4 ms·

I worked in gamedev for 20 years. In retrospect, I could have made a lot more money selling ads for cat pictures. But, enjoyed the chaos of being at the interse

I worked in gamedev for 20 years. In retrospect, I could have made a lot more money selling ads for cat pictures. But, enjoyed the chaos of being at the intersection of art, tech, design and commercialization. My advice to everyone wanting to enter gamedev is the same as for everyone wanting to start a startup: Be realistic about failure. It’s a high risk, high reward business with tons of uncertainty. It’s easy and common to be so enthusiastic about working hard to succeed against impossible odds that failure become a “Voldemort” term that shall not be spoken.. But, if you are realistic about the fact that “risk” includes the possibility of failure, you can be realistic about what failure means and what you plan to do when it occurs. If failure means your family will literally be homeless and starving, don’t take that risk! If it means your dreams don’t come true and you’ll have to go back to some boring desk job… Well that’s a bummer. But, it’s not anything to be afraid of. Be sure to have enough money in the bank to pay the bills if you suddenly, unexpectedly have no job and need to find another. Be a coworker who people want to work with again because people who leave your company before you are how you land your job at the next company.

BruceEel 4y ago
Not in gamedev (and not planning to change that), but this is excellent advice applicable to many other domains.
- yrgulation 4y ago
  [dead]
raverbashing 4y ago
That is so true The more I look into Gamedev the more it looks like a very ungrateful and daunting task You can put all your energy (and money) into a game and it might just... flop With a startup you can always try to pivot, or make something of what was developed. And your costs with creative productions (which are harder to reuse) are much smaller.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- GVRV 4y ago
  That's a good point. How would you go about solving this? Just release minimal playable demos and iterate based on feedback?
- steeleduncan 4y ago
  > With a startup you can always try to pivot You can do this in gamedev as well. A high budget example would be Fortnite which pivoted to a Battle Royale version of the original, vastly less successful, game. A lower budget example would be Proteus, originally a failed attempt to write an RPG that pivoted into something quite different. Discord is an example of a game company pivoting from a failed MOBA to a more traditional tech company.
  - xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
    Slack was literally created by a team trying to make a game.
    - corysama 4y ago
      As was Flickr.
      - bcrosby95 4y ago
        Discord, too.
    - cpoile 4y ago
      As was Mattermost.
rpastuszak 4y ago
> Be realistic about failure. It’s a high risk, high reward business with tons of uncertainty Excellent point to which I’d add: be very critical of how the risk is presented by your potential employer.
QIYGT 4y ago
> It’s a high risk, high reward business with tons of uncertainty. What's the high reward side of that for a typical dev? Do you get a percent of the game sales or something?
- OJFord 4y ago
  I thought it was infamously overworked and underpaid - because so many (many more than there are jobs) are game fans and will put up with it for the thrill of work being games too. I think GP must mean indie game development, i.e. yes you get 100% of game sales (minus costs and partners' share if applicable of course), which isn't really worth distinguishing from advice for start-ups? That's just a start-up that makes games isn't it?
- jmyeet 4y ago
  Lead developers can get a percentage of sales or profits. We’re taking the John Carmacks and Sid Meiers of the world. It’s about as likely as becoming an L9 IC at a FAANG however.
- jghn 4y ago
  I interpreted this as the product had a high risk/high reward profile. Presumably for the developer the reward for the high reward path is continued employment, and the penalty for the high risk path is loss of job
  - corysama 4y ago
    This is indeed what I meant. I wasn’t clear. Entertainment products in general have a strong Power Law Curve to their relative revenues. Games are expensive to produce and have a high variance on their returns. So, the rewards for a profitable game for most game employees is that the studio doesn’t shut down! Though I have heard of rare cases where people on a team hit a truly large royalty check from a game they worked on. Usually, the profit from a successful game goes into the war chest to cover the next failure.
- samlu 4y ago
  Profit share? In AAA, yes. In Indie, no. (At least not usually) High risk as in, most people are "gamers" or love games, unaware that they either hate or are bad at making them, aka wasting about 5 years of their lives learning how to. You really have to love making them, the constant interation will kill you otherwise. Salary wise, from someone who has worked in Indie and now works in AAA as a Technical Narrative Designer and absolutely loves it, game dev salary is about 60% of a regular UX/UI Designer salary for traditional tech companies. This is the same for Engineers or Programmers. So still a lot, but just not life changing money like some of the salaries in Silicon Valley. Riot and Valve pay best by far, they're the FAANG equivalent. (Excluding the mobile and web3 market)

