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So summer is here and I'm on a 3 week break from school. For the past few months, I've been scouring craigslist, trying to pick up gigs as a graphic designer, game tester, and even a restaurant server (those are all areas I have previous work experience in)... Well, no matter how professionally I present myself or hard I try, I simply cannot seem to find any work right now. I've had to ask my parents more than once to help me, and they aren't really in the financial position to be doing it. Being that I live in San Francisco (the second most expensive city in the US) doesn't really help, either.

I don't have a job, and my primary source of income is via student loan refund checks that are putting me into massive debt... and they're barely enough to get me through each quarter. In fact, my refund checks cover rent & bills, leaving me with about $200 a month to spend on food, which isn't quite enough. I consider myself somewhat talented, quite professional, and very hard-working, yet for the life of me I simply cannot find work. And while designing indie games is what I love, there is absolutely no money to be made in it for me.

So I'm just wondering how many other people are in the same boat and how they survive. I need tips on what I can do to make ends meet while I finish school and find time to spend on what I really love, which is game making. I need to know websites where I can apply for gigs in my field of experience, or tips on how to turn my passion for indie game design into real revenue. Any help on the matter would be immensely appreciated. I don't know how much longer I can do this...

People occasionally arrange contract gamedev work on the indiegamer forums (http://forums.indiegamer.com/). Have you tried there?

you can also try this:

http://www.elance.com/

but if you're asking how indies survive, most don't. the few that do have been in the business for many years and are very business-oriented, spending as much time marketing as making games

gaming casinos free of state regulation; some of them have their own mickey mouse athletic commissions and whatever but really its all about a new market (an illicit one) rather than diverting from others

Thanks for the feedback guys, I haven't tried those forums but I will definitely check them out!

Paul, that's really unfortunate because I think a lot of artists and designers don't really know much about business or marketing. As for me, I don't know anything about it. Can the fundamentals be self-taught or does it require a degree?

Craigslist and other websites are useless for getting jobs. No exceptions.

You have to go into shops, ask at the counter if they've got positions, track down businesses in the area, hand CVs in, phone them up and act like you really really want a job. Even if they have no positions going, you apply anyway incase one appears and they remember your enthusiasm.

I spent over a year trying to find work. I ended up in a shit fulltime job for several months with no time for anything else, but I saved up a lot of money. Then the recession came and a much less painful part-time position at a supermarket practically leapt at me whilst everyone else was losing their job. Oh irony.

So I now work average 4 hours a day then come home and develop my game. If I can deliver and make money, I'll start another one and try to improve on what I'm learning this time, making a name for myself. If I don't make any money by game 3 then I should probably start looking for another field of work, lol.


You're going to have to do a shit job that you hate for a while. This is very likely. If you want to try and develop and publish a game yourself you have to be confident that you can do it within a time limit and that you can...well, do it. If you want to join the games industry (indie or otherwise) then it's best to take a course in your favourite part of game development (programming, art, etc.), build a portfolio in your spare time and then track down game dev businesses in the area or further if you're prepared to move (but you can look in the internet for game dev businesses. As long as you go to their official websites and contact them directly, NOT craigslist), hand CVs in, phone them up and act like you really really want a job.

So same as before, only second time round it'll be for something you actually do want.

it's usually self-taught, as far as i know. it's not difficult, just time-consuming. if you don't particularly like it you could always join up with an someone else who doesn't mind it, or you could try creating games for the consoles or iphone or Flash, they operate under different business models and aren't as reliant on the developer marketing their own games as PC shareware is

yesfish, that's very sound advice... As much as I don't want to have to suck it up and apply for "ordinary" jobs, it might be what I have to do. I just figured that by this point with being credited for QA in a few games as well as having a somewhat decent portfolio I could do a little better than cashier at Walgreens :(

Paul, I'd love to develop for iPhone or XBox, but at the same time I'm not too sure if I could find the time or energy to learn XNA scripting, so finding a partner would be very ideal for me. Problem is, I'm just not sure where to find someone like that. I know there's a team request thread somewhere on here, but it seems like it would be more beneficial to have an actual team request board.

I courteously disagree with all of this advice. :gentleman:

Paul, you have a three week break between school, I'm not sure you'll be able to even find something in that three weeks. Are you looking for side work while you're in school as well?

Get a day job.

Just get outside and ask around. Trim gardens, babysit, chop firewood for the money. Ask your friends, colleagues etc. - especially those that work part time - how can they get some work to do and get paid.

Sell all your shit and move to China.

