There are a few decisions that one needs to take after graduation or whenever they're ready to enter the life of making money to sustain yourself. One of these decisions is deciding to work for yourself as an independent person or opting to work for a company. After evaluating the pros and cons of each, you decide you want to go the independent route because you value your freedom. But then you wonder if you have responsibilities or things to pay for, are you going to be okay or will you be starving for the rest of your life. Let me tell you... You will be starving, so get ready for it now.
What you want is what you get
Haha no! It's really not black and white and even less pessimistic like that. There are a lot of factors that will influence your income as an indie game dev as well as your approach. As we know, there are multiple roads to success, and there's not one that is objectively better than another. It will mostly depend on your lifestyle, your goals and your situation. If, for example, you choose the path where you aim for funding before really diving into your project, the beginning will be slow and you might be eating ramen noodles during that time frame but once you get the funds, you should be able to go back to your regular lifestyle. You might say that it sounds unrealistic to put your life on hold while you look for funding as you're not even sure you'll even ever get anything. To that I say, that can be said for any investment in life. You have to sacrifice something in order to have something greater in the future, but you first have to believe that you'll get it. Obviously, some sacrifices are bigger than others and may not be worth doing but that's really up to you to decide whether that risk/reward is worth for you in your situation.
There are different funds you can go after
Also, there are so many ways to get money. Outside of government grants that would be ideal most of the time, you could also go for private grants (private companies trying to invest in their local communities for example), private investors, VC funds, partnerships, sponsorships, game dev pitch competitions, etc. One mentor once told me, if you really need the money, you'll find a way to get it, you just have to get creative sometimes and it will probably be harder than you would've expected. In that case, when you get the money, maybe from different partners, you can hone in on your project full time without having to worry about your financials or very much less than before, which could be a major stress relieve.
You don't have to depend on other people too
If you decide not to go that, there's always the bootstrapping method and gathering up all that you save and put it aside in order to give yourself time to make the game. During that time, you'll then live off of your savings in hopes that your game will bring you enough revenue to rinse and repeat the year after. The amount of money you'll make on this is highly dependent on your savings and how much money you make with your game. I've known game developers that were doing this and were able to rack over 80k to 100k/year working on their independent game every one or two years.
Lastly, you could also keep a part-time job if you're scared to not make end's meet while you're building your new studio or game.
I hope I didn't miss any other ways, and if I did, please let me know in the forum section!
If you liked this post, make sure to leave a like! :D
What you want is what you get
Haha no! It's really not black and white and even less pessimistic like that. There are a lot of factors that will influence your income as an indie game dev as well as your approach. As we know, there are multiple roads to success, and there's not one that is objectively better than another. It will mostly depend on your lifestyle, your goals and your situation. If, for example, you choose the path where you aim for funding before really diving into your project, the beginning will be slow and you might be eating ramen noodles during that time frame but once you get the funds, you should be able to go back to your regular lifestyle. You might say that it sounds unrealistic to put your life on hold while you look for funding as you're not even sure you'll even ever get anything. To that I say, that can be said for any investment in life. You have to sacrifice something in order to have something greater in the future, but you first have to believe that you'll get it. Obviously, some sacrifices are bigger than others and may not be worth doing but that's really up to you to decide whether that risk/reward is worth for you in your situation.
There are different funds you can go after
Also, there are so many ways to get money. Outside of government grants that would be ideal most of the time, you could also go for private grants (private companies trying to invest in their local communities for example), private investors, VC funds, partnerships, sponsorships, game dev pitch competitions, etc. One mentor once told me, if you really need the money, you'll find a way to get it, you just have to get creative sometimes and it will probably be harder than you would've expected. In that case, when you get the money, maybe from different partners, you can hone in on your project full time without having to worry about your financials or very much less than before, which could be a major stress relieve.
You don't have to depend on other people too
If you decide not to go that, there's always the bootstrapping method and gathering up all that you save and put it aside in order to give yourself time to make the game. During that time, you'll then live off of your savings in hopes that your game will bring you enough revenue to rinse and repeat the year after. The amount of money you'll make on this is highly dependent on your savings and how much money you make with your game. I've known game developers that were doing this and were able to rack over 80k to 100k/year working on their independent game every one or two years.
Lastly, you could also keep a part-time job if you're scared to not make end's meet while you're building your new studio or game.
I hope I didn't miss any other ways, and if I did, please let me know in the forum section!
If you liked this post, make sure to leave a like! :D