next »

[Triplefox]

I think the distinction on QoL comes down to whether you prefer the entrepreneurial condition or not.

As an entrepreneur you get to call the shots 100% of the time, which also means you have to make more decisions, have more discipline, and create your own safeguards and insurance when things go sour. Cashflow is highly variable and thus you need to keep a lot of money(preferably, several years worth) in savings to maintain your lifestyle and stay in full-time work on your own projects until the business picks up.

With a job, keeping your head down and working "enough" is sufficient to get paid and often to get company-supported benefits(in the USA). You even get your taxes pre-deducted so that there's little paperwork. The only uncertainties of the job-holder are whether the employer is honest, and whether you'll keep the same job or paycheck tomorrow.

Within the game industry, the main issue with job QoL is that there is no limit to "enough" work. Entrepreneurs face endless pressure from customers and business partners to keep producing, but if they're already prepared to weather a dry patch without funds coming in, they can still make the decision to say "no," cut them off and take a vacation.

OTOH the employee's crazy crunch may just be followed by another crazy crunch, and they can't say "no," or they lose the job, all the benefits, etc. and have more associated social stigmas.

Of course, a lot of indies enter full-time without being financially prepared, which is a recipe for disaster. Always try to have plans B and C waiting in the wings - I'm headed towards my plan C, myself.

[Richard Kain]

You still end up working crazy hours, but you do it when you are the most effective, and take breaks when you feel that you need them (or there's just something better to do). Try convincing any boss to allow you for that .

I know where you're coming from. I've actually been working remotely for the past year and a half, and have been feeling better because of it. I'm still tied to an employer who dictates my work. But my schedule is now much more flexible, and I have far greater control over the particulars of my day-to-day living. Anyone with the temperament to be an indie developer would probably benefit hugely from working at home.

At the same time, I seriously think that creative freedom and self-determination are still bigger factors in this equation. Especially if you consider that some indie developers still end up working from an office. Not all indie devs are bedroom coders.

And of course, there is the example of Team Meat to consider. Once they signed a publishing deal with Microsoft to get Super Meat Boy on XBLA, they went through several months that were as hellish as anything seen in a big-name studio just to make their deadline. Of course, this was followed by their experience with Steam, which was apparently much more pleasant and considerably less stressful. But it highlights the fact that indie devs can have serious quality-of-life concerns as well. (and the fact that XBLA has a lot of work to do to catch up to Steam in catering towards indie devs)

[eiyukabe]

It is simply _amazing_ how efficiently and quickly the suits have tied the game industry around their greedy fingers. I worked next to Hirokazu Yasuhara, a legend in this industry (did level/lead design and directing on many of the old Sonic games, back when Sonic was good; worked on the Jak series; worked on Uncharted) during my time at Namco. He accepted a position there to work on a project that he really wanted to push through, and it just got cancelled after months of prepro. It was the reason he agreed to work there, just gone. If the creative soul behind one of the most successful franchises in history gets pushed around by execs, how can anyone else experience creative output in this industry?

I'm not religious, but I felt... just, offended! Like, it makes me feel nauseous. Even if Yasu was okay and understanding with the events, it's just... the audacity of these fucking business types to swoop in on our artform like vultures and strip mine it with us as the miners. God damn them all. 

I'm looking to not only become indie, but change the whole goddamn system so finances are funelled into OUR pockets, not Kotick's or the GameStop execs or those that are already rich at the console manufacturing companies. Going my way and letting companies keep doing what they want is not enough for me; large companies oppress us all even if we don't work for them, by monopolizing consumer attention through overt advertising and enslaving our talent to live paycheck to paycheck when they could all be expanding the artform.

Argh, and I'm crunching this week, which is less time I have to work on MY games to hope I can make a name for myself and reach escape velocity  Need to cool down...

[golgorand]

I didn't answer the survey, but I wanted to mention that there are other options too.
(Though, adding this one is up to you)

In my case, I went indie after working for the Man 6+ years, but I found a part-time job as a teacher to support myself.
That might be easier for me though, as I'm a programmer by trade.

[dcfedor]

Part-time indies are definitely a category I missed, so yeah, you're right. I was thinking I had part-timers covered when I did up the employment options, but the way it's worded seems to exclude them. Sorry about that!

[dustin]

I'm not saying that quality of life doesn't matter. But I've heard just as many stories of harsh living from the indie crowd as I have from the mainstream employees. Going full-time indie is more often than not just as grueling as working in a big studio. The pay is either much lower, or non-existent. It is often a bohemian existence, another form of being a starving artist.

I don't really consider the games I make "indie" games, but from a business standpoint I guess I would be full time indie (I make flash games for a living by myself and sell them to portals).  With that in mind I have to say I...

