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Is The Indie Game Dev Dream Real?

4 years ago - Edited 4 years ago1,438 words

I saw this video the other day, in which a just-starting indie dev interviews another who claims to be earning six figures a year from what started as solo games dev, and felt it was worth a post of its own!

Here's the video:



It's 45 minutes long, which isn't short! But it was interesting for me since a lot of it resonated so much with my current position.

The interviewer seems young, and shares similar concerns to myself about whether the path he's chosen will ever be financially sustainable, while the successful guy comes across as confident and self-assured. Perhaps that's the result of age and success, though as someone with a Psychology degree and a particular interest in evolutionary psychology - genetic fitness etc - I can't help but wonder whether his success comes from his genes and his upbringing. It's something the interviewer might have a feeling about too, since it comes up during the interview; luck, they say, isn't just about being pushed at the right time by some algorithm, it's also about where you were born, what you did or didn't have growing up.

I don't know anything about either of them beyond this video, but the successful guy mentions being married, having previously had a job, and he says that his parents were supportive of his game dev work. So he obviously isn't socially deficient or odd to the degree that he'd put people off or be too socially anxious to form connections.

The successful guy apparently has ∞ a course where he teaches people how to make a living from games dev ∞. He - your 'coach' - describes himself as such:



It's interesting that he describes himself as 'clumsy, awkward, and seemingly moronic', likely as a way to signal to the other socially deficient nerds who get into this kind of thing - myself very much included - that he's one of them. Those are interesting word choices though, as I imagine anyone would think back to their teenage years as generally awkward, and 'clumsy' says nothing about the ability to form important social connections (it being used as a stock 'flaw' for Mary-Sue characters is a trope for good reason). If anything, the impression I get from this and the way he interacts during the interview is that success is less about technical ability and more about confidence and connection. As if that even needs to be said, though.

He mentions in the interview and on that page that he made a game for Pewdiepie or something; I don't know the details, but obviously that suggests a strong ability to connect with and reach out to others, a kind of confidence I've certainly never had.

He's released just two games: ∞ Pinstripe ∞, which has 1,489 Very Positive Steam reviews, and ∞ Neversong ∞, which has 459 (also Very Positive) and has been out for less than a year. Both have publishers (the former being Armor Games, interestingly). Neither of them look like anything especially amazing on the surface, though that doesn't seem to mean anything when it comes to indie game success.

Those aren't small review numbers, but nor are they amazingly huge. He mentions having released on multiple platforms, though having released on a platform doesn't mean any significant number of people played it on there. I personally haven't even heard of either of these games.

In the comments of the interview, most of the people come across as... hmm, young, maybe? I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of indie devs are around the same age I was when I started. They're mostly supportive, if naive and meme-parroty. However, one - by a person called Jenn Ital, so we better take them seriously - stood out to me:



The course is $387, which the interviewer reacted to as if it was exorbitantly expensive, but which I see as not all that much at all really. I even wondered whether to actually do it - it wouldn't hurt - but I do wonder whether it'd help any more than a much, much cheaper audiobook about marketing (especially since much of its content is aimed at those young just-starting types who want to make 2D platformers, a stage I've grown beyond).

I'm reminded of the pick-up artist communities, where gurus try to teach guys tricks they claim have helped them, even though they're either exaggerating any successes they have had, or they've found success because of genetic and environmental benefits that the desperate learners wouldn't necessarily have.

Marketing really is crucial for success, that much is clear. And a big part of being a successful indie dev probably is about being good at selling yourself, which is something I'm obviously... working on, let's say. I don't have the natural bonuses I feel that guy has, so it won't come as easily to me... though maybe my games are more interesting? Obviously that's subjective!



A few other things stood out to me.

One is about Kickstarter, on which this guy was very successful. But he says he wouldn't do it again; the push was awful. I've talked about doing one myself for a while, and I do still wonder, but finding success on that would be no easier than finding success through selling games directly.

Having multiple revenue streams is also crucial; his course is one for him. I wonder if he gets more from that than from games sales. This is something I've been aware of for years, though I'm still in the process of setting things up.

The interviewer mentions at one point that he's terrified of saying the wrong thing and being cancelled for it. Me too!! Have I ever mentioned that?! It's interesting seeing another person in a similarish position voice these fears, and I suppose a whole lot of people must experience them if they're going to be in the public eye in any way. In this week's Weekly Update, I mention feeling terrible after showing the Atonal Dreams intro to people on Patreon, and this - rather than anything they said or didn't say - is what provoked those terrible feelings. I'm so afraid that I'll inadvertently break some sociocultural law and be doomed as a result of it. I never had to worry about this back in the Flash days!!



I only watched this once a couple of days ago so this is just based on what I remember, though I might watch it again and edit this (or not, we'll see).



Hmm, looking into it a bit more, Thomas Brush, the successful developer, made Flash games back in the day, one called Coma which people seem to mention fondly? I'm not familiar with that. Interesting though if he progressed from Flash games to some success on other platforms.