At some point in the future, I hope to have a game or game-related product to sell. Surely, when people learn of its elegant perfection,  a kind never before seen in this world, they will shower me in praise and approbation, etching my name in the moon and naming their babies after me. Presently, though, there are a few things missing. Most notable is of course this wonder game I’ve yet to make, but the question I’m asking today is how people might come to know about it.

I started this blog primarily as a way to keep myself focused and productive in my arc of game development, though I’ll admit that there was a strong secondary motivation in slowly growing an audience for the day when I have something brilliant to sell them. So I overthink my post tags, I tweet my new entries, and I write as if to a reader other than myself. But where the error in my thinking lies is in the assumption that any given person (even those interested in games) would choose to follow me out of the massive crowd of similarly undistinguished developers.

So! The path to distinguishing oneself! I suppose I could make a lot of noise and start saying really controversial things in public forums, but if I’m wanting people to believe in my approach to game making, I should more probably demonstrate my unique worth in that field. And that’s where I come up short right now: with no major public releases and nothing even close to salable in my personal experiments, I don’t presently have a good vector by which to distinguish myself. But that’s no reason to get discouraged! I just have to make one. Notch certainly had a smaller following before Minecraft came on the scene. It wasn’t as if people browsed the “new Twitter users” feed and added him because of his reassuring smile. As he worked on his games, people saw his progress, saw his innovation, and thought “boy, this is a fellow worth following!” And so it should be.

I could do all the little topical tricks to gain a follower here and there, but ultimately it’s richer for all involved if I continue to work towards my various visions and prove myself worthy of greater attention. To echo the sentiment of so many devs come before, “if you want to make games, then make games.” Only by creating something I really believe in can I make a mark and prove myself in my chosen arena. So back to coding I go!