The risks of becoming a full time Indie developer

Hello there!

Since I feel like people might get the wrong idea of what my aspirations are, I decided to write this blog to clear and dispel any of these ideas and push in some more reality. 

Preface

Despite what you may hear about 9-5 jobs being 'boring and miserable', many people think that the fix to this issue is simple: Start your own business. Follow your dreams. I'm here to inform that these things won't be the fix for most people, in fact it may make things worse. Unless you know what you are doing, you will be draining your income, mental health, relationships et cetera.

No man's land

If you want to be successful in a business, you will need to have connections so that people can help you develop and market your project.

A few years ago I was enthusiastic about making games all by myself because it was 'cool', however, as I've gained more experience, I believe that it may be fine if I want to make a simple game, but a more complicated game will need more artists, programmers and testers due to the larger amount of content in the game.If I were to jump straight into making games full-time all by myself I can imagine 3 options:

1.  I make a bunch of mediocre to semi-decent games that take less time than a more ambitious game and maybe earn some money.
2.  I could spend 5+ years making a largely ambitious game, similar to the developers of Cuphead or Toby Fox with his development of 'Deltarune', earning no income for a good while.
3. I could do a bit of both and do smaller games for skill development and work on a larger game, in theory I could simultaneously make some money and work on an ambitious project.

All of these options would be incredibly risky, because with the 1st option I would have probably made games that would be on the bandwagon on whatever is relevant (think: knock-off IPad games), because that is what sells to regular consumers. Why do you think that Electronc Arts keep making Fifa or Battlefield games every year?

The 2nd option would be like trying to win the lottery, and by the time I would make a successful product (if I'm lucky enough), I would have already felt pretty burned out and stressed. This is why I don't buy into the advice "Follow your passion/dreams". Why chase something that you think is going to give you happiness when you reach there, when on the way, you are sacrificing your relationship with family, your social life, your financial status, your mental health and your physical health. The irony here is staggering to say the least.

The 3rd option could in theory get the best of both worlds, but it doesn't always work that way. I've already talked about how neither of the above options are a guarantee. Through this option, the stress would get worse from there since I would have a lot on my plate and burn out. Plus if there is a game that I need to get out and released due to publisher demands, I would stop developing the more ambitious game for that one.

For all of these options, I would also need to be good at marketing and outreach, which I'm not the best at. Even if I make a really good game that would have a large impact on anyone who played it, I still need to market it. There are games you have never heard of that are in fact pretty good, for example 'Chaos seed'. That game was released over 20 years ago and is still not widely known today. Keep in mind that if I spent time marketing the game, I would also need to pause development of some other projects if I don't want to burn out.

Here I have shown you how solo game development is not only a hard business, but a stressful one at that, which would be very mentally taxing. Most of the issues here would be resolved if I had a larger connections with other talent as they can take care of some the work (possibly including the business side) and I wouldn't need to be as stressed.

Okay, so I've established working in a team is a better idea than what I could ever do alone, but how exactly do I get these people?

The importance of career capital

I think that career capital is incredibly important, what is career capital exactly? Career capital can be skills and networks you gain. This is what I would need to have if I wanted to make a sustainable living out of making games full-time. Although practicing making them is good, this is not enough because as I have established earlier, there is more to game development than just working on the game itself. This is partly why I am very sceptical of making my indie game gig my main source of income at the moment.

I think it is better to get a day-job and make games on the side. I'll give you some examples of people who worked at established companies before starting their big empires.

Gabe Newell did not drop out of Harvard to start a video game empire, he dropped out because he saw a better opportunity to gain valuable skills at Microsoft, and mind you, it was probably easy for him to get a job there since Microsoft in 1983 was still a startup and the first version of windows was not even released yet. He worked at Microsoft for 13 years, then he founded a game company called 'Valve' with Newell Harrington, another Microsoft Employee. By then he had a rich quantity of experience and money, which would be useful for the incredibly chaotic development of Half life, a commercial success.

John Carmack is another example, where his job at Softdisk allowed him to make commander keen with people he knew there. The success of CK among others, allowed him and the people he met to quit their jobs to make successes like 'Doom', 'Wolfenstein' and 'Quake'.

Some may think that because people dropped out of University, that would allow them to start their businesses and therefore encourage associate 'dropping out' with success. However, keep in mind that these people had backup options if their businesses did not go well. Despite the fact that I'm not in University, full time Indie game development is not the reason I decided against it. Well, that was the case in 2016/2017 but my opinion has changed since then.

My lack of aspiration for University is because I have roughly zero interest in formal education. Large emphasis on grades and loads of theory don't really appeal to me, not to mention the fact that I wouldn't use much of what I've learned on any job. Plus, I don't really know what I would want to study, or if it is even worth studying subjects that I may even remotely like. What am I looking for instead? I'm looking for an Apprenticeship, since that can help me get work experience and a job - I would also learn skills for jobs that actually exist.

I don't want to make this a post about education, because I think that deserves its own post. There is a lot wrong with modern education, but for now that's Bryan Caplan's job to critique education.

Despite this, if I had a choice of University or full-time game development, I would have gone with the former. The reasons why is that I would be able to build a network, gain some work experience and earn a qualification which some companies would require, or have a backup option if I would ever drop out. I would be in a much better position on both getting a day-job and game development. Though, I can gain all these qualities, arguably stronger, through an apprenticeship .

Another option would be to do part-time jobs whilst doing game development, but I feel like an apprenticeship is a better backup option/day job. Although career capital is incredibly valuable, it doesn't mean that it can lead you into a path that you would initially expect. 

Fate's whimsical plot twist

I'm quite a young guy and I don't expect to be the same in the future. Ever since I stumbled into effective altruism, I thought about what I would like become in the more distant future. Although at the moment, my interest in the area is pretty weak, it is something worth contemplating and looking into and strengthening my interest in.

I'm not that kind of person who would for example think "I am going to be a musician because nothing else will make me happy", that would be ridiculous and stubborn. I do believe that I, as well as everyone else can become good at things that they would have never known they would have become good at. 

I'm not saying that I hate making games all of the sudden, on the contrary, it's mentally situating thing but maybe I at some point could think "I've developed enough skills here to perhaps try this new thing". This is why I'm starting to do long-form blog posts in the area of Effective Altruism, so I can learn new skills and get into something new. I like to consider myself a 'Jack of all trades' since I'm not a big fan of getting labels thrown at me like 'Master coder', which I feel would pigeon hole me into one path, keeping my options open is a better idea. The world is a rapidly changing place so adapting to these should be a built-in mechanic of mine.  

Tim cook for example had to write his life plan for the next 25 years for his masters degree; only the first 18 - 24 months were accurate. The rest was not even remotely accurate. This is why committing to one 'dream' can be pretty dangerous - keep that in mind if you are ever having any aspirations in mind.

Conclusion

That was a bit long, but I feel that writing this blog was necessary so I can get anyone who reads my blogs updated with my current views to avoid any incorrect ideas spreading in the future.

Although I was keen on making games full-time and wanted to avoid a 9-5 job as much as possible when I was younger, now I would rather have a 9-5 job because I feel like I belong somewhere and I can meet new people, gain networks and develop skills. 

Instead of focusing on future plans, I would rather focus on building something for myself and being awesome. Game development as well as my blog feel more like extensions of me rather than something I aspire to be in the future. Even if I made my 'Dream game' and it became a big hit, what happens after that?

I would look for something new.

That's all from me!