1.  Do not work long hours (I work less then 40 hours a week for sure, I do work weird hours though)
2.  Am not starving (I love to cook and pretty much only eat organic food so yeah... I am vegetarian though which cuts down on costs I guess and since I like to cook I don't eat out much)
3.  I don't spend a lot of money other then food but I don't feel this huts my quality of life at all.
4.  I live in the bay area so it'd be even easier to do in a cheaper place.
5.  I have no financial support except for making games (I did start with some savings but I'm still pretty much even on that account after 8 months or so)

I do sometimes worry about money but so far it's always been just me worrying needlessly.  I love getting to do all the different things that need to be done to make games and I love it when I release a game and get to see that millions of people have played it.  It's an amazing feeling.  That said my games are very "casual" and I can see some people not wanting to make them but for me it's more just doing it on my own and less about how "indie" the games are.

[Shackhal]

Even if i have never been an employee in the game industry, i understand it because i was working in a retail company. Working overtime without the time to take care ourself is really destructive. Always eating fast food and losing classes for work...

So that why i want to be an indie game developer: to take care of my own time (and for the love for games ). Even if right now i'm learning the basics, i prefer that road than the other one.

But i need a financial support for that. So i will take a part-time job to fund myself and been a part-time indie developer for the time being. Just like Notch was

[dcfedor]

For those interested, I've compiled a follow-up report on the survey. It talks about some of the more significant findings, as well as recommendations for improving working conditions for studio employees:

http://gamedevgonerogue.blogspot.com/2011/09/indie-developer-survey-results.html

Of course, the findings are only my own interpretations, and readers are welcome to make their own hypotheses based on the freely available raw data:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewanalytics?formkey=dC0wSzVuM0VHR0lleGxMYWdqRXRrSVE6MQ

Thanks again for the input!

[justinfic]

I'm an industry vet who has been indie for the past month and a half or so. The turning point for me came when I woke up and realized I had completely lost touch with why I do what I do. I'm sure like many people here I grew up with games as a constant part of my life (the NES came out right before I went to kindergarten) and I grew up with stars in my eyes thinking about writing games for a living.

I wrote a bit of indie stuff in college and leading up to my first job in the industry, and the thrill of it was exhilarating. I thought getting a job in the Capital-I Industry was my end goal. Soon enough, I got one, and when I still wasn't happy, I just thought that if I worked hard enough at it things would get better. Promotions and creative freedom come to those who wait, right? If you're in a full-time job, and your gut tells you that you're unhappy, and your brain is telling you that it will get better eventually, trust me-- your brain is making a naive and costly mistake. GTFO now in the name of all that is holy.

One job led to another and eventually I found myself working for a very large company that, like any other very large company looking for the next big way to Monetize That Shit, was all-in on the free-to-play social game bandwagon. I found my design/programming talents being used to create addictions in order to maximize things like DAU, ARPU, minimize churn. I got to listen to rationalization that if players wanted to give us thousands of dollars to feed an addiction, that's their responsibility, and that all fun is really just a form of addiction anyway. I felt *worse* than a cog in a machine. I actually felt evil. And I knew that when I was a kid thinking about one day making games as a living, that this was most certainly the opposite of what I had in mind. The thought of my life's ambitions ending up there made me sick to my stomach on a daily basis. Getting up to go to work every day became a monumental effort. For me, along with the creative freedom to work on what I want, the independence to make games the way I want to, and the ability to have fun and explore it the way I want, going indie was a moral and ethical obligation. Even if I fail spectacularly at this, I'd rather starve doing what I love than feast and not be able to look myself in the mirror anymore.

Apologies if that came out a little long and soap-boxy, and I certainly don't speak for all industry devs. That's just my story.

…

…

tl;dr creative freedom the ability to make my own rules and social games can kiss my entire ass 

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

I'm an industry vet who has been indie for the past month and a half or so. The turning point for me came when I woke up and realized I had completely lost touch with why I do what I do. I'm sure like many people here I grew up with games as a constant part of my life (the NES came out right before I went to kindergarten) and I grew up with stars in my eyes thinking about writing games for a living.

I wrote a bit of indie stuff in college and leading up to my first job in the industry, and the thrill of it was exhilarating. I thought getting a job in the Capital-I Industry was my end goal. Soon enough, I got one, and when I still wasn't happy, I just thought that if I worked hard enough at it things would get better. Promotions and creative freedom come to those who wait, right? If you're in a full-time job, and your gut tells you that you're unhappy, and your brain is telling you that it will get better eventually, trust me-- your brain is making a naive and costly mistake. GTFO now in the name of all that is holy.

