Indie Dev Question, (Soon to be Graduate)

Greg DAlessandro

After one more semester I will graduate and then I will start having to pay college bills.

I'm currently working on developing a game with my brother, and plan to make that my full time job in the future. We also have plans on future games as well. But I have several questions:
a)How do you make it as an indie developer?
b)How do you even start?
c)How can you start to develop a game for all those months without getting paid while having to pay off college bills?

I will have to have a full time job, possibly even 2 just to pay off bills. Then when I get home I'll hopefully be able to put in at least an hour or two into development. But that will impede progress tremendously. I feel that I won't be able to make that my full time job any time soon, and fear that I'll be stuck with part time jobs for years before I can even seriously make games as an indie developer with my brother. Anyone else been through this, or have any insight or information? I greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Edit: one other issue, neither one of us are programmers. I am taking a scripting course next semester, and he is going to take a programming course. We are, however, both very logical and technical. But we will never be to the point where we can make our own engine nor do any hardcore programming.

Eric Chadwick

There are many threads about how people started out as game developers. Including how they transitioned into self-employment (freelance/indie).
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Game_Industry#How_to_Get_In

tl/dr; Get a studio job first (for money, experience).

Do personal work on evenings/weekends. After a year or two gathering experience, and after collecting a decent padding of savings, THEN strike out on your own. The money burns through fast, even without paying off loans.

Another recent relevant post:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2218009#post2218009

skankerzero

partner with a programmer. programming is expensive if you have to pay for it.

tadpole3159

You don't make the whole game, your make a playable section. For example if it's a racing game make a track, if it's a platformer make a level. What ever you do make sure it looks awesome, near final if you can.

You can't go paying peoples wages out of your own pocket and you can't go around not paying people for their work so you need to get some money.

Most big publishers also make smaller downloadable titles now. Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, capcom, codemasters... You know the ones. They all have funds set aside for indie games. Then you also have indie publishers, smaller publishers that make smaller games, if you follow the indie scene you know who they are. You also need to do some networking, find some local game shows and start shaking hands. Honest feedback from people who make games professionally is so important. You might even end up meeting someone who's interested in funding your game. Face to face is so much better than emailing.

If you can't get a publisher all's not lost. You can take your playable demo and go to kick starter. Release your demo online, make a trailer and come up with some stretch goals. It's a lot more work and none of it's game making. But it's worked before

If both of these options fail your buggered. Don't waste your own money making a game to completion. That's how you become homeless

eld

Indie publishers, heh :P


Anynway, best time is free time, that's where most people relax and do fun stuff outside of work, this is also a great time to make that nice sweet indie game while still paying for ones living. It can and will be exhausting but ensures that your economy doesn't go crashing. (Having a job is essential)

So make a game, then make another, then make several others. One of these will be the one that make you go from having it as a hobby to making a living. Most types of games can be made entirely solo these days, this is a good thing for anyone inspiring to make his own games.

michalczyk

Speaking from personal experience as an ex indie... getting a job at a game studio that does the type of games (or similar) you want to create will be invaluable. Work there for 2-3 years and learn as much as you can. By doing this you will be paid to get experienced, your skills will improve dramatically, and you should be able to save some money as well. Such working experience will be of great value to you later, as you will already know enough to make your own indie games without too much trouble.

Some years ago a programmer friend of mine and myself did a few indie games. Because we both had several years of experience creating regular games, the development of our indie games was quick and easy. Unfortunately we failed completely in the marketing department.

I think having a good understanding of online promotion strategies is essential for any indie. Hiring someone to do it for you is probably much better than doing it yourself - it is a lot of work.

tadpole3159

Indie publisher isn't the right term but there are smaller publishers who only make downloadable games.

http://digitaltribegames.com
http://www.ripstone.com

I've worked with ripstone about 3 times, pure chess, pure pool and big sky infinity. They handle the development costs, the marketing, sort out play testing, handle the console stores and steam things while us at the developer focus on making the game.

http://youtu.be/nPCaH04186M

This is the last game we made with ripstone . These guys are awesome

Tobbo

One thing I would suggest is focusing on one game at a time. You said you have multiple ideas, which is good, write them down and stick a pin in them to revisit later.

Also, if you can manage to swallow your pride. You can bundle up some of your assets from your game and sell them separately via online marketplaces as well. It may not be a tremendous amount of money, but it is easy additional income since you are making the assets for the purpose of your game anyway.

I know a lot of people hate this idea and no big publisher would ever go for it. But it's their loss. It isn't going to break or hurt your game. You will probably never even see those assets used in someone else's completed game anyway. And even if you do, who cares? Indies make it by being different!

I guess I would also only do that if you are planning on self publishing, since most publishers would probably be against the idea.

Chimp

1. make a LOT of small-scope games in the evenings/weekends. start pong/flappy bird small, but do these tiny games to AAA standards. Give them the full respect of an AAA title, do all the menus, do all the polish stuff, make it control beautifully, give it high end graphics. This is all possible because you keep your scope tiny. And with tiny scope, it means the projects get finished, and you don't spend 10 months slogging away at a title that is beyond your capability. These are not for you to release, these are for you to get to the point where you can actually make games rather than glorified tech demos.

- You may think you have a tonne of amazing ideas, but shelve them and any ego you have (ego is good, just not at this point in time) and start at the very bottom with these really basic titles. just make sure to do them to stunning standards. think of it this way: you need to earn the right to make your own new and stunning ideas by first slogging through gaming history and getting it under your belt.

It's great that anyone can publish at the click of a button these days, but it means that most people arent cutting their teeth first and it results in a saturated market of really low quality titles.

2. when you've saved a fuckload of money from your dayjob, and you've done 15 to 20-odd small titles, then you've got the foundation to start doing it full time and you can take it from there.


Edit: OH, and stay small until you absolutely have to grow. By this i mean, don't employ anyone until you have at least 200k in the bank from sales. It's good that the two of you are brothers, i founded my company with my brother and it means that the hard times are a bit easier. It also means you can both easily understand that you wont be able to pay yourselves for a long time. that kind of conversation between family goes easier.

Edit 2: you're in college, didn't catch that on my first skim read. This complicates things because you're that much in debt and its therefore that much harder I'll have a think.