I Need Some Friendly Advice: Making Games is Fun and Trying

[MC_Stryker]

@Jason Forrester;117406

You my friend are amazing. Thanks for the wisdom.
Its funny to because I had been doing freelance work for the longest time, never really staying anywhere and yet it’s all I wanted.
I really just wanted to be with a team and ground myself, but I didn’t want to get involved with team today. I miss listening to those stories about the development of DOOM or Half-Life when everyone was picking up a few jobs and you can have fun. It was less about the paycheck and more about how we can make a good game while keeping the development entertaining.
The industry has changed so much, so I decided to make a hard choice and good indie.
Honestly reading your story and seeing this community as a whole, I couldn’t be happier.
Who knows maybe this can bring about commercial game developers that still care about the gamers instead of the money.

I know a lot of people who despise indie developer’s saying they are all washed up old men who just live with their parents.
I just laugh because those “washed up old men” are created games that defined the genre. iD didn’t have a publisher for the original DOOM and look what it became.
Anyone who hates indie developers just don’t know the industry.

I really hope your project goes over well and if you ever need help feel free to ask, and that goes for all of you.

Thanks, and Good Luck!

~ Jason

Thank you Jason for the kind words, you my friend are awesome as well. It’s funny you mentioned Doom, aside from getting started with programming at 5 on an Apple II-GS, being a part of the original Doom modding community was my first ever step into real game development and I remember those days very fondly. Also, Romero is one of my all-time favorite devs and who I pull a lot of inspiration from. I think a lot of people take the term indie dev the wrong way in a lot of cases. Early on, it was hard to get any respect until some titles made it out and rated higher than some titles from full-production/fully funded . Then again, indie development has always been around but with open publishing models from PC to mobile, people now have easier means to distribute.

When I went to Microsoft last Oct, I had the chance to meet Frank Savage (XNA, Xbox One, Wing Commander 3 :)) and Boyd Multerer (XB1 and Founder of XNA) and I was telling them how when I was young, I remember reading EGM and about PlayStation 1 and 2’s DevKit, the NetYaroze (I know, really weird name) and how XNA gave me that first chance to experience my work on a console with controller in hand. I think kids these days that get inspired early on, have so many amazing tools and forms of distribution (especially UE4), that I really wish I had the same available to me growing up.

I agree on the industry changing and now being the perfect time. It’s a hard thing though, for the past week I’ve been deciding if I want to get a couple credit cards since funding is getting tight. I did link up with Senior Council from Perkins Coie and since they represent Microsoft, Amazon and Zillow to name a few, my lawyer should be able to really help out, but then again, that’s another extreme expense. But yea, it can be rough haha and I’m right there with you but all you can do at the end of the day is believe deep down and visualize you getting there. If you can see it, you can achieve it

But stay in touch buddy and let me know if you want to show me some stuff in the near future. I’ll be showing and sharing things too as well in the near future and definitely considering doing a Kickstarter so I’ll keep you posted. Best of luck!

Take Care!

-Matt