Why people delete their good works?

[bobstremglav]

It frustrates me when creative people who made something good suddenly restrict it. Just why?

As creative person myself I can't get it, because if people liked your work then why you should delete it? To upset your fans?

[Ludi]

As someone who has wads that would now technically be considered lost media, I deleted them because I found the maps dreadful and not worth playing in the present. I do wonder if that was the wrong choice in the interest of media preservation, but I don't think much of value was lost. Maybe my opinion will change with maturity.

 

People responded to the maps positively but I felt they didn't reflect my values regarding level design in the present. Such is life, I suppose.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Ludi

[Async Unicorn]

I deleted a lot of my WAD working because:

1. I thought it was a waste of time at all.

2. I had no self-confidence, that's the most important, :(

3. I can't make maps fast, so it was dreadful to design first areas for weeks or month.

[mrthejoshmon]

When I stopped working on my old megawad due to negative/no reception, I actually ended up never releasing an entirely completed level for it as I moved on and decided to focus on making new and better things (because, tbh, it was unsalvageable).

The only thing I have left of that map, as it was lost to me ages ago, is this old low quality video from when I was still operating off of shit hardware:

Not exactly the best thing I have ever made (and I'm not just talking about the unwatchable video Jesus Christ) but it wasn't the worst.

 

Kinda wish it was still around.

[DNSKILL5]

Some people like to bruise their own ego 

[Nikku4211]

Speaking as someone who has a few Doom WADs that are no longer accessible on my website, sometimes I fear the consequences I'd get if I release such unholy beasts to the Doomworld forums or IdGames.

 

Of course, I shouldn't be replying here because this thread is specifically about good works being deleted, but since that is just a matter of opinion, it means I get to mention BoomHor again.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Nikku4211

[Sonikkumania]

Maybe they just don't regard it as something worth preserving.

[Lofwyr]

That can have various reasons, including the fact that self perceived suckage and rockage can result in deleted works.

 

I suck: Deletion out of frustration, disgust.

I rock: Deletion cause, so good at it that making another one is no sweat.

 

The latter one is extremely common in the more quick arts like drawing (sketches) or music (coming up with basic, but great sounding tracks), especially online.

If you get skillful at one of those, and do a stream of it, and delete your entire draft cause you know you can not only do it again, but probably better, always has a high chance of some people going "Ahhhh why would you do this?" the moment you do it.

 

[RTC_Marine]

I deleted a lot of my software projects because I wasn't sure if I was capable of completing them at the time, despite some being in a fairly usable state.

[Misty]

There are many reasons why people delete their works, one of them could be cutting ties with the past and shedding what don't serve them anymore. Like not wanting be associated with some communities or styles. 

[Deadwing]

I try to never delete my stuff, even if years pass I always come back to them lol

I lost a lot of past work though, due to crashing hard drives and stuff like that, and I still regret to this day, even if it wasn't any good at all by today standards.

[Jayextee]

My shit sucks, I'll destroy it if I want to.

[Michael63]

Good question. I also sometimes had this question, although I rarely saw such cases. Perhaps this is sometimes due to the excessive “toxicity” of critics, due to which the authors of the works doubt how good their work is. Or, on the contrary, the author considers himself a great master, so when he does something not very pretentious, he does not always want to show it to people, for fear of lowering his status in their eyes.

[Kinsie]

On 12/14/2023 at 7:26 PM, bobstremglav said:

It frustrates me when creative people who made something good suddenly restrict it. Just why?

As creative person myself I can't get it, because if people liked your work then why you should delete it? To upset your fans?

I'm assuming this post is based off of being unable to find a specific project. What are you looking for?

[Amiga Angel]

I lost tons of work in progress stuff due to system crashes and being to lazy to keep proper backups... I still lose stuff from time to time

[P_A_Z]

I have lost all my data when i was modding on STALKER Clear Sky, 3 years of modding and merging, cause i made a savegame of all on a hard drive, an HDD of 3 To, but someday, it was always rejected by windows cause it contained bad sectors, my power supply was also broken down and dead in the process. In the shop where i bought the PC, the technicians have deleted all my data included my gamedata of STALKER of 4 Go, to change the hardrive and the power supply by some new and fresh hardware. I paid nothing, cause it was under guarantee, but i was disappointed cause I wanted to upload it on moddb when I had planned to finish my job. I never touch anymore of the tools, the level editor, the script language and the X-Ray Engine 1.5 of the game since i had this bad adventure.  

Edited December 15, 2023 by P_A_Z
Spelling mistakes

[Proxy-MIDI]

I deleted some of my wads for many reasons. 

 

1 - These were shitty as f*ck

2 - Technically and funny-cally (:P), it was poor or uninspired

3 - Some of the levels had a bad difficulty. The kind of level that you have to stay covered 90% of the time and wait for the good moment to strike. So boring...

4 - The music was so bad that you had the feeling it has been made by an AI

5 - I'm ashamed to have released this kind of stuff and have been proud of it. 

7 - I forgot the 6. 

[Pechudin]

TBH not many maps I start nowadays do not get finished but I tended to delete a lot. Don't know why, I guess I start getting sick of them and do not see a route to finish them. But learned to embrace "good enough" and push through.

