Why Game Developers Go Rogue

cliffski writes "Jay Barnson interviews the new crop of indie game developers. How could anybody abandon the steady paychecks, access to the best tools and engines, large teams of skilled colleagues and the glory of working on one of next holiday season's blockbusters for a chance to labor in relative obscurity on tiny, niche titles? Steven Peeler was a senior programmer at Ritual Entertainment. For him, leaving and forming the one-man studio Soldak Entertainment came down to a desire for creative freedom. 'I really wanted to work on an RPG, and Ritual only made shooters,' he says. 'There were some annoying politics going on that was really frustrating, I disagreed with the direction the company was taking, I was really tired of pushy publishers and I just wanted to do my own thing.'"

Comments

Mostly lack of business acumen

[BadAnalogyGuy]

You can be the greatest programmer in the world, but until the realities of the market are well understood, you're going to be starving.

The fact of the matter is that very few independent programmers make it big. Those that do either got lucky or had a good understanding of business. It's easy to go off on your own and create what you want, but it's a completely different thing to garner interest in the product and sell it for a profit.

The reason why game developers "go rogue" is because they are inherently a seat-of-the-pants type personality who see personal pleasure and freedom as the highest attainable goals. While those are fine goals, without a solid business understanding, those goals area farther away from the independent game developer than if they stayed at a large employer.

Re:W2 = loser, 1099 = winner

[dada21]

Rycross:

I established a S-corporation, which is basically a corporate entity where the profits and losses flow to and from the shareholders. Eventually I had multiple S-corps, so I incorporated a C-corp holding company for certain assets which I lease back to my S-corps.

Finding gigs is the hardest part, but if you've saved a few years of expenses (and everyone should), you can generally find work fairly quickly. The key is to be prepared to travel, if necessary, and pound the pavement to get those first gigs. Once you're in with a few businesses, word-of-mouth does its job. I'd save that 80% of my new clients are referred by old clients, who get a nice reward for the referral.

Starting out initially is the big scare, but it can be done while you're working your W2 "job." There are MANY organizations who need some simple needs, and are great stepping stones to securing better work (and higher paying work) once you've cut your teeth. Every day I see another opportunity for someone with even basic skills in a variety of markets. If I could clone myself, I'd be a billionaire. Note that I do not advocate self-employment for money reasons primarily, I advocate them for job stability and happiness. It boils down to the "all your eggs in one employment basket" feeling I have: when you have many customers, you have more time to handle your own desires, and have a bit more stability if you can enter various industries and markets so you're not tied to one market that may have its own ups and downs.

Feel free to email me and ask some questions.