Considering i do this for a living AND the fact that i love it also…no
The time it takes to make a game is just too long for it to go unpaid, it would force me to sell everythign i own and live in a cardboard box. I dont wanna work for any large company because i wanna make what I wanna make.
Everyone that makes games hope there will be some money in it, i cant belive anyone does this as a hobby to just publish free games over and over. There are some that wanna be the next King.com, and there are those who just wanna make something that allows them to make another one.
Im that last, and if this doesnt allow me to keep doing this incomewise, there is no point. For a hobby maybe, but a VERY timesoncuming hobby so i doubt it.
Yes i would, but i would have less time, so the scope of my games would be less.
Yes. I do it professionally because it was a hobby/passion. I was making games long before I got paid for it, and not with intention of making it a career. I make games, its just what I do.
But, there will always be money in game development. During the last two economic downturns, the games industry did alright. (If you are unemployed, if you have a lot more free time to play games ). It’s part if entertainment industry, which has been around since… well, forever.
Yes - because so far I haven’t made a lot of money from this.
So far, my first few creations have earned roughly $25.00 across a few portals since I started (it’s been two years, but they were also pretty crap creations in hindsight, so it’s somewhat expected.) I make games A) because I want to, B) because I want to get better at making games, and C) so I can quit my day job and have my creations entertain people, while simultaneously giving me a livelihood. As I’m not a greedy person, I don’t really need a large amount - just enough to live is fine. 
In massive disruptions, people often find themselves wanting to escape reality. Thus, this market is a good one since it caters to that basic human instinct to ‘get away’ from problems for a time.
Game development is not easy to do, and it’s not for the faint of heart. Of course, striving for a challenging goal causes growth, which helps one to be more resilient in the face of any adversity, whether it’s that MMORPG that sounded like such a good idea at first, or merely someone telling you that X is a piece of crap and that you’ll never succeed at [thing].*
*: This means, ‘Asvarduil, do the thing and prove them so wrong that it rewrites natural laws.’ I’m workin’ on it as we speak.
It’s a hobby and a way to relax. I have a better idea to work on every other month or so, so I have never gotten anything done in a significant way. But it’s still fun as hell.
Because its a project/hobby to work on, an outlet for your energy to go to create something awesome 
I do it as a hobby.
I would make games if there is no money in it. I would like to make some, but what I have made is tiny compared to what I earn in my job (which does include making educational games at times).
Woah i seriously hope a time like that NEVER comes. Knowing that i’d get £0.00 for my game, i guess i would keep on developing. Game dev is more than a hobby, it’s a passion.
Maybe the question is the wrong way around, as I don’t think the prime motivator to write games is money. Also have you heard the research that money can actually demotivate and decrease creativity.
This could actually explain the march of the clones and sequels.
If I knew there was money in game development for me I would perhaps do this more. I have no love for my day job. But yeah no money in sight and I’m still here.
We had such problem in 2008, 2004. For brevity, I will state the experience we had in 2008.
In 2008, every company except us was closing down, down-sizing. We did things differently. During the good days, we kept our costs low, hired competent staff, improving our apps, had meet-our-customers sessions, anticipated feedback. We did not outsource our call-center to India. The call-center staff are all American.
In bad times, our customers still brought software from us, our competitors ran themselves out of business, while we service our customers thick and thin.
We expect in mid 2014 to 2015, game-recession where only the best games will make money. At that time, game companies left and right, indie and veteran, shut down, larger companies follow suit :).
The lessons we learned are:
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Tell our staff brutally honest opinions. if their art sucks, they need to improve themselves before they paint themselves out of job.
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Listen to our customers. if you listen carefully, you might hear some gripes you need to fix.
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Keep improving game after the game is released. If you just make a build and forget about it, your customers will forget about your game.
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Karma in action. Are you earning no money? Do you have huge stash of pirated models, code and artwork, then use that to apply for job?, then realise that your skills are sub-par?
Doing abusive things - such as not paying people for 3+ months, not splitting thousands in royalties after getting paid, claiming you are senior artist and draw stick drawings.
- Renewal. Hire industry veterans who are willing to teach the next generation the skills to impart to our staff.
As I am in love with game development, yes from me. But we live in a material world, so scope will get itself limited.
Yeah, I don’t make money now so it would be no different 
Yeah considering it doesnt make any money anyway.
I have two things to say to you…
a) You’re already doing this for a living, you’re awesome!
b) What if you had all your bills paid somehow? And you could do anything you want… wouldn’t you still be making games? Only thing getting in the way between making games full time is… you know, you gotta buy food and all that, but besides that…
I started a game recently and I’m hoping I can finish it, this time… and it is very time consuming, and even when I’m doing something else, half my brain is on the game, like dolphins brains! In fact, if I just seat and wanted to do anything for my game, my mind is blank, I find useful to spend this time off, half-thinking about what I’m going to do, to pave the way first.
the only reason i say “no”, is because i own a company now to do this fulltime, so this IS my job. I see alot of guys up here doing it as a hobby, great, thats what we were doing before we quit out dayjobs because the games would never finish if we hadn’t.
Owning a company costs nothing ofcourse, kinda expensive to start one in norway, but once u own one, it kinda needs income at osme point. I can, and probably will, find a part time job to make sure we have income, but this is no longer a hobby for me as im sure this is what i wanna do untill i cant do it anymore.
Having zero income on games nomatter what means no more games, and that wouldnt just me in my case.
If u can complete a game as a hobbyist thats fine, i actually admire u because we were too tired to work on games after our dayjobs and the progress became incredibly slow. Now when i can wake up and go down to my bunker everymornging im happy!Would be a shame to be happy doing what i want, but making nothing.
But i understand the arguments, its easy to say u’d wanna make games as a hobby, but at some point the games needs so much attention u wont have the time u want and thats incredibly frustrating.
If we do alright and the company grows alittle, the goal is to go in here and actually handpick a couple more people,HIRE them and work with them as long as its possible because theres alot of talented people here.
Zero income means we cant ever expand. Thought subject actually.
Maybe small 1-week games I’d make, that’s all. I wouldn’t spend longer than a week on a game, and just get the core essence of it in prototype form. I’d also insist it be open source so that people can add more to it. If I’m not making money from it and nobody else is, there’s no point in closed source.
Of course I’d be doing something else for a living.
If they go and pass guaranteed income (considering the fact that you have 20+% unemployment they might as well start passing it and its only going to grow as things become more automated) that means no one would have to work unless they wanted to so we could all dabble in games, but I think if you never got paid for the game there would be no point in finishing the games after a certain point you would just get bored with it.
Yeah i’d still make games, just slower as I’d need another job but I’d make really insane games that are just pure stupidity because they’d be no pressure to make something to succeed financially.