I don''t know... leaving my job as a "regular" developer and becoming a game developer has worked out quite well so far. I even got a raise in the process.

Now probably isn''t the best time to try to make it on your own, but there are still established game developers that are stable that you could try to work for.

There is no possibility of making a successful living by selling one''s own games then ? What''s the point of selling budget games ? The only way into a game development company if you''re out of university or leaving another job is to become an expendable peon. And who wants to be the expendable peon of a game development company ? And let''s not even begin to discuss the pay game developers receive. It''s a pity really because to many people it would be an occupation they really enjoyed (myself for instance). Is it possible that the XBox, slated by all, may actually save the wannabe ? I doubt it, because if anybody wants to use the full capabilities of that beauty, they will need commercial level funding and infrastructure behind them to produce the level of graphical and audio content necessary to sell in today''s artificial market. It''s a harsh world. Then again, if one has the right contacts within a particular company, be it developer or publisher, the story may be different, but that''s a special case.

ach well.

r.

This is a difficult topic.Making money is certainly possible.Making a living ? Perhaps.Some people can, some not.Sometimes it's a matter of chance (sometimes not).It is true that the industry is heading for a crisis.But perhaps that will mean that indie games will become popular again.They're cheaper to create (and buy) and they have better gameplay.As the internet evolves and more and more people buy things on-line, indie games might just prove to be the future of gaming.Or perhaps they will become something like the indie movie scene (it's already beginning to show, in fact, but it's not enough yet).Think of Spiderweb Software.They became big when they made the Exile games during the RPG drought.Perhaps indie games will become something big during the big-company-games drought.


Jonas Kyratzes - Progressive Design
"God is silent. Now if only man would shut up." - Woody Allen


Edited by - runemaster on August 23, 2001 5:43:11 PM

Talking about X-Box Development, the creator of Blitz Basic for the PC asked Microsoft if he could port the langauge over to the X-BOX, but Microsoft refused to let him because they wanted developers to use their Visual C++ package. Blitz Basic is a really fast compiled language, and it is easy to create commercial quality games with it, but in a fraction of the time that it would take to create the equivalent with C++. It is said that the next version, Blitz3D, will be compile code to run at the same speed as if they were written in C++. By using Blitz, it would be very easy for an independent developer to write games which were of the same quality of commerical developer games. I say that we should all get onto Microsoft and get them to enable Blitz to be ported to the X-Box. Who''s in for a boycott of the X-Box?

To those saying the industry is headed for a crisis. Says who? What crisis?

I think there is too much focus on making money at this. Its like the Hollywood mainstream here. They think too much about making money and not about making movies. Thats why the movies are mostly crud. Making games is an artform and as such you should forget about whether you are going to make a fortune or not and focus on the task at hand. If you can't make money at it then do it in your spare time. If you don't enjoy it enough to do it your free time then you shouldn't be making games anyway.

Hope this doesn't start a flame war...

Edited by - Davaris on August 24, 2001 7:29:19 PM

Supply and demand, supply and demand my friends That''s all I have to say.

As much as some people like to say its all in the fun, its not fun if you can''t find a decent pay and make a living. I mean, if I wanted a 10,000 dollar a year job I would work at shoprite as a cashier. If programming only paid 10,000 a year, who in the right mind would work at it? I dont care who you are, and how you say its all in the fun, if you dont have enough money to support yourself, then there is no point of doing a hard job. I mean, I know programmer dont get paid that little, but if you make games like by yourself andthen try to get them to a publisher, then thats about what your making if your lucky. Its fun when you have a team you can joke with, and your getting paid 1000 dollars an hour though right?
Its like this:
"its all fun and games until someone loses an eye..."

lol. I am not a working guy so I dont have much to say, but I cant agree with people who say its all about fun. Luckily, I am not living on my own and still supported by the fact I am under 18, so i dont have to worry about that, so for me its fun. But not for a 35 year old guy with a wife and 2 kids making 50 k a year. Ya know?

I agree with the above anomous poster.

I dont know about you guys n gals, but for me, making games is addictive. That is to say, whenever I''m meant to be working on some non-gaming code, I always end up returning to the game code to implement this cool idea I just came up with. This presents me with a dilemma, i.e. I am spending far too much time coding than I would like to (not that I like coding, just that I would so much prefer to code something motivational). And when I''m not coding, I can barely stop thinking about new ideas and optimisation techniques etc. Yet the pay really sucks to be a game developer (for the first few years anyway), and if I can earn twice as much writing boring code, why bother switching ? Game development in the real world is more stressful than any other type of coding anyhow.