I have been working for four years at an indie development shop (~5 employees). We make war games (www.ezgame.com). About half-way through the development of our first game, we found out that a big publisher was making a game with the same setting and general approach to gameplay as ours. We did finish our game (and eventually got published), but it was very difficult to compete. It is important that your game has features that are different than those found in mainstream games. If two companies are trying to implement a game with the same set of features the bigger budget is much more likely to win out.
One good thing about working at a small shop, though, is that your costs are much lower so you don't have to make nearly as much money to break even.
Small indie developers generally don't want to stay indie. Usually, you will try and make a prototype for a game, then land a publisher to fund the rest of development (which kind of takes you out of the 'indie' category). If you weren't able to find a publisher, that might be a bad sign for your game.
I work as a programmer for "Magitech", a small Canadian game developer. We've been working on a real time strategy game called Takeda for about two years now (you can check it out at www.ezgame.com).
There are plenty of resources all over the web for people who are interested in being a part of the game industry. To name just a few:
www.gamasutra.com (all about making games).
www.gamedev.net (same as above).
www.igda.org (international game developer's association - check for a chapter in your area)
All of these sites have articles about how to get started in the industry (along with a ton of other information about making games). If you want to get started, you could also visit www.sourceforge.net and look for games people are working on there: Often they're looking for help. Finally, if you live in california (or can get there), check out the game developer's conference, they have a job fair every year.
Now i'll describe how I got my job. My boss posted a job listing at my University's career centre (University of Toronto): he was looking for an artist. My art skills are horrible (I'm a programmer, what can I say) but I really wanted to try making games, so I volunteered to help out for free. I made sure to let him know that I could program, and that I'd be willing to do whatever he wanted me to (well, almost.. =). He hired me at just above minimum wage. At the time, I had just finished my first year at school (in comp. sci and math) and had had my first exposure to C/C++. Everything worked out, and now I'm in third year, the game is almost done (we're looking for publishers), and I'm not making minimum wage any more.
The independent games festival really allowed my company/game to get some publicity and attention. We now have 6-7 employees, but for about a year and a half there were only 3 of us. It's not easy to break into the industry, but I don't think i would go so far as to say it's impossible.
Slashdot Mirror
I have been working for four years at an indie development shop (~5 employees). We make war games (www.ezgame.com). About half-way through the development of our first game, we found out that a big publisher was making a game with the same setting and general approach to gameplay as ours. We did finish our game (and eventually got published), but it was very difficult to compete. It is important that your game has features that are different than those found in mainstream games. If two companies are trying to implement a game with the same set of features the bigger budget is much more likely to win out.
One good thing about working at a small shop, though, is that your costs are much lower so you don't have to make nearly as much money to break even.
Small indie developers generally don't want to stay indie. Usually, you will try and make a prototype for a game, then land a publisher to fund the rest of development (which kind of takes you out of the 'indie' category). If you weren't able to find a publisher, that might be a bad sign for your game.
www.ezgame.com/SNH
I work as a programmer for "Magitech", a small Canadian game developer. We've been working on a real time strategy game called Takeda for about two years now (you can check it out at www.ezgame.com).
There are plenty of resources all over the web for people who are interested in being a part of the game industry. To name just a few:
www.gamasutra.com (all about making games).
www.gamedev.net (same as above).
www.igda.org (international game developer's association - check for a chapter in your area)
All of these sites have articles about how to get started in the industry (along with a ton of other information about making games). If you want to get started, you could also visit www.sourceforge.net and look for games people are working on there: Often they're looking for help. Finally, if you live in california (or can get there), check out the game developer's conference, they have a job fair every year.
Now i'll describe how I got my job. My boss posted a job listing at my University's career centre (University of Toronto): he was looking for an artist. My art skills are horrible (I'm a programmer, what can I say) but I really wanted to try making games, so I volunteered to help out for free. I made sure to let him know that I could program, and that I'd be willing to do whatever he wanted me to (well, almost.. =). He hired me at just above minimum wage. At the time, I had just finished my first year at school (in comp. sci and math) and had had my first exposure to C/C++. Everything worked out, and now I'm in third year, the game is almost done (we're looking for publishers), and I'm not making minimum wage any more.
The independent games festival really allowed my company/game to get some publicity and attention. We now have 6-7 employees, but for about a year and a half there were only 3 of us. It's not easy to break into the industry, but I don't think i would go so far as to say it's impossible.
Ryan MacLean
www.geocities.com/rwbmaclean