I am funding Snapshot development via part time job. :I

Sell your body to prostitution.

Or work at McDonalds until you can find a good job. A crappy job is better than no job.

This.

I'm planning to go to law school and make indie games on the five days out of the week  I don't have to go to work.

Exception 1: I found the game industry job I have right now from a craigslist ad. It is not a very sexy job (backend tools programming) but it's a job, pays the going rate, and is in the industry.

Exception 2: I scored several interviews after submitting CVs on careerbuilder.com and several other sites. One of them was a game company.

Maybe I'm an exception because I have marketable job skills, and you can't really walk up and submit your CV in person when you a) don't know the company exists, or b) they are hidden somewhere in an office park, behind locked doors, and don't post their address because they don't want random people visiting.


To the OP: Yeah, get a day job. Eventually you might be able to sell a game that would let you take the first step, but as said before, full-time indies tend to be people who have been around awhile and really know the business side. You've got to follow up a success with more successes.

Okay I totally understand where you are right now. I am also a student at a college near Los Angeles working on my degree in music theory & composition. I also live on student loans and am fortunate enough to have a wife and two kids. Needless to say it becomes quite a strain to keep expenses at an absolute minimum and even at that know you are digging a hole of debt. I spent two years working a job full-time, attending college full-time, and trying to get it some extra composing time before it worked out that I could live off loans and try to make a career in video game audio.

I know that there are differences between developing games and writing music but we are both interested in making it in the game industry. I've found that the biggest thing you can do is buckle down and do the work and do a lot of it and do it well. Stretch some boundaries and make people take notice of you. Granted I've just begun that but it is beginning to pay off. You seem to have a great portfolio going for you and I would think you have a great start to an indie career.

Marketing IS the big part. On my end I might receive one small job for 15-20 rejections. That's just the way it is. For a developer a website, posting on many different forums, entering competitions, GDC, and plenty of other things would need to be pursued regularly. Having a killer game to go along with these things will make it pay off for you. All this is assuming you are interested in the indie track.

I also made the decision between debt and a job. I decided that this is the time for me to work on establishing a career I would love so I'm taking the plunge. The hope is that I'll be able to make it when my college career finally comes to an end and I reenter the real world. It may be different for you but for me this will make everything else worthwhile.

Hope that maybe this helps. If you want to ask any specific questions pm me.

And another link: Gamedev.net (http://www.gamdev.net) Check out their help wanted forum for possible jobs. They are posted pretty regularly.

The difficulty with these skills is that they're not sufficiently scarce. Even if you're slightly better at stuff than the competition that doesn't help if the vast pool of applicants has already sucked up all the jobs.

Is graphic designer your professional/academic field, or is it a sideline for you? If the former, get used to being poor. (No, that isn't me being nasty, a couple of my friends are designers.)

Thing is, there is another way into indie game development. Get a day job that pays well and live well below your means, then you'll be able to gradually buy back your working life until you can afford to spend time on games exclusively. It's a slow process, of course, but it has the advantage of being fairly reliable. And in the meantime you can still do game stuff across evenings and weekends if you're dedicated enough. You didn't want a life, did you? ;-)

I survive by working construction and any odd job I can find.

I would *love* to work a computer-related job, but I always get turned down.  Apparently not having experience is anathema to the hiring process.

The sad thing is that I probably do more computer-related work at home than I would ever do in any such job.

In my view developing indie games is a secondary business on top of my main job which is working for game developers. If I make money out of it then that is a bonus :)

So they only want guys with experience, how do they expect new people to enter the industry then? One day everyone with experience will have retired and they'll have no one left.


Okay so there are exceptions XP.


I left a college (UK college) with a diploma in all round computing (office, programming, hardware, business, etc.) I spent the following year applying to over 200 jobs (The benefits center was keeping count) through sites online, ads in papers, whatever the benefits center gave me and anything that came up. Applied for computer work, office work and everything else I felt capable of.

Total interviews: 0

Eventually the center sent me on a job-seeking course. My last post is basically repeating what they told me. After a week on the course I got a job at a supermarket (and I'd applied to supermarkets before the 'normal' way but got turned down).

So! Either there's a conspiracy against me where the entire county refuses to imploy me even though I'm plenty qualified!

Or, occams razor- The job course guys were right. : p

Yeah, I hear ya.  I took a job-training course a few years ago and did exactly as they instructed.  I did manage to get a couple of interviews, but it always fell through.

After that, I decided to open my own business.  The economy decided to kick me in the ass.  So now I'm without a job AND I'm in a worse situation than before.

