Leaving job and becoming a self employed game developer

UncleBensSauce

UncleBensSauce

UncleBensSauce

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Hi All

I'm not really happy in the field I work in (IT Managed Ops) and though it could be just the comapany I work for at the moment, I don't think changing to another company in this field is going to cut it.

So I'm considering packing it in to start developing games. I thought I'd check here because obviously this would be quite a barmy thing to do - and its good to gather some alternative opinions.

I've worked in IT since finishing uni in 06, and started at my current company just shy of 2 years ago (large multinational).


 Why a games dev?
 Been my hobby since I was around 14, fits my skills, allows me to be as creative as I like.
My concerns:
Though I could carry on along the career path I'm on now - ultimately I don't find it satisfying or creative enough (and that's with an arty emphasis on the creativity - my job does allow me to be creative for technical tasks). Though I gather many people just stick at it because that's life bla bla - I'm 25 soon, if I'm going to change direction it needs to happen before my life becomes a sitcom (single income, two children, oppressive mortgage). If I wait it could be too late?

It won't be possible to live on less than 1200 pcm for me, so I need to have at least this amount of income reliably from games development before leaving my current job. Its going to be hard to get to this kind of income without a substantial amount of work, and this work will be hard to do with the job I have now. Ultimately I want to match or exceed my current salary within 12 months of leaving my job, this gives me a target of at least 40K pa - and I'll be needing that kind of income, as I live in rented and need to buy (my partner earns around 8k).

Teaming up and finding other people to work with is a nightmare, but realistically its the only way to get enough man hours on the table to finish anything remotely decent? The effort involved in managing a project and organising unpaid people to work on the game (while balancing a life and job) will be very time consuming (these people usually work for a slice of future profits). I intend to work pretty much solo (some art & media from my misses I would imagine) - everything I've read suggests the one man army approach will generally fail, but 99 games in 100 fail to get released anyway (team or not), so at least I can remove the burden of managing people from my limited time?


 My Plan:
 -Use middle-ware solutions such as Unity and the UDK to remove a lot of programming overhead.
 -Use free software everywhere possible (Blender, GIMP,)
 -Purchase texture packs (some very high quality stuff around for less than 100 US) – to remove some of the art overhead
 -Develop tools to increase productivity and manage work flow to allow me to maximise my time.
 -Target Windows (biggest market) first, use unity to port titles to other platforms.



Sorry for the post of incoherent babble - so many decisions to make and stuff, thanks for reading, what should I do?
 
Don't do it.

I'm going to graduate this year with a Masters in game development from trinity college dublin, the most reputable university in Ireland where the course has been quoted as being among the three best game dev courses in the world.

tbh I will be lucky if I have a job in any kind of game studio this time next year even if I get a first which I am hoping for. I'll also have the benefit of a years experience in IT along with many years of side work on mods etc so I hope to get something.

What I mean to say is that the game industry at the moment is tough to get a job in even for someone with education and experience. It's a harsh environment with a lot of good game developers laid off recently going around snapping up any jobs they can get.

To think that you can go it alone and aim to make a mid-sized game is ridiculous in all honesty. You will simply be losing your job and in a years time you'll be left with no money, a half finished project (if you're lucky) and looking for a job back in IT again.


If you really want to get out of your current career and into games then I would recommend keeping your current job and work on small games like iPhone apps and facebook games. They are realistically the only areas where a single person can finish a game and actually make a bit of money off of it. What you'll actually be hoping to achieve though is to have a finished game in your portfolio when you go to game studios looking for a job.

I really can't stress enough how bad an idea it would be to leave your job and do what you are thinking of doing. I've seen countless cases of people with exactly the same idea but ending up one or two years down the line broke and with nothing to show for it.

Like I said, get some experience in small games that you can complete in your spare time. Then start probing game studios to see if they have a position for you. Only once you have got the job with a studio should you leave your current job.
 
Won't go into a long conversation about this, but will summarise with the following:

Don't pack in your job to start this, you'd be an absolute fool if you did. At least with your current employment you're acquiring a regular income and I can guarantee if you do pursue, you're going to need some money to purchase additional tools (SDK's, hardware, licensing fees, etc, etc).

The "allows me to be as creative as I like" comment. Personally I'd stop thinking like that. If you write games you're going to need to do them for a target audience and if you work for a studio, chances are all the creativity will be handled by someone who's title is "Creative Director" or the likes. Trying to add your own flair on things will brand you as a bit of a maverick and someone who can't follow instructions. Harsh I know, but unfortunately the truth in the majority of studios.

The other harsh truth is I'm afraid that most people who attempt to do this will simply fail. I could NEVER do it now, there are people out there that I personally think are binary gurus and can throw out code like magic. For me I was fortunate where my games career was during the late 80s early 90s so could throw out any old rubbish and the public would buy it.

It's hard work, very hard. One small suggestion I would make is this:

Ask yourself just what game you're going to make that you think people will buy. RPG, shoot'em up, platformer, puzzle, driving, etc. Think about just what YOUR project will have to make people want to buy it from you to line your pockets with money.

