Why you should make a video game (even if nobody plays it)

Summary

The video argues that making video games is valuable even if they never get played. The creator explains that the act of game development functions as a form of “ultimate” multimedia art, combining sound, music, storytelling, immersion, gameplay, visuals, effects, and technology. Completing a project also builds lasting skills—such as art, programming, sound design, and critical thinking—while providing personal fulfillment.

It also emphasizes practical mindset shifts: focus on your output and finishing the work, rather than trying to predict outcomes like player counts.

Artistic techniques, concepts, and creative processes shown

• Game development as multimodal art

  • Games blend multiple creative domains into a single interactive experience—such as visual art, sound, storytelling, gameplay systems, and technology.

• Learning and using art pipelines/tools

  • The creator explores different visual-art approaches and software, then settles on:
    • Pixel art and painting
    • Photoshop / Illustrator
    • Inkscape
    • Vector art as a preferred style due to the ability to manipulate shapes (described as feeling like “clay”).

• Iterative skill-building through creation

  • Making a game forces dabbling across disciplines, including coding, design, visuals, sound, and narrative.

• Transferring creative skills across mediums

  • Digital/game skills can translate into:
    • Physical board game design (for tactile iteration)
    • Marketing/branding, using learned image manipulation and design principles
    • Sound design interest/skill development (mentioned as something games help build)

• Systems thinking / project decomposition (creative production process)

  • Games are treated as “large buckets of problems.”
  • Development is framed as:
    • building a large vision
    • breaking it into chunks
    • solving and building each chunk
  • This approach is linked to resilience, patience, debugging logic, and long-term problem-solving.

Steps / advice provided (as stated in the subtitles)

• Create a game even if:

  • nobody plays it
  • you don’t share it
  • it stays on your hard drive

• Emphasize completion

  • “Finishing a thing is its own reward.”
  • Releasing and outcomes are treated as separate from what you’re responsible for.

• Use a mindset of controlling output, not outcome

  • Don’t focus on expectations like “a million players.”
  • Focus on the work, then release when ready.

• For large projects, apply critical thinking through chunking

  • Start with a grand vision.
  • Work backwards.
  • Break the project into smaller, solvable parts.

Creators / contributors mentioned

• Tim Rosswick (speaker/creator)

• Mentioned project/series and creator-adjacent references:

  • Murder Bunnies (board game the speaker kickstarted)
  • fyophobia (referenced as a story “well documented on this channel,” with no other creator name provided)