|
Beefeater1980 posted:* Due to the high failure rate, only do this if **really** sure that finances can survive it failing for a protracted period. Sounds like some solid takeaways. As for long-term sustainability, plenty of studios get one or two worthwhile games out, then release a stinker and have to fold. Or the game dies in development hell due to being harder to make than anticipated, or etc. Indie gamedev is fundamentally risky. You can mitigate risk to some extent by being more educated and not making unforced errors, for example, by making games that are sellable (have a big enough audience that is plausibly interested in your work), and by having your marketing plan under control. I doubt that gets you to better than a coin flip though. The long-term successful companies, as best I can tell, fall into one of these categories:
That third category is basically Spiderweb Software; Jeff Vogel's been making old-school CRPGs for about 25 years now.
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 00:34
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 01:00 |
|
|
Beefeater1980 posted:...for long term sustainability the question in my mind is what distinguishes the 10% of Indy games that break even from the 90% that don’t. Remember Flappy Bird.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 00:36
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:
Yeah, I’m a big fan of Spiderweb and have been enjoying the recent remakes. That’s my mental model for this: start small, be very disciplined in scope and cost and try to carve out a very specific niche.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 01:11
|
|
|
jeff vogel's career and work is literally about as old as, if not older than, the differentiation of indie gaming from other gaming
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 01:25
|
|
|
is it really a remake if he's just been doing the same thing for 25 years it's just... make
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 01:26
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/Juleshortstuff/status/1369399482778062850
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 04:35
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:So, I'm doing this right now. My first game is hopefully going to be released this year, early access in May, full launch in December. Meant to add, wishlisted! Love nautical themed games.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 05:05
|
|
|
Thank you! Every bit helps. I'm actually currently dealing with evaluating my options for marketing the game, so, speaking of things indies get to learn about!  That reminds me, actually -- running a company costs money. Here in California it cost me a few thousand in legal assistance to get set up. This included providing fill-in-the-blank contracts I could send to my contractors, setting up an LLC, filing a trademark, and a few other things I don't remember off the top of my head. The LLC costs $800 per year in state taxes. I've spent a few hundred on premade assets, some of which have been duds and some of which have saved me weeks of wasted effort*. It's $100 to list on Steam (which you can recoup once the game starts making sales, but still). My contractors need to be paid of course. And PR and marketing is looking likely to cost a minimum of $10k and likely more.And unfortunately, a lot of these costs are relatively fixed startup costs, regardless of how big your game is. You don't want to hire any contractors until you're legally protected, for example. I assume a lot of indies don't bother with this stuff, because I can't imagine that, say, a small RPGMaker game selling for $5 can afford to file for a trademark or run a proper company. But it's a risk, since if they do something wrong, their personal savings could be at stake without a company to protect them. One of the things you need to decide is what your level of risk aversion is. Another is how willing you are to spend money to make things go faster (vs. spending money just to make something happen at all). On the plus side, these expenses can be deducted on your taxes, and you can hold some of them over year-to-year until the game starts making money. So e.g. in 2020 I had basically no income, and am getting to hold a lot of my expenses for 2021, when the game will hopefully start making some money. * Sometimes I'm lucky and I buy the asset before those weeks are lost!
