Passion: It's Overrated

Author: by Staff

In Gamasutra's latest installment of The Designer's Notebook, Ernest Adams writes about how professionalism outstrips passion as a requirement for game developers -- despite what the job ads say. "Art requires passion. True art comes from the soul, and the artist must believe passionately in what she does. Someone who makes passionless art is a hack. Art also requires passion because art is even more badly compensated than the game industry is," Adams writes. "The game industry doesn't produce works of art for the most part, and for every visionary who insists on following her own dream regardless of where it leads, the industry needs about 200 worker bees who actually make the products that sell." "Professionalism is about knowing your job, doing it well, and being proud of it even if you wouldn't buy the resulting product. As the markets for games expand, fewer and fewer of our customers will have the same demographics, and interests, as game developers," writes Adams. This last point echoes a recent talk given by iWin VP Laralyn McWilliams at GDC Online, in which she told developers "Don't change your games; you need to change yourself -- the way you look at games and game development." The full feature, in which Adams picks apart the issue in greater depth, is live now on Gamasutra, where The Designer's Notebook column has been running since 1997.