First of all, I really admired Rayark Inc. They seemed to be having fun and they make cool and meaningful games. Not a single blatant moneygrab clone in their profile. That's all what I like.
So, the reason of me typing this is of course I am near graduation this coming October. After that as you might know from previous entries I am going to give a shot at this making game things on my own. Maybe I can have a work that also contribute to the life's goal at the same time.
If not, I can still take up day job and get some money to make games too. But of course if Exceed7 can stand on its own it would be better for me. An awesome life for me.. I can make game and also have money! Yay!
So! What would I want Exceed7 to be like? First of all I don't care being rich and I don't care about expanding too much. I don't ever want to be the next Facebook, Apple, Alibaba, whatever. It's too much and meaningless for me (really). First of all I want Exceed7 to be able to support me only. That is maybe I could have a comfortable home and maybe raise a family with it?
I have saw many game company with more business attitude and certainly I think Exceed7 is different. I am in Thai Game Developer Group and several others and they envy when a new break out that certain game became big hit and gross big income. (Stardew Valley for example) Surprisingly all those news did not excite me that much, but I am excited when certain company made a damn cool games. These company for example is Super Awesome Hyper Dimensional Mega Team, Rayark, Inticreates, Whoopee Camp (bonus internet point for someone who know this!) and several others. I really want Exceed7 to be like them. (plus worldwide success if possible, but not mandatory)
And then I want friends from it. I want a kind of game making company that bring me close connection. Having connection is happiness in life. That means large company is meaningless, since I won't be able to get to know many person in my company. Look at local bank branch office. Even with only this one branch I don't think that the CEO knows one specific programmer. That company is seeking money and the employers is an important gear in it I know, but it is not what Exceed7 is going to be. Maybe 10 team members consists of all music gamers? Might be great.
Next I would make cool things I want to do. Currently, you see, I have 3 music games idea I want to make. And 2 Steam games. And in my furthest dream one music game arcade! Though I doubt it would be worth it to put your money in the machine to play that game.. And I also want to build a MIDI controller! I also want to be fluent in Japanese! I also want to come to Japan more and talk fluently with my composer friends in Twitter more! Probably with some friends from Exceed7 that have the same interest. And maybe sell my own music CD in the Comiket/M3!
If I can craft Exceed7 Experiments to fulfill as many of these at the same time as possible it would be wonderful isn't it!! That's the answer. I want Exceed7 Experiments to be like that.
But how? I haven't thought about it yet that much. But for example the Japanese part could be fulfilled by making the game available in Japanese with my own try-hard translation. That could improve my Japanese skill. (I can still fulfill that dream even if Exceed7 cannot stand on its own by taking day job about Japanese translation too, or maybe a manga scanlation group, but for the best it has to be in Exceed7!) The travel to Japan part, well, I would have to make quite a lot of money lol, but surely not the millionaire level. For the music selling, I would have to make music game of course then I can sell the music also! I will put my friend's music from Japan into my music game, so I could be more close to them! We might be able to throw another meetup party! Yakiniku!
For normal company, Japanese translation would be obtained by using localization service/ publisher. That's efficient, and make your product come out faster. But I choose the roundabout way of learning Japanese on my own and do it just because I really want to do it and I want the skill itself. To think about it, drawing also that I chosen this path. I want to be able to draw so I use my own drawing in Duel Otters. Of course the result is not top-notch, but I managed to get the entire game looks ok with my drawing somehow and I did learn many tricks about drawing program.
If the meaning of company is to seek maximum profit, then Exceed7 might as well not be a company anymore because I keep doing things that minimize profit like these. But I think company should not simply be a place for gaining money, it must advance the life of yourself and all of your team members. Learn something new, discover something new. Company's task should able a person to do something one wants to do for long time, open up to the new world, that is not possible previously before joining. I want me and everyone in Exceed7 to get that.
If I want to get rich I might as well learn to do stock trading, but the problem is time. Even if I learned to trade enough that I can gain 50 millions from stock I cannot even buy some of what I already get right now. Including making Duel Otters and be loved by many Japanese players, getting featured in magazine, meet Japanese composer at events and yakiniku. All of these is possible because I put time into it, and that something often is not optimal for gaining money. I gained life, and I think this is very cool. And probably I want to use the time I have in the future to get more of these. So you can say maybe I will never get rich quick, unless some of these accidentally cross path with something that make me rich. (But I know it is usually not the case especially making music for hobby) Also I think having low money is kind of fun too. It's like low-level challenge of some sorts.
Look, I might be able to craft Exceed7 to connect many of these things together. But of course I have to finish this diabolical master thesis first. (I type all these things immediately after this blog post, if you can read Thai it will make sense.)
