Independent wealth or having a spouse or parent who can and is willing to support their family. There are exceptions, but most people have an additional source of income.
Depends on your area of the world/spendings. What I did when I wanted to work on my own thing (not related to game dev) is I saved up roughly $30,000 USD while working for a dev company in the US, and then moved back to the place my parents immigrated from in Europe where average monthly spendings are around 800€, and then I was good to work on whatever I wanted for 2-3 years while fully covered and not needing to "freeload" from anyone.
If you have bills and a big mortgage to pay and a family to feed... it's not really doable unfortunately. So I suggest making those sort of large commitments only once you're really set in life.
I suspect that most people with a spouse and kids (father of 3 here!) don't go full time indiedev until after some successful game launches or with the backing of a publisher. It's much easier to go full time if you are just supporting yourself.
You can definitely make a game while working full time. You just have to set realistic expectations and try not to compare yourself to others too much. Progress will be slower. You have to make some sacrifices on time. For me personally, I choose not to sacrifice time with my family, so I work on my game late at night and sacrifice sleep and free time. I've been working on my current game for the past 4+ years, but I'll be launching it later this year! I know if I was doing it full time I would have launched sooner, but I'm a pretty risk adverse person.
Congrats on the upcoming release, that is huge, especially after working on it for four years. Thanks for the inspiration; this is how I’ve been approaching development as well.
Thanks! In hind sight I probably should have decreased the scope of my game a bit haha 4+ years is a long time for a single game.
However, the crazy thing is I still love working on it! It’s been one of the most fulfilling things I have ever done, and I can’t wait for the world to play it.
I’m a husband and father of 4 boys, all of which we homeschool. I’m retired and my wife is a stay at home mom. I’ve been working on my game for 2 years now with the first year primarily spent learning Unreal Engine and conjuring game ideas with my kids lol. Recently I’ve felt defeated and overwhelmed with the idea of making a game, but man ur words give me hope lol. I appreciate it brother 😊
Hey that is awesome! One of the most fun things I get to do is play my game with my kids. They aren't really old enough to handle controls, but they love watching me play it, helping pick colors for models, etc.
I've been making games for about 5 years now. Spent about a year or so learning Unity and how to code. I did not come from any kind of technical or artistic background. My day job doesn't overlap with gamdev at all haha.
The 4 years I spent working on this game was a lot of trial and error since I was still new to making games. I've probably remade the game about 3 times during that time as I learn new things about the engine, got better at coding, and a little better at 3D modeling.
I'll be honest, 5 years ago if someone would have told me I would make this game I would have laughed at them. I never thought I would be able to pull something like this off. You just have to stick with it. Do a little bit each day, be a seeker of knowledge where you are constantly trying to improve your skills, and someday you'll look back and be shocked at just how far you've come.
You've got this!
Lordy yall have me in almost tears reading this. I promised my boys 3 years ago that I’d make a game tailored for them and I just hit so many roadblocks that I was ready to give up and just hope they forget (kids never forget tho lol). Listening to all yall have truly inspired me. I kno that sounds corny but words have power and y’all’s words were beyond powerful for me. Now it’s got me thinking that I wonder if there would be any benefit of having a “dads making games” page for a lot of us to jump on help each other out?
Keep at it! I'm actually in a similar boat, I don't have kids, but I started exactly 2 years ago this month (I considered Unreal as well, but ended up doing Unity) and have been working at it since. The first year was primarily focused on learning C# and the engine as well.
Ideas and prototypes came and went, but settled on my current project about a year ago. Here's to both our future successes! 🎉
Hey man don't give up! Get blueprint nailed for most mechanics, learn interfaces so you don't need to cast to everything. Use free assets for your demo and don't be afraid to ask for some help on here or other forums if you get stuck! If you can't figure out a problem go for a walk. Also make sure you get plenty of sleep and eat properly. But focus on blueprint and if you need fancy shaders just copy paste the nearest thing you can find as a placeholder to remind you in the future to do it properly once you're better.
When it comes to blocking out your game, look at other games with the same mechanics and copy how they did it so you can learn and get a good start. You'll manage it don't worry :)
Thanks! That just made my day!
It isn’t easy balancing it all, but I hope other people considering making their own games can see it is possible without quitting your full time job. I see too many of the I quit my job to make my game posts and not enough of the I didn’t quit my job and still made a game posts.
"Progress will be slower" is definitely key in all this. I tried designing a videogame during my spare couple of hours at the end of any day but I'd be just too drained to make proper progress or enjoy the process (essential aspect imo). That's why I left my job last week (under privileged circumstances of course).
good for you! my main job is too stressful with ot and deadline and it’s starting to feel miserable. Now I’m on an edge of quitting it altogether to pursue my passion in game dev. life’s so short man we all deserve to do what we love.
Sorry to hear and about the stress and the job. I can actually relate quite a bit! It’s a big reason I got into making games. I wanted a creative outlet to help take my mind off the stress from work. It’s been a great thing for my personal mental health.
As for whether you should quit and go full time gamedev. Only you can make that choice. You know your circumstances best. However, keep in mind that making games always takes longer than you expect and it’s very difficult to find financial success.
Part of the reason I have chosen not to go full time is I feel like I would actually develop a worse game. Too much pressure to create a big success just so I can survive and feed my family is way too much stress. I feel like it would force me to rush a project rather than taking my time.
“A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad”
I feel you. I spent most of 20s working my ass off to rank up in big corps. it pays so well but at a huge cost of my personal life. Now when I look back I’m just a depressed single 30s loser with no life. My social circle shrinks heavily too because of always being busy with ot. I see it now that was never worth it.
It’s never about money just wanna make something fun as gamer to share and connect with others through this particular form of art. Luckily I come from a strong 3d background. A lots of tools like unreal are stuff I’ve been using in work for years.
I think you’re being a little too hard on yourself. You gained a lot of experience over the years and that experience may lead to some creative ideas when making games. Keep your head up. I’m sure you’ll make something awesome! Especially if you already have some skills with 3D and Unreal. I just started learning how to make games about 5 years ago with zero background in coding, game engines, or art. If I can do it, I truly believe anyone can. If I were you I would try to do 30 mins to 2 hrs a day (whatever you got time and energy for). Try to be consistent and do a little each day. Start with smaller projects and work your way up. If you get enough traction and experience on an idea maybe you can pitch to a publisher if you want to go the full time route. Otherwise, just take it slow, keep a job, and take your time creating something exciting! Just my 2 cents. But you got to figure out what works best for your personal situation. Best of luck! You got this!
I'm a father of two and I have gone full-time game Dev thanks to the support of my wife. I know others who are lucky enough to have done the same. Without independent wealth or a very early deal (publisher, Kickstarter, etc) there's no other real way.
>and try not to compare yourself to others too much
Sage advice! I say, as I look at your game and think 'wow what a far more inspired idea and execution than mine.' 😅
Jokes aside, I appreciate seeing another example of someone working full time while also doing game dev, and eventually making their game a reality. It's where I'm at as well as a solo hobbyist, and I need all the reminders I can get.
Congratulations on your soon to be released game!
Hey I think the trailer looks cool! I’m in a similar boat of “slow and steady” but I’m just curious if there’s anything in particular that your focus has been on since you released that trailer back in June 2023? How much of the gameplay would you say was implemented at that time?
Probably sounds like an odd question I’m just slow, *steadily* adding features that amount to what I believe to be a vertical slice for my game but I’m wondering if your trailer was made at the time of your vertical slice or further after.
Same here. I'm married and a dad of 2 kids. I told the kids 4 years ago we are going to make a game as I wanted them to have some real world experience (they both were in elementary school at the time). 4 years later, both are teenagers now, we have finally made enough to hopefully get at least a demo put together for the next Steam Next Fest. I've been a CG Generalist for 23 years so making the graphics was easy, the programming and learning blueprints with the kids has been a crazy journey. We are hoping to get the game fully finished by next year sometime. Progress has been slow with day to day life, events, schedules, etc., has made it take much longer. A few times we would go 2-3 months without touching a single thing on the game. Its been a journey but we are looking forward to the end!
Same boat, married with 4 littles, full time job too and just starting out and really excited to see what comes of this. Your success is inspiring to me! Thanks for sharing your story.
That's the best part, you don't! /s
This is why my six month game project will take about three years to actually complete. But I'm enjoying the ride as a hobbyist and my family gets to remain housed.
I came to the same conclusion, as a hobbyist with kids. 1 full time day, is equivalent to one hobbyist week. It takes years even for a small project (plus the break when losing motivation).
The progression is so sloooow, just to add a skill tree for instance, I spend months on it instead of two weeks.
Extremely few people quit their job, go solo indie dev full time, and make much money at all. That's the real answer. The vast majority of people making a living as an indie developer aren't doing it alone running their own business, they're working at indie studios full time. You only want to quit your job when you are already making a decent amount of money from your game business, not before.
"Indie" doesn't mean solo. Traditionally indie meant independent as in not published by someone else (like a AAA publisher), but practically it doesn't really mean anything that specific.
If you search 'best indie games' for a year or on Steam at a given point you'll get games by established studios with healthy budgets (like Hades or Sea of Stars), games that actually have publishers (like AK-xolotl or Tchia), and so on. Self-published games by small teams (like Undertale or Pizza Tower) are actually pretty rare in terms of success stories, let alone the few games actually by a single dev (like Stardew or Papers, Please).
Basically, 9/10 people who would call themselves indie devs and support themselves that way are working either with a team at a studio they founded or for a paycheck. That's just what indie means in common parlance. Don't try to support yourself building a game alone without either years of doing that and already selling games or some serious experience in the industry. It's _never_ a good idea.
