I liked this article on gamasutra, you might too:
5 Likes
He loves his career as a web developer? What madness is this! 
7 Likes
Yes clearly he is not quite right in the head, but then again he is a game developer 
6 Likes
Great article and I can relate to him. Making games is just an enjoyable thing to do. I donāt need to make money from it. I do see it as a fun experiment to try to make a game and make some money from it. Even then only single digit thousands.
Already have a job I like working with great people. The two are very different. One is the career way to make a living. The other is for passion and possibly a way to earn a second tiny income stream.
From what Iāve seen there are many part-time game devs out there making as much or even more money from game dev who still keep their jobs. It doesnāt have to be an either or thing.
4 Likes
To me he embodies the true spirit of indie games, in that he is trying something new and heās not concerned about what will sell best. The spaceflight social media game for instance, as far as I know thatās the only one of itās kind and itās kind of cool he had the freedom to do that.
4 Likes
@tiggus there was another article I posted a couple weeks back from another Indie who said that same basic thing as you just did. He was a full-time Indie and has since returned to work full-time and said he has more freedom now than he ever had when doing game dev full time. Before he had to constantly turn out tiny games all focused on bringing in money. Now he can build whatever he wants to.
2 Likes
If I wasnāt doing this just as a hobby Iād worry constantly about my design decisions being too weird for the market. I mean recently Iāve seen so many bad reviews for games that looked fine on steam, for seemingly minor reasonsā¦ like āno 4k resolution? negative reviewā, ājust 4 hours singleplayer campaign? negative reviewā and so on. On the other hand Iām often surprised what the details are that people mention that they actually like about games.
4 Likes
A 4K monitor can be bought for about $300. Thatās only $50 more than the 1440p monitors. While I would much rather have a higher refresh rate than a higher resolution, weāre now at the point where weāre going to have to start supporting it.
Yes, I know the feeling. Itās not very often you run into a game people love because they canāt win. 
2 Likes
Part of the reason that the hobbyist thing could never work for me is that I donāt see game development in a purist way - or imagine it as @tiggus said as having a ātrueā spirit. Itās rather an opportunity for me to combine several different skills that Iām working on toward a common goal, including technical, business/financial, personal motivation etc. I see myself as more of an āengineerā of game development, someone who is trying to construct something that functions largely from a rational perspective rather than a purely emotional one. It helps of course that I do have something artistic to say, but to be honest, I would have stuck with writing if it were not for my desire to create something of technical significance.
Well itās interesting you say you would have stuck with writing if you didnāt want to do something technical, because for me it is the opposite.
I do technical work every day and gamedev is what allows me to express my artistic and creative side(writing network security tools and designing networks doesnāt scratch that itch for me anymore). I wouldnāt mind doing gamedev fulltime but not at the risk of my familyās income and house, itās a compromise I can live with. The author of the article seems to be roughly in the same boat but way more motivated than me as he is actually releasing stuff.
Iāve applied for some junior gamedev positions and got interviews but taking a paycut of that magnitude is just not feasible for me, I think I would have had to made the switch 10+ years ago at a minimum. Also I wouldnāt be building the games I want to make then either 
I think it is a good reminder that part time devs really need to limit scope. For me this has been an ongoing lesson that I keep failing to learn/fight against.
6 Likes
It certainly helps that for all intents and purposes I am single and somewhat āfootloose and fancy freeā. If I had a family I would definitely take more of the approach in that article.
3 Likes
I know what you mean. Iām much more interested in making things Iāll like, regardless of how viable they are in the market, so I wouldnāt take the plunge and go full time indie unless I tripped and fell into a successful hobby project. Sure, Iāll sell my games (one day!) But with player and investor expectations so high and so wildly different, Iāll stick to doing it for fun.
1 Like
Thanks for sharing you POV. Iām in a similar boat as @tiggus and @GarBenjamin .
I can understand your view from reading your other threads and posts, to develop something that functions from a rational perspective, although donāt you think with added pressure to increase ROI while reducing expenses and time investment, doesnāt being 100% indie leave a person vulnerable to have to develop something fast to market, even if itās not something that person is interested in - to get paid - keep the lights on and not be stressed about paying the bills.
Wouldnāt that be emotionally driven design?
