Why Did They Make This Game?

[RonBurgundy12]

Enderal is gorgeous, the story is intriguing and I've never seen such great voice acting come out of a Bethesda game and as I'm playing it, I just keep thinking "why?" Why put all the effort into crafting such a detailed and rich mod for free? What is SureAI getting out of this?

[Crudeowl]

In all honesty, I applaud them. I have been wanting to make a mod with this scope in mind, but to do so would require a dedicated team. I want to do it for fun and to release the idea's bustling in my head, I would assume the same for them.

[G0lgrim]

Why? Why not!
No realy, SureAI made 3 Total Conversations for the Elder Scrolls - Games before... Myar Aranath and Arktwend for Morrowind and Nehrim for Oblivion. They all play in the same world named Vyn. The inner circle of the SureAI-team are professional games developer in education or work allready at this job.
Its a hobby and a passion, and yes... with this wonderfull ideas in my mind i musst bring them to birth too i think.

And... they maybe want to found a own game development studio or find a good job in this scene. Ederal is a very good reference for them.

[mindw0rk]

Why people do other things they enjoy doing?

[Xagul]

By making this they where once more able to prove that they are able to manage a large scale production and handle complex matters. As more than one of the crew wants to step ahead towards game development, I'd think a release like Enderal contributes to the CV quite nicely

[Metanoeite]

Enderal is gorgeous, the story is intriguing and I've never seen such great voice acting come out of a Bethesda game and as I'm playing it, I just keep thinking "why?" Why put all the effort into crafting such a detailed and rich mod for free? What is SureAI getting out of this?

[LokiHades]

A labour of love is far greater a project than one simply for profit. Bethesda made an engine and SureAI have used it better than them in my opinion, at least two times now

[SureAI-Colin]

I can't speak for anyone else, but there are a few reasons why I decided to join the project and dedicate my time to it for free (even making financial sacrifices for it).

1. Resume builder - Experience is extremely important in the games industry. Breaking into the industry can be hard, but once you've "shipped a game", you've basically made it and getting jobs/moving up gets a lot easier. Enderal is very similar to shipping a game, and can be argued as being equivalent or near equivalent to x years of experience in the industry when job searching. Basically, outside of shipping a well received game, Enderal is one of the best things you can get for your resume. It shows you can handle the tools and learn new ones, it shows you know the production pipeline, and it shows you can maintain working on a project for multiple years.

2. Educational tool - There's another reason why a project like this is such a resume builder, because it's an excellent educational tool. Creating a game requires a lot, and even if you're a small part of the production, you're still required to do things that people normally would stray away from, or that separate you from the pack. Most people stay within the safe confines of Unreal/Unity, where everything usually works well and is user-friendly. That's not a knock on UE4 or Unity, I absolutely love those engines, especially Unreal. But, most internal tools aren't as easy to use or polished as something like Unity or Unreal. Stuff like the Creation Engine are better examples. While working on Enderal, I very frequently had to move outside of my comfort zone and learn to do things I had never done before. Also, it keeps you busy, keeps you working, and that's vital if you're looking to make a living in the entertainment industry. You need to be good, really good, and that means staying busy, and bettering yourself all the time. Projects like this are such great way to keep yourself working and bettering yourself, since you have people relying on you to do your work, and need you to do things that are often outside of your comfort zone.

3. Belief in the project - I genuinely believed in the project. Sure, I had worked with SureAI in the past which helps, but you just have to look at SureAI's history to believe in the project. It's rare enough for a team to release one total conversion, but to have a decade+ long history of releasing quality award winning total conversions? That's a unicorn. I first heard about Enderal when I was asked to consult on the English version of the name, and once I heard about the project, I wanted in. I didn't join immediately, I needed to finish undergrad first. I also luckily had a year off between undergrad and grad that allowed me to put a lot of time in. Also hopefully making up for the fact that the time I had to contribute shrank quite a bit during grad school.

4. Free time - Like I said, I had a year between undergrad and grad, (and I'm incredibly glad I did) and I'm the kind of person that doesn't deal well with lots of free time. I had to do work, and a mix of self-education and Enderal was an excellent way to spend that time.