I really do hope that you think the same. Most corporations don’t think that tho so let’s talk about it. From my observation, it’s particularly easy to see in the gaming industry as it’s new creative medium and most creators don’t know yet how to tackle some topics. If you fail in showing expression of your thoughts with really hard topic consequences are really severe as game development usually requires a lot of money.
When you focus on getting money from your creation you tend to minimalize risks and go for safer options. So of course creators (in most creative mediums) have to change their vision and decisions. Here are (in my opinion) the most affected ones:
- Freedom of choosing topics.
- Freedom of style and expression.
- Ammount of words you can choose from.
- Time that takes to polish your work.
So, let’s analyze.
While thinking about the topic you want to tackle you will think about “How will it affect sales?“. Really hard topics in creative mediums always can go only 2 ways. It will be absolutely perfect or a horrible mistake.
Creating something perfect always require a lot of time, thinking, dedication and empathy. Writing about suffering from starvation while trying to survive in a village next to war front always will be a lot harder than writing about being a war hero. Also some topics will immediately ban your creation from some countries so if you think they are not usable.
Examples of topics and countries that ban them: Tibetan Buddhists – China, Tiananmen Square Massacre – China, Nazizm – Germany, pedophilia – MOST of the countries.
So without aiming at money, you can think about the topic you want to choose, carefully create bits that fit together and create a masterpiece. Risk will be great simply if you make a single mistake it can ruin everything in an almost perfect story.
Thinking about money makes decision way simpler. Topic is picked from easy to think about list that was overused in every possible way so nothing new won’t be necessary as you can look at what worked before.
Generic look applies to breader audience.
When picking your style you need to think about a target audience. It doesn’t matter what type of medium it is: music, painting, movie, game. Picking one style will change feelings and expectations.
In terms of games, you can pick from many styles but there are some generalization that sets expectations (that you can break and create something amazing and unexpected but that’s topic for other time) and are usually universal.
- Sharp edges and thin character models == expect gameplay to be fast
- Short and rounder characters will make players expect slower gameplay.
- Pastel colors will make players think about simpler gameplay that kids can play.
- A lot of darkness will add mystery.
So of course you want to pick something for your style as you don’t want to break expectations with top-notch gameplay feeling that you tested for many years to be amazing with this style. Usually, style picked in this type of game is rather simple just to make content faster.
Simple words attact masses.
Also, less or no swearing makes it child-friendly so your audience is broader.
Focus on money force to make a really broad audience so more people will want this creating.
That’s great, right? Presumptively… or maybe not.
Time creates costs.
So this one is really simple.
More time spend on production == you need to spend more on people that work on a product. Even if you work alone you still need to pay rent, taxes, food, etc.
When money is focused often asked question is: “If we leave this in, how will it affect profit?” If the answer is that it won’t change a lot then imperfections are left in.
Creativity should be a focus.
When money is not focused it gives creators freedom of choice. They can pick a topic that they want to talk about as they are passionate. Creator then will create masterpieces in every single spot just to make something they love and care about. With a lot of time creators can polish their work to be perfect (or close enough). Thanks to this product topic will be talked about by next generations and work will be appriciated. It will probably also earn a lot of money as in this world great work attract customers.