As far as I can remember I always wanted to make games. Being a kid with very free internet access and a lot of creativity I spent days writing and drawing and thinking about every little detail of what I wanted to create. Don't get me wrong most ideas were on the level of the 100% dragon science based MMORPG however I remember always wanting to create something.
Then, after imagining the masterpiece of a game I had in mind, I usually installed Unity and got bored in record time. The realisation, which was always sudden and sometimes hurtful, was that making games is actually hard. But like reeallyyy hard.
I have a very passing interest with coding, having a website and all that stuff. I can't say I hate it but still I can't say I love it either. I find it pretty entertaining when I actually get what I'm doing, but the moment stuff gets messy I feel overwhelmed by It. Game engines are even worse at that. They have so many little things, every little variable of an object has a little menu and I get so confused everytime even trying to understand what the words mean. I feel like an old man who is trying to get the wi fi to work even opening one of those damn programs.
This frustration I feel however gives me so much admiration for the people who actually make games. If you reading this actually do coding and stuff like that you are a genius! Not just a genius, the next coming of Albert Einstein for all I know! Yeah most programmers steal code from stack overflow, but I get it! I would steal every single line of code in the entire world wide web if I actually had to do any coding stuff (unless it's HTML or CSS that's the only stuff I know).
I think of people like Toby Fox and I'm just in awe all of the time. That guy rocks I don't know what to say. Great storyteller, programmed one of the most revolutionary RPGs because of a fever dream he had, managed to not get in any type of controversy (if this line ages badly I'm going to scream at the top of my lungs). Team Cherry, Omocat, Mike Klubnika, Acid Wizard... I just think they are so cool!!
A lot of the people I mentioned didn't only make very great games. They also created beautiful narratives with charming style and that deal with very deep themes. A lot of times find myself admiring the ability they have to make their vision into reality with really low fidelty equipment. I still believe they should have access to that equipment, however I find that the limitations they faced shaped a lot of the better qualities of the stuff they made.
This actually goes for media outside of videogames. I find a lot of charm in low fidelty music and films (even though they are relatively easier to make than videogames). There just is something about works that are clearly made by very passionate people that gives back that same passion if that makes sense. Something which makes the difference most notable I believe is the nature of media nowadays. We get bombarded mostly by low quality slop, which doesn't elicit any type of critical thinking. So whenever something actually stimulates us the difference is night and day.
The saddest part of all of this is the fact that there is very little appreciation of passionate works. Entertainment is a concept which I dislike very much. I don't watch works of art to be entertained! Yes that's a part of It, but reducing art to the entertainment you get from it just lazy critic work. It should be normal to interact deeply with something, not just watch It for the sake of watching It. A videogame isn't just a bit of spectacle, playing It isn't like watching fireworks, It resembles a fine art painting in the way It should be experiences. Actually, It's way more intricate than a painting, and that's such a big strength that goes for It. Videogames, like films and like music, are an expression of a person or a team who decided to show the world what they were capable of. They are a beautiful and exciting new possibility for art. They can be polemic and political, unlike some people like to say. I actually believe that they need to be more political, to be more unapologetic about what they want to say. We should also ask ourselves what the creator meant with every choice. Those curtains are blue for a reason actually. We shouldn't be lazy about analysing works, we should get every single ounce of meaning we can find from them. That goes for literature, that goes for music, that goes for movies and that goes for videogames.