When you've got that answer, don't code anything but contact a games studio (not a major one) and ask them for a meeting.

The reason I say this is because they have hundreds of more hours of experience than you will ever have, they know the market far far better than you (or anyone else who may reply to this thread) and are paid thousands every year assist ideas into boxed products.

It's not the glamourous lifestyle it once was, companies can't afford to pay 1 developer £80k per year because games are getting more complex and take longer to develop, so they'll pay 2 people £40k a year instead.

Won't name drop on here, but if you want a few contacts of people who may be able to help, send me an email and I'll forward a few names on by people who are in the industry and know it far better and advise more than I can.
 
Darg said:
Don't do it.

I'm going to graduate this year with a Masters in game development from trinity college dublin, the most reputable university in Ireland where the course has been quoted as being among the three best game dev courses in the world.

tbh I will be lucky if I have a job in any kind of game studio this time next year even if I get a first which I am hoping for. I'll also have the benefit of a years experience in IT along with many years of side work on mods etc so I hope to get something.

What I mean to say is that the game industry at the moment is tough to get a job in even for someone with education and experience. It's a harsh environment with a lot of good game developers laid off recently going around snapping up any jobs they can get.

To think that you can go it alone and aim to make a mid-sized game is ridiculous in all honesty. You will simply be losing your job and in a years time you'll be left with no money, a half finished project (if you're lucky) and looking for a job back in IT again.


If you really want to get out of your current career and into games then I would recommend keeping your current job and work on small games like iPhone apps and facebook games. They are realistically the only areas where a single person can finish a game and actually make a bit of money off of it. What you'll actually be hoping to achieve though is to have a finished game in your portfolio when you go to game studios looking for a job.

I really can't stress enough how bad an idea it would be to leave your job and do what you are thinking of doing. I've seen countless cases of people with exactly the same idea but ending up one or two years down the line broke and with nothing to show for it.

Like I said, get some experience in small games that you can complete in your spare time. Then start probing game studios to see if they have a position for you. Only once you have got the job with a studio should you leave your current job.
Click to expand...

the gaming industry has always been a tough job to get into,it was actually harder 20 years ago as there are more options available now and also it was not seem a a mainstream medium wheras it is kinda nowadays,if you have good skills i dont think you will have a problem,you will come up against a lot of red tape but perservere and im sure you will get the right break eventually.
 
Strange you should mention game development. My gf's best friend goes out with a guy who work for a rather famous UK studio. I wouldn't say in which discipline because I know for a fact someone from the same company post here. Maybe more of them.

He says it's stressful, complex and not at all glamorous or what he expected when he got into this business. It's not trying to deter you, I'm just saying that even a company of the size he worked for (50 - 100 people) sweated blood to ship a game (A few actually) that didn't really do that well in the end. Luckily they're owned by a multinational so they can ship a few duds and still be in business.

If I was looking to get into the industry, I would take the SDK from a successful development company and create something awesome and hope to get hired. See Portal, see CSS, see TF2. All started as mods and now they all work for Valve.

Hang on to your job for the time being and spend your day dreaming up design ideas for your game. Give yourself 4-5 hours a night of solid design, programming, rigging or just thinking time. This way you won't get stressed as your see the numbers on your account drop and you're still wrestling with concept art. Also try and get together a few like-minded folks that will stick with this all the way through. Not too big as personalities and different ideas get too complex to manage with a larger group of people who is doing this for free.
 
I'll add a couple of points myself...

- I grew up living next door to a very well known Games Programmer, I'm not going to say who, but his name was used in the title of his games. Although retired now, he had begun by coding all his games from home, and I believe enjoyed it that way. I believe he somewhat went into an early retirement because of the fact that the games industry now relies on working in large teams in Studio offices. Existing as a games programmer on your own these days is only viable as someone developing for the likes of mobile phones etc... even then, I doubt there is a huge amount of money in that.

- Secondly, the games industry is very similar to the media industry, and that's been going through rocky times with recession. I myself got made redundant from the film industry a few months ago. My friend, who happens to be the said x developers son, was made redundant from a UK developer working on new games titles. He managed to eventually get into another company after a long time searching.

So in short, don't give up your day job unless you have something concrete.
 
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I recently tried to pretty much this; except I went for iPhone and the job I was packing in was contracting as a games developer*. So I left games to make my own game ;). After about 3 months of effort we released yesterday onto the App Store; if the first day's sales are anything to go by I'll be going back to contracting real soon now :(

The problem you face is two-fold. Firstly: making a game takes a lot of different skills, being a programmer is not enough, you also need art, design, etc. - or you'll have to pay someone else for these. I was lucky in that my brother is a professional illustrator and fine artist and was willing to come aboard at a low hourly rate, and a cut of any profits. But the rest of it was all down to me. Now, with a background in games programming I'd already done most of the aspects needed, but there was still a lot to learn - you, without the games background, are going to find this harder and it will take you longer.