Congratulations. The problem with spare time is that you daydream about the game and you become annoyed as you wait until you finally can sit on the computer. I wish you all the success.
Hey there, one of those "quitting their job" to pursue the indie dream here, even if just one last time: My former company went through a restructuring process recently and I took the opportunity to offer myself for "voluntary redundancy". I took the severance package (pretty decent) + unemployment benefits (Spain) that will help me for one year, and as of last Friday I'm currently working full time and even harder to come up with a nice GDD to pitch to publishers, investors, and possible teammates in less than a year from now.
Now, this jump into the unknown can easily be done in my current situation: 37yo with no financial nor family responsibilities (besides a VERY supportive gf) and only two dogs to feed. I don't suggest people with family dependants doing this unless properly discussed and agreed upon. Many teammates "hate" me for this privileged situation in which I can do this crazy dive out of a comfortable job.
I just wanted to leave my case here, in the events that someone in a similar situation reads me: You only live once, and the weight of unchased dreams weight heavier than failing at chasing them, overtime. And to be honest, it's always a "not in this economy" time after the 80s, with a couple of fluctuations for the best and for the worst. And also there's always "too many fishes in the tank" for a long time now (as an artist and graphic designer I've been told and even saw it with my own eyes too many times).
Again, not trying to encourage you OP in particular, but I hope these words click with someone that's more in the (privileged) situation I was in, to make the big decision. sorry for the long text.
The ones I personally know who are somewhat successful worked on their game full time but they also considered freelancing on other games part of being an indie dev, so they would work on their game but also build plugins, get hired as contractors and etc working as a game dev. If you don't want to just sit at your comp and do nothing but work on just your game for 16 hours a day and are willing to work on other stuff which is still game dev, then you can make money pretty easily.
You might not have been able to save money, largely because you have two dependents, but if you're alone, you can save money even if you're under the poverty line. It's all about willpower. There's definitely shit you could have been doing to save money before, but I reckon your wife and kid would be pissed lol.
It's also worth recognizing a lot of people have trust funds, or parents, or whatever else too. Like, some people genuinely save and do a great job on their own. But there's a lot of rich, and middle class people who play the victim and act like they're going hard, when really, they're living off mommy and daddy their whole lives.
Wife and I born into poor families, no college, self taught and self careered. My family told me I was SOL on money for college, and so I assume I am still SOL for inheritance.
>I can't imagine saving enough to just quit working for years on savings alone, not in this economy!
That's exactly what they do in addition to fund raising (e.g KickStarter/Steam Early Access) and taking side jobs. It also helps if they are from the regular software dev world with high salaries.
I think this now everytime I see a basement full of young programmers in a tv show. Especially if they quibble over money, e.g. who's paying for pizza - all that hardware cost £££, where's the invisible mum/dad/wife supporting this lifestyle?
The goal of our civilization for the past 150 year has been to leave the vegetated arable lands a barren wasteland of cement and asphalt grossly overpopulated with billions of serfs. The complete and total dependency on the kingdom of finance means if you ever dare quit working for your betters, you will starve on these lifeless streets devoid of the natural environment which provided for your ancestors for millions of years.
So us indie devs who got lucky -- we're very few.
Some saved up enough to make the leap, got all the skills they truly needed (not thought they needed, actually needed in reality) and built a pitchable prototype to sell to a publisher. Those are few. But they exist.
Some moonlighted on the project foe Yeats before hiring volunteer staff and low or no pay partners on the LLC. A lot of the time that's how drama and litigation starts but some do survive.
Most live at home. Parents or spouses support the venture.
Some, very few, get venture capital from a peer. That my lucky break, after years of making mods. I otherwise own a house, have a wife and kid, car payment is the only source of debt besides mortgage, no credit cards, and I haven't bought new clothes or been on vacation in almost a decade. I can survive on 2,700$/mo forever because I minimized all my expenses. Everything I make above that rolls over. Which is how I get by now.
I've met devs on social security disability, retirees, and even a few who were homeless.
When I was making mods all those years I was IATSE G&E or Camera Op, doing shows like man vs wild, the amazing race, the great escape, meat & potatoes -- all kinds of reality TV and shit across the industry. Or working on feature films, some AAA and some small. All that work was feast or famine. 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off, sometimes months between jobs.
Devs can make bank if they're senior level engineers. Work a few years and you can live off it a few years while you work on your own game if you don't have dependents.
Also, wait and see what happens to the 'billions of serfs' the moment AI/robots replace them.
A bit unrelated, but the way things are going now with AI targeting to replace the white collar workforce, people might actually revert back to farming or blue collar. At least until robots replace farmers and manual laborers as well.
But then after that, who the fuck's buying the corporations' products if no one has a job? The whole capitalist system's gonna collapse. This AI renaissance is starting to look incredibly short sighted.
Depending on your country of origin naturally, but here - mostly due to social security.
The unions will pay you about 80% of your past salary for aprox 360 days until you find a new job, which gives you time to develop a small game or pitch-able prototype.
For us:
- part time for 1 year
- made a pact to live on one income (spouse) to work on game full-time. Make vertical slice demo and launching kickstarter
- crowd funding to support cost of first game
- no kids, no major health issues except those caused by burnout
- apply to every indie grant program possible for free booth space at conventions
- out of pocket to attend convention travel costs (put that on the credit card...)
- live on the edge with austere cost cutting measures until spouse gets a big raise. Then it's just regular living paycheck-to-paycheck.
- meet publisher at con who ends up offering a very small paid gig
- paid gig reception is excellent, so offers full contract for 2 games
- Contract only really covers direct game development costs, not a salary. But at least game dev costs aren't coming OOP anymore
- develop and publish games for 3 years, but contract and accounting are structured that any royalty payments only comes after all games are published
- last game recently published
- now looking down the barrel of no studio income while new game meets recoup (and then have to wait 90+ days after this quarter end to receive any payments, if any come.)
I'm so tired man. We are doing ok, and working at net neutral puts us ahead of many of devs who are working at a loss. So we're grateful! But yeah, the math of indie development is... bleak, even when things go well.
I come from a background similar to yours, and it's really rough without a safety net.
I feel for you. Still living the dream though, in some sense. Personally I’m too risk averse and will probably work 5-10 more years before I have enough to not require much of income from game dev.
Sorry I don't mean to be a downer- I answered when I was feeling really cynical. There are definitely pathways to success; I didn't mention it above, but as long as you can manage to find whatever development while having the finances to cover basic needs, it's definitely doable. For us that meant keeping family costs more minimal and scoping the game to be super cheap (keeping scale small and by doing everything ourselves. Labor and outsourcing is very expensive, up there with living costs. ) Saving up money is another way to cover those living expenses.
The bigger resource has really been time. Replacing money with time has its own costs, but it's the sort of decision you gotta make for yourself.
the thing I see most common in other successful indie devs is perseverance, ability to iterate/improve on failures quickly, and resilience. Just gotta keep at it. One of the big steps that lead to other stuff was getting a free space to show the game with Indie Megabooth at PAX. We applied 3 times before getting accepted. And even then, it was a different con (and different multiple applications) where we met publisher. But showing at PAX gave cache to be seen as legit.
Just gotta keep at it, and keeping knocking on doors until one opens for ya
I manage by myself but would be screwed if I had to provide for 2 others on my indie games income, and I am not living super well but managing to pay bills and shit so that's something.
I don’t have kids or a wife but I also have my six figures main dev job. I can’t quit as much as I’d like to. I still have to pay rent (Los Angeles) and I pay for a couple contractors to help me. I think if I was to quit it would give me a lot of stress, every day that would go by it would just eat money. Money would become a ticking clock, instead of minutes going by it would be cents. I have savings and I use the savings to pay the contractors but I can’t just quite my job, not until I have a prototype and VC or publisher deal.
Well, according to the other thread about how much non-competes being made illegal will benefit small indie companies, a bunch of people will now leave big gaming companies to form indie studios and be able to offer things such as 4 day work weeks and really good work life balance. It will be amazing! A complete game changer and the best news for indie devs in years!!!
On a more serious note, game dev tends to be something that you do out of passion. For every success story there are a lot of people who do not succeed. Everyone wants to make their dream game, but you have to be realistic about what you can accomplish.
I would recommend the gdc presentation "how to survive 11 years without a hit" where a solo dev shared how he survived. He did release kind of a hit, and eventually make it big with Cultust Simulator a few years later . The gist of it is to understand your limitations and set realistic goals for what you can develop and publish, even if it means making casual puzzle games.
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I hear stories of people quitting their job and working on solo indie dev for a few years
First - magical ingredient is a lie. The fact you hear about such people doesn't mean they are real. It certainly sounds more interesting to say "I have left my job to make my game!" than it is to say "okay, I actually work day to day to finance my life and go back home to code".
Second - if they ARE real and you have actually heard about them - do they for instance have popular YouTube channels? They are influencers first and game developers second. They make money selling their game dev courses, from people watching their videos etc.
Third - someone else funds their lifestyle. Parents, girlfriend, inheritance money etc.
Fourth - assuming they are real and they have sufficient savings - there are few ways to get there:
a) you need a higher level job to begin with. If you live in US in California for instance - you don't want to barely break 6 figures. You want 200k $ a year, part of which generally comes via options like 4 years vesting programs and whatnot. There are multiple engineers working at Nvidia that had a not so remarkable base salary but got a bit stock for instance. A bit of stock turned into a million $ after vesting period since AI blew up so they could easily quit their jobs now. It's not THAT uncommon for like a third of your salary in CS sector to come from company stock.
b) is that they actually did slowly build up their funds over several years. If you can save, say, 20 grand a year - it turns into 40 grand several years later via stock market. Times 5 years and you now have enough to potentially build something.
c) not every place is USA. 100k $ in some places in the US is really not so remarkable. But 60k $ in a cheaper region means you can literally live off 10 grand a year and save 50k. And it wouldn't even be a bad standard of living on like half of our planet. So reducing your costs of living can make such plans way more realistic.
