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I did this - kept a day job as a systems administrator while building a video game using Unreal Engine 4 (as a solo dev - no team). It took almost three years

I did this - kept a day job as a systems administrator while building a video game using Unreal Engine 4 (as a solo dev - no team). It took almost three years to "complete"... and I shipped it on Steam back in Feb. 2017. (it's 75% off right now during the summer sale!) Making the game was a brutal experience. Little to no money because I was taking so much time off work to make the game (I'd work maybe 4-6 hours at my job, then go home to work on the game). Deteriorated health because I sat for 16+ hours PER DAY in front of the computer. Morale was extremely low because few people wanted to help me (building a team is super hard) and more often than not, people I talked to about it just assumed I wasn't even capable of making a video game, much less a video game business. I basically just trudged through it. Forced myself to complete it and ship it publicly. I was rather happy with the end result - the game wasn't perfect, but it was mine. Player reviews tell a slightly different story for a countless number of reasons. The day I the game went live I was so excited... but that emotion quickly faded as I realized I wasn't going to even come close to my sales goals. To date, I've sold less than 200 copies. Thousands less than I expected, and not nearly enough sales to make another game. Literally can't even pay rent on my tiny apartment for one month using those funds. About 4 days after launch, I realized my traffic and sales had flat-lined at zero. I came to the painful realization that I had just spent three years of my life making huge sacrifices of my time and money to build a product that no one knew existed and only I really cared about. All of my efforts merely in vain. Despite numerous post-release product updates, it stayed that way for months, until yesterday with the summer sale. I've sold a few more copies over the last 24 hours, but again, I can totally forget about becoming a full-time gamedev. I literally don't even have the funding or even strength to make another game - as a solo developer who isn't a unicorn, it simply requires too much investment for too little return. Building my game was one of the most influential and exciting experiences of my life. Trying to make a paying job of it was easily the most depressing path I've ever walked. I even thought my experience shipping a game in a modern engine would help me find employment as a gamedev... NOPE! I literally can't even get a rejection email from most of the hundreds of places I've applied to. Needless to say, I went back to SysAdmin full time because it's a stable, paying career. Which is also depressing because it's not really what I'm passionate about... I'm just good at it. All the dreams of making a living building video games? Crushed. Forget about it. If you're able to do this and you're still passionate about it, consider yourself extremely lucky. edit - the game is here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/428980/Ethereal_Legends/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/428980/Ethereal_Legends/

meheleventyone 9y ago
Congrats on shipping a game! I hope your pain at the outcome fades over time and you get back into making games. I think a lot of first time game developers are way overly harsh on themselves. Right now the expectations are all screwed up. Very few people go from nothing to writing a smash hit or best seller and the same is true for games. Scope small, ship often and concentrate on the last 20% where you tie the whole thing together because that's where the actual magic happens. Game development is deceptive in that regard and experience helps a great deal.
- soverance 9y ago
  Scope small and ship often are easily the best advice points to give any aspiring game devs. I certainly made the mistake with Ethereal Legends allowing the scope to get beyond my ability and control, and because of that it took forever to ship. I certainly won't make that mistake on the next game!
pcmaffey 9y ago
Thanks for sharing. Investing 3 years in a project to see it fail totally sucks. I think a lot of us have been down this road in one form or another. For every success story, there are dozens, if not hundreds of failures. My only advice? Don't give up. Take smaller bites instead. If a project has a 10% chance of succeeding, it just means you have to try 10 times to have an even opportunity. Spend 2 or 3 months on it instead of years. Because you're absolutely right, it's luck. But to maximize your luck, you have to keep trying.
- soverance 9y ago
  I definitely need to iterate faster, and you're right, maximizing your opportunity generally boils down to making more attempts than the next guy. Thanks for the support!
xenadu02 9y ago
Everyone wants to make games. The game dev shops are flooded daily with young starry-eyed kids chasing a totally awesome career in game development! The pay is garbage and the hours are beyond excessive. Unless you pick a winning studio, stay for 10 years, and that studio has several blockbuster hits your royalties are worthless. Take your experience doing games and go for a career in regular software development. Plenty of people need to integrate 3D engines into their products and know nothing about it (eg: adding the ability to view a 3d model) and you'll actually get paid for your work. As others have pointed out, today's content-rich world only rewards the top 1% and that incentivizes repeatedly trying with quick projects. Don't spend years on one thing, slap something together and get it out there. If it isn't an immediate hit move on to the next thing.

meheleventyone 9y ago

Congrats on shipping a game! I hope your pain at the outcome fades over time and you get back into making games. I think a lot of first time game developers are way overly harsh on themselves. Right now the expectations are all screwed up. Very few people go from nothing to writing a smash hit or best seller and the same is true for games. Scope small, ship often and concentrate on the last 20% where you tie the whole thing together because that's where the actual magic happens. Game development is deceptive in that regard and experience helps a great deal.

soverance 9y ago
Scope small and ship often are easily the best advice points to give any aspiring game devs. I certainly made the mistake with Ethereal Legends allowing the scope to get beyond my ability and control, and because of that it took forever to ship. I certainly won't make that mistake on the next game!

pcmaffey 9y ago

Thanks for sharing. Investing 3 years in a project to see it fail totally sucks. I think a lot of us have been down this road in one form or another. For every success story, there are dozens, if not hundreds of failures. My only advice? Don't give up. Take smaller bites instead. If a project has a 10% chance of succeeding, it just means you have to try 10 times to have an even opportunity. Spend 2 or 3 months on it instead of years. Because you're absolutely right, it's luck. But to maximize your luck, you have to keep trying.

soverance 9y ago
I definitely need to iterate faster, and you're right, maximizing your opportunity generally boils down to making more attempts than the next guy. Thanks for the support!

xenadu02 9y ago

Everyone wants to make games. The game dev shops are flooded daily with young starry-eyed kids chasing a totally awesome career in game development! The pay is garbage and the hours are beyond excessive. Unless you pick a winning studio, stay for 10 years, and that studio has several blockbuster hits your royalties are worthless. Take your experience doing games and go for a career in regular software development. Plenty of people need to integrate 3D engines into their products and know nothing about it (eg: adding the ability to view a 3d model) and you'll actually get paid for your work. As others have pointed out, today's content-rich world only rewards the top 1% and that incentivizes repeatedly trying with quick projects. Don't spend years on one thing, slap something together and get it out there. If it isn't an immediate hit move on to the next thing.