Where as the part-time indie can really work on whatever they want - there is no pressure (other than self imposed) to get something finished and out the door. A part-time indie can work with less emotion and more thought (wrong word) to create something they are interested inā¦ Maybe. 
The author is thoughtful, and makes a strong argument, although the headline is slightly misleading.
āBarring any kind of runaway Flappy Bird-style success, Iāll always be able to earn more money by making websites than by making games."
This would be a difficult decision weād all consider at a specific dollar point - $500k + or maybe even less. Could a person replicate, even improve upon that success if devoted 100% of his/her time to game dev - if s/he banked 500k only working part time?
This is a logical and smart perspective -
Iād rather plan to go into full-time development after having a financial success than quit my job to chase one.ā
1 Like
Well, I donāt think I explained myself very clearly. What it comes down to is that what I want from game development, as a developer, is more than simply the enjoyment of creating games - I want the enjoyment of developing technical skill, of hopefully building a business of some kind out of game development at some point, and of pushing technical boundaries (at least relative to what could be expected from someone taking my approach). So I see the end goal, and the enjoyment of game development very much in terms of things besides the game itself, and the game is (partially) only a vehicle for getting those other things.
I think this is probably helped by the fact that my artistic side doesnāt need any effort to be kept āaliveā - itās always hanging around ready to influence what I do. So I donāt need to actively stimulate an emotional outlook on games.
I think itās a slightly uncommon point of view to see game development itself as a sort of ego-centric reality-based game in itself - where the focus is on pushing your own abilities, the technical quality of the game, and/or financial success - and too many times I see game development treated as a sort of āhumbleā undertaking - something that has to come from a place deep down and which emphasizes above all the social or emotional value to the player. No doubt it generally works out better, but funnily enough, I think a lot of people could relate to a game that was designed as an experience for the developer(s) themselves - it probably wouldnāt be stunningly popular but it would attract a certain kind of person. In a way, I see No Mans Sky as something a bit like this - where the studio simply wanted to see what they were capable of and didnāt emphasize so much the player experience (this is my reading anyway).
But anyway, to actually answer your question, I do think itās a good idea to be financially stable during development, and I hope to achieve this from a bunch of game related ventures before I actually start working on my dream one - I just donāt really enjoy or want to make some kind of āgreat little indie titleā - theyāre a good way to approach development for a lot of people but itās just not what gets my blood running. I want realism, I want a technical masterpiece, I want sophisticated AI/emergent behaviour, I want something I can enjoy at a technical level as well as an emotional one from the perspectives of both a developer and a player.
For example, I would be much more interested in trying to make a game where you simply sat down in VR with a realistic NPC and had a boring but unexpectedly sophisticated conversation, than creating some kind of indie love-child like Thomas Was Alone - itās not that I donāt respect the skill that goes into them but my perspective is very different.
3 Likes
@Billy4184 I donāt think what you describe is as rare as you think. I think most game devs are this way to a degree. At least the ones who are artists or programmers.
Itās way too easy for me to get stuck on the tech side of things. Focusing on the AI or simply building other systems. Iāve just learned if I do thatā¦ I donāt really complete a game. But over the years on various machines I filled my hard drives with projects experimenting with this kind of thing. I think most programmers get lost in that stuff and gain more satisfaction from focusing there (or on architecture) than they do from building a game.
Same for artists I imagine. I think most probably get more enjoyment out of pushing their art to the max. Trying to achieve something really spectacular looking and they probably also have a hard drive full of that stuff.
The difference is the people making the games (for the most part anyway) just realized they need to focus on the actual game itself otherwise it never gets completed.
4 Likes
LOL right now I have 4 different folders all with the same game name Iāve worked over the last 6 months, just different approaches/engines.
I have an ES6 native version, Unity version, C++ libSDL2 version, Go SDL version. I think I have a problem.
4 Likes
Well youāre having fun and I imagine trying to find the best way forward. I think that in a nutshell is the biggest difference between completing games and not completing them. And I am not pointing fingers. I have done the same myself thousands of times over the years. Heck I just spent time last summer and again in the winter testing out different 2D and 3D game engines and frameworks.