For my partner and I we both worked at corporate tech jobs for 5-6 years to pay off student loans and build savings. Now we are indie dev-ing full time off of savings which may or may not pay dividends who knows but we figured we would take a shot at it BEFORE we introduce kids/mortgage into the financial mix
Being able to afford to work on my own games was part of my career plan. I spent 20 years working in the industry developing my skills while squirreling away cash and optimizing my lifestyle to eventually be able to afford to work for myself.
It's been almost two years since I finally reached that point, it'll likely be a few years more before I find out if my self made games turn out to be any good.
Quite a few folks that took the same path as me supplement their income with short term contracts to avoid having to live like a college student.
In either case, functionally we all looked at that goal as a form of early semi-retirement, but instead of taking vacations and playing golf, we'd use our free time to build the games we wanted to.
This is the dream really. Been my plan for the past 10 years. But I’ve been pushing the goal further away because of added expenses. House, car, wife and kids. House finally paid off now so should accelerate towards the goal. But I have issues settling for a final amount. Current job pays well and I doubt I would get a similar salary elsewhere, so I can’t get this wrong.
I struggled a lot in the final years debating if the time was right or not. I'd advanced a lot since I'd started and I felt like an idiot thinking about giving up my cushy well paid job that most people would kill to get.
I'd already tackled what my minimum amount was, which was to make sure I had enough funds to avoid becoming a burden to my family. Nobody was going to need to switch to ramen dinners, that sort of thing.
The final amount though would impact things like how long I needed to make my current car last, or whether or not we'd do any optional home improvements in the next 5-10 years. My computer upgrade cycles would slow down, nights out with the guys would have to become BBQs at home, etc...
I stuck it out a year past when I planned to go solo which helped build some extra buffer, but I pulled the trigger when I realized I was looking for a way to have my cake and eat it to. It would have taken another 20 years to save up enough to quit without sacrificing any of the luxuries I'd gotten used to over the years and I really didn't want to wait that long.
Ultimately the minimum amount I'd set was really on par with how most folks around here live anyways. Lifestyle inflation put up a lot of blinders for me about needs vs wants, and it turns out a decent chunk of those wants came from needing to blow off stress from work. A shiny new car certainly helped make a rough year at work feel worth it.
I spent a very long time following the r/fire folks, mr money moustache was probably my favorite. It was interesting to see so many people's different ideas of what financial independence meant, from folks that wanted yachts to others that just wanted to sling coffee a few days a week and spend the rest of their time working on passion projects.
The little actual advice I can give you is once you pull the trigger, keep in touch with your industry friends, and keep up with the industry in general. Solo dev is an oddly isolating experience and it was surprising how much I felt the absence of the general vibe of things once I wasn't showing up to an office every day.
Just work and code. I work in a warehouse but still find i get half hour to an hour a day to code then go full force on my days off. Get a good 15-20hours a week to code on top of my 50 hour job. If you want it enough, you will find the time. I'm single BTW so I don't have to worry bout that. Also I do it for fun, not for profit, i just love coding.
They don't. Most who do it, do it part time only first. Or are veterans who saved up for decades/got state grants/got funding with IndieGoGo and the likes up first.
In your position it would be totally foolish to pursue a full time indie dev career.
When I started I had my parents' help who sustained me through the first 3-4 years, which usually are the toughest. I could fully live from my earnings only after 4-5 years. Good luck!
I didn't quit- I got a part time job instead. That way you have no time limit for success. Took me 6 years to get an income but it was an ambitious project. You need:
1. low hours to give you time to work on your game (I had only 2x 12hr shifts per week)
2. Non-gamedev job so you still have the mental energy to work on your project
3. Live off a tight budget. I barely scraped by in my overdraft and shared a house. I had no kids though, dont think i could have done it if i did.
The wife and kid ain't going to help.
Just earn more money. I make a lot of money contracting and could stop working for three years if I felt like it.
Life's all about choices. You decided to have a kid.
Other folks wait a bit longer or decide not to have kids at all and can reduce their standard of living to put money aside. That's how they can leave work for a long time or subsist on their partners income.
If you want to leave your job in the future, make a concrete plan for that. How much money will you need? How much of a safety cushion do you need on top of that? Then double what you come up with, because you are probably wrong about your estimates.
But we should absolutely not need to tell you this. You have a kid. Having a long-term financial plan, also for THEIR success, is one of your responsibilities as a provider.
I feel like this is an oddly and unnecessarily passive aggressive response. I am not asking how to get rid of my family or asking for advice on how to save. My priority is to provide a comfortable, even above comfortable, life for my family. I was more curious about how other people manage to do it these days given the decent QoL thresholds for single people are now 60K in the US. No need to lecture me on life choices, creating and providing for my beautiful family. Don't be a reddit weirdo.
You didn't get the point at all. It's great you went down the route you went down. Having a family is nice.
You asked how folks can quit their job and just build their dreams. And the answer is that they made different choices to yours.
And if you are interested in going down that path, then you should ALREADY KNOW how to do that and not have to ask here in the first place.
Because contrary to the folks that went with the indie route, you ALREADY made a choice that requires this kind of planning to a larger degree.
Plenty of people have already explained the main way (have a spouse that supports you), but the alternative way is to save aggressively and build a runway. If you can save e.g. 2 years worth of your expenses, then you can afford to take 2 years off to make a game. This is obviously risky, and with a family it's hard to make the math work, but it's another option for some people. A modified version is to not quit but either transition part-time or just get a part-time job that can still leave e.g. 20 hours per week extra for game development, and lengthen the runway. Again, keeping the expenses to the minimum is generally necessary for this approach, which is again very difficult when supporting a family.
typically they had enough money to make it an active choice that they can make. if you’re making minimum wage and decide to quit to become an indie dev that’s just financially irresponsible. but also those types of stories tend to be from the most successful indie devs. the average indie dev is probably doing it as a passion project on top of their full time job rather than quitting everything to be a dev
I’m in a position where I could if I wanted to. I built up enough savings (from trading) where if my expenses remain much the same I would have a pretty lengthy runway.
What i did was work as a 3D modeler for a game called Little Kitty Big City, and my indie game on the weekends until i had a few viral tweets that got me enough traction to get funding off a only a tech demo.
Once i knew i had funds then i quit my job. But like others have said a lot of people have some other type of support network. Now what im trying to do is to figure out what to do now that the launch flopped (Wife and i are moving into my mom's basement.) So you will need some kinda back up plan if things go poorly.
From the stories I heard, they make alot of sacrifices. Most of them move into a relative/friend's house (mostly parents). Cut down on bills, sell the house, lose the car note, etc.
In your situation, creating free time is how you get there, not going full time indie dev.
Beyond a really successful kickstarter or other funding, sweat equity is your best shot.
Also worth checking out some small indie studios where you could potentially make the transition a bit shorter.
The solo direction might not be feasible given your situation.
There's a number of ways... A lot of us grow into our salaries and our lives expand to meet the income, that's part of the reason we work as hard as we do. Some are more frugal than others. Some people choose to invest rather than splurge. Keeping up with the Jones' isn't all it's cracked up to be. There are also all of the vices we may enjoy but aren't necessarily fully conscious of either. Five years ago I used to be a pack a day cigarette smoker, so that was easily $2,000/year back then.
"Finding a balance between following your passion for indie dev and providing for your family is definitely a tough decision. Have you considered taking on freelance work or part-time gigs to supplement your income while you work on your dream project? It may take longer, but it could be a more sustainable approach in the long run!"
Build a prototype, create a pitch, start a studio (legal entity). Based on that, get an investment or a publisher. Make sure your salary is in a budget.
Let me know on priv if you have follow up questions on how to.
passive income > avg. salary gives an opportunity to start doing what you want instead of what you need to do to eat. The question is where do you live and is that possible there
I worked for a decade in the industry and saved up. Plus, I'm single and live in a developing country, paying about 400 for a month worth of rent. I dont have many friends, and all of my hobbies are naturally gamedev related, be it art, sculpting, coding, or coming up with stories. I have a depression and building my own world, and engaging with like-minded individuals online, gamedev community is the only thing keeping my sanity in check.
Disclaimer: I've never done this because I confidently fail the first step. So this is how I imagine it, oversimplified:
1. Save up, a lot
1.a. Have your partner's support/faith
2. Quit your day job
3. Start working twice as much
4. Start building your player base early
5. Polish before the savings run out
5.a. If the savings run out but you feel confident - try to get publisher funding/grants/loans(scary)
6. Do not release into the void (see step 4)
7. Get a minimum amount of success that lets you work on the next game
8. Repeat with acquired experience
Amassed wealth, chronic illnesses that make working outside of their home impossible, being hired by an already established indie team, doing freelance work in a few areas within indie dev (art, music, sfx design, voice acting, programming, etc.), not having other people they need to provide for, documenting and monetizing the gamedev progress through youtube or twitch... I'm sure I've forgotten a few things but those are some of the ways. Not all of them are positive and not all of them work for everyone.
