Make peace with the fact that "you're making a game". I did this a while back, but the thought of "you're not working, you're building some stupid game no one will play, you should be working" made me quit and get a job. So, this is my advice for you: make peace with the fact that you're building a game.
Ask HN: I'm quitting my job, will create a game – any advice?
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Re: Ask HN: I'm quitting my job, will create a game – any advice?
#22I don’t want to discourage you, and I have never built a game myself, but I have heard a lot of horror stories from small shops to large shops. If you were my friend I would recommend you read about the failures of others before you and how to avoid them. I would recommend you use lean startup principles so that you get something into users’ hands ASAP. Maybe give yourself a short deadline, like 1-3 months, and say y…
Agreed on the lean startup principles/short deadline. You've got to get something into the hands of users as soon as possible. You might also want to consider doing some design up front and making a landing page. Perhaps you can gauge interest that way and receive feedback.
Re: Ask HN: I'm quitting my job, will create a game – any advice?
#23Try working on the game 20 hours a week while keeping your job. If you truly love the concept and love working on it while still working full time, that'd be a good sign to potentially scale it up with your full 60-80 hours you'll be spending.
this
Re: Ask HN: I'm quitting my job, will create a game – any advice?
#24I built games full time for about five years, straddling the transition into smartphones.
Building a mobile game that is profitable is a bit like the lottery. You need to build something great to have a chance of winning, but building something great is not a guarantee that you will win. I realize that goes for most business ventures, but I think it is more true for mobile games than most.
What captures the imagination of an audience is in large part a guessing game and a matter of luck. You can look at past successes as a demonstration of that. Flappy Bird was a hit for a bit but it wasn't exactly clear what was so different about it than so many before. Angry Birds started an insane franchise, but I'm not sure if the same game were launched today whether it would capture the same share of the market. It is just really really ephemeral.
But making games is fun, like really fun! I had more fun in those years than I have at any other point in my career. We were banging out a game a month and having a blast doing it. This was very early so we knew there was audience enough for each of those to pay the bills, but I wouldn't count on that these days.
So all of that to say, do it! But don't expect to pay the bills doing it. Maybe you will, maybe you won't, but it is very much either rags or riches with very little predictability on where you arrive.
Re: Ask HN: I'm quitting my job, will create a game – any advice?
#25Consider your runaway to be 6 to 9 months. Shit happens (and will happen). Good luck!
Re: Ask HN: I'm quitting my job, will create a game – any advice?
#26Make an io party game - the genre is super fun to create in, was growing rapidly before COVID, turbocharged during COVID and remains underserved. Growth is built-in because of inherent sharing. Use a game engine like Playcanvas so you can publish it to web and wrap it into a mobile app if you'd like (Unity is fine too, but doesn't work on mobile web, whereas Playcanvas works everywhere). Ads monetization is of course…
Curious, what is an io party game?
Like skribbl.io, an online Pictionary game. Maybe also things like agar.io or slither.io, but those are less for parties I think. Jackbox.tv comes to mind as well, but obviously that isn’t .io lol
Games ending .io are generally fun, simple, multiplayer, and browser-based
Re: Ask HN: I'm quitting my job, will create a game – any advice?
#27Tell your friend in design they aren't allowed to create any original content. They have to do everything using stock or readily available material. Build a proto. If the proto has any legs or fun, you've got something. You don't need to quit your job to know this yet.
Re: Ask HN: I'm quitting my job, will create a game – any advice?
#28Making games is like gambling, and all rules of gambling apply:
- Do not gamble money that you are not prepared to lose.
- Do not gamble all your money at once.
- Know when to cut your loses and quit.
- Luck does not last forever.
Re: Ask HN: I'm quitting my job, will create a game – any advice?
#29Create an MMO but also an MMO framework so other people can use the framework. The framework might actually turn out to be more popular than the game.
To be honest, I'd suggest (and this is coming from someone who has worked in the gaming industry) you'd almost be better off working strictly on a good mobile framework with a good UI than a game itself.
If you can create a low code framework, with a nice UI for would be developers, that is a much less crowded space than yet another (sorry) mobile game with 30% off the top just to be put into the IOS or Google Play stores.
It's not as sexy to non developers, but from a problem solvers standpoint, it sounds hard and from a UI developer stand point, it sounds difficult.
Re: Ask HN: I'm quitting my job, will create a game – any advice?
#30Make the game first, earn money from it, then quit.