This read resonates with me strongly. Especially that David Foster Wallace quote, about the sacrifices to get very good at one particular thing.
After my last job, I decided to go all in on the childhood dream as an indie game maker. I knew that most fail.
I had reasons to believe that I wouldn't. Revulsion with company feudalism made it enough.
I'm a year in. My tweets about my progress are in the top 10% among indie gamedevs on twitter.. Wishlist heuristics tell me that at release, I'll make about minimum wage(*).
The price in hours to get here has been so high that the economic calculus screams that I should give up.
The prices to self of the "right" way to survive still seem higher.
Hikikomori seem like they jumped out of the boat. They want to live, passive in their dream until the tide pulls them under. I don't think you can live serenely in the dream without acceptance of the tide.
I feel a certain kinship to that, the only difference is that I'm still swimming. How could the outcome ever be different though?
The outcome will be different if I can cobble enough flotsam together to make my own boat. Then I can go sailing with an eye out for the swimmers.
But money is just a tool to enable you to do what you want, so if you already can do what you want and earn enough money to get by, you win, in economic terms?
My hat is off to you, in any case. Especially with the highly competitive indie games markte. There are just so, so many competitors. I am afraid being successful also involves things that many game developers probably won't enjoy that much, like marketing.
Overall it seems likely that you acquire a lot of skills while making the game, though. With the demand for Software Developers still being high, it seems to me the risk is low, as you could always find another job. Of course you can't make back the money you didn't earn. But perhaps you could find a better paid job than before to make up for it.
For now, I wish you success with your game so that you don't have to go back to "standard employment".
Thanks! Yes the marketing is the most challenging part. I happen to enjoy showing my work off, I try to post a video a few times a week on twitter. ( https://twitter.com/LeapJosh )
The finer points of marketing still elude me, but as I come up with things to try I test them. I've written some machine learning models to try and optimize things, no breakthroughs yet.
My game is a creative writing game / text editor where you're a tentacle monster with a magic typewriter. It's called Tentacle Typer. The idea is that you power up machines, activate magic devices, and progress through levels by creatively writing next to things.
You learn different magic spells depending on what genre you're writing in. (horror, love story, something technical -- all different spells)
You use that magic to fight monsters and take on bosses. It also exports txt files. It's pretty weird! :)
After my last job, I decided to go all in on the childhood dream as an indie game maker. I knew that most fail.
I had reasons to believe that I wouldn't. Revulsion with company feudalism made it enough.
I'm a year in. My tweets about my progress are in the top 10% among indie gamedevs on twitter.. Wishlist heuristics tell me that at release, I'll make about minimum wage(*).
The price in hours to get here has been so high that the economic calculus screams that I should give up.
The prices to self of the "right" way to survive still seem higher.
Hikikomori seem like they jumped out of the boat. They want to live, passive in their dream until the tide pulls them under. I don't think you can live serenely in the dream without acceptance of the tide.
I feel a certain kinship to that, the only difference is that I'm still swimming. How could the outcome ever be different though?
The outcome will be different if I can cobble enough flotsam together to make my own boat. Then I can go sailing with an eye out for the swimmers.