I think that majority of people who do this (as others have stated) either use their savings or have a spouse that is working and let them work on their game full time. There's other approaches though:
- Devlog YouTube channel, I don't think you can live off this alone unless you're in the top 10 of game dev YouTubers though unless you can live for very cheap. But I do think some of the successful ones could perhaps even live off the videos alone and not need to develop and sell games at that point.
- Kickstarter, a very risky approach but if you make it while working and get enough funding I think it's a less risky endeavour. However at this point you suddenly already have "paying customers" without a usable project so I would assume this to be more stressful?
- Publisher that can help with backing, I haven't worked with any publishers but it's a business after all, so they'd most likely try to suggest changes to your game that could result in more profit for them which I guess is fair enough. However then it's no longer really your game and I'm unsure if you can even properly use the "independent" title then.
The way I do it with 2 kids (currently not working but searching for work after I finished my degree) is to just spend your free time on it. Progress is slower that's for sure, but it's 100% your own project. No deadlines that you don't set yourself and no accountability really towards anyone but your potential players which is a lot easier mentally than having used Kickstarter or a Publisher breathing down your neck. All of these things being expected as someone else is paying you to be able to work on it in your free time. I like that if if I have writer's block (is there a word for this in game dev?) then I can just take a week off the project and do other things.
The people Ive seen doing this were either supported by their spouse, or living in a very low cost of living area, combined with no mortgage (inherited family home etc) or had at least one side hustle going on.
If you're the provider in the household, then forget quitting your job and going fulltime indie. Your family is more important than some videogame. Either find a way to combine the dev work on your project with a full time job, or keep grinding until your family no longer depends on your single income.
Some people just burn through their savings hoping to make it. So they would have let's say 2 years until they would have to go find a job if their indie game fails.
My plan is for my wife to be the main breadwinner lol. I am funding her startup the last 2 years through my salary. And when she is successful she will return the favour.
Poor skills. What are your economics like? What is your car, if any? How well calculated are your incomes and outgoes and break-even points? Cash flow is everything.
In my particular case, after quiting my job I was working on my project only half-time, the other half went for freelance work, which was enough to support me (no wife and kids, so yeah, that definitely affects things).
After going full-time on my project, I relied on my savings, then money borrowed from friends & family, and then funding from a publisher. It worked out pretty well in the end, but was definitely a high-risk path \^\^
People also don't realize the difference between those who got their life started before and after covid. In Canada, the biggest economic line you can draw is people who bought a house before covid vs. people who didn't.
Not working for a couple years when the house you bought has tripled in value is a lot less scary than saving every penny you have in hopes that one day you may be able to afford a down payment
You work and moonlight. I am surprised you haven’t heard that. It’s super common in Silicon Valley for POC then quit when it’s done.
You only quit your job when you are confident enough to leave and succeed in your game dev.
It's different for everybody. The Stardew Vallley dev was supported by their partner, the Enter the Gungeon guys worked for Microsoft before going indie and pooling their savings together, Undertale was funded by kickstarter.
What these devs have in common is that they paid themselves very little while working on their projects for years and that's unfortunately not so much an option for yourself having a family to provide for.
I recently went full-time, but I only had about 6 months of expenses saved up, and I have no kids and I'm splitting my bills with my gf. It is hard, and I'm going to be seeking funding within two weeks from now or I go totally bust. I think it's three parts: One part years of savvy saving, one part privilege, and another part wild negligence. It was objectively a bad idea for me to go full-time, but I figured it was a risk I was happy to take. If I end up needing to move back in with my parents, fine. I miss them and love them anyway! But I always have that safety net, and I think that's a huge part of it. I'm privileged, and I think a lot of other Indies are in that same boat. Try not to compare yourself and do what you can with the cards you were dealt. If there's one thing I believe, it's that success is always there for those who don't give up.
The true answer after investigating this myself is that usually there's someone else giving them money to live off. The dev for No Man's Sky is a fringe example that was hugely risky and luckily paid off because he was accidentally good at marketing.
The most common and realistic scenario is that they don't have to provide for anyone, their money is their own, they live with their parents for free or cheap, their parents look after them. Another part to this is also knowing how to seek government funding, arts grants and similar funds through adapting your project to meet their interests to win the money. You will need, usually, a specialist proposal writer for this to win the bid for the grants. It helps if you already know people or have a reputation.
Another way to think of it is "how do these 17 year olds afford a car? Their driving lessons for half a year, tax, fuel, insurance etc..." well you know, the most common way is that their parents pay for it all first. Sometimes it's just given, other times it's on payback like "pay me back when you're older and have a job". But usually people without wealthy parents don't get the car, same as devs without financial backing don't get to make their dream game. There's always someone else paying for it.
If you can find a good easy job to do while developing the game it would work out best for you, 65k to 100k jobs like that do exist, you just need to pad your resume to appear better then the rest
I keep toying with the idea of doing full time indie dev. I’m disabled and have a hard time finding work, so my husband supports us both. I feel like if I’m getting supported, I might as well use the opportunity to do something I might enjoy full-time.
I don't see how indiedev is compatible with any kind of caring responsibility. So much of the work requires hours of uninterrupted flow time, where you can focus on problems in the code, work on art, etc. If somebody else needs your undivided attention for more than a few hours a day, this is not possible.
You can have a partner, if they will tolerate being ignored for hours on end, week in week out (helps if they're an indie dev too!). But small children? Parents to look after?
It'd be no different if I was going to a full time job. I currently work 8-10 hrs a day professionally and do 2 hours personal coding and study per week day, amd still squeeze in 4-6 hours of family/errand time
I work in the service industry to subsidize my art practice and self-publish card decks after leaving a career in branding & visual design. I live on very little, but where there’s a will there’s a way. It took me three years to produce my first deck!
With a little budgeting and having other streams of income, you can make it happen. Freelance and wage labor go a long way, keep expenses low. I know a lot of indie devs who make it work with kids, but success becomes all the more imperative when you have people dependent on you.
I hope that I can grow my ecomms biz to full time but it has a learning curve—you got to learn to wear a lot of hats. You should look to indie game dev talks on GDC’s YouTube page—Adam & Rebekah Saltsman, who run the hybrid dev studio/publisher brand Finji Games—come to mind as potential role models for the scale you need to reach to sustain your family.
Good luck OP!
i day care 2-3 dogs 5 days a week which brings in an additional \~ $15k per year. on top of that some small passive income plus wife has a good job. it doesnt leave me with money to invest into my games but it is enough that I dont have to work a day job.
Very few people are able to make it as indie devs. You shouldn't quit your job because chances are your first, second and third game will flop. And you just might run out of money before your games can fill the financial hole quitting your job creates.
In my case I created my first game while working full time at mcdonalds, luckily i was able to quit my job shortly after release, and i was able to do gamedev full time.
My advice is, make your game in your spare time, it is definitely possible.
If you got a six figure salary you either live somewhere where your rent an necessities are like 4/5th of your salary, or you're bad with money.
It it's the latter you gotta learn to not waste money.
>>I provide for a wife and kid
I used to co own a small studio way back when the dotcom boom happened. Eventually sites clued in that webgames did not magically make your site an overnight success, and since the alternative offer we had at that point was making sims for the military I called it a day (that just ain't my thing).
But your last line kinda nails it. I was responsible for no one but me.
Now I am very happy to have a fulltime job (with a great company) - that mortgage doesn't pay itself.
It was great while it lasted but I simply can't risk going indie anymore.
Here are the only ways:
-Be independently wealthy already, and do not need income.
-Have considerable savings, and live on a very tight budget.
-Have family that supports you.
-Have a part time job or side hustle that brings in enough to scrape by with minimal hours.
-Some combination of the above.
If these are not options for you, then you're only other options would be to build a game in your free time, or somehow get funded.
My guess is that most of the people saying they quit to work on game dev are younger with fewer obligations or responsibilities, or they were simply willing to live real slim while they did it.
I’ve never worked in gamedev, but from my research it seems that one of the most common ways is to make a good looking MVP while you’re still working, then market and crowdfund or find a publisher/investors willing to fund the project.
Independent wealth or having a spouse or parent who can and is willing to support their family. There are exceptions, but most people have an additional source of income.
Yeah if I remember right the Hollow Knight guys basically lived off their savings, spouses, and kickstarter money to get it released.
Depends on your area of the world/spendings. What I did when I wanted to work on my own thing (not related to game dev) is I saved up roughly $30,000 USD while working for a dev company in the US, and then moved back to the place my parents immigrated from in Europe where average monthly spendings are around 800€, and then I was good to work on whatever I wanted for 2-3 years while fully covered and not needing to "freeload" from anyone. If you have bills and a big mortgage to pay and a family to feed... it's not really doable unfortunately. So I suggest making those sort of large commitments only once you're really set in life.
You answered your question, you provide for your wife and kid, and they are in a position to make their indie games for years thanks to you.
In fact he should put his kid to work making his indie game, as repayment for room and board
Go to your room and make super Metroid 2
Technically, the wife (and child, depending on age) could afford being full time indie dev, because someon eis supporting them.
r/yourjokebutworse
That's literally what the comment said??
YES, THANKS FOR THAT
I developed a playstore game with 100k downloads, and it only made $100 I was 15.. I am 25, now working as a dev.
Why did so many people downvote this lol
Because their shity game can't even get 100 downloads and hate the fact a 15 year old kid beat them lol
I made a game when I was 15 that has had 452,613 players and it still hasn’t made a penny so far lol
I suspect that most people with a spouse and kids (father of 3 here!) don't go full time indiedev until after some successful game launches or with the backing of a publisher. It's much easier to go full time if you are just supporting yourself. You can definitely make a game while working full time. You just have to set realistic expectations and try not to compare yourself to others too much. Progress will be slower. You have to make some sacrifices on time. For me personally, I choose not to sacrifice time with my family, so I work on my game late at night and sacrifice sleep and free time. I've been working on my current game for the past 4+ years, but I'll be launching it later this year! I know if I was doing it full time I would have launched sooner, but I'm a pretty risk adverse person.
