I was thinking if I met someone who was a professional poker player I wouldn’t think they had a real job.
But what about being an indie game developer? Is that a real job?
What we’re doing really is gambling that the next game we make will make loads of money on the casino that is the app store.
Is it any better than being a professional card shark?
For example I could spend 6 months not making any money, release a game and it could flop. And then people would say, “you should have got a real job.”
But on the other hand the game could break even or make a profit in which case you could say that you had been working in your real job for 6 months and the proof is the money in your bank account.
Maybe its more like being a painter. But is painting a real job? Was what Van Gogh doing a job? He died penniless after all.
It’s the same “gamble” as you put it, as starting any business. There’s always risk in striking out and doing business yourself. It’s not even slightly unique to game development
A real professional card shark can actually make a steady living (~$5k / month) through gambling, providing he’s playing against other players and not the house. It requires a good deal of skill, discipline, and avoidance of moves that are too risky.
But usually when we say “gamble”, we mean it’s against the house. There you’re destined to lose over time, no matter how skilled you are.
Starting your own company is a high-risk, high-reward venture. It’s not quite the same as gambling, because a good part of your success has to do with your own skill. But some people call it a lottery because there is indeed some luck involved.
No it’s not gambling at all - buying a lottery ticket is, visiting Vegas is, speeding in you car is, being sexually promiscuous is, being employed is and particularly if you’re not good at your job, and lots of activities are gambling.
Being an Indy game developer is about as safe and humdrum of an activity as there is, that your activities don’t make money can’t be classified as gambling any more then being a secretary or what-not. Failed games can be classified as a failed business venture and as business ventures go, not very risky or even particularly wasteful of natural resources compared to most business ventures.
As far as well the making money thing goes, “What if I’d been a movie star instead of a programmer, think of the money I could have made?” are non-sense. I swept up plenty of loosing tickets when I worked at the horse races from people wanting more.
I wouldn’t call it high-risk even if I’ve spent around $5000 in total - the computer I would have bought anyway. It does have the potential to be high reward but saying it doesn’t make it so, it has to happen to make it so. I don’t consider the low probability of success to be high risk if I didn’t ruin myself financially or health-wise in the process.
High-risk, high-reward means you have a low probability of success, but the payoffs are large relative to the time / money you put into it.
These ventures can come in different sizes. For instance, making a simple Flappy Bird clone may take less than a few days, but the payoff (normalized for your chance of success) isn’t very large. Building an mmo, on the other hand, would take more money. An mmo would payout more in the end, providing it’s successful.
Yah, I figured out that was ‘one word’ at the end of my reply, in German such a concept would be turned into one word, like the old Fahrvergnügen Volkswagen commercials. I’m not going to clone Floppy Birds but I’m not going to venture into difficulty much beyond that, at least this year.
Very True. Its Takes Blood, Sweat and Tears. Also When Making Games or even a Product. Always focus on Quality, Pay Attention to Polishing, and Detail. Don’t get into this industry looking to make a fast quick buck. Its the Reason Why Apple Can Sell There Labtops for $2500+ while Dell,HP,etc… are struggling. There Products are well polished
When I started out with my brother I was doing application programming for the government and he was a brown goods salesman during the day and we were working on our first game every other hour of the day/night.
It was bloody damn hard with all the hours we were pulling but we figured we had something going so motivation wasn’t too hard to come by.
We borrowed a small amount of cash from our mother to help with some licensing costs for the brand we wanted in our game… then we started doing a business/innovation course and were able to attract a small investment which allowed myself to go full-time on our game to get it finished.
We ran out of money but we were able to keep going by moving in with each other. We got our game out and after 6 months we were earning enough to pull a wage from the business (this was 3 years after we started, 1.5 years after I quit my job).
Now we number 5, have an office (that is very cheap) and are aiming our sights even higher with our next game.
Secondly, here’s why it wasn’t gambling for us (although it was risky, like any business):
We made sure the market wanted our game
We made sure our game had unique gameplay features and looked good
We made sure our game had support (partnered with a popular brand, published through chillingo, had money to advertise with)
We did a business course to help us identify risks and make sure our business would be able to function properly when our game made a profit
We protected our IP with trademarks
We made sure we networked like minded people to gather as much info as possible
Not all of the above points were done at the start of our journey, we did them as we felt they needed to be done and when we felt more confident that our game had the potential to be a success.
Indie Game Development is not gambling but it does take a ridiculous amount of hard work, the ability to quantify your game on whether it’s going to sell and more willpower than a fat kid on diet in a bakery.
‘Monster Truck’ isn’t a trademark or IP that belongs to anybody. Trooper is most likely talking about BigFoot or another big name in the Monster Truck industry that he got the rights to use in his game.
Didn’t think Monster Truck was a trademark…but he should say for the benefit of others whether buying that ‘trademarked’ name was in effect the same thing as finding a publisher that did all the advertising and media placement for them. That’s the reason you’d place a trademarked name so that the game serves as an advertising venue for a brand and that brand buys the advertising.
all legal business ventures require some level of risk. the thing is to be able to measure the risk correctly, the rewards correctly and do what you can to eliminate risk, reduce risk or to shift them to someone else.
There is an element of gambling to it, you could throw on a really simple game – ie flappy bird and it could fly to the top of the charts, but the likelihood of the happening is really low, you got a better chance buying a lottery ticket. You could make a more complex game – but if the production values are low then its a waste of time, if the production values are high enough and there is something unique about the chance of failure is slightly lower.
“Striking Out” isn’t a big deal in indie game design since you’re not dropping hundreds of thousands (OR MILLIONS) of dollars up front to get a business operational.
At worst, you lose the time you put in…but is that time really lost? All of that time you put in results in a lot of gained knowledge AT WORST.
You should have some sort of career going already. I wouldn’t put all my eggs in one basket as an indie. Right now I just see it as my own personal nights/weekend project and do it because it’s enjoyable to me. My other job pays the bills.
If you hit big you could walk away with millions of dollars and never have to work a conventional job again in your life. Indie game development would then likely become your focus. To put it into perspective… If you moved 100000 units on Steam @ $15 each you would walk away with almost 1 million dollars after royalties and taxes. 10000 units sold would be almost $100k. If it took you 2 years to make your game, you’re getting roughly 50k per year which isn’t all that bad for something you did in your spare time.
