When do you stop making games?

Hi guys,

When do you guys think is the right time to stop working on your game? I've been using RPG Maker for over one and a half year. The game I am working on isn't too big, but it requires a lot of time writing dialogue and making numerous things work. The game isn't popular. Not many people played it, but the ones who did said it was good. I am kinda on the fence about whether or not I should keep going. Sometimes I like to work on it, but sometimes, I also find it tiresome. After 1.5 year, the game is still 20% done, since I have to spend time on school and work as well.

I feel like the time and effort that I put into game making, and then having only a few people play it, aren't worth it. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate those who tried and liked it, but I am not sure if it's worth continuing. I could use that time to play other games, watch anime, self-study Japanese, and work on a part-time job. But if I give up, I wouldn't feel right, either. Have you seen those manga with a decent story, but then gets cancelled, and the readers get pissed off? Or imagine reading a translated manga, which you are enjoying, and the translation group decides to drop it due to low amount of view. Wouldn't you be angry and disappointed? If I quit, how would the ones who supported the game feel? A friend told me that I should only continue if I enjoy it. If not, since I am not obligated to finish it, no one can stop me from giving up. True, but then I would never finish anything due to my lack of discipline.

I'm kinda on the fence right now. I neither really want to give up nor continue. What about you guys? When do you think is the time to stop working on your project?

i feel that way about my horror game.

There's no real answer for this, except, quit when it's no longer fun. It's a hobby for most of us (you too I'm assuming?) and hobbies are meant to be fun. If you are not enjoying yourself in making a game then you shouldn't be doing it. Just because few people have played your game shouldn't matter to you. If you love your idea and have fun making it a reality then you won't care much about who has played it. And for example, I NEVER play games that aren't complete unless specifically asked to by a friend. I usually don't even play complete games unless asked. But you've only done 20%, what do you expect?

tl;dr version: Quit when it's no longer fun for you.

Edit: Also, if you are making a fan game or something unoriginal, you should know that most people aren't interested in that kind of game. Most people (from what I've read/heard) want new and original ideas, not a rip off of something that's already been done and most likely done better. So that may be why so few people have played it. That and it's not even close to being complete.

Well, at least, finish what you have started. Once you have done it, it's your choice whether to stop or continue.

Have you ever heard the sentence like "This is the first and the last of my <insert something here>" ?

Edit :
I stopped composing right after I made some masterpieces

And I could stopped on scripting because one of my ambition was fulfilled (but I don't want to)

Well lemme check out what you've got then I'll give you a more informed answer. :)

I think that maybe you are looking at this from slightly the wrong angle.  You say that the game isn't popular and not many people have played it, and then say that it's only 20% finished.  I think trying to judge how popular a game is going to be when complete is difficult to do when you only have a demo to go by.  I think that some (many?) people are so pushed for time that they won't try out a game until it looks like it will definitely be finished - there are lots of games started and then never completed.  20% isn't that much from this perspective.

I think you might be in danger of getting trapped in a vicious circle.  Because not a lot is yet available for people, only a few will try it out.  Because only a few try it out, you are tempted to stop.  This then confirms people in their overall opinion that it's not worth trying out a game in its very early stages.

If you are getting positive feedback from people who have tried it, then I would advise you to keep going.

I'm not even sure if 20% is a correct estimation. Basically the first and half of the second chapter is completed. I guess that's right?

Just stop if you're too busy or forcing yourself to work on it. I usually go through phases where sometimes I just open up rpg maker and work on my game for a few days in a row, and other times i don't touch it for a few months.

Like you, i am also a student, and i make games as more of a hobby, to create stuff from my imagination for the fun of it. I don't expect to get anywhere, it's sort of like playing a game until you get bored, then moving on, then getting back to that game after everthing else gets boring.

Obviously this is different if you're going commercial, or if there's money involved. Or if your game is near complete/lots of hype about it.