Congrats on the upcoming release, that is huge, especially after working on it for four years. Thanks for the inspiration; this is how I’ve been approaching development as well.
Thanks! In hind sight I probably should have decreased the scope of my game a bit haha 4+ years is a long time for a single game. However, the crazy thing is I still love working on it! It’s been one of the most fulfilling things I have ever done, and I can’t wait for the world to play it.
good luck on your project!
Thanks 🙏
I’m a husband and father of 4 boys, all of which we homeschool. I’m retired and my wife is a stay at home mom. I’ve been working on my game for 2 years now with the first year primarily spent learning Unreal Engine and conjuring game ideas with my kids lol. Recently I’ve felt defeated and overwhelmed with the idea of making a game, but man ur words give me hope lol. I appreciate it brother 😊
Hey that is awesome! One of the most fun things I get to do is play my game with my kids. They aren't really old enough to handle controls, but they love watching me play it, helping pick colors for models, etc. I've been making games for about 5 years now. Spent about a year or so learning Unity and how to code. I did not come from any kind of technical or artistic background. My day job doesn't overlap with gamdev at all haha. The 4 years I spent working on this game was a lot of trial and error since I was still new to making games. I've probably remade the game about 3 times during that time as I learn new things about the engine, got better at coding, and a little better at 3D modeling. I'll be honest, 5 years ago if someone would have told me I would make this game I would have laughed at them. I never thought I would be able to pull something like this off. You just have to stick with it. Do a little bit each day, be a seeker of knowledge where you are constantly trying to improve your skills, and someday you'll look back and be shocked at just how far you've come. You've got this!
Lordy yall have me in almost tears reading this. I promised my boys 3 years ago that I’d make a game tailored for them and I just hit so many roadblocks that I was ready to give up and just hope they forget (kids never forget tho lol). Listening to all yall have truly inspired me. I kno that sounds corny but words have power and y’all’s words were beyond powerful for me. Now it’s got me thinking that I wonder if there would be any benefit of having a “dads making games” page for a lot of us to jump on help each other out?
Oh and I meant this as a reply to all of yall awesome ppl 😊
Oh and good luck with the future of ur game!
Thanks!
Keep at it! I'm actually in a similar boat, I don't have kids, but I started exactly 2 years ago this month (I considered Unreal as well, but ended up doing Unity) and have been working at it since. The first year was primarily focused on learning C# and the engine as well. Ideas and prototypes came and went, but settled on my current project about a year ago. Here's to both our future successes! 🎉
Hey man don't give up! Get blueprint nailed for most mechanics, learn interfaces so you don't need to cast to everything. Use free assets for your demo and don't be afraid to ask for some help on here or other forums if you get stuck! If you can't figure out a problem go for a walk. Also make sure you get plenty of sleep and eat properly. But focus on blueprint and if you need fancy shaders just copy paste the nearest thing you can find as a placeholder to remind you in the future to do it properly once you're better. When it comes to blocking out your game, look at other games with the same mechanics and copy how they did it so you can learn and get a good start. You'll manage it don't worry :)
Whoa, your game looks great. Very impressive as a part time endeavour and balancing being a parent. Hope you see lots of success!
Thanks! That just made my day! It isn’t easy balancing it all, but I hope other people considering making their own games can see it is possible without quitting your full time job. I see too many of the I quit my job to make my game posts and not enough of the I didn’t quit my job and still made a game posts.
"Progress will be slower" is definitely key in all this. I tried designing a videogame during my spare couple of hours at the end of any day but I'd be just too drained to make proper progress or enjoy the process (essential aspect imo). That's why I left my job last week (under privileged circumstances of course).
good for you! my main job is too stressful with ot and deadline and it’s starting to feel miserable. Now I’m on an edge of quitting it altogether to pursue my passion in game dev. life’s so short man we all deserve to do what we love.
Sorry to hear and about the stress and the job. I can actually relate quite a bit! It’s a big reason I got into making games. I wanted a creative outlet to help take my mind off the stress from work. It’s been a great thing for my personal mental health. As for whether you should quit and go full time gamedev. Only you can make that choice. You know your circumstances best. However, keep in mind that making games always takes longer than you expect and it’s very difficult to find financial success. Part of the reason I have chosen not to go full time is I feel like I would actually develop a worse game. Too much pressure to create a big success just so I can survive and feed my family is way too much stress. I feel like it would force me to rush a project rather than taking my time. “A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad”
I feel you. I spent most of 20s working my ass off to rank up in big corps. it pays so well but at a huge cost of my personal life. Now when I look back I’m just a depressed single 30s loser with no life. My social circle shrinks heavily too because of always being busy with ot. I see it now that was never worth it. It’s never about money just wanna make something fun as gamer to share and connect with others through this particular form of art. Luckily I come from a strong 3d background. A lots of tools like unreal are stuff I’ve been using in work for years.
I think you’re being a little too hard on yourself. You gained a lot of experience over the years and that experience may lead to some creative ideas when making games. Keep your head up. I’m sure you’ll make something awesome! Especially if you already have some skills with 3D and Unreal. I just started learning how to make games about 5 years ago with zero background in coding, game engines, or art. If I can do it, I truly believe anyone can. If I were you I would try to do 30 mins to 2 hrs a day (whatever you got time and energy for). Try to be consistent and do a little each day. Start with smaller projects and work your way up. If you get enough traction and experience on an idea maybe you can pitch to a publisher if you want to go the full time route. Otherwise, just take it slow, keep a job, and take your time creating something exciting! Just my 2 cents. But you got to figure out what works best for your personal situation. Best of luck! You got this!
I'm a father of two and I have gone full-time game Dev thanks to the support of my wife. I know others who are lucky enough to have done the same. Without independent wealth or a very early deal (publisher, Kickstarter, etc) there's no other real way.
>and try not to compare yourself to others too much Sage advice! I say, as I look at your game and think 'wow what a far more inspired idea and execution than mine.' 😅 Jokes aside, I appreciate seeing another example of someone working full time while also doing game dev, and eventually making their game a reality. It's where I'm at as well as a solo hobbyist, and I need all the reminders I can get. Congratulations on your soon to be released game!
Hey I think the trailer looks cool! I’m in a similar boat of “slow and steady” but I’m just curious if there’s anything in particular that your focus has been on since you released that trailer back in June 2023? How much of the gameplay would you say was implemented at that time? Probably sounds like an odd question I’m just slow, *steadily* adding features that amount to what I believe to be a vertical slice for my game but I’m wondering if your trailer was made at the time of your vertical slice or further after.
Same here. I'm married and a dad of 2 kids. I told the kids 4 years ago we are going to make a game as I wanted them to have some real world experience (they both were in elementary school at the time). 4 years later, both are teenagers now, we have finally made enough to hopefully get at least a demo put together for the next Steam Next Fest. I've been a CG Generalist for 23 years so making the graphics was easy, the programming and learning blueprints with the kids has been a crazy journey. We are hoping to get the game fully finished by next year sometime. Progress has been slow with day to day life, events, schedules, etc., has made it take much longer. A few times we would go 2-3 months without touching a single thing on the game. Its been a journey but we are looking forward to the end!
Same boat, married with 4 littles, full time job too and just starting out and really excited to see what comes of this. Your success is inspiring to me! Thanks for sharing your story.
That's the best part, you don't! /s This is why my six month game project will take about three years to actually complete. But I'm enjoying the ride as a hobbyist and my family gets to remain housed.
I guess that is an acceptable compromise.
I came to the same conclusion, as a hobbyist with kids. 1 full time day, is equivalent to one hobbyist week. It takes years even for a small project (plus the break when losing motivation). The progression is so sloooow, just to add a skill tree for instance, I spend months on it instead of two weeks.
Extremely few people quit their job, go solo indie dev full time, and make much money at all. That's the real answer. The vast majority of people making a living as an indie developer aren't doing it alone running their own business, they're working at indie studios full time. You only want to quit your job when you are already making a decent amount of money from your game business, not before.
If you worked for a studio aren't you no longer an indie dev? You are a hired dev for an indie studio? Or am I misunderstanding the terminology here.
"Indie" doesn't mean solo. Traditionally indie meant independent as in not published by someone else (like a AAA publisher), but practically it doesn't really mean anything that specific. If you search 'best indie games' for a year or on Steam at a given point you'll get games by established studios with healthy budgets (like Hades or Sea of Stars), games that actually have publishers (like AK-xolotl or Tchia), and so on. Self-published games by small teams (like Undertale or Pizza Tower) are actually pretty rare in terms of success stories, let alone the few games actually by a single dev (like Stardew or Papers, Please). Basically, 9/10 people who would call themselves indie devs and support themselves that way are working either with a team at a studio they founded or for a paycheck. That's just what indie means in common parlance. Don't try to support yourself building a game alone without either years of doing that and already selling games or some serious experience in the industry. It's _never_ a good idea.
I made it in my spare time and once it was making enough money to live off, only then I quit my job. It took 4 years make at that pace.
Congratulations. The problem with spare time is that you daydream about the game and you become annoyed as you wait until you finally can sit on the computer. I wish you all the success.
