2 ms·

If building games is a hobby you have no problem doing it on your spare time. For me, making games is leisure time.

by hopfog 9y ago

vvanders 9y ago
Yes, but there's a huge difference between having a hobby(that might never produce anything for consumption) and shipping a game. 90% of indie devs I know want to do the latter because sharing their game/art/vision and seeing people experience it is the goal. Totally fine to do gamedev as a hobby but that's something discretely different from being an independent game developer.
- hopfog 9y ago
  My approach has been to put it out there as soon as I had something playable, with an obvious disclaimer that you play at your own risk and may lose everything. I don't know if that counts as shipping but at least I get to see people experience it. You're right though that I may not count as a real indie game developer since I do it purely for fun.
  - vvanders 9y ago
    Yeah, take a look at Nuclear Throne [2] vs Wasteland Kings[1]. Nuclear Throne is something I'd consider "shipped". It's polished, the design is solid and it's currently sustaining Vlambeer commercially. Compare that to their prototype(wasteland) and you'd get an idea on the difference(also ~2 years dev time if I recall correctly). [edit] I can also highly recommend watching anything from Rami Ismail of Vlambeer. He's brutally honest about the realities of being an indie developer and the mindset you need to be successful. [1] https://vlambeer.itch.io/wasteland-kings https://vlambeer.itch.io/wasteland-kings [2] http://store.steampowered.com/app/242680/Nuclear_Throne/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/242680/Nuclear_Throne/
jharger 9y ago
I agree completely. People often put this burden on themselves "we must ship and make money" when there is much more enjoyment out of just working on stuff when you feel like it. Learning new things like art, music, game design and sound effects. It's all quite fun if you have the right mindset! People do this when working on the random open source project, why is this considered weird when you're talking about making games?

If building games is a hobby you have no problem doing it on your spare time. For me, making games is leisure time.

by hopfog 9y ago

If building games is a hobby you have no problem doing it on your spare time. For me, making games is leisure time.

Yes, but there's a huge difference between having a hobby(that might never produce anything for consumption) and shipping a game. 90% of indie devs I know want to do the latter because sharing their game/art/vision and seeing people experience it is the goal. Totally fine to do gamedev as a hobby but that's something discretely different from being an independent game developer.

hopfog 9y ago
My approach has been to put it out there as soon as I had something playable, with an obvious disclaimer that you play at your own risk and may lose everything. I don't know if that counts as shipping but at least I get to see people experience it. You're right though that I may not count as a real indie game developer since I do it purely for fun.
- vvanders 9y ago
  Yeah, take a look at Nuclear Throne [2] vs Wasteland Kings[1]. Nuclear Throne is something I'd consider "shipped". It's polished, the design is solid and it's currently sustaining Vlambeer commercially. Compare that to their prototype(wasteland) and you'd get an idea on the difference(also ~2 years dev time if I recall correctly). [edit] I can also highly recommend watching anything from Rami Ismail of Vlambeer. He's brutally honest about the realities of being an indie developer and the mindset you need to be successful. [1] https://vlambeer.itch.io/wasteland-kings https://vlambeer.itch.io/wasteland-kings [2] http://store.steampowered.com/app/242680/Nuclear_Throne/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/242680/Nuclear_Throne/

jharger 9y ago

I agree completely. People often put this burden on themselves "we must ship and make money" when there is much more enjoyment out of just working on stuff when you feel like it. Learning new things like art, music, game design and sound effects. It's all quite fun if you have the right mindset! People do this when working on the random open source project, why is this considered weird when you're talking about making games?