I consider myself to be between first and last option. Originally I wanted to be an artist, but after going through marketing oriented school (rather accidentially) some art education etc. I noticed no one there is interested in drawing “characters” or concepts in general. Well…maybe I cut the story short. Thing is, I had always a knack for computers, because of my dad and I love doing creative things, that can be anything. Therefore I have tried out alot of stuff when I finally landed in game development where I could combine my craving for doing lot’s of different things, learning all the time, being creative, creating my own worlds, build something interactive, make rules etc. everything about game development attracted me to it, once I knew that it’s a possibility. And once I figured out that I’m not utterly hopeless case with programming
Yes I want to do game dev fulltime, yes I would gladly work 10 hours a day on it, yes I would like to have deadlines, since I seem to work best with it (but that doesn’t mean I like them)
Yes I don’t want to work under someone else and I couldn’t imagine working for someone elses ideas or under someone elses rules(I’m leaving details out here) and from all those jobs out there, in my best knowledge and understanding game development + doing it independent is the best I can do and the one thing that seems to come closest to my talents and interests.
it’s possible there are other jobs out there that would fit to what i want, but I don’t know of those apparently, so this has to do
Nomad Fleet! Lucky! Do you have a post mortem about development somewhere? I’d love to read it. I’d be interested in knowing how Early Access treated you, and if actually releasing 1.0 made a difference in interest/sales.
For me, on the contrary, if game development was some doodling around for fun every evening I would have dropped it ages ago, like the rest of my hobbies of the past that never became anything more. The crucial point for me is not that there are no deadlines as such but that those deadlines are set by me, to finish stuff that I set for myself.
In fact, I think lack of deadlines make it hard for people to measure any sort of progress, and is the reason why a lot of people spend years in this ‘game’ without finishing much. Some will say that game development is not about progress but rather about fun, but it seems to me to be a fact that most of development is hardly relaxing or fun unless you’re doing something very simple. It’s grind and labor and bug-chasing and to get through it you need a concrete goal in time and space.
I don’t know, I’m 5 months in so probably don’t have any experience for those of you doing it for years.
But even now, I’m thinking ah this is getting to be a bit of a ballache. At the beginning your full of enthusiasm, and drooling over how great it is you have your ‘own’ game mechanics, then you start thinking, oh shoot, need to make a better level, crap gotta bake all that again, then oh shoot the wall needs to be there to get that game mechanic working, then oh shoot I’m played my own game 100+ times, then actually, it isn’t all that original or great.
Eventually yielding to ‘Master Frog Syndrome’ (first coined by iamthwee if anyone wants to use for later)
Wouldn’t be surprised if this is doubled/trippled when you’ve got bosses breathing down your neck to get something done before a deadline regardless of how much you enjoy game dev.
It must be like any other job, when I first got my supermarket job, I was like, oh crap money, then a week’s in, I was like ‘meh’
Still it would nice to hear from actual game devs doing this full time or for a decent living.
I have a full-time job that I’m dedicated to and is secure. I enjoy my job and I enjoy the people I work with.
If instead I was part of a team who developed games as a full-time job - I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be doing anything related to game development - when not at work.
I have been involved with game development at work - but it is so - instructionally oriented - and dull - and it doesn’t fill the addiction I have to be creative.
And I really enjoy the challenge of doing things that are hard to do and are beyond my initial ability. Kind of like proving to myself I can do more than I think I can.
Even if I was lucky/talented enough to strike gold - and was able to triple (or more) my annual salary with a game or games - as it stands now - I think I would not quit my full-time job - to do game development full time as an indie.
I enjoy my job and I think I’d stay even if that happened. (I think)
And last - I just really enjoy creating interactive stuff - mainly characters - It’s fun.
I enjoy helping others with there designs also - on graphics, and animations and character stuff. I like helping people solve difficult problems and lend my knowledge/ability to create things they have designed.
For me game dev is a low impact, low stress job. It really doesn’t matter if you mess if up. My day job is chemical engineering. People die when things go wrong. Some time ago one of my colleagues was hospitalized in a plant I was responsible for, after an accident I should have prevented.
The main reason I haven’t switched full time is the money. Games are a much more saturated market then engineering. More people want to make games. As such there is less money available. The saying goes “Employers will pay you just enough to prevent you from quitting, employees will work just hard enough to prevent being fired”. Seems like you don’t have to be paid that much to prevent you from quitting game dev, and you have to work much harder to avoid being fired.
It’s nothing but a state of mind, I think most of us have been through at some point.
Really, it’s just like re-decorating a room. You strip everything out / start with a blank slate, you choose a rough pallete of colours (by doing the game design). You paint one of the walls (first basic prototype / blockout) everything still looks bad but you still have another three / four walls to finish.