Hey there, one of those "quitting their job" to pursue the indie dream here, even if just one last time: My former company went through a restructuring process recently and I took the opportunity to offer myself for "voluntary redundancy". I took the severance package (pretty decent) + unemployment benefits (Spain) that will help me for one year, and as of last Friday I'm currently working full time and even harder to come up with a nice GDD to pitch to publishers, investors, and possible teammates in less than a year from now. Now, this jump into the unknown can easily be done in my current situation: 37yo with no financial nor family responsibilities (besides a VERY supportive gf) and only two dogs to feed. I don't suggest people with family dependants doing this unless properly discussed and agreed upon. Many teammates "hate" me for this privileged situation in which I can do this crazy dive out of a comfortable job. I just wanted to leave my case here, in the events that someone in a similar situation reads me: You only live once, and the weight of unchased dreams weight heavier than failing at chasing them, overtime. And to be honest, it's always a "not in this economy" time after the 80s, with a couple of fluctuations for the best and for the worst. And also there's always "too many fishes in the tank" for a long time now (as an artist and graphic designer I've been told and even saw it with my own eyes too many times). Again, not trying to encourage you OP in particular, but I hope these words click with someone that's more in the (privileged) situation I was in, to make the big decision. sorry for the long text.
No need for apology, this was a very good read, and the weight of unchased dreams does weigh heavier as each year passes
The ones I personally know who are somewhat successful worked on their game full time but they also considered freelancing on other games part of being an indie dev, so they would work on their game but also build plugins, get hired as contractors and etc working as a game dev. If you don't want to just sit at your comp and do nothing but work on just your game for 16 hours a day and are willing to work on other stuff which is still game dev, then you can make money pretty easily.
That's the neat part, you don't!
I have no dependents, minimal living expenses, and free hobbies. A single year of industry work lasts me about ~6 years of lean living
You might not have been able to save money, largely because you have two dependents, but if you're alone, you can save money even if you're under the poverty line. It's all about willpower. There's definitely shit you could have been doing to save money before, but I reckon your wife and kid would be pissed lol. It's also worth recognizing a lot of people have trust funds, or parents, or whatever else too. Like, some people genuinely save and do a great job on their own. But there's a lot of rich, and middle class people who play the victim and act like they're going hard, when really, they're living off mommy and daddy their whole lives.
Wife and I born into poor families, no college, self taught and self careered. My family told me I was SOL on money for college, and so I assume I am still SOL for inheritance.
>I can't imagine saving enough to just quit working for years on savings alone, not in this economy! That's exactly what they do in addition to fund raising (e.g KickStarter/Steam Early Access) and taking side jobs. It also helps if they are from the regular software dev world with high salaries.
They get a parent or spouse to pay all their living expenses for five years.
I think this now everytime I see a basement full of young programmers in a tv show. Especially if they quibble over money, e.g. who's paying for pizza - all that hardware cost £££, where's the invisible mum/dad/wife supporting this lifestyle?
r/financialindependence
The goal of our civilization for the past 150 year has been to leave the vegetated arable lands a barren wasteland of cement and asphalt grossly overpopulated with billions of serfs. The complete and total dependency on the kingdom of finance means if you ever dare quit working for your betters, you will starve on these lifeless streets devoid of the natural environment which provided for your ancestors for millions of years. So us indie devs who got lucky -- we're very few. Some saved up enough to make the leap, got all the skills they truly needed (not thought they needed, actually needed in reality) and built a pitchable prototype to sell to a publisher. Those are few. But they exist. Some moonlighted on the project foe Yeats before hiring volunteer staff and low or no pay partners on the LLC. A lot of the time that's how drama and litigation starts but some do survive. Most live at home. Parents or spouses support the venture. Some, very few, get venture capital from a peer. That my lucky break, after years of making mods. I otherwise own a house, have a wife and kid, car payment is the only source of debt besides mortgage, no credit cards, and I haven't bought new clothes or been on vacation in almost a decade. I can survive on 2,700$/mo forever because I minimized all my expenses. Everything I make above that rolls over. Which is how I get by now. I've met devs on social security disability, retirees, and even a few who were homeless. When I was making mods all those years I was IATSE G&E or Camera Op, doing shows like man vs wild, the amazing race, the great escape, meat & potatoes -- all kinds of reality TV and shit across the industry. Or working on feature films, some AAA and some small. All that work was feast or famine. 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off, sometimes months between jobs.
Devs can make bank if they're senior level engineers. Work a few years and you can live off it a few years while you work on your own game if you don't have dependents. Also, wait and see what happens to the 'billions of serfs' the moment AI/robots replace them.
A bit unrelated, but the way things are going now with AI targeting to replace the white collar workforce, people might actually revert back to farming or blue collar. At least until robots replace farmers and manual laborers as well. But then after that, who the fuck's buying the corporations' products if no one has a job? The whole capitalist system's gonna collapse. This AI renaissance is starting to look incredibly short sighted.
Just issue a paycheck to the robot and have the robot pay taxes. Then program the robot to buy your products.
Depending on your country of origin naturally, but here - mostly due to social security. The unions will pay you about 80% of your past salary for aprox 360 days until you find a new job, which gives you time to develop a small game or pitch-able prototype.
Both mine is hilarious. Also, fake it until you make it. Tell me you wouldn't donate/buy to someone who said "I'm doing the leap of faith". Marketing.
Some people are born in wealthy families. So they have the time and money for education, projects, entrepreneurship, etc.
publisher deals investors
For us: - part time for 1 year - made a pact to live on one income (spouse) to work on game full-time. Make vertical slice demo and launching kickstarter - crowd funding to support cost of first game - no kids, no major health issues except those caused by burnout - apply to every indie grant program possible for free booth space at conventions - out of pocket to attend convention travel costs (put that on the credit card...) - live on the edge with austere cost cutting measures until spouse gets a big raise. Then it's just regular living paycheck-to-paycheck. - meet publisher at con who ends up offering a very small paid gig - paid gig reception is excellent, so offers full contract for 2 games - Contract only really covers direct game development costs, not a salary. But at least game dev costs aren't coming OOP anymore - develop and publish games for 3 years, but contract and accounting are structured that any royalty payments only comes after all games are published - last game recently published - now looking down the barrel of no studio income while new game meets recoup (and then have to wait 90+ days after this quarter end to receive any payments, if any come.) I'm so tired man. We are doing ok, and working at net neutral puts us ahead of many of devs who are working at a loss. So we're grateful! But yeah, the math of indie development is... bleak, even when things go well. I come from a background similar to yours, and it's really rough without a safety net.
I feel for you. Still living the dream though, in some sense. Personally I’m too risk averse and will probably work 5-10 more years before I have enough to not require much of income from game dev.
Sorry I don't mean to be a downer- I answered when I was feeling really cynical. There are definitely pathways to success; I didn't mention it above, but as long as you can manage to find whatever development while having the finances to cover basic needs, it's definitely doable. For us that meant keeping family costs more minimal and scoping the game to be super cheap (keeping scale small and by doing everything ourselves. Labor and outsourcing is very expensive, up there with living costs. ) Saving up money is another way to cover those living expenses. The bigger resource has really been time. Replacing money with time has its own costs, but it's the sort of decision you gotta make for yourself. the thing I see most common in other successful indie devs is perseverance, ability to iterate/improve on failures quickly, and resilience. Just gotta keep at it. One of the big steps that lead to other stuff was getting a free space to show the game with Indie Megabooth at PAX. We applied 3 times before getting accepted. And even then, it was a different con (and different multiple applications) where we met publisher. But showing at PAX gave cache to be seen as legit. Just gotta keep at it, and keeping knocking on doors until one opens for ya
I manage by myself but would be screwed if I had to provide for 2 others on my indie games income, and I am not living super well but managing to pay bills and shit so that's something.
What if your computer hits the shitter? Is it insured?
Nope, I'd just buy another one. I code on a laptop and they aren't that expensive and I've got some savings
I don’t have kids or a wife but I also have my six figures main dev job. I can’t quit as much as I’d like to. I still have to pay rent (Los Angeles) and I pay for a couple contractors to help me. I think if I was to quit it would give me a lot of stress, every day that would go by it would just eat money. Money would become a ticking clock, instead of minutes going by it would be cents. I have savings and I use the savings to pay the contractors but I can’t just quite my job, not until I have a prototype and VC or publisher deal.
Consulting a lot and work on games enough to pitch it for funding.
Well, according to the other thread about how much non-competes being made illegal will benefit small indie companies, a bunch of people will now leave big gaming companies to form indie studios and be able to offer things such as 4 day work weeks and really good work life balance. It will be amazing! A complete game changer and the best news for indie devs in years!!! On a more serious note, game dev tends to be something that you do out of passion. For every success story there are a lot of people who do not succeed. Everyone wants to make their dream game, but you have to be realistic about what you can accomplish. I would recommend the gdc presentation "how to survive 11 years without a hit" where a solo dev shared how he survived. He did release kind of a hit, and eventually make it big with Cultust Simulator a few years later . The gist of it is to understand your limitations and set realistic goals for what you can develop and publish, even if it means making casual puzzle games.
