edited March 2019 in General Discussion
I m playing games for over 20 years, especially RPGs (Diablo 1 and so on) and after 2015 that I started game development as a hobby I find myself feeling regrets when I spend time playing games instead of developing my own game, and most of the time I just quit and open Unity.
Do you guys feel the same?
Post edited by dlevel on
  • edited March 2019
    Yes and no.

    I feel you need to play the latest games in order to see what's happening in the industry.
    You can research what does and doesn't work and get a better idea for your own game how it should play.

    I try to treat game development like a job, so I give myself weekends off and I'll typically play a game during that. However during weekdays I almost never touch games.

    Edit : also wanna add I take a week off from the game after each asset-creation milestone. I work full time and come home and work more. So it definitely helps to have time to relax and enjoy games and just life in general.
    Post edited by Wrofir on
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  • edited March 2019
    I do, I love playing games and I love making them.
    I also wouldn't recommend denying yourself enjoyment of your hobby for the job. There is a serious risk of stress and mental/passion burnout. Especially when you make longer or riskier games and you have to work long periods of time in isolation, without seeing other people play and react to your work.
    You also never hear a writer say it's good to read less books and write more, or director say same about movies. Playing games will let you benefit from the professional experience and insight of other developers and remind you why you love this hobby.
    And lastly I totally understand the urge and joy of churning out task after another task and the feel of accomplishment it gives. But there is only so much of focused work brain can handle before it starts to give out diminishing returns. In most cases it's just a choice between working 4-6 hours in a focused manner and then resting, or working erratically whole day with constant breaks you might not even pay attention to. And the sum total result is usually same for both. Sometimes focused work might even result in more work being done. (look up stuff like Deep Work and related research if you want to know more).
    Post edited by hellwalker on
  • edited March 2019
    @hellwalker this is a very nice discussion regarding focused work and when you are IN the task. I find myself doing some extraordinary work after returning to my game from a week off (I have a full time job and some times deadlines and life kick in and I just take a week or more off).

    What I do in these periods of big breaks it to keep my hacknplan updated with new ideas, or even just make a note on every idea pops up.

    Anyway, about playing video games, I'm debating to start a new one, because usually, I choose RPGs or MMORPGs which require kinda lot of time to sink in and scares me :D I play some soccer silly games on mobile though
    Post edited by dlevel on
  • Yes, and I also think it's important to keep playing when working in game development - there's always a lot you can see, learn and get inspired by.

    Although it's getting harder to keep up with everything as responsibilities grow :D
    Especially playing longer games, where you need to sit down for multiple hours per session to really get into it. I'm always 1-2 years behind most AAA releases, e.g. just finished Horizon Zero Dawn about a month ago.
    The Nintendo Switch definitely allowed me to play a lot more, as it's way easier to just hop in and play for a few minutes (e.g. while waiting for Unity to import the latest ORK build :D).
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  • Same as several others, it's important to keep up with the trends in games, so I play a lot of stuff when I can (and to relax and blow off some creative steam!).

    Recently been playing Apex Legends every night with some friends; although I've also been playing rimworld and testing out various metroidvanias that catch my eye. Need to go through the RE2 remake too.

    Though like GiL, longer RPG games tend to escape my grasp nowadays unless they really get their claws into me. Of course, I say this, but it looks like I have 100+ hours in rimworld...
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  • I can't touch competitive games like Apex or Fortnite, I used to play competitive PvP games and I don't feel like playing and get owned by some 14year olds hahah.

    Also MMORPG genre which used to be my favorite genre seems to be declining pretty fast and every time I'm installing one, I play maximum a week and then quit, maybe the genre is fine and it's my tastes that changed? who knows...

    Now I'm playing some mobile games and tbh I'm waiting for runescape 3 for iOS to play it on my iPad while developing :D never played that game and I'm hearing very nice things.
  • gamingislove said: The Nintendo Switch definitely allowed me to play a lot more, as it's way easier to just hop in and play for a few minutes (e.g. while waiting for Unity to import the latest ORK build :D).
    The Nintendo Switch is the perfect gaming platform for me. I have a vast collection of games, many of which I obtained 10-20 years ago (or more!) and never got around to playing. I can't count how many times I've bought a new game, played it for a couple hours each night (or most nights) for the first couple of weeks, then got sidetracked by real life stuff... only to come back a few months later, having completely forgotten what I was doing (and/or being too out of practice to continue playing at a difficult part of the game). So I'd start over. I swear I've played through the first half or two-thirds of Betrayal at Krondor and Baldur's Gate II at least three times, but I've never finished either one.

    Clearly that's not a recent problem for me. ;-) But it has become even more of an issue since my first daughter was born in 2010 (for obvious reasons). I could count on one hand the number of games I actually finished on either PC or console from 2010 to 2017. I don't normally buy game systems at their launch prices, but the appeal of the Switch was too much to resist, so I pre-ordered one.

    Totally worth the money. I must have had at least 800 hours of playtime out it:

    Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (200+ hours)
    Skyrim (240+ hours)
    Civilization VI (130+ hours)
    Okami (45 hours)
    Wasteland 2 (80+ hours)
    Super Mario Odyssey (20+ hours)

    Plus at least a dozen titles that I've spent 6-8 hours playing. I have a 45 minute train ride to and from work each day, and being able to just suspend the game and resume at the touch of a button means that I can tackle all of these long games that sometimes took me 4 years to get through (if I managed to not forget what I was supposed to be doing). I find that with the Switch, I can quickly slip back into playing a game like Zelda or Skyrim without much trouble, even if I'm only playing in those 45 minutes each morning and afternoon/evening.

    And it is important for game developers to play games, both for enjoyment as well as for keeping up (at least somewhat) with current games. I have the utmost respect for Richard Garriott and his role in shaping the gaming industry in its early years, but he has been pretty open about the fact that he doesn't really play games anymore, and frankly it really shows in Shroud of the Avatar.
  • Forgot to mention - if you play Splatoon 2 and ever get splatted by GIL, that's probably me :D
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  • BTW after posting here I found a game for iphone/ipad (probably android too) called Eternium, it's a free diablo like, not pay to win, and got stuck! It has the best touch screen controls I ve seen in a game (skills by drawing signs).
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