You can always just take a break from that specific project for a while, doing something entirely else. If it's just a hobby, nobody forces you to work on it every day/week/another regular kind of schedule.

If it were me, I'd just work on it when I feel like it, not announcing some kind of hiatus, but just doing it. Or not.

But on the other hand, I've been working on my project since late March 2013 and the plot isn't even finished yet, only about one person knows about my plans/about it at all, I've too much fun planning and working really inefficently (can't count how many times I worked on something, implemented and thought about it and in the end decided to cut it), so I'm a kinda different person. ;) Til now it never even crossed my mind to just stop. But if I were to stop, it would be because I hit a dead end. Do you feel like you hit a dead end? If not, just work a little on it every now and then. I'm all for people finishing their games.

Oh gosh I don't know what to say here since I never really started...ahahahahah.

I stop when I am forced to sleep for work (._.)

I've been like 7 years with the same game. Have restarted it, changed it from one engine to other, even bounced on whatever you imagine (tried like 300 times to do it from scratch in C++/Python/Java x'D, and the most I've achieved is a tilemap... through an existing Tiled loading library).

You know, my game isn't really popular either. I have a lot of people saying me "to hope I finish it someday soon", and all that. Probably they lost/will lose their hope xD. Probably when I release the final game (somewhere around the end of the world), it will be played by, let's say, 10 people, if I'm lucky. It will be tried by some more, but it's going to be a long game, so probably some people will lose interest while playing. YEAH! That much hope I have.

But you know, I do this for myself. So if I have to, I'm going to be making this unpopular RPG for the rest of my life.

I REGRET NOTHING!

That is the most personal decision someone can make.  Ask yourself this --- why are you working on the game?

Are you looking to go commercial with your game?  If not, are you "paid" by praise and acclaim?  

If so, it sounds like you're not getting enough out based on what you put into the game.

Are you doing it because you want to see the story to completion?

If so, it doesn't matter if nobody praises the game.

The way I look at it, if this is your hobby, would you feel more joy doing other things?  What if very few people praised your game?  Would you feel your time working on the game was wasted, if that were so?

Would you regret never finishing the game?

If you're relying on other people's approval to continue, I would say stop.  Why?  In the end, it's a losing battle.  No matter how much praise you get, it will end up not being enough.

If you are doing it solely because you must see the story through, then praise yourself for how far you've come, and finish it.

The book "The Fountainhead" talks about the difference between someone who does a task from self-motivation and someone who does the same task for other people's approval.

Best of luck.

I spent 6 years on two projects (3 years each), my entire summer vacation on one project and all of them got killed off in a HDD crash. After that, two which took over a year each met the same fate.  And all of these games have custom resources. My longest one is 5 years and I had to put it on hiatus due to how massive it was. Take that as you will. Back then, I only had diskettes, cloud storage doesn't exist, hdd drives were expensive for a young kid like me, etc. My internet was 56kbps.

I regret nothing. I love game making too much to care and it was a learning experience.

I think if you really love making games, losing heavily invested projects might be a huge blow, but to be honest I just think of it as I will be better and I will get my games out there someday. 

(For those who are curious, it were these games by order, Advent Cirno, Night of Marian, Seraphim Project, Sacrifical Alice, Seraphim Project: Remake and Finally, Sacred Moon)

I stop when I ran out of ideas. Then I play video games. When I liked the game, I get the inspiration and continue the game, usually with new ideas I can use with the game. I had a lot of paper crumpled in making my story idea for Tatakai. At first, I thought I should do the traditional medieval style RPG, then I played SMT III. It breaks the traditional but stays on the root of RPG. There are a lot of games that gives ideas, trying one won't hurt.

I'm going to try and stop when I make and finish one game.


I keep getting game-specific ideas, so I dunno what will happen.