Investment, either in the form of a publisher or crowdfunding
> I hear stories of people quitting their job and working on solo indie dev for a few years First - magical ingredient is a lie. The fact you hear about such people doesn't mean they are real. It certainly sounds more interesting to say "I have left my job to make my game!" than it is to say "okay, I actually work day to day to finance my life and go back home to code". Second - if they ARE real and you have actually heard about them - do they for instance have popular YouTube channels? They are influencers first and game developers second. They make money selling their game dev courses, from people watching their videos etc. Third - someone else funds their lifestyle. Parents, girlfriend, inheritance money etc. Fourth - assuming they are real and they have sufficient savings - there are few ways to get there: a) you need a higher level job to begin with. If you live in US in California for instance - you don't want to barely break 6 figures. You want 200k $ a year, part of which generally comes via options like 4 years vesting programs and whatnot. There are multiple engineers working at Nvidia that had a not so remarkable base salary but got a bit stock for instance. A bit of stock turned into a million $ after vesting period since AI blew up so they could easily quit their jobs now. It's not THAT uncommon for like a third of your salary in CS sector to come from company stock. b) is that they actually did slowly build up their funds over several years. If you can save, say, 20 grand a year - it turns into 40 grand several years later via stock market. Times 5 years and you now have enough to potentially build something. c) not every place is USA. 100k $ in some places in the US is really not so remarkable. But 60k $ in a cheaper region means you can literally live off 10 grand a year and save 50k. And it wouldn't even be a bad standard of living on like half of our planet. So reducing your costs of living can make such plans way more realistic.
I sell my ass. You have to feed her carrots though or she gets angry
For my partner and I we both worked at corporate tech jobs for 5-6 years to pay off student loans and build savings. Now we are indie dev-ing full time off of savings which may or may not pay dividends who knows but we figured we would take a shot at it BEFORE we introduce kids/mortgage into the financial mix
A privilege of the wealthy my friend
Being able to afford to work on my own games was part of my career plan. I spent 20 years working in the industry developing my skills while squirreling away cash and optimizing my lifestyle to eventually be able to afford to work for myself. It's been almost two years since I finally reached that point, it'll likely be a few years more before I find out if my self made games turn out to be any good. Quite a few folks that took the same path as me supplement their income with short term contracts to avoid having to live like a college student. In either case, functionally we all looked at that goal as a form of early semi-retirement, but instead of taking vacations and playing golf, we'd use our free time to build the games we wanted to.
This is the dream really. Been my plan for the past 10 years. But I’ve been pushing the goal further away because of added expenses. House, car, wife and kids. House finally paid off now so should accelerate towards the goal. But I have issues settling for a final amount. Current job pays well and I doubt I would get a similar salary elsewhere, so I can’t get this wrong.
I struggled a lot in the final years debating if the time was right or not. I'd advanced a lot since I'd started and I felt like an idiot thinking about giving up my cushy well paid job that most people would kill to get. I'd already tackled what my minimum amount was, which was to make sure I had enough funds to avoid becoming a burden to my family. Nobody was going to need to switch to ramen dinners, that sort of thing. The final amount though would impact things like how long I needed to make my current car last, or whether or not we'd do any optional home improvements in the next 5-10 years. My computer upgrade cycles would slow down, nights out with the guys would have to become BBQs at home, etc... I stuck it out a year past when I planned to go solo which helped build some extra buffer, but I pulled the trigger when I realized I was looking for a way to have my cake and eat it to. It would have taken another 20 years to save up enough to quit without sacrificing any of the luxuries I'd gotten used to over the years and I really didn't want to wait that long. Ultimately the minimum amount I'd set was really on par with how most folks around here live anyways. Lifestyle inflation put up a lot of blinders for me about needs vs wants, and it turns out a decent chunk of those wants came from needing to blow off stress from work. A shiny new car certainly helped make a rough year at work feel worth it. I spent a very long time following the r/fire folks, mr money moustache was probably my favorite. It was interesting to see so many people's different ideas of what financial independence meant, from folks that wanted yachts to others that just wanted to sling coffee a few days a week and spend the rest of their time working on passion projects. The little actual advice I can give you is once you pull the trigger, keep in touch with your industry friends, and keep up with the industry in general. Solo dev is an oddly isolating experience and it was surprising how much I felt the absence of the general vibe of things once I wasn't showing up to an office every day.
Just work and code. I work in a warehouse but still find i get half hour to an hour a day to code then go full force on my days off. Get a good 15-20hours a week to code on top of my 50 hour job. If you want it enough, you will find the time. I'm single BTW so I don't have to worry bout that. Also I do it for fun, not for profit, i just love coding.
because im 15 LOL
They don't. Most who do it, do it part time only first. Or are veterans who saved up for decades/got state grants/got funding with IndieGoGo and the likes up first.
In your position it would be totally foolish to pursue a full time indie dev career. When I started I had my parents' help who sustained me through the first 3-4 years, which usually are the toughest. I could fully live from my earnings only after 4-5 years. Good luck!
wife and kids are the killer. In my case, my ex would actively sabotage any personal projects.
I didn't quit- I got a part time job instead. That way you have no time limit for success. Took me 6 years to get an income but it was an ambitious project. You need: 1. low hours to give you time to work on your game (I had only 2x 12hr shifts per week) 2. Non-gamedev job so you still have the mental energy to work on your project 3. Live off a tight budget. I barely scraped by in my overdraft and shared a house. I had no kids though, dont think i could have done it if i did.
Don’t have kids. But do get a gf/wife with a job. She can support your silly hobby until you give up or get rich ;)
The wife and kid ain't going to help. Just earn more money. I make a lot of money contracting and could stop working for three years if I felt like it.
Life's all about choices. You decided to have a kid. Other folks wait a bit longer or decide not to have kids at all and can reduce their standard of living to put money aside. That's how they can leave work for a long time or subsist on their partners income. If you want to leave your job in the future, make a concrete plan for that. How much money will you need? How much of a safety cushion do you need on top of that? Then double what you come up with, because you are probably wrong about your estimates. But we should absolutely not need to tell you this. You have a kid. Having a long-term financial plan, also for THEIR success, is one of your responsibilities as a provider.
I feel like this is an oddly and unnecessarily passive aggressive response. I am not asking how to get rid of my family or asking for advice on how to save. My priority is to provide a comfortable, even above comfortable, life for my family. I was more curious about how other people manage to do it these days given the decent QoL thresholds for single people are now 60K in the US. No need to lecture me on life choices, creating and providing for my beautiful family. Don't be a reddit weirdo.
You didn't get the point at all. It's great you went down the route you went down. Having a family is nice. You asked how folks can quit their job and just build their dreams. And the answer is that they made different choices to yours. And if you are interested in going down that path, then you should ALREADY KNOW how to do that and not have to ask here in the first place. Because contrary to the folks that went with the indie route, you ALREADY made a choice that requires this kind of planning to a larger degree.
Plenty of people have already explained the main way (have a spouse that supports you), but the alternative way is to save aggressively and build a runway. If you can save e.g. 2 years worth of your expenses, then you can afford to take 2 years off to make a game. This is obviously risky, and with a family it's hard to make the math work, but it's another option for some people. A modified version is to not quit but either transition part-time or just get a part-time job that can still leave e.g. 20 hours per week extra for game development, and lengthen the runway. Again, keeping the expenses to the minimum is generally necessary for this approach, which is again very difficult when supporting a family.
typically they had enough money to make it an active choice that they can make. if you’re making minimum wage and decide to quit to become an indie dev that’s just financially irresponsible. but also those types of stories tend to be from the most successful indie devs. the average indie dev is probably doing it as a passion project on top of their full time job rather than quitting everything to be a dev
do a couple of very successful long and short i guess😭
I’m in a position where I could if I wanted to. I built up enough savings (from trading) where if my expenses remain much the same I would have a pretty lengthy runway.
What i did was work as a 3D modeler for a game called Little Kitty Big City, and my indie game on the weekends until i had a few viral tweets that got me enough traction to get funding off a only a tech demo. Once i knew i had funds then i quit my job. But like others have said a lot of people have some other type of support network. Now what im trying to do is to figure out what to do now that the launch flopped (Wife and i are moving into my mom's basement.) So you will need some kinda back up plan if things go poorly.
From the stories I heard, they make alot of sacrifices. Most of them move into a relative/friend's house (mostly parents). Cut down on bills, sell the house, lose the car note, etc.
In your situation, creating free time is how you get there, not going full time indie dev. Beyond a really successful kickstarter or other funding, sweat equity is your best shot. Also worth checking out some small indie studios where you could potentially make the transition a bit shorter. The solo direction might not be feasible given your situation.
There's a number of ways... A lot of us grow into our salaries and our lives expand to meet the income, that's part of the reason we work as hard as we do. Some are more frugal than others. Some people choose to invest rather than splurge. Keeping up with the Jones' isn't all it's cracked up to be. There are also all of the vices we may enjoy but aren't necessarily fully conscious of either. Five years ago I used to be a pack a day cigarette smoker, so that was easily $2,000/year back then.
"Finding a balance between following your passion for indie dev and providing for your family is definitely a tough decision. Have you considered taking on freelance work or part-time gigs to supplement your income while you work on your dream project? It may take longer, but it could be a more sustainable approach in the long run!"
Do a Kickstarter. If it fails then your product was probably not gonna sell anyway. It's a win win.
Additional source of income or beforehand money budget .
Build a prototype, create a pitch, start a studio (legal entity). Based on that, get an investment or a publisher. Make sure your salary is in a budget. Let me know on priv if you have follow up questions on how to.
passive income > avg. salary gives an opportunity to start doing what you want instead of what you need to do to eat. The question is where do you live and is that possible there
I worked for a decade in the industry and saved up. Plus, I'm single and live in a developing country, paying about 400 for a month worth of rent. I dont have many friends, and all of my hobbies are naturally gamedev related, be it art, sculpting, coding, or coming up with stories. I have a depression and building my own world, and engaging with like-minded individuals online, gamedev community is the only thing keeping my sanity in check.
