Why your favorite devs/content creators make games in the first place, why they quit.
I'm sorry, but it is a decision that is made, with conscious thought. At the time, I debated between saying something or not. And decided not. At this point I might as well clarify. Especially, 'I hate that this happens more often than not', which applies to a common trend of devs.
I will explain why I, as well as most devs, end up abandoning their projects:
First, let us exclude the outliers, those devs who have made over $100k, because in these cases it is realistic to justify these devs quit because they saved enough money to pursue something else. We will also exclude devs who have satisfactory incomes in real life, therefore pursue content creation in pornography as a leisure or creative outlet. I hope it is understandable that money is indeed an important factor, and the 2 situations above represent individuals who are outliers
We all live within bubbles or perspectives within our own reality. In your perspective, the consumer, devs are taking money, abandoning projects, false commitments etc. So what is the dev/creators perspective when they decide to make something? There are few but common reasons why they even make these games or projects or content in general to begin with.
A general passion, pursuit of income, and/or escape from reality.
- General passion - Basically the desire to create something, and motivation of the self to make something. However, general passion in this field of work is actually mixed with sexual desire, which is not too hard too conceptualize, as we are making porn afterall. I will address why this is important.
- Pursuit of income - There are many paths for this. One, the current situation of the developer requires the pursuit of income, because their current income is either non-existent, or minimal. Two, the dev does not require income at the current moment (usually due to being young, meaning not as reliant on income yet) meaning the opportunity to make money off content creation is seen as a new beginning for a youth individual to spend on leisure. Three, the dev already makes content on his own without public posting, and realizes he could make money, off what he is already doing for nothing but himself. The dev in the third situation, could have factors as well related to points 1 and 2.
- Escape from reality - I don't like to go too deep into this area because it involves things people deny, or dislike hearing about such as, video games and porn being an escape from reality. I would just like to remind you I am not someone who thinks I have some unforeseen wisdom to share about pornography. Please. This is not the purpose of this post, I'm not going to try to convince anyone to stop jerking their cock or whatever, I still do it lol. I'm just a normal dude who quit being a dev and I just want to give my own insights, as what I believe are the actual reasons devs quit.
The deeper and deeper one puts themself in that environment, the more the outside world becomes non-existent, well, only to them because that's not actually possible. This can be related to many new studies performed in the real world, finding men growing up incapable of arousal in real sexual situations, due to only being stimulated to pornography beforehand, which is often nothing like how real sexual encounters would be like. The brain gets used to what it experiences (in this case the man expects pornographic like scenarios - for example: fantasies are usually just dreams and not found in reality, but with the invention of porn and even the advancement in technology of porn, leading to more and more realism. Realism as in, even though the content is virtual, the elements within it are now representing reality ever more closely through animation, stories, sounds, etc... And then we train our brains on this ever so stimulating fake reality, so that when we face relationships or sex or whatever in reality... it's not anything like our fantasies that we are now able to witness in detail, on our screens. So basically, the dev will put himself in a deeper hole without knowing it, trying to make their sexual escape cover every route possible in their lives. Their sexual craving is replaced by pornography, and pornography will then be used to replace elements of their real life, such as social interactions (with the online porn community, fans of theirs perhaps, other content creators, or something similar). Money as well will look to be replaced, by forming their income from pornography. Eventually all functions in reality will be sought or will actually get replaced, so that their unrealistic pornographic life will have justification for existing, because it covers all bases.
Okay. So now I have discussed why people become devs in pornography. Now I will talk about why they quit from the reasons above which seem so hard to escape from.
Social Stigma, Motivation, and Money(again):
- Social Stigma - It should be quite clear that the field of pornography is just unaccepted in reality. The career is shameful, disgusting, unappreciated, and is considered of lower social status. To be clear, these are not my thoughts, but the general public, and most importantly, the families and friends of most people think this way. The deeper the dev goes into the escape of pornography, the more his conscious becomes at unease. "What will your family think about you", "Will I have to abandon my friends?" "Am I going to tell my family I want to do this as my career?", "What if someone in my personal life finds out?". These are just few of the MANY possible thoughts that can encroach the mind as the dev tries to create a sustainable life out of pornography. More and more realizations of things they didn't consider when they initially started down this path come to fruition. Now yes, some individuals will overcome this. By either having absolutely no shame and be able to tell everyone and anyone what they do in the real world or by abandoning everyone around them so that no one can bother them in their isolated world. There are also other, yet more rare individuals who may:
- live with bad conscious: Essentially they continue their normal life in reality, along with their pornography life in secret. I say bad conscious because, the mind will face all kinds of anxieties, worries, feelings of disgust about what they are doing, how disgusting pornography is and that this is their life, etc. All kinds of things that would make life, uneasy, though still possible for that person to live in.
