I&#x27;ve had this thought quite a few times.<p>Basically, if you want your software to last and work on lots of platforms (particularly if it is a game you put a lot of love into), using a lot of dependencies you worry about it.<p>I know I&#x27;ve written some things - not even games, that would be a major chore to port.<p>But C and OpenGL APIs are still going to be there, and there&#x27;s a nice feeling of quietness when it&#x27;s just you, libraries you know are going to be stable, and the code, and not having to wonder &quot;is this fully baked?&quot; or &quot;which one of these libs is the best&quot;.<p>You can almost get paralyzed in finding the ideal tools and libs to use and keeping up with all of them.  Whereas if you limit yourself to just what comes with the language (and maybe a few small things) a side project can be a lot more fun.<p>A side project is also often about the journey, not the destination, and people can get a lot of mileage out of building incredibly complicated weird things that not many people will know are even there (I don&#x27;t really know how to play Dwarf Fortress and don&#x27;t play it, but the idea of the history generator, terrain generator, and so on... all that runs before you play the game strike me as great examples - the kind of thought that this is incredibly impractical and therefore must have been a ton of fun to write)&gt;