Career in game development move: hone developper skills, go indie, or a mix? [closed]

Question

Question

When you have a current stable job as a developer in another field, what is the best course of action to enter the game industry?

• Wait (indefinitely?) for an opportunity to sell your skills to an already established game studio (aiming at the ones with a wide employee base).
• Go indie and start making games with a few artist friends, living on your savings.
• The middle road: try to find a company that will hire you in your current sector part-time, and use the rest of the week to start an indie game project.

Some extra background information

I am currently employed as a software developer, working on banking-related systems. While this pays decently, it's not a very glamorous occupation, and I often wish I would be working on more creative projects. Sadly, my limited free time leaves me with little opportunities to take side projects.

I'm now at a turning point of my career, as I'm about to switch companies. I'm wondering if I shouldn't use this opportunity to start my own (indie game) thing.

Being hired by an established game studio is difficult, as I'm a good software developer in my current field, with some experience in management, but my experience does not translate well to the gaming industry (little knowledge of the tools specific to that sector). I would have to go back in terms of salary and responsibilities, and this would both mean not keeping my current lifestyle, and give up on the team management side for a while. Both things I'd rather not do.

If you happen to be working in the game development field (big studios, editors, or indie), and started as a software developer in another sector, I would very much like to know about your experience.

Answer 1

Quitting your job and starting to develop your own game while living on your savings is a big financial risk. You never know if your game will sell (especially when it's your first), and when it doesn't, the move could ruin you.

It's also easy to underestimate the time you will need to finish your game. Your savings might run out before you have a marketable product. You will need to take a real job again to survive, your product will be delayed for years, and when you ever complete it, the market will have moved on and nobody will care about your game anymore.

I would recommend you to keep your job so you keep your stable income and develop your game idea in your spare time. Maybe arrange a part-time agreement with your employer so you have more time, provided that you still make enough money to come by.

When you are sure you have a product which would sell (active community, hundreds of thousands of downloads of the alpha version, people you never had contact with already blogging about your game), you can still decide to quit your job and work on your game full-time.

Answer 2

there is certainly a change in thought process when working with game development. so some practice there would be a requirement

but ultimately like any form of creative work a portfolio would be your strongest asset

Answer 3

It depends on what you want from it. If you're in gamedev for fun, go ahead and build your own team. If it's both money and fun you're equally interested in, you may want to join an existing team.

I'm in this for fun, and I know for a fact that most teams exist for profit, or don't meet my personal requirements (they make boring stuff), so I'm alone on this for now, but I may start working together with some people, if they share my enthusiasm.

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On a side note, if you're wondering what kind of game you should make first, remember that the greatest games in history were those which took quite some time to make. That probably includes previous experience in gamedev, but not necessarily. Take Minecraft for instance. There are different ways to create games, some don't assume to release a fully working version. Valve updates TF2 constantly. So if you have a great idea for a game, take all the time you need to understand how it should work, find out which tools to use, but don't forget to pay your rent and eat sometimes ;)