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

Chance to do something different

[Lord_Frederick]

A steady paycheck looks good on paper and many people are perfectly happy working on someone else's ideas for their entire lives. Eventually though, people with a creative streak have to have an outlet or they go insane. Sometimes a part-time hobby is enough, sometimes it means quitting the steady job.

Re:Chance to do something different

[thermian]

Speaking as someone whose done it (not in the games industry, but a similar life changing career move), there can come a time when you'd rather be happy and poor then well off and having to do what someone else says all the time. This is especially true for people of a creative flair.

Besides, if things go well, the period of time with little money will eventually end. Even if not, you won't have that constant feeling of 'I should have done that thing' for years afterwards.
Believe me, that's a killer. I've worked with people who chose the safe path over their dreams, and they tend to be unhappy about it.

In one case, the guy was so openly bitter (in his case about not having risked going to medical college), that he was quite unpleasant to anyone else who talked about taking a chance with their own careers/lives.

For myself, I spent several years perpetually broke, but undeniably happier then I'd been for years. I'm not broke any more, but I'm still happy.

Steady Pay Checks ?

[DCFC]

I'm not sure why anyone refers to employment as a games developer as "steady". They are precarious outfits, pathetically dependant upon "hits" that may or may not come again, until they burn you out and drop you like a stone.

An easy explanation for developers "going rogue" is that the pay is so very very bad that the difference between unemployment and salary whilst you write the code is so small that it is not as hard a decision as in other lines of work.

Piracy and Anti-DRM

[microTodd]

Interesting quote from the article:

"Some of them cloak it all with this thin veneer of 'sticking it to the man' and being 'anti-DRM' and 'anti-big corporations.' Despite me giving a free demo, no DRM, innovative games, at reasonable prices with great tech support from a one-man company, the bastards still rip me off and take my stuff anyway."

So in other words, this guy releases his game with no anti-piracy DRM measures and people still play his game without paying him.

I get into piracy arguments with other folks all the time. They talk about how they want "DRM-free" music, information wants to be free, most modern music is crap anyways, etc. But when it comes down to it, they're just being cheap.

Re:Piracy and Anti-DRM

[thermian]

The problem in that case is that he hasn't got his business model sorted.

If people can take your product and walk without paying, they will, its human nature. If them doing that robs you of your livelihood, then the solution is change the product.

Not DRM, that's a train that goes no place good.

No, the solution would be to have a game with on-line components (even as simple as a score league and competitions with small prizes) that people must be registered users to access. So long as the online componants add value, your users will register and pay.

If not then yours is just another in the sea of games people feel no need to purchase.

Re:W2 = loser, 1099 = winner

[TubeSteak]

Go solo, everyone. Cut the unbilical cord and if you're a hard worker, you'll prosper. Then find about 10 of your previous coworkers, offer them a few bucks more an hour, and bill them out at 5X their pay to not just your old employer but their competitors, too. 3. Profit!

It's called being a contractor and the reason you charge 5x your old salary is because you have to pay your own social security, health insurance, 401K, etc etc etc.

There's a lot more to a W-2 salary than the money in your pocket after taxes.

Why Game Developers Go Rogue

[Dancindan84]

Why do game developers leave big companies to form their own companies? The exact same reasons other professionals leave big companies for their own companies. More breaking news at 10.

Re:Mostly lack of business acumen

[AKAImBatman]

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.

I think you're barking up the wrong tree a bit here. History is chock full of studios founded by programmers, artists, and designers that broke off from their employer to do something interesting. In many cases, it was to escape the employer's risk aversion. i.e. It's not that games other than First Person Shooters don't sell. It's that large companies know that FPSes sell, so they don't want to take a risk on anything else.

The smaller studios, OTOH, have an opportunity to pursue new gaming styles and lines of games that don't have to align with what the big executives THINK will sell. Sometimes they make it big. More often, they manage to prove out the market before being folded back into a larger company. That larger company then sees "hot new opportunities" that didn't exist before. Could the large company have opened up the market to begin with? Sure. But why take the risk when someone else will do it for you?

