5 ms·

If a lone programmer wants to write tight code for games, they should build game engines or libraries that games can use and then sell those to game developers

If a lone programmer wants to write tight code for games, they should build game engines or libraries that games can use and then sell those to game developers. There exists large value added chain for specialized tools, arts and libraries.

gmueckl 8y ago
Except that it turns out that artists and game programmers are too cheap to pay for tools, even if you can present them with a clear benefit in terms of productivity gain vs. sales price. To make matters worse, big companies that could afford those tools will generally only buy exceptionally well established tools and rebuild the rest from scratch in-house. The only way to make money with games is to sell games.
- azernik 8y ago
  They're absolutely not "too cheap" for that - it's just a saturated market. Don't start a new company, look for a job working at Autodesk or Havok or Unity or Crytek or one of the dozen other companies that makes bank off of selling professional tools to professional game developers
  - gmueckl 8y ago
    I can tell you right here and right now that I know that some of the companies you name do not make a bank off of their products. And it's probably not the companies you would expect and not for the reasons you would expect. I have sources for this, but unfortunately I cannot name them.
    - 1123581321 8y ago
      Can you tell us which companies and the reasons? Otherwise, it’s hard to learn from your comment.
  - slavik81 8y ago
    Autodesk has laid off about a quarter of its workforce in the past two years. Crytek has had employees regularly complaining about paychecks bouncing; they're clearly inches from bankruptcy. Havok is owned by Microsoft; I'm not sure how they're doing. Unity is probably doing well enough, as they're incredibly popular, but I suspect popularity among hobbyists translates mostly into a lot of people on the free tier. The tooling market is hard.
  - baud147258 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure that Crytek has nearly gone under a few year ago, so they're not exactly making a bank with their engine. Rgarding their engine I've heard it's more difficult to use compared to other engines, which has slowed down adoption.
  - soylentgraham 8y ago
    You may be surprised where unity makes the majority of their money... it's not from sales to the general public. The parent post is correct, the majority of users are cheap, it's a race to the bottom, where a £50 plugin is considered expensive.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/044-stephanie-hurlburt-of-binomial https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/044-stephanie-hurlburt-... From Fledgling Founder to 7-Figure Deals with Stephanie Hurlburt of Binomial Stephanie Hurlburt (@sehurlburt) shares the story of how she went from being an employee to being half of a 2-person startup that sells software to gaming companies, and all the steps in between. Learn how she quit her job, met her cofounder, landed lucrative contracting gigs, built a product, learned about sales, and stayed sane while doing it.
- bemmu 8y ago
  I might be abnormal, but I've bought Asesprite, Tayasui Sketches and Ableton Live just to get better at making games for free for Ludum Dare.
- gameswithgo 8y ago
  RAD Game Tools has people with ferraris
  - taway_1212 8y ago
    Anybody else except the owner?
- wastedhours 8y ago
  There's different framing needed here though - hobbyist developers aren't really buying "tools" in the same way a studio is. You need to think of it as a B2C sale more than a B2B one - you're selling something that will enable them to realise their dreams, not cut 5% off their build times. When you're committing 1000 hours of your free time to building a game from scratch, spending 30-40 building your own (hacky, not that great) animation pipeline for the learning experience is worth it over a £90 plugin. You don't really win this on cost/benefit over and above getting someone excited by the possibilities of your tool. Worth checking out Buildbox[0] for example. Obviously studios are a different beast and it make sense for parts of their workflows to be custom. If you want to get a start in the goldrush, sell pickaxes, not JCBs. [0] https://www.buildbox.com/ https://www.buildbox.com/
- softawre 8y ago
  Lots of people make decent money on the Unity asset store. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/ https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/
mikemotherwell 8y ago
... or call it a hobby. Just because someone does the same thing they make a living from for fun, doesn't mean it isn't also a hobby. It's weird, that because people pay coders for some of the work they do, expecting money gets wrapped up in what is a hobby for so many. Programming is fun for a lot of people. They love the process, enjoy the reading and learning, get a kick out of things like optimising code for a speed boost. IMHO that's awesome. So few people have any real interests, so if you have one, indulge it. Just call it what it is - a hobby - and reframe your thinking. No other hobbies are indulged because we expect to make money directly out of them, e.g. no one playing soccer in a park expects to go pro, they just love playing. Why should hobby coding be different? Reframing it as a hobby changes the equation from $0.01 an hour, to "OMG, someone, anyone, wanted to give me money to indulge my hobby!" Then what starts as a time and money sink becomes instead what you live for, and a positive in your life.
- int_19h 8y ago
  I think we need to think more along these lines in general; it's going to be needed a lot. This is the ongoing march towards post-scarcity. We now have enough people with skills, experience and tools necessary to produce a quality indie game and a desire to make one, that the market price is far below the cost of production, and rapidly approaching zero. Essentially, these developers are spending (resources: time etc; although sometimes money as well) to scratch an itch. And trying to recoup at least a part of those losses by selling the result is not unreasonable, but it should be considered a best-effort optimization. In the end, you still end up paying for the privilege of, essentially, having other people admire your work. It reminds me of some sci-fi story I vaguely remember from a long time ago, about a true post-scarcity society where everything is free, except for other people's attention, which therefore becomes currency. There's nothing else to do for humans other than arts, so everyone is doing that - and now you're paying someone to e.g. read your book, and then they can use that money to pay someone else to look at their painting etc.
  - jrochkind1 8y ago
    But... you still gotta pay for food and a place to live, start with, at the moment. If we didn't have to worry about money, then fewer of us would have to... worry about money when making art.
pjmlp 8y ago
Even that is a lost game, because only professional studios pay for tools, as indies tend to just grab FOSS tools and feel entitled to get their issues fixed. And in the professional market, the quality bar is pretty high.

