Hacker News Reader

Comment by fragsworth | Hacker News Reader

This is incredibly depressing. It hits home for me because I'm in a very similar situation. I and one other guy almost went broke making Clicker Heroes, but it turned out to be a great success.

But so far since then every project has not been worth doing.

> I didn't do ads, I didn't do micro-transactions, scummy energy bars, and all those other bullshit monetization tactics.

We did this in Clicker Heroes, and I don't like that we did. But I'm learning more and more that it's hard to compete against scummy tactics.

I hope Clicker Heroes 2 does OK. We might have to find corporate jobs too if it doesn't.

View on HN

> We did this in Clicker Heroes, and I don't like that we did. But I'm learning more and more that it's hard to compete against scummy tactics.

Props to for going against the HN hive mind. F2P is successful because most people choose it and will not pay for software. There are real issues with it but it not pure evil like HN thinks.

Same with ads.

I think you misunderstood what he wrote... He was saying that it's hard to compete in F2P unless you use the same scummy tactics that everyone else does. That's why he made Clicker Heroes 2 as a non-F2P game.

> We did this in Clicker Heroes, and I don't like that we did. But I'm learning more and more that it's hard to compete against scummy tactics.

Even if nobody was using scummy tactics, it'd be hard to compete. There are so many people who want to make video games. Hell, I wanted to, before I got my "boring" BigCo job. Personally, I'm really glad I decided not to make games. I like the safety a regular income brings. Maybe once I hit my number I'll make some games, and we'll see if I'm any good at it.

In the meantime, I have nothing but admiration for those of you who actually do it before having independent financial security. I can't say I think it's wise, but I am a beneficiary of the massive numbers of talented people working in your field.

Unfortunately, that 'safety' of a 'regular' income is almost entirely illusory as well. Employers stopped providing insulation from market fluctuations in the 1980s. If your market dips, your company will hemorrhage workers without a second thought. Your desire for a place you can 'settle down' will also be ruthlessly exploited, and if you don't jump to a different company every 4 or 5 years, you will rapidly end up making radically less than you could elsewhere due to your experience level. This is unfortunately the scenario companies have built. It can be dealt with so long as you understand the game as well as they do, though.

'Make game of that which makes as much of thee.'

I provide my own insulation by spending much less than I make, and saving the rest. I have decades of savings at my current rate of spending. I'm about as safe as a person can be in this world.

My company has been paying me very competitively for more than a decade. I'm not worried about settling down here, but nobody else will make me a higher offer, at least not without requiring much more of my time than where I am at.

  that 'safety' of a 'regular'
  income is almost entirely
  illusory as well

Sure, to an extent, but there are differences of degree here.

If I work for Google and they go bankrupt, worst case I lose a month's salary and I'm unemployed. And the chance of that is probably below 5% per year (obviously depends on the company)

If I take a year off to develop my indie game, the odds are much worse, I gamble a year's salary not a month's, and if I end up unemployed I've already burned through a lot of my savings.

"If I work for Google and they go bankrupt,"

Google may be a bad example. Google actually filing for bankruptcy would probably have a pretty big ripple effect on tech and financial sectors, and your skills may be in less demand than you think.

Salary, healthcare, bonuses, and investment contributions and their performance over the next 30 years

You are absolutely correct about differences in degree, but I think you chose a pretty misleading example. It's not a matter of whether your employer goes bankrupt or not. Even if your employer continues to grow, if they don't grow as fast as they were predicted to grow, then they will throw employees out the front door without a second thought. If the market dips by 1%, then in order to still meet their goal of growing by 4% that quarter, they will 'cut the fat' and get rid of their employees (while holding on to their executives). Getting a job used to mean protection from fluctuations in the marketplace, so if the product the company makes suffers a bit in popularity, it just meant a reduced profit margin for the business that year. Now, a reduced profit margin is not an option. It's not even thinkable. Obviously the livelihoods of employees are dispensible in the face of that.

Mad props to you. Email me and we’ll exchange war stories.

Thanks for writing this. I got out of the game industry myself after working as a developer on 8 games in a row that failed to make hardly any money at all, for three different companies (two startups, one small business).

I've been working on corporate software for 3 years now, and while my finances are back on track, it's gotten harder and harder to stay motivated and I've been really tempted to take another stab at it, despite not really having enough saved up to do so (especially if my girlfriend and I are going to buy a house this year).

Anyway, it's tough to just sit and stare at the die and not roll it. I have done some board game design as a hobby, since that doesn't totally drain me like extra programming does, and I've even gotten my first publishing offer recently, but I know firsthand from other designers of successful titles that the money you can expect from it is minuscule compared to making a successful video game (one person told me he made $10k in royalties off a game that you can buy at Barnes and Noble. I've made more than that off a video game that was only somewhat successful).

Anyway, I've played and enjoyed A Dark Room. I should probably check out your other games. Thanks for taking the time to share your story, it's given me something to think about.

With board games a lot of the margin goes to the publisher. It's hard to be independent as just a designer. Massively successful games companies like Cards Against Humanity vertically integrate and are even handling their shipping logistics at this point: https://www.blackbox.cool/

FWIW, I don't feel like Clicker Heroes handles micro-transactions in a scummy way. It's not pay to win/play because it's literally impossible to win and you offer an alternate way to obtain the in-game currency (rubies, I think?).

I appreciate your making that game, it and Adventure Capitalist have been my mainstays :) I'd love to know your thoughts on monetizing with reward videos. It's how I am thinking of monetizing my own idle game.

I hope CH2 does okay too. I liked Clicker Heroes. Good luck!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com