How do you make money as a freelance game developer

News & General Discussion
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Hi,

How do you make money if you are a freelancer game developer with no extra money to invest.
Most freelance game developers I know face the following problems. I think discussing it would benefit everybody.

  • Without good investment (time and a little bit of money at least) it’s very hard to make successful indie game that makes enough revenue for living especially in saturated stores like android, iOS, steam.

  • It’s extremely hard to find long term clients on places like upwork or unity connect. Most people who post jobs there are enthusiast and not companies that needs long term developer.

  • When you find a long term freelance job from a respectable company, no matter how good your portfolio is, they rarely contact you for an interview especially if you are asking for around $2500/month or more.

  • Creating assets and selling it is definitely worth it, but still not making enough money for living for most people

  • Even if you have experience managing a whole game project from planning, recruiting other freelancer team, create a whole game then release it, it’s hard to find clients who are willing to assign you as a project manager for a whole new game project where you can handle everything and deliver a complete game. Except of course if the game you created and released is extremely successful, but if it’s successful, you will probably not need any clients. They might think your game is not that good, and it probably is because it was self funded, but they don’t understand that if he is willing to invest more in his game, you will be able to make a better game.

Would you share with the community how/where do you find your clients and how do you invest your time?
Where do you publish your games and what kind of games you create?

Thanks for advance.

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In my opinion, there are two kinds of jobs in this world: there are ones you get so that you can do them, and there are ones you get because you can do them.

I can get a job at McDonald’s with no requisite experience. They’ll train me to do anything I don’t know how to do like work a cash register, operate a fryer, or cook 20 burgers at a time on a big grill.

Game development is the other type. To be a professional game developer, you have to be able to make games. And you have to prove that you can. And the best way to prove it, is to do it. So if you want to work and make your primary income as a game developer, whether as a freelancer, an indie, or part of a studio, you gotta make games on your own first.

I think the trap a lot of people starting off fall into is thinking they can start out, watch a few tutorial videos, and make their magnum opus that will earn them famous and/or wealthy. It doesn’t help that most of the industry seems to encourage this thinking with deluges of articles about Flappy Bird’s runaway success, the deification of Notch, and Unity’s own marketing plan of suggesting that its engine and the Asset Store are all you need to find success beyond your wildest dreams.

Game design and development is tricky because it’s part art, part science. You need to have the technical knowledge to do the work, and to be able to do it efficiently enough to make it viable (working for 10 years on your dream game is not viable for almost anyone). But it’s also an art, and you need to refine your taste, explore the medium, and understand how quality isn’t always quantitative. Both the science and the art of it require experience, and I’m not aware of any shortcut to acquiring that.

I’m a hobbyist game developer. My BitBucket account looks like a whittler’s garage. But I’m building up that experience and slowly finding which projects warrant finishing, and the portfolio is gradually taking shape. I’m also a professional web developer, so that kinda helps. I charge a steep rate for freelance development work and do not compromise on it since I believe in the value I provide. I don’t win a lot of contracts I bid on, but I quite often get the invitation. I think it’s a matter of building up that portfolio a bit more and showing potential clients right off the bat that I know what I’m doing and that I’m worth the cost.

Anyway, maybe this is off topic from what you wanted to discuss. I just think it’s another point to bring up. Just make games and game-related things, people. Find what you’re good at, get even better at it, and find a way to make it work for you.

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That is not what a freelancer does. Freelancer gets hired to work for someone else. You’re literally a gun, I mean, developer for hire.

If you’re making things to sell them on steam, you’re acting as self-employed. Same applies to selling stuff on asset store… or trying to release a game.

If you’re asking how to make a living off game development that’s a different question.

In my experience in the end it is a matter of non-stop hunting for more clients, trying to impress them with stuff you can do, and then working with them for a while.

Then, once you think you’ve got a decent supply of clients, somebody shuts down the marketplace you’ve been utilizing.

It is also possible that I simply have bad luck, though.

Oh, and one more thing. You indeed need to be very skilled. Even If you aren’t selling your own games on steam, you should still be to make a prototype in 2 days, or participate in events like ludum dare.

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That’s unfortunate. Can you tell me what marketplace were you utilizing before getting shutdown?

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People send me emails. I pick the jobs I want. I do the jobs. Then they pay me.

Its not a super complex system. But it pays the mortgage.

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Under what circumstances do you think that a company would want to hire a freelancer into a long term job or to project manage and recruit for them?

Repeat business I can very much understand, but if they want to fill a “long term” position then why wouldn’t they just hire someone into the company?

Moreso, if they want to outsource the creation of a whole product then why would they want to do that to someone who needs to start by recruiting a team? Depending on their goals I would think that they would find an already established team or, again, hire a person to recruit for them directly?

This could be me misunderstanding what you’re saying, but it sounds to me like you’re looking for things that are ideal for you rather than figuring how you can be ideal to someone else. What is the value you can provide, and how can you “package” that value to be of maximum use to someone else? If you want to be a freelancer then my guess is that it would involve being prepared to work short stints on highly specialist things on an as-needed basis.

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There is a niche for it, but its rare. I’ve hired a project manager once before for a single project because the company did not have the expertise or inclination to do it ourselves. It was a project well outside of our core business, and it wasn’t something we were likely to do again for another twenty years.

We picked a guy that had been doing project management for 30 years. And he wasn’t a true freelancer, we called up another local company that we knew well and said ‘hey, we need a project manager, you guys do lots of project management, can we pretty please borrow one of your guys for six months’.

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Yeah, that makes sense.

