Blood, Sweat, and Pixels

by Jason Schreier

Here’s an alternative theory: every single video game is made under abnormal circumstances. Video games straddle the border between art and technology in a way that was barely possible just a few decades ago.

“There’s a person who’s been making the tours promoting her book”—the psychologist Angela Duckworth—“and she used to write about grit. She said grit is this quality that a lot of successful people have. And it’s this persistence, to push forward with something. Anything worth doing, it’s not necessarily day-to-day fun sometimes. Sometimes it is. Great when it is. But grit usually means that somebody sees the long-term goal and they see the long-term vision and they push through any obstacles that they have on a day-to-day basis, with the end in mind.”