The alternative is doing homework

I'll break it down by the various projects I've worked on or contributed to recently:

Project Green for Glest Advanced Engine -- This was a thought experiment mostly.  I wanted to see how much I could change gameplay in Glest without actually doing any programming, so I used mostly the original Glest assets and reconfigured some things to make it a much different game.  I guess my main motivation here was curiosity.  A secondary motivation could be that I'm tired of people making boring mods for Glest that all play the same, so I wanted to lead by example.

Project Red for Glest Advanced Engine -- Glest has a lot of mods floating around, but most are single factions that exist mostly on their own, and the capabilities of GAE are sorely underused, so I'm combining various factions, tweaking them to be balanced against each other, and adding new units to take advantage of GAE's features.  I guess the motivation behind this one is similar to Project Green.  I see that what Glest/GAE is does not match up with what it could be.  Also, I'd like for people to be able to provide a nice big tech tree to play with, so players don't have to either settle for the two default ones or go hunting down various others and hoping that they work together.

Solunar for Glest Advanced Engine -- There are a lot of fictional worlds bouncing around in my mind, and this is one I've grown rather attached to.  This is just the medium I've chose to express it.  I'm also motivated on this one to do everything myself as much as possible, which is partially a perfectionism thing and partially to force myself to learn and practice all the various skills involved (modeling, texturing, animation, etc.).  Thus, this one is mostly for creative expression with a dash of developing my skills.

Translating for Glest Advanced Engine -- I like GAE and this is a chance to contribute while keeping my Spanish sharp.

Last Escape -- For this one, I think I mostly wanted to contribute to something among my peers here on OGA.  I don't really know anybody into game development in my normal everday life, so having the chance to work with others in real time was a lot of fun.  Plus, the challenge of making a game in two days was something I wanted to tackle.

FLARE -- This is a game I like and that I believe has potential, so I'd like to see it do well.  If I can speed things along, then even better.

The Battle for Wesnoth -- I'm a lore geek.  I love a good story, and I love digging into the background of a setting, and I also like to develop my own, so contributing a little prose to this game was a no-brainer.

Tempest in the Aether -- When I contributed to this project, I was in the midst of an art spree, so I figured that, if I was going to be making art, I should make art that is useful to someone.  I wasn't all that motivated by this project, but I did enjoy making a few interesting props.

In summary, it's mostly that I like to be creative, I like to be helpful, and I like being good at things.

I've been working on the same project, Hero of Allacrost, ever since I started it in 2004. Over the years my sources of motivation have changed.

Starting Out

1) I wanted to contribute something back to the FOSS community in my own way, after having gained so much from it already

2) I had just graduated college and was in limbo waiting for grad school to start, so I had a lot of free time (and for once, no homework)

3) I wanted to realize a childhood dream of mine to develop a video game

4) I loved developing software and didn't have any more assignments to work on

5) I noticed a lack of FOSS games and wanted to help fill the gap.

6) I had found several interests in other areas and I figured working on a game would allow me to involve myself in several discplines instead of soley software development.

Middle Years

1) Working on the project was giving me invaluable experience into software development and management practices, which was really helping my professional career

2) I could continue to see my skills as a developer, manager, writer, etc. grow, which is very important to me

3) We had already spent so much time and effort into this project that there was no way I was just going to abandon it and lose everything. No matter how bad things got.

4) We started releasing demos every few months, and it was very encouraging to see how far we had come with each release.

Today

1) I'm cynical about the so-called "profession" of software development, as all the jobs I've held involved me fixing someone else's terrible design.

2) The things I work on with my game are much more challenging and engaging than the rudimentary work I do as a software engineer

3) We're finally at a point where we have enough of a foundation in our code to focus on creating content and putting a true game together

4) I'm so damn persistent and refuse to quit what I started. :)

I've been working on Flare since about November '09.

Gameplay/engine code is fun to write. I enjoy it more than scripting an actual game, and more than playing a game. This might be some kind of insanity.

I enjoy the act of creating. It gives me the illusion of an existential purpose. Life is terribly short! Each game developer only has enough time to create maybe 5 substantial games. Your entire life's work might be your favorite 5 game ideas. It's overwhelming just to type that out.

I take pride in my work. I like showing it to others and getting positive feedback.

Just like Roots, sometimes I'm doing mundane code at work and I crave something more challenging. I get less productive on my game project when things are more busy/fun at the office.

Having my project free/open has become a motivation in itself. People are excited about it, and I want to meet their expectations. This can be exhausting.

What motivates people to tennis, play online games or work in the garden?

It is fun for them, and so is coding for me. I also like to program things in the right way (I mean my way) and whenever I like. This means, not worrying about deadlines, but also not waiting for others to do their parts. That usually brings you down to a one-mans project.

Motivation? What is that? (=see my lack of output :p ).

But basically there are three things that make me do some 3D art...

A) just general leasure time... e.g. had a brainfart with a cool design, and decided to make a 3D sketch of it... normally never goes beyond that stage but sometimes I pick it up some month later again and try to further improve it.

B) Desire to learn, e.g. I want to learn how to use a tool or how to do a certain technique and by doing that I come up with some 3D art or such.

C) I see a cool FOSS game project and want to help out with it a bit (normally I turn out to be too lazy however)