Going Indie! Going Indie! Going Indie! - Thank god!

#1

Quote:
Gonna go indie forever and be happy

You're doing it wrong ... :P

Is there some sort of "plan" attached to this wild 4:30am, possibly alcohol derived announcement? You know the type:
1. Make game that's a bit like xxx in the genre of yyy.
2. ?????
3. Profit!

#2 If only it were that easy, but I do wish you well.

#3 Good luck, Sean.

#4 Like anything, you have to start somewhere, and go from there, but don't give up until you get something finished :) even if it takes you another 7 years!

#5 A wild announcement is what it has turned out to be with no plan; brought on by the late night, tiredness and caffeine. Seemed like the right thing to do at the time. Can't believe I done it but I did.

Just learned the benefits of silence and patience, now I know why being humble is trait that many people who are more productive than myself possess.

Cheers for advice, well wishings, patience and reality check...

#6 Yeah, Indiiiie!!!111oneone

Quote:and reality check...

Reality AND video-games?!? Sounds like two jobs. Why bother with reality when you can double-jump, dash and trigger slow-motion?

#7 I am 44, I have worked... oh about 10 to 15 different jobs in my life so far. My favorites were Security Officer at a power plant, dispatcher, security supervisor at a racing facillity, programmer for a media company, manager of a salvage store, auto body at a corvette dealership, residential construction, summer labor job at a tree/plant nursery, Mr. Mom and home schooling parent to my three kids for the last 8 years(who are now in college but still live at home).

Though my jobs working for someone else, jumping through hoops and being dumpted on even when I did what was right were hard on me. They still were my favorite jobs. Now I owned my own company for the last 4 years. So even though it was not building games, it was computer related and I was an indie. But in some ways it was the worst I ever had.

The reason is even if you are your own boss, you bear the brunt of mess ups, you are still jumping through hoops for someone else and failures of getting through anyone of all of the hoops you need to jump through in a given day or week could be devistating. Sometimes enough to put you out of business.

Now what I have going for me is God really loves me and gave me a wife that wants to help me do what ever I want. Even if that means close the doors on my company, sit in my new office at home (Front Portch Studio) and give a throw at selling products derived from thought.

If you do not have someone to pay the bills, feed you and give you a place to plug in your computer.... well indie is going to be a hard road to walk.

Remember I said God really loves me? Well my one son and daughter are my programmers and my other son is my 3D modeler and networking guy and that wife that loves me so much pays the bills and encourages us to keep pressing on. My daughter also works and is going for her BS in education. She has an AA and AS in Management, so does my wife. My sons are in college for Programming and Information Technology. They all went to college with the understading we would give a go at having our own game development company. While in highschool they got A+ IT, MCDST, MCP and OSHA certifications.

Even with someone willing to pay the bills for as long as it takes and three dedicated people willing to go to college and willing to if need be take part time jobs to support this. Stay at home and sacrifice relationships. It was still undertaken with a lot of prayer, thinking, pondering and calculating if we would all be willing to stick to it. I think we discussed it many times over several years before doing it.

One year in and then switching from Unity3D to Torque 3D, we are just getting to the place of feeling like we are making ground again. Working around everyones college and learniing a new game engine has been a challenge but we keep pressing on. We actually left Unity3D without a replacment engine and T3D was there a few weeks later for $99 a license. I did not like MS Visual C# and Torsion was there for $19.

Patients has always payed off for us. If I could give one bit of advice it would be that no one person on a project is most important. What is most important is treating each other the way we would like to be treated in any given situation. Even if you are the only one doing your project, the people on the forums you get help from are more important than you.

#8 @Alexander

Cheers...

@Daniel

That has really hit home....

#9 @Daniel - But you never gave up! And if you did once in a while, you got back on track at the end.

#10 As you can see, most people will tell you it's not worth it and maybe they have points. I hear there are easier ways to make money and have your own business. But if you can manage not to let them talk you out of it, it could end up being for you. Nothing is impossible, there are people who have and continue to do it. Just takes a lot of hard work and constant learning. You will have to make sacrifices and probably write code until your eyes bleed. If that sounds like fun maybe it's for you. I can't believe how much code I wrote and how many hours I've spent with TGB and I'm still a ways away from having my first finished game. Though I can't afford to do this full time, as I need to have a social life and a day job. If you don't need those, consider yourself lucky and maybe you should jump into full time game development while you can.

#11 Apologies for late reply, moving house.

Despite some part of my brain telling me that I am insane for pursuing the indie dream because of those universal realities, the appeal and drive is still there burning away to push through the 'wall'. I guess game development (particularly indie) must be the needed sauce to satisfy this hunger.

Cheers...

All I can say to everyone is, thank you.

#12 Good luck Sean. My dream is similar to yours, to quit my job and go indie one day. Keep us updated with your projects.

#13 Will do Johnny, cheers. ;)