Since writing my post it also occured to me that if you’re not talking about full time work then it could make sense. For instance, someone could be a regular concept artist for a whole bunch of studios on an ongoing basis, but not be an employee of any of them (because that might be a pain), and move between them as needed.

When I wrote that I was very much in a mind of “whole game project~~”, since that’s what was being asked about.~~

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That makes sense. Also, I was very much thinking in terms of “whole game projects” when I wrote that. I can think of plenty of cases where a long-term relationship with a freelancer makes a lot of sense if they’re not needed on a regular basis over that long term.

An example that springs to mind could be a concept artist working regularly with a bunch of studios, but on an as-needed basis with each of them. Might not make sense to be an “employee” of all of them.

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Thank everyone for their precious contribution.

That sounds too cool. However would you share with us how have you advertised your service to get the e-mails in the first place?
From the experience, it’s not as easy as creating a web page with your portfolio and contact form.

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I’m not a game Dev but enterprise system arcitecht, I get several job offers per week sometimes multiple per day on LinkedIn. Don’t know if game Dev customers are using linkedin though

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Have a look around this place. Its almost impossible to google something Unity scripting related without coming up with my name within a few pages. Its also quite likely you will find me if you start searching though Unity tutorials on YouTube.

That’s literally the extent of my marketing. I’m simply in the place that my customers are.

In fairness its worth noting that my freelance plate fills up pretty quick. I work a normal full time day job unrelated to games. A couple of project requests a months ends up with more then I can realistically do. That said, if I was to go full time, I would follow the same basic strategy. Simply spend time where my customers naturally are, and demonstrate my value in that environment. Doing this full time would involve turning up to all of the conventions in my country, as well as attending the various game development meetups, and hanging out in the places that game developers hang out.

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Yup. LinkedIn as well. (sadly the best offers always come when I am happily employed already) That is the primary source for most folks I know, though really is just past contacts reaching out.

–

Like anything else, it depends on your experience and skill level. Once you’ve built a your name/rep, you don’t have to look anymore, you basically spend most of your time politely turning down offers while keeping positive relationships for the future. Stay in contact with past peers and contacts.

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Build a good relationship with your clients & colleagues if you have a full time job. Most of my jobs came from recommendation from one client to the other.

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I used vworker and unity job forums among the other things.

The general issue is that owner of the portal in general doesn’t give a damn about people that work there, and might suddenly reach some sort of “enlightement” and get an “amazing idea” to modify the portal. Freelancers on the portal will be the ones dealing with consequences.

Basically, for example, right now unity decided to shut down job forums (which was dumb), and play linkedln (which is also dumb). For me it would mean that I need to adapt to yet another goddamn social-focused marketplace that doesn’t seem to have my interests in mind.

And when I get used to that system, I bet they’ll shut it down again, or break it another amazing way I couldn’t foresee.

This is tiresome.

How many times did the portals I used disappear by now?

sigh

My advise would be to find 12 or so guys that would be feeding you manageable contracts for the next 30 years and work for them exclusively. That would be more stable than another portal that may go under or get an “amazing idea” tomorrow.

Weren’t you a chemical engineer with a day job, though? (-_-)

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In these threads, people rarely mention getting experience as a regular full-time employee first. (Assuming Abdalla was talking about full time freelancing in the original post.) I know there isn’t a game studio hiring on every corner, but you can still find them in all kinds of unexpected places. Not only does it build your credentials and network of friends in the industry who can help and refer each other, but you also learn how things work at the kinds of companies that may hire you as a freelancer. If you don’t have any experience, it may seem less intimidating to hang out a freelance shingle. But what does it hurt to apply for a job? The worst they can say is no, and then you’re no less employed than if you hadn’t applied at all. And if they say yes, you get some great experience and get to meet interesting people.

Apart from that, local meetups are great, although I admit I only have experience with them in the USA. In my area, companies always wander into local game dev meetups to poach people for AR/VR work.

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In larger companies its often much more difficult to get budget for a full time position. Getting a contractor on a 3-6 month contract is often quite easy (in terms of the process). These contracts then get renewed over and over again.

Even a small company like my previous employer was about 50% full-time, 50% contractor. Some of those contractors had been on the books for five or more years.

Its certainly not rare in Australia, maybe a bit more so in the US (presumably as its easier to get rid of full-time employees)?

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@Stranger-Games

Are you sure your portfolio is as good as you think it is? Because from what I can see from clicking on your links you haven’t really done much at all. Two assets without enough reviews to get a rating, an empty youtube channel, and a website with no released games and amateurish graphics. The Age of Grit project looks to have a bit of polish (still very indie) but its unclear what your role is in the project, and its still unreleased.

Your portfolio doesn’t have to have complete games, but it needs to have complete ‘things’. Tutorials are an easy one to complete, but they need to be very interesting or you need to have a lot of them. Asset store products are fine, but your current offering are niche and don’t look very polished. Obviously complete games are better again, particularly if you played a major role.

And if you don’t have a great portfolio, then you have to build up client relationships by starting small, doing good work, and being nice to deal with.

EDIT: I hope this doesn’t come across as harsh, its not meant to be. I hire people now and again (including a few from this thread), and this is my impression of how you present. Doesn’t mean you don’t do great work, but I can’t tell from what I can see.

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Perhaps I should rephrase it.

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It’s cheaper for the company because they don’t have to guarantee hours, pay benefits and tax withholding, etc., and they can terminate the contract whenever they want. It’s not so good for the contractor, however, unless you can negotiate a rate that compensates for that, which is probably higher than you think, so it’s something to keep in mind when setting rates.

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