Wait what

I know, right? Not sure what to make of that, lol.

You make a mod - It sits on your machine and no one outside of your friends plays it.

DID IT EXIST?

If a mod lives in the forest and no one plays it, is it real?

Wait till Zileas hears about this!

Ho ho ho ho.

I don't think Mods can survive singely in the forest though Xypherous. Who leaves their computer out there?

That's actually a pretty good point, I'd recommend people put their work out their in a blog or some sort of portfolio so it can get attention, might land a career one day. I minored in game design myself and as I'm looking for work I've realized having a readily available space for employers to see what you've done is nearly a requirement nowadays.

How are we defining existence? From a "sort of" existential perspective, I could claim that it does indeed exist, even without interaction from others.

The games industry is highly competitive and you generally only get into it by luck or knowing someone. Still I'd caution you to think about this ahead of time, most people who think they want to do game design don't actually want to do it when the learn what it's really about.

Real, but I guess I'd prefer outside evaluation. I've got a magic card set sitting on my hard drive too...I'll bear this in mind and keep making stuff even if none of it actually gets totally completed or played. Although it's tricky to work out if it's well-designed without external input...

I've had this experience with multiple other fields (high level maths, physics, engineering...) but the stuff that seems to put people off designing (particularly having to design not just for yourself) never seems to bother me.

here, i'll rephrase this to be a little more clear:

no employer really, honestly cares what education you have or what unrelated work you have done. people want to hire intelligent, pleasant people. nothing else matters except those two features; you can learn whatever fiddly technical details are needed which are specific to your new job. the only purpose of a portfolio (whether you're an artist, designer, programmer, whatever) is to prove that you're intelligent and pleasant while presenting it.