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 05:32
|
|
|
Not gonna lie, now that I’ve got a decent bit saved up for retirement, I’m considering migrating to game dev, cause I want to help make something I’m really proud of. I got bit by the bug after making something a bunch of internet people really liked, but creativity simply isn’t in my blood.  I’m a problem solver and deconstructor by nature. Also I’m getting old and starting to have existential crises about what I’ve accomplished in 30+ years.AAA game dev sounds awful though, and I don’t have the art or design chops to break out on my own. I’d consider applying to a mid-size indie company, but game dev and design is such a radically different toolset than my own that I dunno what I’d even bring to the table. Really, I’m just wondering if this is all there’s left in life for me. E/N chat I guess. TooMuchAbstraction posted:So, I'm doing this right now. My first game is hopefully going to be released this year, early access in May, full launch in December. I don’t know why I’m reminded of it, but that initial shot in the trailer has some Bomberman 64 energy and I fuckin loved that aesthetic! Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Mar 10, 2021 |
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 14:26
|
|
|
Pollyanna, your situation sounds a looooooot like mine. I also had this feeling like I want to create something but don’t have the creative “juice”. I found it helpful in the past year to spend real honest effort to “just do it” with a side project after work. My hope is that creativity is just a muscle you have to train. Doing this can then help in a few ways: (1) you might finally break through and learn how to channel your creativity; (2) you might learn that it’s just not that fun for you to design games; and (3) regardless of which of the above happens, you can still learn a lot and even have a project to show to people if you want to start applying to game jobs. tl;dr try not to judge yourself on what you think you have or don’t have in you. Anything you feel is difficult can be learned with practice.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 15:37
|
|
|
Pollyanna posted:Not gonna lie, now that I’ve got a decent bit saved up for retirement, I’m considering migrating to game dev, cause I want to help make something I’m really proud of. I got bit by the bug after making something a bunch of internet people really liked, but creativity simply isn’t in my blood. Do you want to go to game dev because you find games to be meaningful, or is that simply the first art form that comes to mind that you know people make a living at? It sounds to me like what you're grappling with is some form of existential angst / lack of "meaning" in your life. There's plenty of ways you can make the world a better place while continuing to work in software development. Charities need software, so do companies that do e.g. clean energy, carbon capture and storage, medical device development, fundamental scientific research, etc. They often don't pay as well as industry software, but gamedev isn't exactly a path to riches either. Alternatively, if what you want is to make art, but you don't feel creative, well, hell, there's more to art than just using your imagination. There's plenty of technical skills you can build through methodical practice as well, and you can gain plenty of satisfaction from that. For example, to be a good illustrator, you need to develop your understanding of three-dimensional volumes, perspective, composition, penmanship, physiology, use of color, and probably a bunch of other things that I'm not remembering off the top of my head. These are hard-nosed objective skills with clear paths from novice to expert. The actual "decide what to draw" step is a tiny part of that, and plenty of artists use prompt generators to help them get over that hump. I encourage everyone to experiment with different artforms. Do it for yourself, without some greater "productive" goal in mind, just to experiment with making different things and seeing how you feel about the result. I recommend trying drawing, painting, pottery (including clay sculpture), writing, and music; they're all pretty accessible. Depending on available resources you can also try more gear-intensive stuff like woodworking, forging, welding, glassblowing, etc. Developing your artistic skills can be really satisfying and give meaning to your life, even if it's not what you do as a career. Plenty of people have jobs that they don't necessarily particularly care about, and hobbies that are what they feel define them. Relatedly, there's a goon art discord that I highly recommend.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 16:33
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:Do you want to go to game dev because you find games to be meaningful, or is that simply the first art form that comes to mind that you know people make a living at? It sounds to me like what you're grappling with is some form of existential angst / lack of "meaning" in your life. There's plenty of ways you can make the world a better place while continuing to work in software development. Charities need software, so do companies that do e.g. clean energy, carbon capture and storage, medical device development, fundamental scientific research, etc. They often don't pay as well as industry software, but gamedev isn't exactly a path to riches either. Yeah, I'm hiring right now for a company that builds software for social workers. One of our customers has lowered homelessness in their county by almost 30% since adopting our software. That definitely scratches my meaningfulness itch.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 18:50
|
|
|
TooMuchAbstraction posted:Thank you! Every bit helps. I dropped a link to your game over in one of our three boating threads https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3682371&pagenumber=46&perpage=40&userid=0#post513107611
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 18:52
|
|
|
wins32767 posted:Yeah, I'm hiring right now for a company that builds software for social workers. One of our customers has lowered homelessness in their county by almost 30% since adopting our software. That definitely scratches my meaningfulness itch. That's awesome, thank you for doing what you're doing. Hadlock posted:I dropped a link to your game over in one of our three boating threads Thank you! Lordy, but there's so many good threads on these forums.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 19:05
|
|
|
I'd like to recommend CLARK TANK DEEP DIVE https://youtu.be/NOb-PdYwkwk it goes into why almost all indie games don't make money, making effective hooks, and things like that. I found it useful.
|
|
#
?
