Me personally it's money, sad, but true. I am a single guy, making uh simple 2D games as of now, and will make more and more till I am confident enough to dabble into 3D.

I am not a creative person, I have ADHD and don't focus on a single task often, sometimes my attention span is no longer than 10 seconds if I find a particular task too difficult.

I have literally no ideas about what games to make, so I just focus on making a map and character appear as well as accept KB input.

As for the creative side, I cannot draw, but even if I could, the image of what to draw is always blank, nothing is there. So yeah, I can't draw because I don't know what to draw, but then if I did, I can barely draw a circle(both on a computer and in real life).

And then there's money, there is no guarantee I will survive 2D to even begin with 3D, but I do hope I have a one in a few thousand chance like Notch to create some fun game. More specifically, money, because I lost 2.15 Bitcoins to gambling, which at (variable)current price of $118 is 253 dollars and will likely go up.

The simple joy of creation.

And the joy that comes from knowing others appreciate the result.

How many people out there can start with a blank document and end with a product that is loved by millions?

I love the challenge. Especially when dealing with 3D math. I don't know of many other fields where you get to face so many problems that use so much math to find the solution with the end result being so visual.

I also have to agree with frob. Creating something from basically nothing is very exciting.

In addition to what Frob has already said, what drives me is playing games and imagining how I would do things differently, especially in terms of game mechanics.

Each game has it's own set of reasons why I want to make it.

Sometimes it's a feature of the language or engine like this game:

http://www.egdahl.com/html5/IrregularPool/

I wrote that one because I found an easy way to do physics and thought Pool with non round objects would be cool.

This one I wrote because I figured out how to simulate a tree growing and trim that tree with a database I designed:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=virtual.bonsai

I wrote this one because I needed a game written in only 4 hours:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=copy.me

This one I just wanted to implement hardware acceleration based on the last game in this list:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=afv.seu

I wrote this one 3 times, but this time was to have a starting project on Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=flatank.deux

Believe it or not, my "motivation" is simply "something to do" with my time.

All of my games are "throw away" ( I doubt any one would actually want to play them ) programmed in a verity of languages including Java, JavaScript, AW Code, Ruby, PHP, Python, C++, V Basic.

Me personally it's money, sad, but true. I am a single guy, making uh simple 2D games as of now, and will make more and more till I am confident enough to dabble into 3D.

I am not a creative person,

I have literally no ideas about what games to make

At current I have two games running in my head simultaneously. I just tried to see how many I could pull up, only 5, but only the front two were running, and they were kind-of erratic. The character on the left was just standing there and jumping, while the character on the right was leaping across caverns.

The games were: Two 2d platformers(TT, St[I'll probably forget this one)), two 3d platformers(VVF, a 3d version of ST) and one that I'd hardly classify it as a game, it was a cutscene.

I played tons of games, grew up without TV, used to read a good bit, and have tons of game related ideas. I've lived in my imagination since I was a child. My favorite authors were C.S. Lewis, Arthur Conan Doyle, Isaac Asimov, and various other strange creators of various lore.

One game runs fine... platformer.

Two 3d games are... strange... I have to mirror one upside down and then I can't really maintain the upside down one, only the rightside up one works properly.

That said, I'm... making simple 2d games too. I design ones more complex than I can actually code yet. The metanet tutorials are good, the techniques explained in them power the collision detection of crafty.js.

I am a creative person, I hear in the long run it will actually hurt your programming ability/productivity. You may not be the best at designing innovative games, but most games aren't innovative. If you polish simplicity enough it can shine. If you want to code something, try the metanet tutorial and look for the art from the 'lostgarden' called 'cutepeas'. Please release the result as MIT if you manage it before I do. There's already a GPL version, I don't recommend looking at it as Similarity + Availability = Copyright infringment, so learning from MIT licensed code is better.

For me it is some thing about some magic that good

games have - secondary it is a way for learning programming and living. Sadly it seem all harder that I though and now I am tired often (feel much pain - maybe becouse a health problems)

Each game has it's own set of reasons why I want to make it.

Sometimes it's a feature of the language or engine like this game:

http://www.egdahl.com/html5/IrregularPool/

I wrote that one because I found an easy way to do physics and thought Pool with non round objects would be cool.

Cool lokin game imo, thats nice (thats why I like javascript)

though i am not sure if present game rules are too much perfect. could you say what is a way of hiding code in javascript games ? I know a little javascript+canvas but do not know how people hide code. This game source is long? Was it hard to write? Did you have some physics tutorial ? Could you say a little how this phisics is done?

On top of my head:

If I'm going to program, I'd rather program game mechanics than a web client for a bank, a PHP webpage bound to a product catalog database, a servlet in Java (or anything in Java, really), or a shipping management software for a shop, or some other crap like that.

I don't like making private software that about 5 people will use in a company. I prefer making consumer software. I like to look at a widely used program and say "I worked on that."

I like to entertain people in general.

I hate visiting corporate customers, your contact makes sure you know you're bothering him and he thinks you can figure in details what kind of software he has in his head within 10 minutes, and he's talking on the phone half that time.

I like the creative process that goes into creating games. Creating worlds, creating characters, creating levels, creating abilities, etc. Not jobs that programmers are usually involved into in huge companies, but as an indie you wear more than one hat.