The last bastion of Garry’s Mod comics had gone out like a candle.
When I want to put myself into perspective, I re-read Mythos’ reasoning for ending the Gmod comic-centered site and how parts of its old community members came together for one last hurrah.
At this point, I am officially the last veteran comic creator who uses Valve’s source engine. I’ve been doing this for 13 years by this point. Everyone has moved onto greener pastures while I’m still here.
I’m not going to give you a sob story here. Every writer has shed tears, bled blood, and sweated over their work. It’s part of the process into getting where we want to be.
Now I never really considered myself to be part of Mythos’ community, or any other major Garry’s Mod group for that matter. I wanted to go my own way and further establish myself.
But I need to ask myself where will the Garry’s Mod community be years from now? Will I even be doing the same thing? What about my potential career in writing? It may be unsustainable, and that’s a cold hard reality I have to come to terms with.
At this point, I have so many ideas for Servers, it may last me a couple years until I finally get to finish the story. Maybe I can’t get to it all.
There are some things that can convince me to fully hang up my hobby.
- I get seriously injured to the point where I can’t use a PC anymore. Well, that’s obvious.
- Career pressure where I have to focus on my money-making job more than my hobby. I may not even play video games anymore either.
- Less reactions and views over time.
As I shown off my work to others, they become surprised that there are people out there using Valve’s engine to make comics. We’re the forgotten ones. The creators before the rise of machnimas.
I always wanted to pursue a career in writing for video games and comics. A turning point for me was when I showed TraceCast to a Blizzard recruiter, who loved what I had. He asked me to submit my portfolio to him if I ever get around to making a movie.
Reality stung. Writers do more than just comics. They’re like a swiss-army knife for writing in different kinds of media. Almost every one of the greatest writers have done it.
So now as I sit here and contemplate about my future, sometimes I ask myself if it was all really worth it?
Well, seeing these kinds of comments…
…along with the viewers and its retention rate make my hobby worth it all. Thanks to all the advice given to me, I know I can do better than before.
Ross Siev's blog 