I start from the core belief that my *life* is the project, and that the type of game I choose to work on can help me develop skills I’m interested in acquiring and gain valuable experience. That way it’s always more than a job for me, and it keeps me more motivated day-to-day because I’ve basically got a constant double XP multiplier on all the time :) I’m also able to give a project SO much more because I’m so deeply invested in it on a personal level.

The goals I set and the intrinsic enjoyment I seek out in each project is more important to me than the actual type of game it is. I’ve been involved with a value brand car racer, a low budget cheap FPS, a government-funded cancer awareness 3rd person shooter for kids, an Xbox yoga fitness game, a sci-fi real time strategy game, a big-budget licensed platformer and a small-scale medieval MMORPG. After all that, I honestly have no preference whatsoever for genre, scale, or target market, just because I structure my goals differently than that.

I always set out with a specific set of goals, skills and experience that I intend to gain from a job or task, write it down, and relentlessly pursue them until I feel I’ve learned all I can, and then I start seeking out what’s next for me. I never make lateral moves if I can help it. Life is too full of potentially rich learning experiences to just futz around wasting time. :)

Even I have something discouraging me work-wise, when I remind myself EVERYTHING that I’m getting out of it, it bolsters my will to keep trying. It’s a shot in the arm of pure motivation and energy, and it keeps me going even if I’m feeling crappy. It just takes the optimist’s view. :)

There is ALWAYS something to learn from every experience if you think creatively enough about it. And in that, you can FIND motivation. I really need to write up a post on how learning about marketing helped me do that. When understood properly, marketing really is the applied science of optimism.

But enough about me — what motivates YOU to work?