To put it short, after I learned how games are made it all lost a bit of that sparkle for me. Characters became sprites/meshes, beautiful landscapes 'terrains with sky domes' (I think you get where I'm going with this). The point is, I miss a lot of that innocence that made things "magical" and mysterious. (Ok Doom's engine is still a mystery to me, I can't replicate that)
But making games... is a completely different thing! For some reason it makes me happy and complete. I simply love to get things moving on a screen and being "gamey". It's the best way I found to learn programming/programming languages.
What about you? Can you shift from dev to player mode?
Merry Xmas everyone!
If the story or gameplay is good, I don't care.
It's like music, I can listen to it actively as a musician and I can listen to it as a fan.