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[hydroxy]

I've done indie game development since I left university in 2010 with a Bsc Biochemistry. I worked in a few full time jobs and always coded during the nights and weekends. I never released anything. Was too unfocused and was still relatively new to coding and game development in general.

I went from 5 days a week in my lab to 3 days a week about a year ago. This was originally to give me more time for study to get promotion in my job but I thought I could maximise game development time also. Again I was too unfocused and just plain lazy. No games finished. 3 decent prototypes created in that time though.

In last few months I've finished my studies and must do 1 year placement for the promotion. So now I do 3 days a week labwork. 2 days placement. No time for games really as I'm always too tired from work.

Cue last week, I get £5000 grant from a government startup incubating programme to develop one of my games to completion. Now plan to quit work in 2 weeks. Start development in New Year. Must have the game finished within 3 months of then. Going to finish placement to work on my game 100%.

This time its going to be different. I am getting up at 7am every morning. Working 9-5 on the game. Working on a game design document right now. Going to stick to it. In talks with an artist and musician who will help in exchange for some money.

Aim is to make £7500 or more, this will allow development of further game.

Best case scenario: I make the game, sell it, make enough to work independently.
Worst case scenario: I pick up placement again, look for work again, develop games in spare time.

If I could press a SAVE GAME button for my life, now would be the time so I can LOAD GAME incase everything doesn't go to plan.

[Interface]

If I could press a SAVE GAME button for my life, now would be the time so I can LOAD GAME incase everything doesn't go to plan.

If I had a penny for every time I wished for that 

[Dinomaniak]

Quit my job in 2009 december, after 3 years of a software development job. I moved to a country where everything is cheaper and sunnier, and started doing contract work in the flash industry.

Focused on self-study and spending my money on beaches and loving the seaside.
Read tons of books, wrote code for pleasure and understanding from A to Z, became a fantastic coder, mensa IQ, got plenty of offers from mid to high profile companies but rejected them at the time. "Can you beat - 4k$+/month with 4h/day, non-taxable and working on the beach ?" - online recruiters aren't looking for that . Cocky but it was true, didn't need a boss.

Worked great until about two years ago when the flash industry started to pay a lot less, didn't move to mobile on time, and now - taking projects that pay "not so much", and planning to build our own game - out of passion and financial reasons.

Living together with my artist, wonderful girl, motivates me more than I can say - moved to this country for her. We live in a rent and we need constant contract work to complete our monthly dues - but not really worried as we have a lot of potential, experience, background and connections.
Unfortunately we had extremely bad luck in 2014, two large project clients left with our money, stupid of me not to sign a contract - financial pressure - the most horrible thing, kills your motivation, but got over it in the end and moved onto better clients.

Contract work is always at our door since we have a good history with a wide variety of clients, but the pay is definitely low from the ones that treat us the best -= i.e. : pay on time, don't have 1000 changes, etc. =- .

I live by : You only have one resource - time. Spend it wisely.

My biggest fear is that I do not posses the experience to socially spread and market our own game, and it doesn't seem like a simple thing, never done it before - it's always harder the first time around. If anybody's done that and cares to share their experience with me - I'm all ears , looking to learn as much as I can as we're going down... or up that road now.

[hydroxy]

Quit my job in 2009 december, after 3 years of a software development job. I moved to a country where everything is cheaper and sunnier, and started doing contract work in the flash industry.

Focused on self-study and spending my money on beaches and loving the seaside.
Read tons of books, wrote code for pleasure and understanding from A to Z, became a fantastic coder, mensa IQ, got plenty of offers from mid to high profile companies but rejected them at the time. "Can you beat - 4k$+/month with 4h/day, non-taxable and working on the beach ?" - online recruiters aren't looking for that . Cocky but it was true, didn't need a boss.

Worked great until about two years ago when the flash industry started to pay a lot less, didn't move to mobile on time, and now - taking projects that pay "not so much", and planning to build our own game - out of passion and financial reasons.

Living together with my artist, wonderful girl, motivates me more than I can say - moved to this country for her. We live in a rent and we need constant contract work to complete our monthly dues - but not really worried as we have a lot of potential, experience, background and connections.
Unfortunately we had extremely bad luck in 2014, two large project clients left with our money, stupid of me not to sign a contract - financial pressure - the most horrible thing, kills your motivation, but got over it in the end and moved onto better clients.

Contract work is always at our door since we have a good history with a wide variety of clients, but the pay is definitely low from the ones that treat us the best -= i.e. : pay on time, don't have 1000 changes, etc. =- .

