or anything you do?
I wish I had some big inspirational story to tell about how I decided. But it wasn't until I released my first game demo and saw some feedback, that things took on a life of their own, and I felt more inspired to make games. Before that, I saw making games as a type of cold, hard programming project with moderate to strong visual focus.
After playing computer games for over 2 decades, I was playing GTA1 again and really enjoyed the mayhem, but the framerste is locked to the gameplay at 20 fps, which really sucks for such a fast game. And I found no fixes on the internet other than widescreen fix.
So I thought I could make a GTA-clone running at smooth 60 fps, shouldn't be that hard. After searching "game making software" (guess which game-engine I started with!) it turned out that a GTA1-like isn't as easy as I estimated, especially for sum1 who never programmed before.
Nevertheless I started making a simple game - a (very unique) brick-breaker - and after that I couldn't stop making games, it felt like my calling and I wanted to make games unlike those I played in the past.
Now a decade later of making games, I still have that GTA1-like project in the drawer and plan to do sth interesting with it soon.
Any games I love inspired me to become a game dev. At first I started by making custom levels for games such as Lode Runner 2, 3D and Jazz Jackrabbit 2 then Heretic 2. Then when I heard about Beats of Rage engine, I jumped in to make my own mods. The engine grew and allow custom scripting to create custom stuffs. This opened up my path to become a game developer.
My biggest inspiration would probably have to be Game Theory and MatPat. I loved it when he went into depth with all the cool details and theories he had for the games he liked especially indie games. It made me realize that games could be so much more than just mindless shooters especially at a time where not a lot of people took them seriously. I also thought it was so cool that MatPat was so passionate and invested in a game that he literally made an entire YouTube channel about it. It made me want to bring joy to others even if it doesn't get a huge cult following. Saying this just really makes me miss MatPat :(
Yes! Mark Overmars's and Jacob Habgood's two books ("The Game Maker's Apprentice" and "The Game Maker's Companion") were absolutely fantastic! Interesting short games explained in a very simple but exhaustive manner, so that even I, a complete beginner, could build them. Possibility to start with drag and drop, every step explained. In the second book he also talked about The Hero's Journey. I too started with them and have still very fond memories. Wish there where more books like those!
Honestly, there isn't one specific event that inspired me. I've been playing games since I was very little (late SNES-early N64 days), and it's hard to overstate what an influence they had on me growing up. I would say the games that had the single greatest impact on me as a developer were the original Baldur's Gate series on the computer. I got the first game in late 2002 for Christmas without its expansion, and the others came shortly after. The amount of hours I spent getting lost in the wilderness, rolling and rerolling characters, and trying to discover all of the game's secrets shaped me into the kind of developer I am today.
My first taste of actually making something of my own was building my own server in Neverwinter Nights. This would have been about 2006-2008, and it was there I also learned the basics of how to write code. Getting a taste of making my own world and server made me want more, and from there it eventually led to making my own games with my own rules and assets. I only wish I had started sooner!