There is a massive gulf between the behaviors that make me successful at my job, and the behaviors that create good art.
I work in technology, and the types skills that are required to succeed are: contant multitasking, precise and persistent communication, extremely logical planning, and a love for deadlines. This is required to maneuvre teams filled with dozens of people towards a goal, where one person going off the rails can potentially delay a project by weeks.
On the other hand, I feel that I'm most productive when making video games if I allow myself to just go with the first idea that pops in my head. I don't want to create rigid plans, I want to create something cool. Working alone, or with a small team, on a task where the only metric of success is a vague sense of "fun" is incredibly freeing. You can decide to add whatever random thoughts come in your head, and you can remove whatever you think sucks. My favorite part of indie games is finding something that is completely stupid, but you can tell the developer had a lot of fun putting it in the game. Most indie games are full of this stuff if you look for it! Hundreds of little things like that add up to give each game its personality.
Meanwhile, the corporate world is notorious for its lack of personality. The lack of autonomy makes personal investment into a project you spend hundreds of hours developing impossible. It is kind of depressing, especially when you have to pull long hours, sacrificing other parts of your life, for a project to not end up how you wanted it to. Most of the time in my career, the process of working on difficult projects made me feel like I was constantly failing. If one piece doesn't work as expected, some miscommunication happens, or there was an error in estimates, suddenly you have management breathing down your neck and you have to answer "tough questions". Meanwhile, if you're lucky, the long hours you spent will be rewarded with a celebratory dinner, and a congrats message on Slack.
If it's not obvious, I'm going through a particularly difficult time at work right now, which is making me feel particularly incompetent. You know the deadlines are arbitrary and too soon, and you know the scope is too big, and you know you're balancing too many things at once. Yet, you inevitably make a mistake, and you feel like you let your team down... and suck as a person in general.
It is especially frustrating because long hours and constantly stressful days can easily destroy your motivation to do anything mildly difficult after work. And creating good art generally requires a certain level of frustration.
To me, game development represents both a sanctuary, where I can escape from the overwhelming world, and hope for a brighter future.
The obvious brighter future is being able to follow your dreams and make a living while doing it, but I also think good games can make the world a slightly better place. I have so many fond memories of playing games with friends, and anything that people really connect with can make them grow as a person.
I always feel that the stories, characters, and adventures I come to know from the media I consume become a part of me in some way. I hope that someday, I create something that resonates with people in a similar way. Something that they had a great time experiencing, or something that they learned from. Something that makes them 1% happier or a 1% better person.
I would be so happy if I could spend my days on that goal.