I live by : You only have one resource - time. Spend it wisely.

My biggest fear is that I do not posses the experience to socially spread and market our own game, and it doesn't seem like a simple thing, never done it before - it's always harder the first time around. If anybody's done that and cares to share their experience with me - I'm all ears , looking to learn as much as I can as we're going down... or up that road now.

Great read. First part kind of sounds like my dream life.

[DocLogic]

I live by : You only have one resource - time. Spend it wisely.

Whoa...thats deep. Well said, and its totally how I feel.

Alternatively, has anyone transitioned from making indie games to getting a decent paying job at a gaming company? I'm 33, been trying to become self-sufficient in the indie scene for over 7 years now, working part-time jobs to keep my head above the water.

After wrapping up my current game, I kind of want to take a break before starting my next game and see what its like to work for a big gaming company. Has anyone here done this? Where did you work, and what was it like?

[knifeySpoonie]

Thought I'd give a little update for all those who wished me well in this thread (decided it wasn't worth starting a new thread for that)

So 3 weeks in.. feeling really good and everything is going great

So far We've been focusing on a few core things.

1. Networking/making friends with local industry.
2. Finding an office space.
3. Setting up website. and building followers on Twitter etc.
4. working on a secret 2nd project.
5. developing the game along a bit before Xmas so we can start a push after xmas.

1. So Networking and socialising. This is going Great, I'm a pretty social guy and try to go to as many events as I can. I've already made a lot of good friends in the Brighton industry prior to leaving Creative Assembly So I was in a good place.

I focused on following up meeting people when drinking with going for a coffee another day and chatting business/games/indie life. We've met some amazing people who have helped us massively as a small company, with advice, contacts etc Kirsty from Futurlab has been absolutely Stella for us and sent us a big document with lots of contacts like Recommended Lawyers and accountants, forms we'll need, and a wealth of "lessons" she has learnt running futurlab by making the mistakes first. some other chats with potential investors and advice from some really well know Brighton Vets who took time out of their day to grab a coffee.


2.Finding an Office.. So far this has been harder than anticipated, mostly due to prohibitive prices of serviced offices in Brighton, there's a lot of really corporate offices. and few affordable secure options.. However we think we have found something awesome Nice Sea views, affordable, near to all our houses, and big enough for our plans. So fingers crossed we can negotiate something before xmas and move in early/mid January.


3. This has moved quicker than I had hoped, I haven't built a website in a couple of years. Did 3 team profile portraits and built the site pretty quickly. I've also grown my Twitter followers by nearly 100 high quality followers in a few weeks so far so good. Need to keep it going.


4. Secret Projects Networking has brought up several cool opportunity's. Some friends I made earlier in the year through Indie drinks, have been sharing some plans for a little while but have held off working on anything as my contract was too restrictive. So now I'm indie, we're going ahead with a really cool little project we will be announcing in the new year. Which is really exciting!!!!


5. The big one working on our game. So we've decided to submit our game to the Leftfield collection at EGX-Rezzed next year. Deadline is January 16th.So we've been working hard on it. Adding Spine2D animation, Reworking any Place holder UI. working on the game play to make it as fun as possible planning the structure of the single player Campaign as we currently only have an Arcade game. Really exciting. Lots and Lots of work.Lots of different tasks all the time. Exactly what I was looking for in Life. we'll be announcing the game properly in January and starting a DevLog now the game is in a good place and the core structures are in place.


So... If you Read that wall of text, have a virtual High five and have a merry Xmas and an awesome New Year. I will try to do a few updates to this post and hopfully some other announcements as we go

[Fenrir]

So... If you Read that wall of text, have a virtual High five Smiley and have a merry Xmas and an awesome New Year. I will try to do a few updates to this post and hopfully some other announcements as we go

I've read everything, it's really interesting to see your plans and I really think you're taking the right direction, it's now just a matter of time to become a successful indie developer!

Good luck and keep us updated!

PS: in your signtature, your website address is not working, it should be http instead of https.

[knifeySpoonie]

So... If you Read that wall of text, have a virtual High five Smiley and have a merry Xmas and an awesome New Year. I will try to do a few updates to this post and hopfully some other announcements as we go

I've read everything, it's really interesting to see your plans and I really think you're taking the right direction, it's now just a matter of time to become a successful indie developer!

Good luck and keep us updated!

PS: in your signtature, your website address is not working, it should be http instead of https.

Thanks, will be trying to be more active in general on Tigs as this is the place that gave me the indie buzz when i was in a studio so will be one of the first places I update, post news etc

and signature Fixed :D thanks and good spot.