One of the question you might want to ask yourself whenever you lose motivation or wondering if it's worth it is "Why am I making a game ?". It can be whatever reason. Making a game is fun, I want to share a good story, I want to make a game I want to play, I love hamburgers so I make games, etc... The reason for making games might change through time though. X] 

As for me, I know RPG Maker since middle school ( more than 13 years ago, I'm quite old X] ), but I "only" really made games since 6 years ago. I started a project on RPG Maker XP a summer night, when I couldn't fall asleep. This first project was only meant to be a joke, something to be only played by people who would understand that joke. Those people liked it, so I continued to make this project. I felt really happy and motivated and I wanted to do more, I wanted to make a really good game. I started to write a real story for the game with detailed backgrounds for the main characters. Many people played the game and wanted to know what would happen next, after the end of the demo available. X] 

But in the end, I had to give up on this project because my computer completely crashed, erasing everything I had done for the game I made. Well, almost everything. I could have redownloaded the game that was uploaded on my website and continue where I left it on the demo. But I didn't. I just left it like that and waited for my motivation to come back. But it never came back...

... until two years ago. D: I restarted the project with the same story and same characters, but on RPG Maker VX this time. No real reason why I came back on this project. I was just bored one night of summer and just thought "I should try RPG Maker VX" and voilà ! D: I didn't want to share the game at first. I just wanted to past time. But at one time, while I was making the game on VX, I received a message from a fan that was saying "Hey ! I want to play your game again, but I can't find it anymore. I really loved your game ! Please continue !! When is the next part coming ?". That was just a little message of a girl that played my game some years ago and was still loving it and waiting for the game to be completed. I was really touched. I almost cried, for real. With just this one little message, I got a mega boost in motivation, and just for this girl, I want to complete my project. I will share it on the internet just for this one girl that liked my game and wants to play it to the end. 

This is my first reason why I'm sharing and continuing to make my game. D: I want this girl to play my game and knowing that she still likes the game today makes me happy. I don't care if my game isn't played by many people as long as there is one person in this world who plays it and enjoys it. 

My second reason why I want to continue my project is that I have something good to share with others. Well, if it wasn't good, I wouldn't share it. X] I spent many years to think about a story and characters and I still want to do more. This project is just the beginning of something bigger and more amazing. D: But I have to finish this first project because everything I want to make in the future are based on this first project. X] 

My third reason why I'm still not giving up on it is because I enjoy making games. D: It's fun to use RPG Maker. It's fun to draw my characters. It's fun to write dialogues. It's fun to share it with others and talk about it, exchanging ideas and stuff. 

I'm not making games for money. I will never sell my games ( for now at least X] ). I'm making games for the three reasons I spoke of. 

For those wondering what my project is, it is called Version Fille. It's an episodic game with rpg elements. Six chapters out of eight are completed. The end is near. D: I worked hard and for a very long time on the story, the world and the characters of this game. :3 It has also a lot of black and stupid humor. X] The game is still in french, but an english will come after I finish the eighth and final chapter. D: You can have a look on what is coming on my deviantart gallery too: http://daheji.deviantart.com/

And that's about it. Hope my message will help you and others. :3

Maybe you just need a long break. I often tire of my fav hobby of creating card stock medieval model buildings of my own design, so I take a good break...anything from a week or two up to about 2 to 4 months. It seems my interest rekindles eventually and then I find myself even more creative than before.

Well, it's not just about praise. It's also about interest.

I started making game because I had a lot of interest back then. Now, not so much anymore. I want to continue, but the workload and the amount of time required will be quite heavy. But if I stop, then the whole thing would go to waste, and the few people who liked it will be disappointed.

Ugh... I don't know anymore. =.=

You have 24 hours in a day.

Only you can decide how to spend that time. If there are other things that you think your time is better spent doing, then do those things. The idea that you have to finish your game because you started it is insane. You've put in enough time to know whether this is something you want to continue with or not.

If something or someone else is more important or more interesting, then do that for a while. Down the road a way your priorities are likely to change again, bringing other things to the top of your 'important to do' list. That happens over and over in life. Don't let yourself become so rigid you can't change what your doing when life around you is constantly changing.