that. Once their game got lost, they stopped working on it. I never thought that I'd be one of the victims of no backup but still after all my loss I continued making my game. When HGSS came out, it just inspired me to do better because I just like to compete with others, and making a game that is like HGSS or even better is one of my larger goals. I don't think that anyone that starts game development should quit so soon. Most people comming and overcrowding forums with their games that lack material, were never serious about game development. That is what mainly annoys me. They come and advertise a game, take resources, and time of other people to a waste. It's sad to see only few great games being continued.

 

[thepsynergist]

I have spent too much time on my game to stop now. I promise that I will finish my game.