After you’ve done the first coat everything looks better but it’s patchy (advanced prototype), then you rinse and repeat until it looks / feels right. After that things will start to come together, the basic template and random amount of code snippets begin to have some sort of cohesion which will spark ideas that work in practice not just in theory.
Now with said idea’s, you’ll scan around and go shopping for new light fixtures / carpet / sockets etc. Now we’re cooking. You get re-invigorated and start adding bits to make it really feel cohesive and your own (first alpha). We just got to add the table / chairs and accessories (polish).
What seems to happen a lot, you strip everything back / start painting and realise the doors need varnishing. The electrics needs re-doing and you had a crack in the wall that needs sorting. At which point it seems overwhelming, you think it’s too much work and screw this I’m off for a beer.
Also it’s hard to see the wood through the tree’s, in large projects you might not have anything that resembles an actual game for eight to twelve months. You just got to keep adding bits to the room based on the design / ideas you originally made until it becomes something.
I’ve typed up so many different drafts to try and respond to this thread, but I can’t really compile it together to be cohesive/coherent enough to describe my feelings and current position and outlook.
I’ll say that if you’re trying to do game development full-time because it’s “fun”, then I think you will fail. You seriously, truly have to be passionate. I didn’t set up an LLC because it was fun. I’m not paying annual business registration fees because it’s fun. I didn’t talk to accounting and deal with legal issues because it’s fun. I didn’t consider registering trademarks and copyrights because it’s fun. I didn’t do my taxes completely differently, as self employed, because it was fun. I didn’t spend my time marketing my game because it’s fun. I didn’t purchase webhosting and mobile developer registrations because they were fun. I didn’t sign up for low premium health insurance because it was fun. Truthfully, it’s all pretty f*cking scary. But it’s a good scary. It’s a calculated risk. A good risk. A risk that makes you feel like you’re doing the right thing, that which makes you feel like you’re alive and with your own creative purpose. The odds of succeeding are still better than winning the lottery.
Basically, I didn’t take all these risks because it was fun. I did all that because I’m passionate, and I believe I can make it, and that it is my true creative self with every fiber of my being. And yet, it is still more than that. I’m not going to rely on just my own false hope on a whim of “panning for gold in some random creek”. I’ve got years of development experience on my side, willing to get down and dirty to do all the administrative stuff to do what I’m most passionate about. As I said, it’s calculated. If I go another year or two, I won’t be out on the streets, I have a reasonable amount in retirement and savings. I have the mindset that there will always be fallbacks, so now’s the time to really try to generate income with my passion.
Basically, if you want to succeed, you’d better learn how to be an entrepreneur real fast. It’s not only about developing the game. That’s only the “product” part of the business. It’s about caring for this new business entity you’re creating, a new brand, a new community, and growing and maintaining all of that. It’s bigger than just a game. With that all said, I’m not even there yet. But I can only feel like, personally, this is the right path for me.
Fantastic response. I think you definitely have the right attitude about it. That’s what I call taking it seriously and absolutely agree is needed. I think the part that is odd is that we rarely see anyone actually talking about this stuff around here. And maybe that is because the serious, truly serious people, are just too busy actually doing all of this stuff to start and operate their business to spend a lot of time talking about.
But yeah I’ve often thought it was odd to have so many people talking about wanting to do this full-time as an Indie and yet not a single forum dedicated to the business side of actually doing it and rarely a post other than occasional newbies asking how to get started what is needed to start their company and asking about licenses and filing taxes and such. Because to me (and maybe I am misguided based on my own previous business experiences) this “other” stuff is actually the really important stuff if you want to start and run your own business.
I’ve thought long and hard about the question of why I develop games, and I think I’ve finally figured out the answer:
Because I can.
Game development is an incredibly difficult thing to do, and I just happen to have the skills to do it, and - out of all of the things I’m capable of doing; mostly “computer” related - game development just happens to be the most interesting, creative, fun, and challenging thing I’m capable of.
So… what the hell else am I going to do with my time?
Poll seem to be missing the option which is a yes without assuming that you have to be stressed and work 10 hours a day.
When I was student I lived very comfortably on about 40k a year (scholarships, occasional part time work). I earn more than this from Unity, and I only spend around 2-3 hours a day, certainly not 10 (admittedly a lot of this revenue comes asset store not directly from games per say).
Can you make your magnum opus with a high level of confidence in a profit, probably not, this is where passion that @aer0ace mention comes in! But I’m very confident that someone with reasonable business skills who treats their game development work like a business has a good chance of making their living in games without having to kill themselves trying.
EDIT: Just noting this is a response to the poll options, restrictive poll options tend to ‘grind my gears’, the rest of the discussion is very interesting
No worries. That was the whole point just to get some discussion going on. It’s always difficult to come up with the poll options to cover all cases so I just narrow it down to a few. Really could have just left that off completely but I thought at least it might help to catch someone’s attention. I agree it has been a great thread so far!
