July blog

Failure as a game dev, what, how and really?

Well here is my first blog entry, I thought I would set this up to talk about topics that I think about. So, I will keep this updated as a way for me to just gush about topics or subjects etc. Anyway, into this blog

What is failure?

Now that is a very simple question but to a range of people it could be many things. I bet most people think it means it is all over, give up, you failed. Failure means you did not win. How could it even be a good thing.

Well when it’s comes to the game industry or development of an artist project, I think failure is something we all focus on too hard. I have found that failure, is thrown around a lot when talking about game development, indie especially. Often you will find articles and advise all based around not failing. Do these 5 steps to not fail your marketing campaign. Here are the top 10 steps to not fail at narrative.

With all this information running around I often find during development. That failure is a word that weighs heavily on the mind. Thoughts like “if I can’t get this game done, am I a failure?”. It is something that I have been tackling a lot lately, mainly down to how my current game has been stuck in development hell and feels like it is never going to get released. Making an RPG as a sole developer was a grave mistake made due to a lack of knowledge and experience…

And that is the key thing, if I decide to cancel then it is not a failure. Because I learn a lot from developing it, a lot about the do’s and don’ts. This knowledge will stick with me for a long time and will help my future projects with making decisions. I think the only time a project should be consisted a failure, is when it is a financial failure.

And that is what has been on my mind lately, no matter if I choose to keep working on my personal project or cancel it; I have the experience now to be even better next time.

Anyway, that is all for now

Bradley Hennessey