And so many times I had the view ofā¦ why do so many games have such lame AI and minimal interaction (compared to what you can imagine it could be)? So Iād focus time on building systems to support much more interaction or little game experiments. Not really a game but just an experiment masquerading as a game. Because I wanted to try different approaches to improve upon the average AI or increase the amount of interaction. It was fun. It was satisfying. And I learned and improved my skills a bit more. So I wouldnāt call it a waste. Just that at the end of all of that stuff what I never had was an actual completed game! lol
I now think this is why so many game devs (who may not actually be completing games) look at other completed games on the market and always notice the flaws. Why didnāt they improve the AI? Why didnāt they improve the graphics? Why didnāt they do this, that or the other thing?
Wellā¦ I know why now. Because they wanted to get the damn thing done!
And all of that is why a few months ago I made a decision to stop doing that stuff and just make some games. Tiny games. With each growing a bit more. I still have the same interests and I do want to make better AI and more interaction but I will do it bit by tiny bit across a list of games. Each improving over the last. Or at least that is the idea.
2 Likes
This is something completely relatable. Its why Im hear learning as much as I can and participating with you fine folk.
I believe Ive mastered (pretty much) my craft and have always wanted to push beyond my acknowledged technical limitations. Code is a mystery and (confession) very unfun trying to learn.
If it werent for some awesome tools from the asset store Id probably be fussing away with blueprints or some other approachable tool that would allow me develop.
LOL that is an awesome representation of A Creative! I get fussed at sometimes for over exaggerating, explaining things in D&D or game mechanic terms, and telling stories that are outragous to entertain. Sometimes I feel hammed in by āseriousā subjects while my mind is telling myself ādang that could be a cool gameā.
Have you played Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist?
I believe this game was developed foe this purpose, though maybe Im wrong.
@Billy4184 didnt you say you were once a writer?
1 Like
Only four? Last count I had 50+ Unity project folders. And that was after a purge.
Anyway Iām in the same boat as the article poster. Its highly unlikely I could make more money going full indie then I do as a chemical engineer. So until I magically hit the flappy jackpot, Iāll stay a hobbyist.
The other possibility is my wife might land a well paid job and let me take a few years off to make games. Even then Iām not sure I would. Earning a double income for a while is also attractive.
3 Likes
While this is true, I also see it as part what I want out of game dev, to be able to persist through the completion of something difficult and time-consuming. I think if you ever want to succeed in creating any kind of business, you have to not only be able to make decisions based on the requirements of your customers rather than any fantasy of your own, but also to some extent be motivated by their perspectives.
I think I made a mistake in my last post - itās not that too many games emphasize the player so much as that too many games emphasize a point of view where the value of the game is a measure of how much āheart and soulā it has or was put into it. While this is great for a lot of people who are motivated by that perspective, I think it maybe makes people who see things from a more rational perspective, or who are motivated by technical and/or financial achievements, second-guess themselves as to whether their games are complete or āacceptableā enough in the indie-verse - basically whether itās coming āfrom the right placeā.
I would like to see a place where indies could sell ātech demosā - basically something that is technically a game (has a defined player experience) but is short and one-dimensional and is only designed to show off something new or innovative that the dev has accomplished. In the current state of the market I doubt anyone would be comfortable doing that and would be constantly striving to āround offā the game with more levels, more grind, more this and that and so on.
For example (I havenāt played it still) but my biggest gripe with No Mans Sky is not so much that it seems boring and pointless, but rather that the devs attempted to jam boring, repetitive grinding mechanics into the game in an attempt to make it more palatable for the masses. If the game had been purely about exploration and wandering around enjoying the procedural generation I think it would be much more enjoyable for what it was - I think Jim sterling even said as much if Iām not mistaken.
Basically devs are afraid of a clash between their world, and the world of the players/market, when I think thereās a good possibility of finding a lot of players out there who enjoy playing a game as a tech demo rather than for some emotive value. In a lot of cases not as many, but enough to make it worthwhile.
This isnāt to say that the game doesnāt still need a clear player experience but I think that in the right kind of game (to put it very simply of course but you get my drift) exposing the Inspector to the player can be enough in itself, as long as what the game offers is technically sophisticated - for example KSP is a little bit like this. Even Minecraft might be said to be a bit like this. Both of these offer to the players part of what the dev experiences themselves during development.
1 Like