- live with no bad conscious: Perhaps the rarest of individuals in this field, if any exist at all, or perhaps I'm ignorant of how many people are like this. This person also lives with their normal life in reality, along with their pornography life in secret. The difference is, this person does not have any bad thoughts about what he is doing. The mind is at peace. Able to live both lives, as if the thoughts of society hold no value in their career. This can lead to this person continuing his pornography life in secrecy or not.
I would like to conclude the last two points by saying, the only reason creation or consumption of porn weighs heavily in a negative manner in the mind, is because we are so accustomed to society's view that porn is bad and disgusting. We are not born with some instinctual view that pornography is bad. Instead we grow up on societies values that it is bad, and then when we commit pornographic deeds, our conscious will label it as a regretful, or bad action. Therefore, bad conscious.
- Motivation - I'm sure many of you have witnessed devs/creators who release content at extreme amounts initially (maybe once a day, 3/4 times a week) and then slows down to once a week, and then even slower... Why does this happen? Dopamine is the neuromodulator involved in motivation and is also responsible for feeling good or pleasure. I will not go too much into the science, but basically we live in a balance of pain and pleasure. The balance is destroyed usually when people make pornography, because porn(a replacement for sex) is very, very stimulating and releases a lot of dopamine, which means a lot of pleasure. Since it's a balance, pain will come to balance it out. That's why once highly motivated creators/devs, get burnt out, and feel absolutely no joy in creating. They actually develop a high tolerance for the highly stimulating activities they were doing, so when they do it again, it is no longer as joyful, or joyful at all. An example would be, when a creator reaches his deadline, or finishes the month off and then becomes inactive the next month. They had a motivated as well as pleasurable state beforehand, and after the deadline they experienced a dopamine crash. This is also referred to as low dopamine or depressive state (here comes the pain balance!). It is real, and it's why creators go through that next month absolutely unmotivated in their work, which leads to breaks. You have probably seen this many times from many devs/creators. If you look around at the most consistent creators, there is a general trend that:
- They don't overwork themselves, and post a consistent amount each week, usually maybe once a week, or twice. They have a very patterned, or schedule release
- They make content that even they aren't interested in. This is the difference between making porn because you enjoy making content for people vs making porn because you enjoy it. It's not hard to imagine that making content for fetishes the creator is not interested in, is going to be much less stimulating. It is work. But that work, for that person, is their genuine enjoyment for creation. Versus the other creator, who only makes content for himself and is constantly seeking pleasure. You'll often see some devs/creators like this who complain about making content for other people and wanting to focus on making their own content for a bit. This usually doesn't work out as they don't make nearly as much income, and they are forced to make other content. You can see how this is fine for one type of creator, but dreading for another.
- Lastly, and least likely: There may be people who can release frequently and release only content they enjoy. I'm sure these people have some of the good combinations of factors above that allow them to continually work like this (good conscious, generate enough income from porn, passionate in creating, etc).
- Money - I will make it simple, because it is simple. The dev does not as much money as he thought he would, and decides to quit. The dev may also have made enough money, to quit entirely. The dev may have decided the money was not worth the consequences of a pornographic lifestyle. The creator/dev may also decide to return for quick income, leave temporarily, and return again for more income. Some of these aspects as you could guess, are related to their motivational state as well.
FINAL THOUGHT: It is important for the consumer to understand the difference between them and the developer/creator. The consumer can consume whatever porn he wants in private, with little impact on his conscious. While the developer is much more involved as you can surely imagine from the reasons stated above, even though he is in private as well, which impacts his conscious much more.
That concludes my reasons on why devs/creators make content and quit making content.
