I want to be a successful game designer.

That is, I want to make and sell games, in such quantity and at such a rate that I’ll be able to take the income and use it to work on creating and developing more games at least part of my work-alloted time. In order to do so I must view game design as a profession, and I must perform it in a professional manner.

That means doing it even when I don’t feel like doing it.

It’s strange, thinking that I wouldn’t want to design games. Designing, alongside writing and storytelling, are my major hobbies. I like to design, I keep thinking about it and I find thinking about new designs fun and pleasurable.

But now I’ve got to send out prototypes to publishers. I’ve playtested them, polished them and generally pestered my friends with them. I’ve pitched the games, and I’ve gotten them past that first rejection gate. Now I find that I have to write up the rules in an understandable manner. Not only so I can understand them, not only so people who have me standing besides them to ask can understand them but so people who’ve never seen me or my game can understand them.

And I’m afraid. (more…)