[yakfak]

unfinished projects can weigh on yr mind. free up memory with this one simple trick!

 

tbh there are several wads I should've deleted instead of linking to dw, not to mention hundreds of posts. attention is often not worth it

[z34chris]

On 12/14/2023 at 8:42 AM, mrthejoshmon said:

When I stopped working on my old megawad due to negative/no reception, I actually ended up never releasing an entirely completed level for it as I moved on and decided to focus on making new and better things (because, tbh, it was unsalvageable).

The only thing I have left of that map, as it was lost to me ages ago, is this old low quality video from when I was still operating off of shit hardware:

Not exactly the best thing I have ever made (and I'm not just talking about the unwatchable video Jesus Christ) but it wasn't the worst.

 

Kinda wish it was still around.

This map looks clean and balanced as well as looking symmetrical in the right places.  I have not seen any map weirdness that sometimes plagues other maps.

Maybe someone could rebuild this map from the video?

[IHave10Shells]

So, a few months ago I made a wad based on FNAF. It received some reception so I decided to make it a megawad.

 

I made two more levels. I spent days making them, but they were very flat and had pretty trash gameplay. I still have the original topic here. I also have the wad on my computer somewhere. If I dig enough, I might find it.

 

(EDIT: I Found it! Here are some bad screenshots that I took:)

 

Spoiler

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by IHave10Shells
found

[Andrea Rovenski]

to be an artist is to be a fickle creature 

[bobstremglav]

On 12/15/2023 at 5:35 PM, Kinsie said:

I'm assuming this post is based off of being unable to find a specific project. What are you looking for?

1-Bit Wonder. Interesting fantasy console with "1 bit" display (I think it was white for sprites and colorful gradient background). With no reason author just deleted page, and even restricted document with instructions list

[lukasxd]

They like everyone else, has the liberty to do whatever they want to their creations.

Maybe is Quality, Maybe is inner-problems, Maybe because someone need to dissapear from the community, we never know!

[MrFlibble]

You know what's worse, put something on your site as a free download but explicitly prohibit others from mirroring it, then one day many years later the site is down for good and it turns out that the Wayback Machine has not preserved the download, while whatever happened to the author is anyone's guess. Good if someone was prudent enough to keep a copy of that stuff somewhere.

 

This usually won't happen to works that have at least some popularity of course, but a bunch of decent freeware games was lost or nearly lost exactly this way.

 

However, I need to stress that I respect the authors' rights to do whatever they want with their creations. It's certainly not nice from the user's standpoint if something good gets taken down, removed, destroyed or whatever by the author, but it's ultimately their work and their choice. They had the good will to offer their work to the public in the first place, and they are totally entitled to remove it if they please. Although I cannot imagine the situation when a piece of work was really good and people liked it, but then it turned out that something connected with it had hurt the author so much that they decided to destroy or remove it? That must be something really bizarre and then I guess worth not being public after all.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

On 12/14/2023 at 9:13 PM, DNSKILL5 said:

Some people like to bruise their own ego 

Unfortunately that is the case a lot of the time. I've seen a lot of people over the years throwing pity parties for themselves over their old work, not speaking specifically about this community. I think it gives them the illusion of improvement - every time they think their skill has improved, they start trash talking their previous work. They must get to the point where they can't tell with any certainty how much they've truly improved because they no longer have anything to use as a comparison. It's good to keep your old "shitty" work around, at the very least for yourself, so you can look at it and feel proud of how far you've come, and to remember where it all started. I think that people who do this don't see enough meaning and value in their own work, otherwise they wouldn't want to throw away their memories. Unless the work brings back negative memories, in which case it is best to toss it.

 

There are exceptions obviously, someone might feel that their old work was just juvenile and embarrassing as opposed to just being amateur or crappy, or they might have a reputation that they're trying to uphold in general, or they might be working on a newer version of their art/project that they want people to see instead. There are many possible reasons, but I think you named one of the biggest ones.

[rebeldoomer]

Trying to imagine myself in their shoes, and from what I've learned from talented close friends who delete their work often, if I were to ever do such a thing, I'd do it because:

1. Catastrophizing.
2. As self punishment, in some weird, overly-emotional, destructive way.
3. Wanting to "disappear" in some metaphorical way.
4. Starting a "new chapter in life".
5. Some past atrocious experience as a kid/teen, when other things I made got brutally roasted. Been overly self-conscious since.
6. Maybe they made their works during a year associated with some distressing memories. I've deleted a lot of work that was ok quality, but due to unrelated memories they kept giving me (the people I talked to at the time mainly), I hated them.
7. A friend of mine makes some amazing work, but is a perfectionist (due to trauma), he won't stop comparing his works to other people's. But he has a mental illness he's struggling with daily that heavily impacts his views in this case.

[WSADKO]

Its just people get bullied into doing that so they won't get cancelled. that's life now, yeah

[Redneckerz]

15 hours ago, WSADKO said:

Its just people get bullied into doing that so they won't get cancelled. that's life now, yeah

What does this even mean?

[aloysiusfreeman]

17 hours ago, WSADKO said:

Its just people get bullied into doing that so they won't get cancelled. that's life now, yeah

 

God forbid someone grows up and doesn't like what they did in the past and has the option to somewhat rectify that.