Hi im Nader 22 years old just finished college, I really need your opinion on this.
I worked on this game a year ago hoping on making a career in this feald but then reality hit me and i just gave up on the entire thing, I want to know if I should go back and finish it or just give up on all of this and just go try to find a job with my degree
( btw I live in a third world country and two dollars is equivalent to a normal daily salary here)
I completely understand what you mean and already saw other people saying the same thing but if i did get a job I won't have the time or the energy for a hobby especially for one as demanding as this
so my options are either slave away at an office job at a random company with my computer science degree and be guaranteed to make money or do something I'll be able to enjoy and make stuff that I can be proud of but won't know for sure if it'll ever make me money
the reason I made this post was hoping to see if mabye i have a chance, and by chance I mean that if I finish this game it can sell 5 to 20 copies the cost of 1$ to 5$ i don't really know what the reasonable amount would be, or if im delusional for thinking that
or do something I'll be able to enjoy
I won't have the time or the energy for a hobby especially for one as demanding as this
Did not sound to me, as you enjoy creating games. If you were enthusiastic about it, you would just finish the game and not ask for advice on the internet if you should do it.
You seem to make something like that:
/games/top-sellers/tag-roguelike/tag-top-down-shooter
If you filter for paid, you will see, that only 60 of those 80 games ever sold anything.
To guess how many sales were made, you might look at the ratings and the followers. You can also guess by looking at /games/on-sale . That will not tell you how many sales the game makes overall, but it will tell you a general magnitude.
So, you should be able to guess what a hypothetical game might generate. Just look at a similar game. The problem is, that you do not know if you would be able to create such a game. And more importantly, if you would be able to successfully market it to the people willing to pay for the game. The market for games is saturated. Creating a game is not enough.
If you have never created a game, you do not even know if you can do it. That is not a textbook homework in coding. Even if you toiled away for months from morning to night, the result might be ... just not be any good. At least not in a way, that people would be willing to pay for it.
You are on Itch. Have a look at game jams. And finish a few games, before you decide to try doing this full time. Or even as a hobby. You did not even finish your first game. That really does not sound to me, like you really enjoy game making.
I did enjoy working on it but still it was a hassle and there's so many other things I enjoy more that I rather be doing but I 1000% would rather be making games then working an office job even if I'll be making alot less money but the question is if I'll be making money at all
and I get what you mean I know that i shouldn't be even thinking about making money before I finished multiple games and I know that im not special and that im even still in the 80% of people that haven't even finished a game but im at the age and point in my life where I need to have an income source of any kind, bec life won't wait for my ass to keep experimenting and trying new things, I was just hoping to find something i can do for a living that won't make me hate me life
Well. Most people on Itch are hobby developers and struggling developers. The people that make enough money to have this as their full time job are rarely talking in this message board.
And game developer is basically an office job. Even if you work from home, because you have no office, because you are unemployed self employed.
I suggest you try reading about experiences of non indie game developers. Not about success stories of small developers gone viral. I talk about the regular people that are employed by medium to big game studios. I would guess their work is just about the same as that of any other person that works in an office on a computer.
I'm going to be very honest. Living independently usually requires many more hours and energy than an office job. The mistake many people make is thinking they'll develop a fun hobby and that it will turn into money. When you really want to earn money, that hobby usually becomes a job, and a more demanding one at that.
I don't know what country you live in, but generally, if you're self-employed and you don't want to work one week, no one is going to cover those hours. That's money you'll lose, it's that simple. And when you have to force yourself to work and meet goals and deadlines, you lose a lot of the fun.
Some people have no problem with that and are happy doing what they do, but it depends on the person. In my experience, if you have to ask around, chances are you're not that type.
If you really want me to tell you something... So, you should know that video games are an ultra-saturated market, full of people like you (and with the arrival of AI, the number of independent developers has skyrocketed) who are creating their games with the intention of making a living from it. The harsh reality is that for every success story, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of failures.
