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[jamsus]

Just wandering about that, after a talk with some friends while drinking a beer at pub.

People grows up. Somebody jump in a family, somebody works, somebody keep on with other interests and somebody has a nice combination of everything. Somebody had some bad... experience, and his life change.

Games are naturally fitted in the animal world, just like in human one.

When we are children, we kick a ball.
When we grow up, we kick a ball with some "skill".
When we grow older, we watch other people kick balls.

And that's okay, it's nature.

Restricting it to videogames, things can change as well. We can lose passion for playing videogames, and sometimes we just watch other people playing them.

Imagine a person that didn't have too much time for playing, for any reason you can think of.

In your opinion, could this person be able to develop a game, a good game, despite his passion for the "active play" has gone from a while? 

Can this "goal" renew in him a new perspective of "gaming" ?

[s0]

In your opinion, could this person be able to develop a game, a good game, despite his passion for the "active play" has gone from a while?

yes.

there are actually a lot of devs/designers who admit to not actually playing a lot of games anymore. playing videogames (or other games) as a hobby is time consuming and so is making them, and i guess people just don't want games to take up their entire lives.

[Leon Fook]

passion to play game is different with passion to make game. if someone like watching people play game, and not playing it him/herself, it's not like they can't make good game, as when you make a game you have to let people play it, and then you watch them play. see the link?

[Ky.]

Y'know, sometimes the best designs are made by those who don't actively play games. Their thoughts aren’t clouded with "whats popular right now" or keep up to date with all the latest politics. They come in with fresh minds and perspectives.

The act of Making a game boils down to three generalized components: Creating Art (Art = Sound too), Software Engineering, and Project Management. All three can be done separately, or together.  But none of them require actively indulging in the consumption of a media in order to do well. 

Playing games can only do a couple positive things (again, generalizing) when it comes to hard dev'n:

1. See how others tackled a particular problem (right or wrong), and shipped it
2. Light inspiration for tackling a genre
3. Can kill some designers/writers block by stumbling across the "right thing"

but just because your playing the latest Final Fantasy, doesn't necessarily equate to being actively able to create anything, inherently

[Lee]

Agree with what others have said, you'll probably be surprised at how many game developers are not gamers.

But I also think if you're completely out of touch with gaming you can possibly end up making more bad decisions and not know what your audience actually expects.

I think Molyneux may have this problem. He is able to conceptualize interesting and innovative ideas but ultimately cannot back up a lot of those concepts into concrete forms.

On the other hand my friend has almost no knowledge of the technical aspects of games, he just plays them. But he's an artist and in his spare time likes to think up game concepts. And I love the ideas he's able to come up with. Unburdened by the technical aspects he can come up with some very interesting ideas based on things beyond other games.

I think the problem really is getting stuck in one mode of thought. If you play one genre of games. If you do the same thing day in day out.

I think the best option is to try to broaden your mind, try out a few different games, watch some different movies, read a couple of books, look at artists... I guess ultimately be inspired from a few different sources.

[clockwrk_routine]

do great writers read books? no
therefore anyone can make games

[clockwrk_routine]

passions just one aspect of being a person and it wanes just like anything else
any one person can be driven by any one thing to make something, games, art, w/e
but those are just motivational and guiding forces
underneath that it's just time and sweat (and probably structure[displine] to maintain it)

[joeyspacerocks]

Interesting thread. I used to play lots of games, but with work, family, game dev and now the seemingly all absorbing effort of marketing a game there's just little time anymore.

Basically, don't sweat it - make something you enjoy playing - odds on other people will too.

The only caveat - if you're doing it as a business then you have to make things people will buy - that means keeping your finger on the pulse.

[Gwartney21]

Honestly you don't have to play video games to be able to make them. I think what drives the passion to make the game is based off your own imagination alone. I don't really have time to play games my self, and in fact I would rather work on them then play them. Some times they are good for inspiration but in my opinion you don't have to play them to make them.

[PeteDevlin]

One of my favourite comedians was once asked if he was worried about ever struggling to write more jokes, to which he replied 'Never about writing new jokes. But I do worry the enthusiasm to do so might go.'

To me that speaks volumes about anything in life. It's much harder to do something without the enthusiasm to do so. Work is slightly different, it can be driven by outside means.

[jamsus]

Your opinions are all correct. Probably the enthusiasm is the magic word, and all other concepts are garnish.

I want to add a question at the subject: sometimes, a Player really reach the "depression status", where something transform his poor desire of gaming in "hate for the same stuff - always the same thing - don't want to lose my time here - all already seen".

This happens many times in licterature\novel reading, movies watching etc...

Can this be influent in a creative development process or... is always the same question?

[Chris Koźmik]

Maybe.

It helps, it definitely helps. For example imagine someone who stopped playing in 1990 trying to develop a strategy game. He/she would be a laughingstock and the game would be terrible. On the other hand if you make platformers probably you could get away with no knowledge of modern inventions since it does not change that rapidly.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

this is probably semantic stuff, but it seems weird to me to call a non-productive thing, something that's primarily done for entertainment and relaxation, done to reduce boredom, a "passion". to me, playing games isn't a passion, it's an addiction, or a pastime, or a hobby. making games is the passion, not playing them

[Bones]

I still try to play games when I get a chance to.
Still trying to find time to beat Bioshock Infinity at the moment.

As mentioned earlier about watching people play games, that's always been a hobby of mine - I often would watch my friends play games. These days I don't specifically play games for research, I usually watch Playthroughs on youtube so I can scrub through the video and find things I'm looking for as supposed to spending most that time in-game attempting to find that stuff.

It obviously takes passion, I feel like people who approach games for profit first and for most are the ones who are passionate about money. If you are passionate about a hobby it almost becomes a secondary job or full-time job of it's own.

[darklight]

I'm a passionate game developer, not a passionate game player.  The time constraints of my life (wife, kids, house etc) meant I just cant be both.  I *wish* there were more hours in the day so I could play, but there aren't.  I probably spend more time watching lets plays & other youtube videos than I should (while I develop), and I like to think that helps keeps my finger on the pulse.

[ChoinHeap]

I remember watching gamecenter CX where the guy who made space invaders couldn't get past the first or second level of his own game. He's an old man and probably one of those higher ups at the company now, but he said the best designers were usually the ones who didn't play many games.

I resent that a little since I believe whether or not you play games has little to do with how you design/develop qualitatively. Though I do go out my way to find games made by specific designers/directors to see what they're about Not really to find more of what I like, but to learn about the designer's style and progression. Sometimes I'll look for games that has "that one mechanic" and see how they are handled differently. I don't know if these game searches affect my output, but it's what I do.

[Jeff Skyrunner]

I totally agree with others... what I can add is that sometimes I use the time I've planned for developing in playing games... I'm not a good gamer at all, I've no great skills in any game at all, but playing helps me relaxing and gives me "unconscious ideas" too: playing others game it's useful to take note of what I should consider in my games, which errors to avoid, which features can be added.

So sometimes the "play time" it can be considered "developing time".

My two cents

[RoboticPotato]

Nah.

The casino gaming industry operates just fine without passion.

[ColeyWoley]

I don't think you need to be passionate about playing games, but it really does help.  Life gets in the way sometimes, sure, but if its not something you're going to come back to when circumstances allow?  I dunno...

[Jeff Skyrunner]

Nah.

The casino gaming industry operates just fine without passion.

 

You win