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 :(