I Missed The Boat
Even though there's so much opportunity and access to create things now, I can't help but feel like I've missed out on the best times to be a part of the industries that I'm attracted to. Like I wasn't able to get involved back in the day when the thing was happening, and now I've lost that opportunity. Video games is one example.
Other than an Intellivision that was only made available to us on occasion, we didn't have game consoles when I was a kid. Eventually, thought, we were fortunate enough to get a PC. My dad picked up a Tandy Sensation, which was a 486 processor with 4mb of ram. Four MB! It ran MS DOS 6 and Windows 3.1. It was early days, and it was very exciting.
It was also the time of that wonderful thing called shareware. We used to get the Software Labs catalog, and I would spend a lot of time pouring over all the game titles, imagining how cool they would be to play. Alien Carnage, Catacomb 3D, Bio Menace... There was a lot of intriguing cover art. We did get to order some games occasionally, usually compilation disks that had a bunch of mini games on them. Most of them I can't remember. Eventually I was able to get my hands on some amazing titles like Commander Keen (which I played extensively), Duke Nukem, Hocus Pocus, Elfland, and eventually Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. Though to be fair, I had to acquire the last two games from friends because my mom wasn't a fan of the violence.
I became interested in learning to navigate DOS and eventually started messing around with coding in QBasic. I went down the road of trying to write my own text-based adventure game like Zork, but didn't get far. I loved the choose your own adventure books, and this was a way to write your own digitally. I did learn some of the basics and had some fun, but didn't progress much. Then I got Doom and a copy of the WinTex editor. This allowed you to open and edit WAD files for Doom, Hexen, Heretic, etc. You could modify basically anything in the game. I got hooked on that for a while, using the pixel editor to modify the sprites and textures, though I don't think I was ever able to get any of it to work because I had no idea what I was doing and there really weren't any reference materials at that point.
Dial-up internet was just starting to be a "thing", but I don't know that I had access to it at that point. Either way, no one in my circle knew anything about computers really, so I did what I could to learn but mainly just enjoyed playing the games. I couldn't help but think about how cool it would be to be involved in that whole revolution. The tech kept getting better, the graphics got more and more advanced, and new games were constantly coming out. It was really cool to witness, but I was just on the outside of it.
Fast forward to now. The world is my oyster. I can download the game engine of my choice, watch tutorials till my eyes bug out, make my own art assets (as bad as they might look), build a game, and publish it. There's a part of me that wants to do it, and I've started and stopped a few times. Mainly because it's not a high priority and I don't want it to be another corpse on the pile of unfinished projects that lives in my head. But also because I don't think the world really needs another shitty indie game. I wanted to make a "keen-like" platformer just for my own edification, and I started going down that road again recently, but then quickly put it back on the back-burner. There's only so much time in the day. I have a family, a full time job, and a music hobby. I can't do everything, so I have to decide what makes the cut. At this time, the game isn't one of those things.
Besides, there are so many great games to enjoy already. Why not just play them instead of trying to make my own, which is probably going to be pretty unoriginal and boring?
I do have an idea for a game that could be interesting, but it's way more advanced in behavior and art style than I could put together any time soon. I would probably have to build a FEW shitty, basic games just to learn enough to start executing on the concept. Am I really going to take the time to do that? I like the idea of it, but probably not the reality.
So I missed the boat. When the barrier to entry was high, information was scarce, and the industry was at its infancy, I was also in my infancy (so to speak). Now that I'm older, the industry is mature, super accessible, and bloated. And I've moved on to other things.
So why try at all? Well, probably because the experience of learning how to make one is worth it. Coming up with a concept, designing characters and textures, building levels, writing music and doing sound design. It's all a great process of creation and learning. It doesn't really matter if I don't publish it or if anyone else ever sees it, but I also don't really like creating things that I don't get to share with other people. I feel like it needs to have a purpose. Sure, I'd show it to people if I actually finished it. But really, the world doesn't need anymore video games. But it's an itch to scratch. It's something to exercise my brain. Stretch my creative muscles. And maybe come up with something I could be proud of.
I feel similarly about music. I can't stop working on it, but I also feel like the "golden age" is gone. No one could ever write a new piece of music, and we would have plenty. There's more good music available than anyone could listen to in their lifetime. That's not even taking into account all the mediocre music that's out there. So we don't need it. Yet I still feel the drive to create it and share. It often feels more like a burden than a blessing. Like an addiction rather than a hobby. But I think that's an exploration for another post.