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How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

sizefivegames.com

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Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#21

Post by hire_charts »

raamdev wrote: post #8

> I find it astonishing that startup indie devs pay out for an office, with all the extra bills that entails. Work from home, keep your overheads as close to zero as possible. I've been a solo dev for nearly a decade (8 years) and I found that sometimes it makes complete sense to pay for an office. Before my daughter was born, I was able to work from almost anywhere: noisy cafes, at home, the library, etc. But after…

$350/mo seems _extremely_ reasonable for a quiet studio. I don't think that's the kind of office expense the poster was talking about. For instance, in NYC, $350/month would barely get you a "hot desk" (i.e. chair at a table) in a coworking space.

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#22

Post by LoSboccacc »

enraged_camel wrote: post #6

>>> Don’t spend any money: Do as much as you can yourself. If you can’t afford it, don’t pay someone to make assets that you could do yourself. What’s more, do you really need to hire a full time coder? Or can you just hire a freelancer for a month? If you don’t have money, make the sound effects yourself. Nah. As a solo dev you need to spend your time efficiently. You can go to Fiverr and pay literally $5 for stuff…

if he comes from a decade experience, he's probably not gonna have started at a time where services like those where in existence.

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#23

Post by Alupis »

raamdev wrote: post #8

> I find it astonishing that startup indie devs pay out for an office, with all the extra bills that entails. Work from home, keep your overheads as close to zero as possible. I've been a solo dev for nearly a decade (8 years) and I found that sometimes it makes complete sense to pay for an office. Before my daughter was born, I was able to work from almost anywhere: noisy cafes, at home, the library, etc. But after…

I think the real lesson that's being conveyed is "Don't gear up like you're a successful business until you are a successful business".

> When your game sells and makes some money, treat it in terms of how many years you’ve got until you’d have to get a ‘proper job’

> I’d released three games before I went ‘full time’, and my 4th was just about ready to launch. The first games were made in my spare time while my Real Job paid for my food and rent, because honestly fuck starving yourself, fuck living on beans and worrying about rent. Go Full Indie when you can afford to Go Full Indie, and not before

If you're just starting out, making your first game in this case, it makes no sense to spend a ton on office space, designers, etc. You have no income yet... one step at a time sort-of-thing.

Too many people fall in love with the idea of running a business, but don't actually know what that really means. They run around organizing things, setting up office space, getting logo's designed by fancy marketing companies, hold meetings, etc... they do everything except figure out how to make money. They love the idea of being a business, but not the actual work that comes with that territory.

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#24

Post by ghostly_s »

throw9966 wrote: post #17

The best advice that I got was don't quit your full time job. My desktop sharewares dont sell that often nowadays, but its enough to pay my rent and monthly expenses. The salary that I get from my full time job goes direct to my bank untouched. > "Working from a cafe" 100% agree. For me, no work gets done from a cafe. I wonder what work people do by sitting at Starbucks. I cant write one line of code if I am being co…

I've written tons of code in cafes. As a notorious procrastinator I find the cafe setting very helpful for avoiding the obvious distractions like Wikipedia holes, etc. I'm sure it sounds stupid to people who are more naturally focused but just the feeling that strangers _could_ be judging my use of time is pretty effective (I know I do it...I may not know why you brought your Macbook to this coffee shop but I'm pretty damn sure it wasn't to read rumours about Kim Kardashian). What I do find hard is thinking through difficult architectural problems in such a setting...often I'll spend an hour in the park with pen and paper thinking about that stuff and then hammer it out at the coffee shop. Different strokes I guess.

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#25

Post by sevensor »

douche wrote: post #12
hartator wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and don't make 3d space game I guess. :)

Unless you can fleece people out of tens of millions on Kickstarter...

To fleece people out of tens of millions on Kickstarter, one must first establish credibility by fleecing ordinary investors out of tens of millions. It helps to have spent some of that on paying Mark Hamill to record cutscenes for your previous space games.

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#26

Post by swalsh »

hartator wrote: post #3

> Sit down and do some fucking work. Don’t go for a coffee, that’s not work and you know that’s not work, no you’re not ‘working from the cafe’ stop lying to yourself. Get up, get on and do some fucking work. I can relate so much to the coffee trap. Just went back from grabbing coffe. Just another to delay working.

I have to disagree, I've started working from the quiet coffee shop near my house every once in a while. After a while I just need to get out of the house. I guess if I did it all the time, it probably wouldn't work. But sometimes I start to feel catastrophic in my home office. finding a table to work by myself has been a decent productivity booster.

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#27

Post by enraged_camel »

_eht wrote: post #16
raamdev wrote: post #8

> I find it astonishing that startup indie devs pay out for an office, with all the extra bills that entails. Work from home, keep your overheads as close to zero as possible. I've been a solo dev for nearly a decade (8 years) and I found that sometimes it makes complete sense to pay for an office. Before my daughter was born, I was able to work from almost anywhere: noisy cafes, at home, the library, etc. But after…

I have also been working out of my garage for the last eight years and I'm just now in the process of finding an office. I don't have any kids, but I still feel like I'm going stir crazy. Sometimes you just need to put some distance between where you sleep and where you work.

I work from home. Here's how I get around this: after waking up and having breakfast, I go for a short (~10 minute) walk or bike ride around the block. When I get back, I start working. That kind of "fake commute" is sufficient to trick my brain into separating work from everything else I do in the same space.

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#28

Post by [deleted] »

enraged_camel wrote: post #6

>>> Don’t spend any money: Do as much as you can yourself. If you can’t afford it, don’t pay someone to make assets that you could do yourself. What’s more, do you really need to hire a full time coder? Or can you just hire a freelancer for a month? If you don’t have money, make the sound effects yourself. Nah. As a solo dev you need to spend your time efficiently. You can go to Fiverr and pay literally $5 for stuff…

[deleted]

Re: How to Survive as a Solo Dev for Like a Decade or So

#29

Post by fencepost »

Alex3917 wrote: post #11
enraged_camel wrote: post #6

>>> Don’t spend any money: Do as much as you can yourself. If you can’t afford it, don’t pay someone to make assets that you could do yourself. What’s more, do you really need to hire a full time coder? Or can you just hire a freelancer for a month? If you don’t have money, make the sound effects yourself. Nah. As a solo dev you need to spend your time efficiently. You can go to Fiverr and pay literally $5 for stuff…

> That is far more preferable to spending hours or days (or maybe even weeks) learning to do it yourself. It depends whether you're trying to maximize your income over the next year or over the lifespan of your career. Investing in yourself by taking the time to learn technical skills and also develop your aesthetic taste in different areas of design is usually going to pay dividends in the longterm far beyond whatev…

By all means enrich yourself and learn new things, but don't delay your game for 5 years so you can teach yourself how to draw, use proper proportions on figures, color, etc. (on your own because why pay a teacher?). Remember that you're in business, and even if you're a solo dev it's not all about you and your personal growth, it's about whether your business can deliver.

The good advice from a conference this past weekend: "if I was hiring, would I hire myself to do this job?"

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