Mar 10, 2021 23:37
|
|
|
There's also a huge range between AAA and Indie that you maybe aren't considering. There's all of mobile, there's developers that have just hung along for the past 25 years (Monolith Productions I'm looking at you.) I'm at a spot for the past 2 years doing games inside a company of 800 but a division of more like 100.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2021 20:26
|
|
|
JehovahsWetness posted:Read Kleppmann's "Designing Data-Intensive Applications", it's a legit great book. Thanks for this recommendation. I've started it the other night and it's already helping me understand the right ways to talk about these concepts.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2021 20:53
|
|
|
I've been reading DDIA recently as well, and I'll give yet another recommendation for it. It's a bit of a survey of the technical and systems design landscape, so it covers a lot of topics but doesn't go into depth on them. But it is really helpful in giving you the introduction to concepts and vocabulary for asking questions or researching more on your own, as well as some of the high-level tradeoffs you'll want to consider when approaching design problems. I think it'd be a great interview prep material, and the bonus is that it's not solely interview material like CTCI or similar. It is genuinely useful knowledge, and a more interesting read as well.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2021 21:23
|
|
|
Yeah DDIA reads to me like "high level cliff notes of a bunch of things that-you-forgot/that-have-changed since undergrad CS and you probably should know" - i.e. quite useful.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2021 23:11
|
|
|
There are a few sections that touch on specific products, and those are a little at risk of getting stale, but overall the book is incredibly solid.
|
|
#
?
Mar 11, 2021 23:14
|
|
|
Any references or tips for interviewing a new manager from a managed perspective? We did this a couple of years ago and we collectively made the worst possible hire in any measurable metric. Said individual left two weeks ago and we're on the hunt to replace them, but I feel like if the same person came through again, I wouldn't be any better equipped to weed them out. I'm very experienced in hiring other developers, but based on this one data point, crap at interviewing managers.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2021 15:21
|
|
|
My inclination would be to work through some of the actual scenarios that happened with the bad boss, but as hypotheticals. See how the prospective hire says they'd handle them. But I admit I have extremely little experience in this domain.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2021 15:40
|
|
|
I think that's a good line of questioning. Another is to ask them to explain how their ideal approach to managing would work, and then you can talk about how they've handled real world constraints that prevent them from taking that approach.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2021 15:52
|
|
|
Cheesus posted:Any references or tips for interviewing a new manager from a managed perspective? What was bad about the manager and what did you like about any other manager you've previously had? I like the idea of a team interviewing their prospective manager but you do really need a gameplan.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2021 15:56
|
|
|
What was your experience with an all stock merger, where your company lost their brand name and ceo to the other company The last time something like this happened to me, it took the aquiring company 4 years to fully absorb the our company and 80% of the aquired company either left or was laid off, although by then I had moved on for three years already, and didn't have any stock options All stock merger seems like a not fantastic sign of health for either company, as neither are public at the moment, also (probably?) means I'm just getting stock options in the other company, plus maybe a meager retention bonus if I'm lucky? With an aquisition at least I'd get paid out for my vested options, probably I guess I'll know what the final deal terms are in Q2 but should I start looking for some other job? Both companies have Good Valuation but they're not FAANG level. If I were 25 again I'd just ride this out for the experience/amusement factor, but mortgage + baby complicates my risk assessment sightly It's still not clear whose stack is going to be the winner, I think technically their infrastructure is better but our product is miles better, although they have slightly higher valuation and funding story than we do
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2021 18:13
|
|
|
Cheesus posted:Any references or tips for interviewing a new manager from a managed perspective? I was in this position not too long ago in which I was interviewing lead engineer candidates who would be managing me. We ended up with an extremely good hire. Some of the main things: - We focused on candidates with lots of experience (ideally 10+ years), including managerial experience/stated desire to pursue the management track. They are usually just looking for a change of scenery (or are fleeing a sinking/turbulent startup) in hopping jobs rather than trying to climb the career ladder and prove themselves and poo poo. These candidates are rarer and will be expensive (but worth it). - We asked a lot of questions about how they handled/would handle X management situation. Also lots of engineering process questions (handling code reviews, cycle/sprint planning, etc). - Craft