Secondly - and this is the big thing - making a really good game is only half the battle, the second half is all that marketing and promotion gubbins that I, personally, not only dislike but aren't even that good at. You can see from my website for the game that while I can put together a website it's not up to the standards a professional web developer would put together but I just don't have the budget for that, or for a lot of advertising and PR nor do I have the clout to get coverage from the various review outlets out there.

So this is my advice to you: buy a Mac Mini and an iPod Touch and develop for the iPhone - it's a cheap entry to an accessible platform. While Windows may seem easy, the power and diversity of the platform means that whatever you produce will be compared to stuff like Far Cry, Halo, Spore, etc. - you can't match that. And you'll have to deal with all the issues arising from running at different resolutions on a whole range of hardware. The iPhone's small screen plays right into your hands here. Have a look at Doodle Jump - the single best selling iPhone game - it's not exactly pushing the boundaries of technical genius. This means you can right something in a short period of time get it to market through sensible channels and not have to stake everything on its success.

My second piece of advice to you is this: don't throw in the day job, see what you can do in your spare time, and how it actually works out for you first.

My third piece of advice to you is this: being a hobbyist developer with a bit of an interest in games is not the same as being a professional games programmer - if you can, get work in the industry, and experience of professional games development first.


* - strictly I didn't pack it in, I finished on a contract and decided to do this instead of seeking another.
 
Hey, I am an AI coder working for Rebellion and I just read though this and well I will probably repeat what a lot of people here have already said.

~J~ Pretty much said what you need to hear anyhow. But.....

You would be a massive fool to give up your current job to do this, it would be a stupid gamble.

Your best bet is either try and get a job with a studio as a programmer or produce a small iPhone/facebook game (in your spare time, pretty much all of your spare time) and if you are lucky and market it properly you could eventually support your self. And i do mean lucky as right now the market is saturated with them and the quality bar for those that do well are really high.

But don't let this put you off.

Rebellion are recruiting at the present time (well last time i checked they were) so if you want some advice give me an email.

But do not give up your current job. The games industry is seriously hard work and it will soak up almost all of your free time. I cannot tell you the amount of weekends and nights I have lost in order to get a game out on time, or just to meet a milestone.
 
Nexus said:
I'll add a couple of points myself...

- I grew up living next door to a very well known Games Programmer, I'm not going to say who, but his name was used in the title of his games. Although retired now, he had begun by coding all his games from home, and I believe enjoyed it that way. I believe he somewhat went into an early retirement because of the fact that the games industry now relies on working in large teams in Studio offices. Existing as a games programmer on your own these days is only viable as someone developing for the likes of mobile phones etc... even then, I doubt there is a huge amount of money in that.

- Secondly, the games industry is very similar to the media industry, and that's been going through rocky times with recession. I myself got made redundant from the film industry a few months ago. My friend, who happens to be the said x developers son, was made redundant from a UK developer working on Wii titles. He managed to eventually get into another company after a long time searching, but part of me wonders how much his name had to do with it as well.

So in short, don't give up your day job unless you have something concrete.
Click to expand...
Geoff?
 
Nexus said:
I'll add a couple of points myself...

- I grew up living next door to a very well known Games Programmer, I'm not going to say who, but his name was used in the title of his games. Although retired now, he had begun by coding all his games from home, and I believe enjoyed it that way. I believe he somewhat went into an early retirement because of the fact that the games industry now relies on working in large teams in Studio offices. Existing as a games programmer on your own these days is only viable as someone developing for the likes of mobile phones etc... even then, I doubt there is a huge amount of money in that.

- Secondly, the games industry is very similar to the media industry, and that's been going through rocky times with recession. I myself got made redundant from the film industry a few months ago. My friend, who happens to be the said x developers son, was made redundant from a UK developer working on new games titles. He managed to eventually get into another company after a long time searching.

So in short, don't give up your day job unless you have something concrete.
Click to expand...

was it Geoff ....revs,sentinel,f1gp...???
 
lol first 2 comments are although valid pretty funny - do you think most iphone games developers have a 200 strong army of games designers? no. So many solo developers because the games aren't hard to develop. Heck a flash game can be made in a week.

A game is only as hard to develop as you want it to be. Tetris isn't exactly demanding in programming skill but look how that turned out.

I made a flash based dance dance revolution game in a week. included a score board, full animation, animated background, 2 player vs and an options menu. So please don't shoot this guy down before he has even started.

Good luck to the op imho.
 
Packing in your current job on this gamble makes absolutely no sense financially.

But going for it would be commendable in the 'you only live once' sense and might not be a complete disaster.

I think Darg is laying on the industry pessimism a bit thick.
 
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Nope, it was someone else.
But like I said, I'm not going to say who it is, as I'm not at liberty to be name dropping. :)

I'd definatly say to the OP that your best bet is to start working on small things in your spare time, that way you can building up some time doing it to see how you like it and whether you have a chance of being successful.
 
How do you make a small fortune in the games industry?

Start with a large fortune...

In short, if you really need 1200pcm to live on, how exactly are you going to get by while you develop your first game? What platform are you intending to develop for? What sort of games are you looking to develop?
 
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