A friend of mine came to a period where they need an actual paying job.
He has been focusing on video games development with unreal engine and blueprints, and deployed 2 games to Steam on their own.
Games are nothing big, but somewhat unique, somewhat complex and look ok, he is working on a few new unique projects now which he hopes will give him some financial success in amount of minimum hourly rate/hours spent on development.
The question is, when he will be able to get a job, what is the pathway, how long he needs to be on the pathway.
How much more games he has to publish to get a bill paying job from some company? His sole activity can’t last forever, the dude needs eat&support others.
Due to extremely low amount of gamedev jobs in his area he now considers just becoming a front end web developer as there are a lot of jobs, jobs pay better, and amount of knowledge you need is less.
He also considers android as there tonns of android jobs as well.
So, should he just switch to web since getting a gamedev job is the same like winning a president race and the pay is less than in other programming fields? I heard It’s easier to get into Oil&Gas or FBI than gamedev.
The guy wants to start a family and needs stable income, the dude doesnt even own a car so, is gamedev a dead-end for him?
Does he need to switch to web, or maybe leave programming and start some Government job with stable salary?
There’s few if any game dev jobs that would allow him to work from home, if he doesn’t have a way to get to work then that’s probably his biggest issue. Other than that he can try to work freelance, but that sucks as a stable source of income.
I work a 9to5…
Then I also do some freelance when possible.
And work on stuff for Marketplace when I go home.
Between that, I also prototype my soon to be a hit indie games as well (ROFL).
I’m trying to replace the freelance part, pushing more Marketplace content, because I don’t really enjoy freelance work that much.
Anyway, it’s a lot of work and stressful to keep an income when you work for less known Game Companies.
This way I’m managing to survive and live life in relatively stable way…
What you should never do tho:
– Don’t leave your job to make an indie game for Steam/iOS/Whatever; never do that.
– Don’t focus too much on big companies when looking for first jobs, because it’s like being a Joe applying to work at Pixar (of course they won’t hire a Joe Nobody).
is this friend planning to move to work on-site on said company?
the pathway will be as long as he can prove his worth to be hired. this can take anything from months to long years and it depends on how good he actually is, and how much he can prove it
also not sure a serious company will hire a blueprint coder. just sayin’
Thanks for your replies.
The guy has a way to get to work, and may live on site if required. Expat thing is not an option since family and stuff, reducing cost of life neither(does gamedev really worth it?). He may relocate within the country tho.
About outsourcing - gamedev can be outsourced as well I believe, but particularly in his area there are a lot of full-time front-end vacancies and 0 gamedev.
About pathway
How can he prove he is worthy? What needs to implemented in his games? Should he create a multiplayer game on his own, or a really interesting beautiful game? He is applying as a programmer, not an idea-guy or artist to be responsible for interestness or graphics. What’s the criteria? The only thing he is weak at are ai and multiplayer but I guess he is not going to be the sole programmer. Also, I think assets really reduce need in programmers so is he doomed to be unemployed?
He says that he will probably just drop programming and try to get into some other job. Maybe construction, plumbing or computer repair services. Pay is 1000% better, almost immediate start.
From his own words: " even cleaners at McDonald’s get paid better than I am tho they don’t require any knowledge, they didn’t study hard, they don’t even require thinking"
It’s tough to give any advice, as I feel it’s so different for each dev/project/game-genre.
For me I was working full time as a web dev for the majority of the dev time for my project before i released it on steam, and then over a year before it was successful enough to leave my job to work on the game fulltime.
I think for us indie devs, our projects mostly need to develop as side/passion projects (unless you have savings to fallback on). Even if you make a great game, it’s not guaranteed it will be a financial success. Look at Where The Water Tastes Of Wine: A well received and well reviewed project that has done poorly with sales. It’s sad. I’d like to see greater support to allow indie studios to flourish, but competition is getting difficult with the tools becoming more and more accessible.
I would suggest aiming to get work in the area you’re passionate, but if that’s not possible, find work in something that has overlap. Web dev has many similar technical challenges as game dev. Then try to find time outside of your employment to work on personal projects.
In terms of finding success with your indie project: We mostly don’t have marketing budgets etc, so try to reach out to content creators and streamers. I’m no expert, but I’d suggest trying to get your game into the hands of players you think will appreciate and enjoy your work. Passion and support from an influencer can be far more impactful than an expensive ad campaign. Interact with your community and involve them with the continued development.
The biggest problem with being a game-dev is - if you want to be successful - that you learn it the hard way that it doesn’t matter how good you are at programming or well your game is made. It comes all down to be able to actually sell it - and selling it is a full-time job nowadays. The good days on Steam where you can just throw a game up for sale are over - they opened the flood gates and that killed the way how a game can be successful just on being a good game. You need to adapt. I got lucky on my first game because Greenlight still existed, it got greenlit in 5 days so i knew i had something i could sell. Nowadays everyone can upload their junk for a 100$ fee and you can no longer test/get feedback on early prototypes.
Most indies are also resistant to any advice. I for example have been sitting for months on a stack of money searching for a game/product that is good enough to support it or join its development team. And it all ends up the same way, i explain my terms, explain what i will do for them and how their game will be successful and then they think they don’t need me and can do it on their own. A few months later they realize their game doesn’t sell and come back but then it’s already to late because no streamer in this world will touch an old game no-one ever heard about. The game is done, no matter what. As a general rule of thumb - you will make most of your money during the first 2-4 weeks your game is on the market. It doesn’t matter if you making 1000$ in that time or 1.000.000$, the month after will be 80% less income… so you better make sure that those remaining 20% will pay your bills.
Successful for me means that you make enough money to get the money everyone invested into it plus maybe 2-3 years for everyone to pay their bills… 90% of the indies who fail just upload their game onto Steam thinking that’s enough and that it will make money… As @Coldscooter already said, you need to get the support of influencers, so you better have 20.000$ or 30.000$ around to pay them to show your game - before release. Those 20k/30k is not really much, my influencer network/contacts for example have about 80 million subscribers in total and i only get good deals/prices on videos because i keep paying them over the years. That’s something you are building up over the years with each game release, most indies don’t even know about it.
As for your friend, if it is his priority to start a family i do not recommend being an indie. It’s hard and it’s even harder when you never had a successful game. You don’t want to raise a child and have uncertainty all the time, before i had a family my games were my babies - nowadays with having a real child i would not have undertaken these risks.
hi, I am from china, I want to do some gameplay development remotely,
i am good at C++ and blueprint development, I have 5 years game development experience in china,
anyone interested in me, please contact me directly, I will send you my resume, thanks,
my email: macrogu@hotmail.com
Its all very well saying well work a 9-5 in Nandos R Us and make a game about spaceships and pirates in your spare time. But how much free time do you have for your sex life?