The end result is that these smaller studios (these days often referred to as "Indies" partly due to the low investment capital needed to start making modern games) make their money in a tried and true business fashion: An exit strategy.

The fact of the matter is that very few independent programmers make it big.

The fact of the matter is that very few small business owners make it big. (Investors like to tout the "90% of small businesses fail" number.) There's nothing inherently different about the gaming sector.

Re:One drawback of indie games: Local multiplayer

[AKAImBatman]

Video game consoles have multiple controllers and a large monitor. But the consoles sold in English-speaking countries have a lockout chip and historically anti-indie policies.

Historically != Modern Approach

* WiiWare
* XBox Live
* PlayStation Network

These are all services that Indies are able to break into these days. For a small investment (free - $600 for XBLA, $2000 for a WiiWare dev kit) you can make your game for one of these consoles, then offer it for download for a small fee.

Case in Point: Defend Your Castle went from a single-player flash game to a local multiplayer title that happens to be the third most popular game on the WiiWare service.

Now if you mean "Indie" to mean "Homebrew", you're barking up the wrong tree. Go get a copy of DevkitPro + a copy of Twilight Princess for the Wii. That will allow you to develop local multiplayer for a console. Another option is to support XBox 360 controllers on Windows PCs. They are designed as USB devices intended for plugging into either a computer or a console. You can then encourage players to purchase these controllers.

Assuming your homebrew title is good enough, that is...

don't get sick -- Re:W2 = loser, 1099 = winner

[Sebastopol]

I have had one W2 job in my life

That speaks for itself. You really have had very little experience, and people should take your anecdotal analysis with a grain of salt. I have had many W2 and 1099 jobs, and in the long run I greatly prefer the stability of W2 jobs, even though I really enjoyed the weird hours, huge paychecks, and random nature of my early contracting jobs.

I'd say try it before you get too old, or at least give moonlighting a shot.

Go solo, everyone.

1099 jobs are great when you are young, healthy, and full of piss and vinegar and can afford to start life over again if you screw up. If you want to go solo over age 30, make damn well sure you have a contingency plan, or are networked and diversified out the yin-yang.

Also, don't get sick! Unless you live in a state that has passed laws allowing groups of people to pool money and buy discount healthcare, you are F-U-C-*-E-D. Once you go on record with a HINT of chronic illness, you will very likely not be able to get insurance. The government mandates that insurance companies sell you insurance if you have a pre-existing condition, but they don't mandate the price. You could very easily could end up requiring to pay $3~5k per month for health insurance.

I'm eternally grateful that W2 companies get such great deals on group health coverage.

Re:Because we can

[twistedsymphony]

It's no different than anyone else who leaves a company to start their own business. Lets play Mad-libs.

Version 1:
"I really wanted to work on Performance Parts, and Auto Parts Company X only made roof-racks and cargo-nets," 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 investors and I just wanted to do my own thing."

Version 2:
"I really wanted to work on graphics apps, and Software Company Y only made custom data management software," 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 clients and I just wanted to do my own thing."

Why should we care just because they're a game developer?

Re:Mostly lack of business acumen

[phrenq]

The fact of the matter is that very few independent programmers make it big.

I think that's exactly the mentality many developers are trying to escape by "going rogue". Many of them would be happy making a modest living, never "making it big", while creating the games they want to make.

There is another article in the same issue of Escapist that describes the history of Kingdom of Loathing. Nobody's getting rich there, but they jobs a ton of game developers would kill to have.

Re:Mostly lack of business acumen

[mcvos]

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.

Another fact of the matter is: independent programmers don't need to make it big. They just need to make a decent living doing what they love, and that's certainly achievable if you know your market well. That last bit is important. You're no longer just a programmer, now you're suddenly also a marketer.