By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
richardhutnik on 03 April 2011
Edit Thread
HappySqurriel said:
richardhutnik said:

It has been postulated in this thread, that "if you just want it bad enough, you will have it".  Well, consider the case of Bulletball.  Tell me this guy didn't want it enough:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOOw2yWMSfk

Wanting things enough, and trying real hard won't make up for making a bad decision, or poorly executing on a decision you made, that the market doesn't want.  I could also name several things he is doing wrong with his game.  Anyhow...


It seems like you’re trying to say pure effort alone will not make someone successful, but I’m sure everyone would have conceded that from the beginning; after all, playing videogames for 10,000 hours is (probably) not going to lead to much success. What you’re putting that effort towards and whether you can be effective in that field are just as important as the amount of work you actually do.

With that said, as Kasz has already pointed out, this doesn't really fit well with your hypothesis. Bulletball wasn't unsuccessful because the inventor lacked luck; it was unsuccessful because the inventor's efforts were either inadequate or directed inappropriately and the game itself was not interesting enough for wide market appeal.

The kicker here, in regards to luck is, just like buying lottery tickets, because you have very incomplete information, you don't know whether or not all the effort is in the right direction.  With some tweaks Bulletball COULD end up being viable, and if a dozen factors or more, happened to break a certain way, which the developer or no one else can see, it COULD end up an Olympic event in the future.  One just doesn't know here and can't tell.

Again, it is back to luck. There are hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of designers and entrepreneurs who are just like the Bulletball developer.  They happen to do and try, and risk it all, and things just didn't happen.  It ended up being luck to be the deciding factor in it.  And in the case of EXTREME wealth, dozens of factors broke the right way for the person, that they had NO part in it, that they didn't foresee.

You can look at crazes and see this.  No one can foresee them.  A number of factors came together, for example, to produce a Poker craze, such as the invention of the pocket cam (by an inventor of the Transformers who also happened to play poker), plus reality TV editing, plus a hockey strike.  This then led to the poker craze.  No one forsaw, directed or planned this.  And individuals who happened to be positioned where they were, NOT planning for this, happened to manage to ride the wave.  One could also say the Internet online play, PLUS a ban on poker playing, made for a ripe environment to produce such a craze.  Do you think anyone could of engineered it?  Nope, it is luck.