I also started with game development for Windows phone using XNA, switched to marmalade then Unity. Stopped creating games a few months ago thinking mostly like you plus wondering how/if my games are solving real user problems or whether they are only providing distractions.
However, searching for companies looking for developers with game development background and familiarity with Unity, I found a few startups who are either using games to fund and solve real user needs or using Unity to create educational/informative visualizations for museums and businesses. This led me to change my mind and return to creating games and hopefully start working with one of these startups
>wondering how/if my games are solving real user problems or whether they are only providing distractions.
Keeping ourselves entertained on this planet is a very real user problem. It has been a core part of all human cultures for millennia. As we become more productive at producing all the essentials for survival, entertainment will take an ever growing share of our economies.
Entertainment is the one industry that I'm sure will still exist in a 100 years and employing people. I would be very surprised if it were not at least 50% of our economies at that point.
I would make the opposite prediction. Entertainment is becoming cheaper and more abundant all the time due to computerization, and this is happening faster than in industries like energy and health care. So I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with a lot more and better entertainment, but it seems unlikely that we'll pay a larger percentage of income for it. More likely, people will be paying less and getting more.
I work for a company just like this. We use Unity (and lots of other game tech) to make games for health, mostly for physical therapy and rehab. There are interesting problems to solve in this space and we're putting good energy into the world with our work. And, we're hiring! If you (or anyone else reading this) is looking for a great job and know a good amount of Unity/C#, drop us a line at jobs@respondwell.com. Remote work is fine, too.
> I found a few startups who are either using games to fund and solve real user needs or using Unity to create educational/informative visualizations for museums and businesses. This led me to change my mind and return to creating games and hopefully start working with one of these startups
That sounds amazing, I think there is a lot of opportunity in repurposing Game UI for non-game environments. A lot of gameplay UI is optimized for common actions & being intuitive to use
An interesting project leveraging games for "real work" is Verigames. It's a DARPA-funded project that creates casual games that drive a crowd-source formal verification system for software.
However, searching for companies looking for developers with game development background and familiarity with Unity, I found a few startups who are either using games to fund and solve real user needs or using Unity to create educational/informative visualizations for museums and businesses. This led me to change my mind and return to creating games and hopefully start working with one of these startups