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If we're talking indie game development here, I'd recommend getting into it in exactly the way as Patrick got into BCC. It should be approached as a hobby, unt
by reitzensteinm 14y ago
If we're talking indie game development here, I'd recommend getting into it in exactly the way as Patrick got into BCC. It should be approached as a hobby, until you're making enough money reliably enough that it becomes feasible to quit and do it full time.
That way you don't burn through your life savings, and you're very much aware of the day to day. Bonus points if you've had failures in between your successes. Patrick is dead on here - it's not all roses.
If you can't succeed doing it for 10-20 hours a week as a hobby, it's doubtful working even 80 hours will work. Game development is sort of like being a musician. If nobody likes your songs, you can't make up for it in volume.
Game development is an irrational choice in terms of return on investment. Patrick is also dead on here. Even the successful developers would have made an order of magnitude more money if they had applied themselves equally and had the same luck in other industries.
You have to genuinely find the prospect of working on your craft full time more important than financial returns. And having the perseverance to hone your skills and produce successful games in your spare time, even if it takes years, is a good litmus test for that.
(I'm awkwardly referring to patio11 by his name even though I was replying to him to differentiate the you [him] from the you [in general]).
- kranner 14y ago> If you can't succeed doing it for 10-20 hours a week as a hobby, it's doubtful working even 80 hours will work. Not necessarily. Speaking for myself, sometimes it's all or nothing. I can't imagine having the same enthusiasm and persistence for a hobby than for a full-time effort, particularly if the latter involved burning a few bridges. I'm not arguing it's rational, or that one should blow one's savings on it, but sometimes full-time is your only choice.
- jiggy2011 14y agoI can only think of 1 successful game that was built as a part time hobby (Cave Story). Development of even a simple game takes so much time I don't know how practical it is on 10 hours a week. Game studios have armies of employed people on 60+ hours a week each.
- reitzensteinm 14y agoNot many household name games are built as a part time hobby. I'm not saying wait until you're a multi millionaire :) You can easily make a decent Flash game or experimental iPhone game part time. My first Flash game, with over 200 million plays, was made in two weeks including the time it took to learn Flash. The additional hours will get eaten up by business stuff and maintenance once you're full time anyway. I dogfooded my own advice, for what it's worth.
- gabemart 14y agoWould you mind linking to your first flash game, for the curious?
- windsurfer 14y agoIt looks like this is the game, made in 14 days, by a team of 6: http://www.bigblockgames.com/games/coffeehero/ http://www.bigblockgames.com/games/coffeehero/
- reitzensteinm 14y agoThis is the one, at my first company: http://www.miniclip.com/games/stunt-pilot/en/ http://www.miniclip.com/games/stunt-pilot/en/ Two people, two weeks, normal working hours (Coffee Hero was an absurd crunch).
- thenomad 14y agoVery much depends what sort of game you're considering. Anything approaching the AAA space, agreed. But mobile games / Web games / anything with carefully controlled scope, not so much. You may or may not have heard of the 48-hour game development event GameJam? http://globalgamejam.org http://globalgamejam.org It's possible to create something playable even in that time. Also, Minecraft was originally developed part-time, according to Wikipedia. Working on something serious part-time is hard, and I'm impressed by people who manage it. But it's doable.
- 14y ago
- daniel-cussen 14y ago"Game development is sort of like being a musician. If nobody likes your songs, you can't make up for it in volume." Love it.