gmueckl 8y ago

Except that it turns out that artists and game programmers are too cheap to pay for tools, even if you can present them with a clear benefit in terms of productivity gain vs. sales price. To make matters worse, big companies that could afford those tools will generally only buy exceptionally well established tools and rebuild the rest from scratch in-house. The only way to make money with games is to sell games.

azernik 8y ago
They're absolutely not "too cheap" for that - it's just a saturated market. Don't start a new company, look for a job working at Autodesk or Havok or Unity or Crytek or one of the dozen other companies that makes bank off of selling professional tools to professional game developers
- gmueckl 8y ago
  I can tell you right here and right now that I know that some of the companies you name do not make a bank off of their products. And it's probably not the companies you would expect and not for the reasons you would expect. I have sources for this, but unfortunately I cannot name them.
  - 1123581321 8y ago
    Can you tell us which companies and the reasons? Otherwise, it’s hard to learn from your comment.
- slavik81 8y ago
  Autodesk has laid off about a quarter of its workforce in the past two years. Crytek has had employees regularly complaining about paychecks bouncing; they're clearly inches from bankruptcy. Havok is owned by Microsoft; I'm not sure how they're doing. Unity is probably doing well enough, as they're incredibly popular, but I suspect popularity among hobbyists translates mostly into a lot of people on the free tier. The tooling market is hard.
- baud147258 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure that Crytek has nearly gone under a few year ago, so they're not exactly making a bank with their engine. Rgarding their engine I've heard it's more difficult to use compared to other engines, which has slowed down adoption.
- soylentgraham 8y ago
  You may be surprised where unity makes the majority of their money... it's not from sales to the general public. The parent post is correct, the majority of users are cheap, it's a race to the bottom, where a £50 plugin is considered expensive.
barry-cotter 8y ago
https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/044-stephanie-hurlburt-of-binomial https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/044-stephanie-hurlburt-... From Fledgling Founder to 7-Figure Deals with Stephanie Hurlburt of Binomial Stephanie Hurlburt (@sehurlburt) shares the story of how she went from being an employee to being half of a 2-person startup that sells software to gaming companies, and all the steps in between. Learn how she quit her job, met her cofounder, landed lucrative contracting gigs, built a product, learned about sales, and stayed sane while doing it.
bemmu 8y ago
I might be abnormal, but I've bought Asesprite, Tayasui Sketches and Ableton Live just to get better at making games for free for Ludum Dare.
gameswithgo 8y ago
RAD Game Tools has people with ferraris
- taway_1212 8y ago
  Anybody else except the owner?
wastedhours 8y ago
There's different framing needed here though - hobbyist developers aren't really buying "tools" in the same way a studio is. You need to think of it as a B2C sale more than a B2B one - you're selling something that will enable them to realise their dreams, not cut 5% off their build times. When you're committing 1000 hours of your free time to building a game from scratch, spending 30-40 building your own (hacky, not that great) animation pipeline for the learning experience is worth it over a £90 plugin. You don't really win this on cost/benefit over and above getting someone excited by the possibilities of your tool. Worth checking out Buildbox[0] for example. Obviously studios are a different beast and it make sense for parts of their workflows to be custom. If you want to get a start in the goldrush, sell pickaxes, not JCBs. [0] https://www.buildbox.com/ https://www.buildbox.com/
softawre 8y ago
Lots of people make decent money on the Unity asset store. https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/ https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/

mikemotherwell 8y ago

... or call it a hobby. Just because someone does the same thing they make a living from for fun, doesn't mean it isn't also a hobby. It's weird, that because people pay coders for some of the work they do, expecting money gets wrapped up in what is a hobby for so many. Programming is fun for a lot of people. They love the process, enjoy the reading and learning, get a kick out of things like optimising code for a speed boost. IMHO that's awesome. So few people have any real interests, so if you have one, indulge it. Just call it what it is - a hobby - and reframe your thinking. No other hobbies are indulged because we expect to make money directly out of them, e.g. no one playing soccer in a park expects to go pro, they just love playing. Why should hobby coding be different? Reframing it as a hobby changes the equation from $0.01 an hour, to "OMG, someone, anyone, wanted to give me money to indulge my hobby!" Then what starts as a time and money sink becomes instead what you live for, and a positive in your life.

int_19h 8y ago
I think we need to think more along these lines in general; it's going to be needed a lot. This is the ongoing march towards post-scarcity. We now have enough people with skills, experience and tools necessary to produce a quality indie game and a desire to make one, that the market price is far below the cost of production, and rapidly approaching zero. Essentially, these developers are spending (resources: time etc; although sometimes money as well) to scratch an itch. And trying to recoup at least a part of those losses by selling the result is not unreasonable, but it should be considered a best-effort optimization. In the end, you still end up paying for the privilege of, essentially, having other people admire your work. It reminds me of some sci-fi story I vaguely remember from a long time ago, about a true post-scarcity society where everything is free, except for other people's attention, which therefore becomes currency. There's nothing else to do for humans other than arts, so everyone is doing that - and now you're paying someone to e.g. read your book, and then they can use that money to pay someone else to look at their painting etc.
- jrochkind1 8y ago
  But... you still gotta pay for food and a place to live, start with, at the moment. If we didn't have to worry about money, then fewer of us would have to... worry about money when making art.

pjmlp 8y ago

Even that is a lost game, because only professional studios pay for tools, as indies tend to just grab FOSS tools and feel entitled to get their issues fixed. And in the professional market, the quality bar is pretty high.