Disclaimer: I've never done this because I confidently fail the first step. So this is how I imagine it, oversimplified: 1. Save up, a lot 1.a. Have your partner's support/faith 2. Quit your day job 3. Start working twice as much 4. Start building your player base early 5. Polish before the savings run out 5.a. If the savings run out but you feel confident - try to get publisher funding/grants/loans(scary) 6. Do not release into the void (see step 4) 7. Get a minimum amount of success that lets you work on the next game 8. Repeat with acquired experience
Amassed wealth, chronic illnesses that make working outside of their home impossible, being hired by an already established indie team, doing freelance work in a few areas within indie dev (art, music, sfx design, voice acting, programming, etc.), not having other people they need to provide for, documenting and monetizing the gamedev progress through youtube or twitch... I'm sure I've forgotten a few things but those are some of the ways. Not all of them are positive and not all of them work for everyone.
I think that majority of people who do this (as others have stated) either use their savings or have a spouse that is working and let them work on their game full time. There's other approaches though: - Devlog YouTube channel, I don't think you can live off this alone unless you're in the top 10 of game dev YouTubers though unless you can live for very cheap. But I do think some of the successful ones could perhaps even live off the videos alone and not need to develop and sell games at that point. - Kickstarter, a very risky approach but if you make it while working and get enough funding I think it's a less risky endeavour. However at this point you suddenly already have "paying customers" without a usable project so I would assume this to be more stressful? - Publisher that can help with backing, I haven't worked with any publishers but it's a business after all, so they'd most likely try to suggest changes to your game that could result in more profit for them which I guess is fair enough. However then it's no longer really your game and I'm unsure if you can even properly use the "independent" title then. The way I do it with 2 kids (currently not working but searching for work after I finished my degree) is to just spend your free time on it. Progress is slower that's for sure, but it's 100% your own project. No deadlines that you don't set yourself and no accountability really towards anyone but your potential players which is a lot easier mentally than having used Kickstarter or a Publisher breathing down your neck. All of these things being expected as someone else is paying you to be able to work on it in your free time. I like that if if I have writer's block (is there a word for this in game dev?) then I can just take a week off the project and do other things.
The people Ive seen doing this were either supported by their spouse, or living in a very low cost of living area, combined with no mortgage (inherited family home etc) or had at least one side hustle going on. If you're the provider in the household, then forget quitting your job and going fulltime indie. Your family is more important than some videogame. Either find a way to combine the dev work on your project with a full time job, or keep grinding until your family no longer depends on your single income.
Some people just burn through their savings hoping to make it. So they would have let's say 2 years until they would have to go find a job if their indie game fails.
I live on the bare minimum, that's how I personally do it. I'm not married or dating anyone, because this ain't the right time for it yet
My plan is for my wife to be the main breadwinner lol. I am funding her startup the last 2 years through my salary. And when she is successful she will return the favour.
Poor skills. What are your economics like? What is your car, if any? How well calculated are your incomes and outgoes and break-even points? Cash flow is everything.
In my particular case, after quiting my job I was working on my project only half-time, the other half went for freelance work, which was enough to support me (no wife and kids, so yeah, that definitely affects things). After going full-time on my project, I relied on my savings, then money borrowed from friends & family, and then funding from a publisher. It worked out pretty well in the end, but was definitely a high-risk path \^\^
People also don't realize the difference between those who got their life started before and after covid. In Canada, the biggest economic line you can draw is people who bought a house before covid vs. people who didn't. Not working for a couple years when the house you bought has tripled in value is a lot less scary than saving every penny you have in hopes that one day you may be able to afford a down payment
You work and moonlight. I am surprised you haven’t heard that. It’s super common in Silicon Valley for POC then quit when it’s done. You only quit your job when you are confident enough to leave and succeed in your game dev.
It's different for everybody. The Stardew Vallley dev was supported by their partner, the Enter the Gungeon guys worked for Microsoft before going indie and pooling their savings together, Undertale was funded by kickstarter. What these devs have in common is that they paid themselves very little while working on their projects for years and that's unfortunately not so much an option for yourself having a family to provide for.
I recently went full-time, but I only had about 6 months of expenses saved up, and I have no kids and I'm splitting my bills with my gf. It is hard, and I'm going to be seeking funding within two weeks from now or I go totally bust. I think it's three parts: One part years of savvy saving, one part privilege, and another part wild negligence. It was objectively a bad idea for me to go full-time, but I figured it was a risk I was happy to take. If I end up needing to move back in with my parents, fine. I miss them and love them anyway! But I always have that safety net, and I think that's a huge part of it. I'm privileged, and I think a lot of other Indies are in that same boat. Try not to compare yourself and do what you can with the cards you were dealt. If there's one thing I believe, it's that success is always there for those who don't give up.
I work nights
Cuphead fandom jokes about the devs having to get a mortgage for underwear or clothes to finance the projects final push and launch
Just sell the house. (DON'T)
The true answer after investigating this myself is that usually there's someone else giving them money to live off. The dev for No Man's Sky is a fringe example that was hugely risky and luckily paid off because he was accidentally good at marketing. The most common and realistic scenario is that they don't have to provide for anyone, their money is their own, they live with their parents for free or cheap, their parents look after them. Another part to this is also knowing how to seek government funding, arts grants and similar funds through adapting your project to meet their interests to win the money. You will need, usually, a specialist proposal writer for this to win the bid for the grants. It helps if you already know people or have a reputation. Another way to think of it is "how do these 17 year olds afford a car? Their driving lessons for half a year, tax, fuel, insurance etc..." well you know, the most common way is that their parents pay for it all first. Sometimes it's just given, other times it's on payback like "pay me back when you're older and have a job". But usually people without wealthy parents don't get the car, same as devs without financial backing don't get to make their dream game. There's always someone else paying for it.
If you can find a good easy job to do while developing the game it would work out best for you, 65k to 100k jobs like that do exist, you just need to pad your resume to appear better then the rest
I've heard of code surfing, where senior devs apply for a couple junior dev positions and collect a couple paychecks while knocking out easy tasks.
I think part-time job is good idea. Check "advancenine" channel on YouTube. Game "Night Stones". He is Dad and indie game developer from US.
I keep toying with the idea of doing full time indie dev. I’m disabled and have a hard time finding work, so my husband supports us both. I feel like if I’m getting supported, I might as well use the opportunity to do something I might enjoy full-time.
I don't see how indiedev is compatible with any kind of caring responsibility. So much of the work requires hours of uninterrupted flow time, where you can focus on problems in the code, work on art, etc. If somebody else needs your undivided attention for more than a few hours a day, this is not possible.
I hope you don't think you need to be forever alone 🤗
You can have a partner, if they will tolerate being ignored for hours on end, week in week out (helps if they're an indie dev too!). But small children? Parents to look after?
It'd be no different if I was going to a full time job. I currently work 8-10 hrs a day professionally and do 2 hours personal coding and study per week day, amd still squeeze in 4-6 hours of family/errand time
I am talking about caring, not family time.
What do you want from me
I work in the service industry to subsidize my art practice and self-publish card decks after leaving a career in branding & visual design. I live on very little, but where there’s a will there’s a way. It took me three years to produce my first deck! With a little budgeting and having other streams of income, you can make it happen. Freelance and wage labor go a long way, keep expenses low. I know a lot of indie devs who make it work with kids, but success becomes all the more imperative when you have people dependent on you. I hope that I can grow my ecomms biz to full time but it has a learning curve—you got to learn to wear a lot of hats. You should look to indie game dev talks on GDC’s YouTube page—Adam & Rebekah Saltsman, who run the hybrid dev studio/publisher brand Finji Games—come to mind as potential role models for the scale you need to reach to sustain your family. Good luck OP!
I have to say that having any passion in general is probably way harder when you have kids or a wife to support and both… hm.
I will train my wife to art, and my kid to playtest!
i day care 2-3 dogs 5 days a week which brings in an additional \~ $15k per year. on top of that some small passive income plus wife has a good job. it doesnt leave me with money to invest into my games but it is enough that I dont have to work a day job.
Very few people are able to make it as indie devs. You shouldn't quit your job because chances are your first, second and third game will flop. And you just might run out of money before your games can fill the financial hole quitting your job creates. In my case I created my first game while working full time at mcdonalds, luckily i was able to quit my job shortly after release, and i was able to do gamedev full time. My advice is, make your game in your spare time, it is definitely possible.
Be single, on welfare, living in your parent's basement
Save up money and live somewhere with a low cost of living.
If you got a six figure salary you either live somewhere where your rent an necessities are like 4/5th of your salary, or you're bad with money. It it's the latter you gotta learn to not waste money.
>>I provide for a wife and kid I used to co own a small studio way back when the dotcom boom happened. Eventually sites clued in that webgames did not magically make your site an overnight success, and since the alternative offer we had at that point was making sims for the military I called it a day (that just ain't my thing). But your last line kinda nails it. I was responsible for no one but me. Now I am very happy to have a fulltime job (with a great company) - that mortgage doesn't pay itself. It was great while it lasted but I simply can't risk going indie anymore.
Here are the only ways: -Be independently wealthy already, and do not need income. -Have considerable savings, and live on a very tight budget. -Have family that supports you. -Have a part time job or side hustle that brings in enough to scrape by with minimal hours. -Some combination of the above. If these are not options for you, then you're only other options would be to build a game in your free time, or somehow get funded. My guess is that most of the people saying they quit to work on game dev are younger with fewer obligations or responsibilities, or they were simply willing to live real slim while they did it.
pile all your money into bitcoin until you dont need money anymore, or do it on the side
Investment returns from crypto
I’ve never worked in gamedev, but from my research it seems that one of the most common ways is to make a good looking MVP while you’re still working, then market and crowdfund or find a publisher/investors willing to fund the project.