One job led to another and eventually I found myself working for a very large company that, like any other very large company looking for the next big way to Monetize That Shit, was all-in on the free-to-play social game bandwagon. I found my design/programming talents being used to create addictions in order to maximize things like DAU, ARPU, minimize churn. I got to listen to rationalization that if players wanted to give us thousands of dollars to feed an addiction, that's their responsibility, and that all fun is really just a form of addiction anyway. I felt *worse* than a cog in a machine. I actually felt evil. And I knew that when I was a kid thinking about one day making games as a living, that this was most certainly the opposite of what I had in mind. The thought of my life's ambitions ending up there made me sick to my stomach on a daily basis. Getting up to go to work every day became a monumental effort. For me, along with the creative freedom to work on what I want, the independence to make games the way I want to, and the ability to have fun and explore it the way I want, going indie was a moral and ethical obligation. Even if I fail spectacularly at this, I'd rather starve doing what I love than feast and not be able to look myself in the mirror anymore.

Apologies if that came out a little long and soap-boxy, and I certainly don't speak for all industry devs. That's just my story.

…

…

tl;dr creative freedom the ability to make my own rules and social games can kiss my entire ass  

this is a good post -- especially the don't be evil / ethical obligation part. indies are "allowed" to make games for reasons other than money -- which varies for person, but can be things like focusing on the game itself rather than on how much it sells, or focusing on its artistic value (being meaningful to people), or its experimental value (trying something new as an experiment), or educational value (teaching the player new things), or other values. in the industry they don't really care about any of those values

although this varies -- there are big companies that still value some of those, but even if they do care about those other things, all big companies value money as the primary one rather than as a secondary one, whereas a lot of indies value money as a secondary concern rather than a primary concern

another related issue is i think the games industry is pretty much the only media industry where the main part of it is *anti-artistic* -- with music, movies, novels, visual art, etc., big publishing companies want to make money, but they don't sacrifice the medium to do it to the same degree the games industry does. if i were a musician, a director, a visual artist, or a novelist i'd have little  problem working with the music, movie, visual art, and book publishing industries, because those industries, while bad, aren't as corrupted as the game industry is.

hollywood movies may be a bit shallow, but i'd say that on average movie publishers care a hundred times more about the movies they make than game publishers care about the games they make. there are some 'cash-grab' sequels are poorly made and expected to sell on the popularity of their predecessors for both, but you see way more of that with games than with movies

[Richard Kain]

Well, the movie industry and the game industry don't work the same way. The nature of employment in each is very, very different. The basic grunt labor for a movie is not employed by a single studio. Studios will hire "teams" of production labor for the run of single films. These teams are always paid hourly, never salaried. As soon as the movie is finished, they move onto the next contract.

In the games industry, most studios are expected to keep a team together for the majority of a game. This can take several years. The employees in question are almost always salaried, and are permanent full-time positions.

You could say that the game industry should begin emulating the film industry. But I don't think that's the proper solution. The film industry isn't the best solution, or the most appropriate to game development.

I think it is actually going to fall to the independent game developers to figure out a more efficient and cost-effective solution for long-term game development. The big-budget industry is too entrenched in its established procedures. Indie developers are better suited to experiment with different approaches to managing creative teams of game developers.

[dcfedor]

I'm sure like many people here I grew up with games as a constant part of my life (the NES came out right before I went to kindergarten) and I grew up with stars in my eyes thinking about writing games for a living.

Always remember that feeling. That thing that made you want to become a game craftsperson. I keep a black portfolio alongside my desk that contains some crudely drawn video game designs a friend and I made when we were 11 years old. Looking at it reminds me of those days of optimism and magic. And I think those feelings are some of the most powerful tools in our toolboxes. They power us to make great things, and guide us to do what's right.

Sorry, didn't mean to derail. These are all good points. That comment just resonated with me.

[justinfic]

another related issue is i think the games industry is pretty much the only media industry where the main part of it is *anti-artistic*

Agreed. Of all the media industries, the games industry is by far the most risk-averse. Budgets are skyrocketing, mostly due to the perception that every game that comes out on disk for major consoles needs to be a blockbuster. And the monolithic nature of a lot of these companies (as Richard mentioned) means if a game takes 2 years and 50 million dollars to make, if it doesn't meet its financial goals, people are getting canned. Possibly a LOT of people. Right after the game ships. It's brutal and it's completely unfair to all the creative talent that these games require, but the sad truth is that it's just the only way enormous companies like that can stay in business and maximize profit.

And on the mobile/social side, companies are risk averse just to make sure their audience stays as big as possible, and you get tons of games with that same, completely inoffensive art style and no tongue-in-cheek elements allowed. Got a violent game? No can do, you're turning off everyone except the core gamers. Unless that violence is against zombies. Not real zombies mind you, but smiling cartoon zombies.

What's enticing about the indie scene is it's a scene where game developers have to really set themselves apart to thrive, especially in oversaturated markets like the iOS app store. You can't make the same crap the other 99% of the world is making and expect to survive. You have to present new mechanics or present an existing mechanic with a style and flourish that no one has seen before. And the best way to do that is to put yourself and your own personality into the game you make. THAT opportunity, moreso than any other, is what I find rewarding about it.