As others have mentioned, it's a lottery. But you're young and you have time to try.
thank you for being honest.
but i don't really think so, for a normal job takes 8 hours a day for example, I will have to spend these 8 hours there even if there isn't anything to do I'll have to waste those 8 hours there regardless, but working alone i could get so much stuff done in like 3 hours and take the rest of the day off if I want it all depends on me
I live in egypt and idk if things work differently in other countries but if i don't go for a week i wouldn't get paid for it, i worked once in a place kinda similar to an internet cafe didn't have the weekends off and was only allowed 3 days a month that I can not go and would still get paid
and yeah maybe idk, sorry I've just been spending too much time in my own head I wanted to get anyone else's opinion other then my own
I understand how saturated the market is and thinking about it is what made me lose motivation to work on my game but I can't think of anything else that I can do for a living that won't make me want to stop living
and I don't really know about me being young, my parents makes it seem like my life is over if I don't start making money right this second, they really want me to start saving up so in the future I'll be able to start a family
thanks! yeah it's really bothering me to leave it like that, i feel like i should at least finish this one if nothing else
before anything thank you for your reply I appreciate it, it's really helpful
when you say that I shouldn't do indie game dev as a job do you mean at all or just at my current skill level? and why would I need funds if im doing everything myself would it be like for marketing? and when it comes to coming up with ideas that's the only thing im confident in but the problem is that good ideas are completely useless without the skills to execute them properly
and yeah i get it, everyone seems to to think that I don't understand how low my chances are but I do, I know how hard it is to get people online to look at what you're putting in front of them, like im really surpassed on how much attention this post gut, I thought at most I would get two replies in three days after posting it and that would be it I didn't expect that many people to give me their opinion
I don't think there's even any game studios here so unless I can work for a studio over seas online I don't think that's even an option and im not really confident enough in doing scripting & programming service to others
so what i think I'll do is just keep working on my game until it's the best it can get and then try to share it every where i can and if it got a couple of downloads that should give me confident enough to go all in and I'll start doing game jams to improve my skills before moving to work on a bigger game but if it didn't get any downloads I think I'll just give up on this whole thing well look for a job here and probably won't touch godot again
(sorry if im yapping too much)
yeah sorry my degree name translated word for word is "Administrative Systems and Information" i just say computer science bec it's the closest thing that people would understand in english, and when it comes to programming they barley taught us the basics of a couple of programming languages, and i don't understand what're you getting so pressed about i guess there is a couple of shity studios that make AI games here, that doesn't really change anything
and I don't know the definition of the word job but personally I would call anything that make you money when you put effort in, i would call that a job, and when i said my skill level yes I was talking about my nonexistent one, again i don't know why are you nitpicking my words when you know english isn't my first language
I think my game is already small is it not? if I got it smaller then this i don't think I'll be able to make it something I'll be happy with, everything takes so much time to do but that's probably just because im learning while working on it
Idk why you're being so aggressive but I really appreciate your input nonetheless
just say computer science bec it's the closest thing that people would understand in english, and when it comes to programming they barley taught us the basics of a couple of programming languages
It changes your starting point a bit, for any type of advice. If people think you have a degree in basically software development, they might think, you can create apps, but just have no formal training in game design.
Having game development as a hobby is healthy. It is creative and should be fun. The "problem" is, that people that do this, call themselves indie game developer. But this is not accurate. They are hobby game developers. Maybe this is a language thing. I am not English native speaker either. The qualifier in front of game developer gives information about the professionality aspect.
To be indie means, you are a professional, but are not dependent on investors. But you are still a professional. And that means, this is the job you do to pay your living expenses. And that means, the games you create are published and are selling well enough.
As a side note, this is why it was a sign of quality, if a game on Steam is tagged indie. At least some years ago. It meant that the game was good enough to be recognised and successful, despite lack of investors funding the game. Now I have the impression it is either ignored, or is used to denote a low quality game.
I did not mean you should make a small game. I meant the commitment. Do not invest all your time into this, while ignoring regular jobs. People can and do this as a hobby, so why would you not also be able to.
You have currently none of those office jobs you dread. So kickstart your game development career by creating a game or three, while you seek for a job.
Once you have a regular income, you switch your game development to 1/10th of the time commitment. Like a day per week or a few hours to relax after office work.
See it as testing a hypothesis. Your hypothesis is, that you will be able to make money from game development. Enough money to consider this your job. If the hypothesis holds true, you should also be able to make less money with less time commited over a longer period of time. And only if the hypothesis is proven, you are in a position to consider quitting your regular job and focus on game development.
Maybe you do get lucky and become an indie game developer. Not in the hobby sense or in the sense of an unemployed game developer, but in the professional sense.