Fun stuff.  :shrug2:

You have discovered the fundamental paradox of "the industry!"  Congratulations!

The problem is that game development is like hollywood, or probably any other entertainment industry:  It is high profile, and lots of people are exposed to the end result.  (i. e. games/movies/etc)  As a result, LOTS of people say "I bet I could do that, and it would be fun!" and apply (largely under the mistaken belief that since they like to play games/watch movies, making them will be easy, but that's a topic for another rant), so prospective employers enjoy the luxury of being able to wait for a candidate that they feel REALLY like.

The good news is that if you can get a job in the industry, you usually have "got your break" and can parlay that into other jobs with much less trouble.  The first one is the hardest!

Some tricks that have worked for me or people I know:

• Network!  Like for real.  Get to know people who program games for a living.  Find out where they hang out!  Stalk them!  Or at least try to become friends with them?  If you can get to know some people in the general line of work you want to be in, this will help you in a couple of ways.  First off, it will help give you a more realistic impression of exactly what the job entails.  (Since they'll gripe about it a lot. :P)  Second, they're likely to know of openings in their field that you may not.  And if you are applying to a company where someone already knows you, you are miles ahead of random shmucks applying off the street.  If you need help finding people near you who work in games, try hitting forums, conventions (GDC is a great one if you can afford to go) and your local IGDA chapter.
• Make your own experience  So the jerks won't hire you without experience?  Build your own!  Participate in an open source project.  Make a game of your own on the side.  Do SOMETHING that demonstrates to them that you are serious about this, and what you are capable of.  Even if you just write your own interpretation of Pong, that is still probably better than most other people who apply.  And I can tell you from being on the hiring end from time to time, someone with a game or pet project under their belt is MUCH more appealing than random job-seeking resume #341.
• Get related experience Want to be a game programmer/artist/whatever, but can't get in?  Find some other place that will hire you to be a programmer/artist/whatever, and then keep an eye out on the game job market.  It is much easier to get a job game programming if you have experience demonstrating that you know how to program.
  
• Get a foot in the door Closely related to the above - try to get some kind of job at a company that makes games, even if it isn't what you want.  Heck, even QA tester is better than nothing.  It won't pay well, and the hours will suck and the job will suck, but you'll start getting a chance to meet people who make games, (see networking, above) and will have a better shot at moving into something closer to what you want than if you were coming in from the outside.  (Companies would almost always rather fill a position with someone they know they can work with, than with some random person off the street who they only know from an interview or two.)
  

I realize these will sound cliched.  You have probably even heard many of them before!  If so, it is because they are, I think, good advice.

Best of luck!

-Montoli

I have a day job... 40 hours a week doing programming. Not exactly game development, but it still helps me learn skills relevant to doing game programming. I'll keep doing this until it comes a point where indie games make me more money than my day job.

Depending on how much you love your lifestyle and how much you want money, don't forget about the whole concept of lowering your expenses.

By cooking my own food, using a u-brew, finding cheap rent, and cancelling most of my bills (no TV!), and selling the car/taking the bus, I went from requiring $2.5K/mo to just over $600/mo.

Respectfully, of course - you could already be doing all of this. I'm just shocked at how many people say "You cook your own food?"

Heh.  I live in a small place out in the boonies.  As you can imagine, the rent is near non-existent.  Plus I have phone+internet+electricity bills and that's it. 

I pay maybe... $300 a month?  Since any part-time work I do makes me well in the thousands, I don't actually need to work much to keep myself alive. 

Of course on the downside, I basically live on a farm in the middle of nowhere.  There aren't any gamers out here, much less indie gamers.

Come to think of it, me posting on this forum is the most social interaction I have.  Indeed, I lead a hermit's life.

Well then! You have that based covered better than I (I *needed* to live near a pub) ;)

To partially echo most everyone else:

- I have found work as often as I have found dismal failure on Craigslist. Very 50/50, but not 100% failure as some have indicated.
- I have had nothing but success going door-to-door (measured on a trip basis).

I'm sure there's a million websites that go through details on how to present yourself well, but be sure you do. You aren't an automaton trying to make a buck - you are a unique person who REALLY WANTS TO WORK THERE. Don't apply at the bakery before you learn what all the products are called, for example!

Or you could crank out a few 48-hour-games and try selling them. :)

I hate the system and how it works, but all of my best jobs were gained from people I know. Join a club, hang out, make some friends, and you'll start seeing opportunities everywhere!