your above questions to try to glean a sense of their ego/humility, how they respond to criticism, how well they adapt if something they implemented isn’t working, do they lead by example rather than by decree, do they go to bat for their team. The reason I say glean from carefully crafted questions/reading between lines of responses is because if you ask about these things directly they’ll just tell you what you want to hear. - Do a lunch meeting and just shoot the poo poo. In the before times, this entailed inviting the candidate to lunch or drinks/appetizers after work, but now entails a virtual Zoom thing and sending the candidate a gift card so we can “buy them lunch”. This meeting can include a couple members of the dev team and ideally someone nontechnical so you don’t just talk shop (because that’s what the actual interview is for). This can be a good way to get a sense of how they conduct themselves while not in interview performance mode, how sociable/communicative/friendly they are, and generally if they’re a chill, not-weird person you’d be happy working under. Basically, pay really close attention to temperament and soft skills. Certainly make sure the candidate meets your technical requirements and is capable of handling your stack, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that the best programmer is also the best manager (my previous job made that mistake and and the result was abject misery). Also, what made the previous manager so terrible and what do you think you might have missed in the interview process? I’m really curious.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2021 19:56
|
|
|
Hello world, and friends. I am another goon thinking really hard about changing careers. This thread seems to get many of those! I hope you friends aren't bored with that. One word of warning: I am in Yurop, so US-centric info doesn't really help me. Give me just generic advice if you must. I have a freelance career. I am one of those fancy simultaneous translators, like Nicole Kidman in that (awful) movie. I think that the pandemic and the widespread use of zoom is going to put the squeeze in the quantity of work. Also, the compressed sound, unreliable connections etc. are causing an eye-watering increase in medical leaves and hearing injuries. It's bad. I'm building a life raft. I am one semester away from graduating as an electric engineer. The course had a significant programming component, going as far as embedded programming and programming close to the metal, on top of the capacitors and the transistors. I have also been doing stuff in C on my own for a long time. I had an excellent teacher, but no formal qualifications. I am good at bash and kicad. I am trying to decide what to do. I have the next 2 years of so to study on my own (we just had a kid) and then maybe even some formal schooling. I want to make the most of having a freelance career, in which I have days to myself (after cooking/cleaning/changing diapers) - Initially I thought I'd leverage my soft skills. My school has a strong soft skills component (leadership, law, accounting, marketing) that I found really interesting, and I have soft skills to boot, plus I am fluent in several languages. However, reading this thread gives me the impression that those who tried or went into management were grizzled computer-touchers to begin with. Is that so? Is a masters in engineering management worth it? Are there computer-adjacent positions that I just don't know about but that would be suited to a soft-skill haver? - What I enjoy is the low level stuff. Some kind goon gave me a study plan to become a linux embedded person (yocto, uboot, the glib C library, working on open source stuff etc.). Is it worth it to learn those fine skills through coursera, shorter uni courses and practice, or will multi-year diplomas be required? - What about IC fabrication? I find the field interesting, I am eyeing some introductory courses in some unis with a view to studying that more, but I don't know if it is a dead end. Anyway, I would gladly accept any advice on what to do with myself. Including "take this to the EE thread, you noob!" if there is one.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2021 20:14
|
|
|
Dawncloack posted:- Initially I thought I'd leverage my soft skills. My school has a strong soft skills component (leadership, law, accounting, marketing) that I found really interesting, and I have soft skills to boot, plus I am fluent in several languages. However, reading this thread gives me the impression that those who tried or went into management were grizzled computer-touchers to begin with. Is that so? Is a masters in engineering management worth it? Are there computer-adjacent positions that I just don't know about but that would be suited to a soft-skill haver? People in this thread that talk about transitioning to managing are usually doing so either a) because that's where they perceive opportunity to pursue their career (especially, managers tend to have a much higher soft cap on salaries compared to engineers), b) because that's where they can continue to increase their impact (as a manager, your personal impact is often conflated with the impact of the team you manage), or c) because they're bored or burnt out with engineering. However, none of these are reasons why you can't be a manager without prior engineering experience. They're two very different skillsets, and plenty of engineers make terrible managers. On the flipside, if you enjoy the low-level stuff, you're not going to really get to do that much at