[Canned Turkey]

I quit my job by firing all my impish employees and then leaving my dungeon in a light speed spaceship to the next galaxy over.

Now no one can interrupt me while I think.

[oahda]

My job quit me to make me indie.

[Gorogorosama]

I did, and so now I'm here 

[Dewfreak83]

I did. I just completed a stint in the AAA industry - which was great. But we were thinking of having a baby and buying a house soon. Two very big commitments. So while we could take the risk (before those two big ticket items were in place), I set out on my own. Worst case I "check off" an item on the bucket-list, but I'm hoping I can at least make minimum wage at this and call it a "job".

I first meant to make 3 games in 6 months. And quickly changed that to 1 game in 9-ish months. I'm having a blast doing it every day, it just feels really awkward to rely solely on the wife to provide for us - but we are making it work. Thank god I married an Amazing woman!

[citizen5]

Personally, I find it really difficult to be happy working a full-time job and working again in the evening so I quit my job.

I do miss working with friends in an office (I'm a solo dev) but the freedom is great.

Gonna run out of money soon though!

[knifeySpoonie]

I did. I just completed a stint in the AAA industry - which was great. But we were thinking of having a baby and buying a house soon. Two very big commitments. So while we could take the risk (before those two big ticket items were in place), I set out on my own. Worst case I "check off" an item on the bucket-list, but I'm hoping I can at least make minimum wage at this and call it a "job".

I first meant to make 3 games in 6 months. And quickly changed that to 1 game in 9-ish months. I'm having a blast doing it every day, it just feels really awkward to rely solely on the wife to provide for us - but we are making it work. Thank god I married an Amazing woman!

Good work! that's part of the reason I quit now, do it before I have any big ass commitments around my neck that would make me feel selfish following my dreams rather than working in a studio.

[knifeySpoonie]

Personally, I find it really difficult to be happy working a full-time job and working again in the evening so I quit my job.

I do miss working with friends in an office (I'm a solo dev) but the freedom is great.

Gonna run out of money soon though!

I've planned pretty well but this is still a major worry for any dev It's worth considering doing some freelance work? I'm getting my portfolio ready so I can apply for a few Jobs to top up the savings in the future.

[lionfish]

Personally, I find it really difficult to be happy working a full-time job and working again in the evening so I quit my job.

I do miss working with friends in an office (I'm a solo dev) but the freedom is great.

Gonna run out of money soon though!

I've definitely become more of a hermit, especially because I live in the boonies, and miss people. 

I'm thinking I need to go to more Game Jams to just be social again. 

Thankfully, my wife is on board for living frugally, so we've got enough savings to make it work.  Not making any money for the first year I think is driving me more towards actually finishing something, and monetizing it. 

Necessity drives innovation?

[grayger]

He who hunts two hares losses both.
I quit my job and I loss both.

[gambrinous]

I did. I just completed a stint in the AAA industry - which was great. But we were thinking of having a baby and buying a house soon. Two very big commitments. So while we could take the risk (before those two big ticket items were in place), I set out on my own. Worst case I "check off" an item on the bucket-list, but I'm hoping I can at least make minimum wage at this and call it a "job".

I first meant to make 3 games in 6 months. And quickly changed that to 1 game in 9-ish months. I'm having a blast doing it every day, it just feels really awkward to rely solely on the wife to provide for us - but we are making it work. Thank god I married an Amazing woman!

Similar situation here. I have called it wifefunding the game 

[Sik]

Gonna run out of money soon though!

Yeah, this is pretty much the main reason to not quit your job, even if you have savings (I have yet to see somebody who did it thinking their savings would help and actually have the savings last long enough). You pretty much need to be able to get money from somewhere else if you pretend things to work.

An implication of that last sentence though, if there's somebody else at home that has a job, then the idea becomes a lot more feasible (you'll need to tighten your expenses, but at least you'll still have a good chance at surviving).

[Dinomaniak]

There are other options - for example to do what we're doing for a while - while being indie, one may also complete "freelance" or "contract" work. Meaning - build mobile or web games for certain/specific clients. You can do this using flash/haxe/html 5/unity. We've been doing it since 2009 and built over 50 games which allowed us to survive and now we've got enough funding to build our own game, however we're still caught in a few projects before we go ahead with everything.

Securing a second source of income outside of being indie has been our priority - so we can do what we love to do (GAMES !) without having to hinder under financial necessities... and if we manage to complete our plans, and if they will be successful, that would be amazing. Well, time will tell. All in all, securing a second option to find funds is always good.