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I don't say this to minimize the pain of indie devs that find themselves suddenly deluged with competition... but that's where things are headed, yeah?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am kind of in the same boat doing something different. I do agree you learn a ton more than working for someone else or completing any computer science degree. But whether companies look for this type of employee, I am unsure that is true. The truth is, most companies look for employees without gaps in their resume. They are looking for signals such as having worked Google or Facebook. They care much less about you…
I work at a AAA games studio and if this guy came to us with nothing else on his resume but this game he would definitely get a chance. I mean, in terms of chances in the industry - I got in by completing a 4 year CS degree. If he gets in by spending 3 years building his own game then I'd say it was worth it.
If you are interested in making an indie game, do it only because you want to not because you think you'll make money. You will lose money. That's it. There's no magic message here. Source: an indie dev. I keep my passion for my project because it's something I truly want to do.
That's clearly not entirely true though, because there are hits. They're just extremely rare, but extremely visible. You can read interviews with the Stardew Valley guy all over where he talks about spending 4 years working solo on his game, refusing to give up on realising his artistic vision. Then he releases and it's a mega-hit. That's a very seductive story. This isn't a problem unique to indie games. Every creat…
People who are super passionate about making indie games I'm going to do it regardless, so this is good advice.
7672 games released in a year still seems so, so low to me. How many books are published in a year? How many albums? I don't say this to minimize the pain of indie devs that find themselves suddenly deluged with competition... but that's where things are headed, yeah?
I wrote this controversial tweet on the matter a while back (embedded here for convenience [1], controversial because it uses averages!) Which might make things seem more or less bleak depending on your perspective, but an important note from this data is that the 2017 median sales were about 2000 units per game (yikes). [1] https://twitter.com/gavanw/status/967249172804943872 Average number of units sold per game on…
Whats the average numbers if only top 20% are taken. To basically reject newbies in 2017 and recent years.
And yes, they haven't been doing their job right, they had too much power, they played it too safe and mistreated the developers.
But instead of supporting game developers who wanted to unionise, instead of supporting social projects (like basic income!) that would reduce the risk an independent takes, we asked people to go indie, and just shoulder that entire risk themselves. Good job, everyone!
If I'm reading it correctly you're considering: - call the game finished and walk away now you finished the dev work - call the game a hobby to excuse the sales now you finished the dev work - code some arbitrary addition to be ethical just to be coding something cause dev work is probably the only work that exists - keep iterating cause you can always invent more dev work to do - get a different project going for an…
If you are interested in making an indie game, do it only because you want to not because you think you'll make money. You will lose money. That's it. There's no magic message here. Source: an indie dev. I keep my passion for my project because it's something I truly want to do.
cherries aside;
- business (general)
- financial
- medical/law (only private sector)
- politicians
- social sector (government, law, medical)
- shitjobs
- everything concerning art (music, games, sculpting, painting etc. etc.), which ironically, when succesfull, make the most money. The duality of it all..
If u think politicians is low, it's because they get most of their wealth from the job before/after their run, and due to lobby nature, these tend to be wealthy companies.
Programming of the list, because this is highly dependent on where and what u program. This game dev is a good example, he is a programmer, but in the group of art. He probably will make more stable cash writing trivial database queries for any company.
If you are interested in making an indie game, do it only because you want to not because you think you'll make money. You will lose money. That's it. There's no magic message here. Source: an indie dev. I keep my passion for my project because it's something I truly want to do.
That's clearly not entirely true though, because there are hits. They're just extremely rare, but extremely visible. You can read interviews with the Stardew Valley guy all over where he talks about spending 4 years working solo on his game, refusing to give up on realising his artistic vision. Then he releases and it's a mega-hit. That's a very seductive story. This isn't a problem unique to indie games. Every creat…
You can gradually improve overall visibility of a regular software by working on SEO and sales. But if a game wasn't picked by the press or at least some YouTube celebrity – it's over.
This is even worse for mobile games where a few store curators decide your fate.
If you are interested in making an indie game, do it only because you want to not because you think you'll make money. You will lose money. That's it. There's no magic message here. Source: an indie dev. I keep my passion for my project because it's something I truly want to do.
That's clearly not entirely true though, because there are hits. They're just extremely rare, but extremely visible. You can read interviews with the Stardew Valley guy all over where he talks about spending 4 years working solo on his game, refusing to give up on realising his artistic vision. Then he releases and it's a mega-hit. That's a very seductive story. This isn't a problem unique to indie games. Every creat…
The people I've known (actors and writers, mostly) who deal with this most healthily get a lot from their craft other than either outward success or personal fulfillment. There's also a community around their craft that gives them companionship, love, visibility to day jobs etc. Does that exist in the same way or indy devs? It seems like the solitary aspects of coding would work against.