How To Survive In The Game Development Industry For a Decade Without Any Super Hit
Video game developer is a highly lucrative career choice in today’s world. Studios will pay top dollar if you are well skilled. Of course, you could also choose to be an independent or indie developer who isn’t affiliated with a professional studio. Recently, indie developers have witnessed reasonable success, and some have also given us massive hits, like Minecraft. However, it is not always smooth sailing for indie developers, and they can run into several hurdles over time. Lack of funding and resources is the most obvious concern. At Gamecloud Technologies, we understand their plight and have some suggestions on how to survive without delivering any hit for a decade.
Do contract work to gain experience and financial security
First and foremost, you need to earn money to pay the bills. If you are working independently from the beginning without any profits, you’ll soon run into financial trouble. Moreover, you’ll need money to fund any projects that you wish to work on. So, we would suggest working with other studios on a contract basis for a while. Contract work will not only pay your bills temporarily but will also help you gain valuable experience. If you manage to earn some decent money and save it, you can use it later to invest in your own projects. The prime example of this is Psyonix, who contractually worked for more than ten years with big-name publishers after coming out with their own success story, Rocket League.
Work independently on small games without any hopes for success
If you can’t find any contract work, you can always work for yourself. Work on a bunch of small games that don’t require that many resources. This will keep you in practice for sure and you will also gain experience. However, going down this road could be risky as there is a lot of uncertainty regarding financial matters. The chances are high that most of the games that you’ll develop on your own won’t be a success, which can leave you without any income for a considerable amount of time. If you can find some other way to earn money while developing games for yourself, it could be a feasible option in the short run.
Find partners for removing CAPEX and minimizing OPEX
Indie developers often lack capital expenditure (CAPEX) required for undertaking a game development project. Even if they do have some initial investment, more often than not, their reserves run dry due to over the top operating expenses (OPEX), and they have to abandon the project altogether.
There is a neat trick to avoid this called networking. By building your network over the years and creating value for yourself, you can find partners for the development process. These partners could be high profile publishers who will take care of the capital expenditure required initially. They can also help you with the operating expenses during the development process. For such an investment, these partners will expect a return and want to ensure high game quality levels. For that purpose, you can approach any renowned game testing agency like ourselves, Gamecloud Technologies. Upon project completion, profit sharing is the most probable way you’ll earn money, although your partner might dictate the terms.
Crowdfunding
If you struggle to find partners to fund your project, crowdfunding could be a viable alternative. Many of the popular games from our time began on Kickstarter or Indiegogo as merely crowdfunding campaigns. Of course, to successfully raise funds, you’ll have to convince the audience that your game is worth playing and investing. This might call for some additional expense for marketing and promotion of the game to create awareness.
Conclusion
It can be agonizing to be in a profession for more than a decade and still have nothing to show for it. However, those ten years don’t necessarily mean a total waste, given you took some right measures during that time. At Gamecloud Technologies, we believe that opportunities are always knocking at our doors. For instance, the Covid-19 pandemic is a worldwide catastrophe; however, it has brought some promising results for the gaming industry. As more people prefer to stay home, video games prove to be a great way to pass their time. Similarly, it doesn’t matter if you haven’t seen any success for over a decade; your success story could be right around the corner.