[TeeGee]

Movies are much the same these days. I don't remember when was the last time I saw an ambitious film to come out of any of the major studios. It's kinda depressing to know that Hollywood won't ever release another Godfather, Citizen Kane or Apocalypse Now. It's all about shit like Avatar or remakes of the classic hits these days. Even if they are competently made, they don't take any chances.

[Richard Kain]

What's enticing about the indie scene is it's a scene where game developers have to really set themselves apart to thrive, especially in oversaturated markets like the iOS app store.

What I find most appealing about indie development is that indie developers can set their own standards for success. In the large business that the mainstream game industry has become, success is strictly defined through financial accomplishment. Games that sell well are successes, games that sell poorly are failures.

Within the indie space, the cost of development can be low enough that financials no longer dictate what constitutes "success." An aspiring indie dev could even release their game for free and define their success by how many people they convince to play it.

This kind of model is much more conducive to experimentation. It neither forces change, nor discourages it. Indie devs are free to go chasing after financial achievement, critical affirmation, sheer distribution, aesthetic recognition, essentially whatever they please. Indie development has the potential to free game development from purely financial restraints.

[Masakari]

While I still do freelance for "big companies" from time to time, I decided to be an indie because of:

+ creative freedom

+ job security and crunch time are starting to be pretty harsh across the board. If I'm gonna kill myself working, I'd rather it be on my own game, reaping the rewards of killing myself. So, quality of life was definitely a concern.

+ finally, working from home. I'm kind of a reclusive type, I enjoy the isolation.

But like Paul Eres pointed out earlier, I definitely found it harder than expected. I wasn't prepared for bizdev and legal stuff, for example.

[BrianSlipBit]

+ job security and crunch time are starting to be pretty harsh across the board. If I'm gonna kill myself working, I'd rather it be on my own game, reaping the rewards of killing myself. So, quality of life was definitely a concern.

I'd say job security and quality of life are currently at an all-time low in the mainstream game industry.  The only exception are the big independents like Bungie, Valve, id, etc.  For everyone else, it's pretty much produce a hit or else there will either be layoffs of outright studio closure.

As the industry matures and senior talent starts to settle down and have kids and all that fun stuff, the prospect of having to job seek and relocate every few years due to layoffs and studio closure, becomes a very real nightmare.  It simply gets to the point that it's no longer worth it to take the risk.  Furthermore, I think it's even less worth hanging around on the mainstream side if you've got a lot of solid experience and are fully capable of working on your own stuff.

The only issue then, is money and funding.

[TeeGee]

I have found that money is less of a concern than I thought it would be, if you have any savings at all and don't plan for your first game to take years to complete.

It's amazing how much money you save by simply not having a daytime job. Daily commute, trash food breakfast, energy drinks, lunch at the local fastfood joint, and then a fastfood dinner (too late to go to the groceries and cook a proper one) really take their toll on your health and budget.

[bluescrn]

I have found that money is less of a concern than I thought it would be, if you have any savings at all and don't plan for your first game to take years to complete.

Once thing that can be quite a financial hit though, is software and hardware. Especially if going the mobile route (iOS/Android).

In the preparation for my current period of indie-ness, I did splash out a fair bit making sure I'd got all the software (legally!) and hardware that I'd need to complete the first project. That included:

- Visual Studio 2010 Pro + Visual Assist
- Photoshop CS5
- Genetica basic licence
- Airplay SDK indie licence
- iOS developer fee
- Wacom tablet
- FRAPS licence
- 3 used iPod Touches from eBay (have got one of each generation now)
- Shiny new iPad 2
(Already had a Macbook and fairly decent desktop PC)

And if I want to do Android, that's going to be costly, as I'll need a few devices with assorted specs...

Of course, it's possible to make games using entirely free software, and just a basic PC. But when your most valuable asset is your time, it seemed worth the investment in the right tools.

But I'd saved a decent amount - could manage 12-18 months of indieness before needing income - but it's currently early days, still seeing how things will work out. After a little under 2 months though, I'm approaching the end of my first iOS game, quite happy with progress so far.

I don't yet have much desire to go back to big team politics and enforced crunch. Likely to end up back there when the savings run low, though...

I definitely underestimated the 'living alone, working alone' factor though. It's quite a lonely existence.

(But right now it's friday, and pub-o-clock!)

[nihilocrat]

I would go indie if I could, but then I wouldn't be able to pay rent and I would get deported, and my wife would kill me. Oops. It's a bit depressing to work in video games and yet not be able to afford them. Makes it a lot easier to concentrate on making games.

Where do people get all this money stuff that lets them do things they want to?