BruceEel 4y ago

Not in gamedev (and not planning to change that), but this is excellent advice applicable to many other domains.

yrgulation 4y ago
[dead]

raverbashing 4y ago

That is so true The more I look into Gamedev the more it looks like a very ungrateful and daunting task You can put all your energy (and money) into a game and it might just... flop With a startup you can always try to pivot, or make something of what was developed. And your costs with creative productions (which are harder to reuse) are much smaller.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
GVRV 4y ago
That's a good point. How would you go about solving this? Just release minimal playable demos and iterate based on feedback?
steeleduncan 4y ago
> With a startup you can always try to pivot You can do this in gamedev as well. A high budget example would be Fortnite which pivoted to a Battle Royale version of the original, vastly less successful, game. A lower budget example would be Proteus, originally a failed attempt to write an RPG that pivoted into something quite different. Discord is an example of a game company pivoting from a failed MOBA to a more traditional tech company.
- xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
  Slack was literally created by a team trying to make a game.
  - corysama 4y ago
    As was Flickr.
    - bcrosby95 4y ago
      Discord, too.
  - cpoile 4y ago
    As was Mattermost.

rpastuszak 4y ago

> Be realistic about failure. It’s a high risk, high reward business with tons of uncertainty Excellent point to which I’d add: be very critical of how the risk is presented by your potential employer.

QIYGT 4y ago

> It’s a high risk, high reward business with tons of uncertainty. What's the high reward side of that for a typical dev? Do you get a percent of the game sales or something?

OJFord 4y ago
I thought it was infamously overworked and underpaid - because so many (many more than there are jobs) are game fans and will put up with it for the thrill of work being games too. I think GP must mean indie game development, i.e. yes you get 100% of game sales (minus costs and partners' share if applicable of course), which isn't really worth distinguishing from advice for start-ups? That's just a start-up that makes games isn't it?
jmyeet 4y ago
Lead developers can get a percentage of sales or profits. We’re taking the John Carmacks and Sid Meiers of the world. It’s about as likely as becoming an L9 IC at a FAANG however.
jghn 4y ago
I interpreted this as the product had a high risk/high reward profile. Presumably for the developer the reward for the high reward path is continued employment, and the penalty for the high risk path is loss of job
- corysama 4y ago
  This is indeed what I meant. I wasn’t clear. Entertainment products in general have a strong Power Law Curve to their relative revenues. Games are expensive to produce and have a high variance on their returns. So, the rewards for a profitable game for most game employees is that the studio doesn’t shut down! Though I have heard of rare cases where people on a team hit a truly large royalty check from a game they worked on. Usually, the profit from a successful game goes into the war chest to cover the next failure.
samlu 4y ago
Profit share? In AAA, yes. In Indie, no. (At least not usually) High risk as in, most people are "gamers" or love games, unaware that they either hate or are bad at making them, aka wasting about 5 years of their lives learning how to. You really have to love making them, the constant interation will kill you otherwise. Salary wise, from someone who has worked in Indie and now works in AAA as a Technical Narrative Designer and absolutely loves it, game dev salary is about 60% of a regular UX/UI Designer salary for traditional tech companies. This is the same for Engineers or Programmers. So still a lot, but just not life changing money like some of the salaries in Silicon Valley. Riot and Valve pay best by far, they're the FAANG equivalent. (Excluding the mobile and web3 market)