all as a manager. The people who do both technical and managerial work tend to be highly experienced engineers who have been convinced or forced to take on a management role (often due to lack of available "real" managers). It's an awkward balancing act, because you're doing two different jobs and you have to keep from letting either one of them take over all of your time. Anyway, I don't think this kind of dual role is particularly likely for your circumstances, so I wouldn't worry about it. I am not myself a hardware person. I think if I were in your circumstances, I'd be trying to figure out how to leverage my unique set of skills. The combination of good leadership/management skills with good low-level EE skills is not particularly common, so there should be opportunities available if you know where to look. Off the top of my head, one big one would be something like product/program management at a company that makes devices. It wouldn't let you actually use your EE skills, but understanding what your engineers are doing, what their big risks are, and what you can/can't expect them to accomplish, is a huge part of product management.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2021 20:40
|
|
|
Cheesus posted:Any references or tips for interviewing a new manager from a managed perspective? I've asked about : - What their high level management philosophy is. This needs to be a conversation where you ask about how that worked in practice, but it gives you a good signal about who to not move forward with. - Employees who have had performance problems and what they did to resolve the issue. - How they decide what to keep and what to delegate - How they manage priorities, both their own and their teams - What the highest performing team they've led (or been a part of) looked like and what made it so successful Then we also did our standard engineering stuff, but aiming at a senior (5-8 year) level rather than principal.
|
|
#
?
Mar 17, 2021 17:58
|
|
|
https://erikmcclure.com/blog/factorio-is-best-interview-we-have/
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2021 18:17
|
|
|
Of all the dumb interview ideas I've seen, this has got to be one of the dumbest. Like on a certain level I understand what he's saying, but big fuckin LOL at the idea of putting someone who has never played Factorio in that situation in an interview. Just lol.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2021 18:25
|
|
|
interviews are both sides and thats a deec time to peace out and go home
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2021 18:28
|
|
|
Guinness posted:Of all the dumb interview ideas I've seen, this has got to be one of the dumbest. It does say this at the end: quote:Factorio is probably the best technical interview we have right now, and that's embarassing. It is also wildly impractical, taking over 20 hours in an initial multiplayer playthrough, or 8 hours if you have a lot of people and know what you're doing. What's the takeaway from this? I don't know. We certainly can't switch to using Factorio as an interviewing method - you might as well just give a candidate a take-home assignment. So it's not actually advocating for this.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2021 18:42
|
|
|
Someone's going to use this essay to justify putting Factorio in their interview process.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2021 18:46
|
|
|
I'm going to use this essay to justify slacking off on this fine Friday afternoon to play Factorio.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2021 18:48
|
|
|
ultrafilter posted:Someone's going to use this essay to justify putting Factorio in their interview process. Yeah exactly, and the peanut gallery on HN and /r/programming have already been gushing over how brilliant it is, despite the closing statement saying it's unrealistic. Top comment on HN says they actually did this and loved it quote:We used this a couple times at Sandstorm back in the day. At the end of the interview the candidate would play Factorio cooperatively with the team for a while.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2021 18:48
|
|
|
God drat the commentary on HN is dumb. I'm not surprised at all, but I am somehow still disappointed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2021 18:53
|
|
|
Just play some Mario Kart and see if the level of trash-talk is appropriate for a professional setting
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2021 18:56
|
|
|
Holy poo poo if you want to verify skills that bad the industry should just implement a professional exam. The whole loving reason for a resume is that a verified work history is supposed to be a proxy for having a baseline skill set and if you don't trust that why the gently caress roll your own pseudo-certification process.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2021 19:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 01:00 |
|
|
there are lots of certs and dozens of professional exams and, for development work not IT stuff, not one that anyone gives a poo poo about i think the literal only thing that was impressive to 1980s employers and 2000 employers and 2020 employers and has a reasonable expectation to be impressive for 2040 employers is like, a top cs degree, which is why peeps are neurotic about that poo poo peeps used to be jazzed about non top cs degrees, even, but thats gone into the fuckin trash bob dobbs is dead fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Mar 26, 2021 |
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2021 19:31
|
|