Getting sweet patron money on the modern internet (2020) | Hacker News Reader

Getting sweet patron money on the modern internet (2020)

jeff-vogel.blogspot.com

141 pointsTomte61 comments

Very fun article. I do think there is another way that is very much The Long Game but may offer the highest payoff / security in the long run:

* become very good at a highly gamedev-relevant and marketable skill (e.g. graphics programming)

* parlay skill into well-paying job that uses and further hones that skill

* as you work the job and save/invest aggressively, start building games on the side using the skills you've developed

* after 5-15 years, if you still want to make indie games, you'll have enough money to do it full time without needing outside funding, plus a vast amount of relevant skill and experience to help you succeed

Con: takes forever, to the point where you might die before you get to finish a game

Pros: you are not truly fucked if you fail at indie gamedev / realize you don't want to do it anymore; if you manage to carry out the full plan, you can make exactly what you want, since you won't need your games to make money

This is the route I'm taking - I'll update with my progress in 5 years or so

> This is the route I'm taking - I'll update with my progress in 5 years or so

Nice one, mate. Good luck. I'm doing the same, so right behind you :)

Good luck to you as well! :)

You probably already know this, but on the off chance somebody has not seen this before: the FIRE community has a lot of additional advice, know-how and general support to help refine and execute this style of life-plan.

Thank you!!

Good luck, I'm working this same plan here! I also do contract game dev on the side which helps me work out engine ideas / tooling [0].

[0] https://doctorarcana.com/

Multiple positive reviews from Steam players with 5+hr playtime is already a big achievement, congrats & good luck

thanks!

> as you work the job and save/invest aggressively, start building games on the side using the skills you've developed

As always when this topic comes up on HN, check your employer's IP assignment policy in your employment agreement before you moonlight or work on side projects that you think you might own or make money from in the future. Some are limited to what you make on company equipment / company time, others claim everything you make at home or at work, using any equipment.

Thanks for the always useful reminder. The plan is indeed to work outside the game industry itself, with an eye in part to reducing the chance of this being an issue. Also so my hourly rate can be a solid double what it would be in AAA, ha

I will also add that I am always delighted to violate contract terms that impinge on my personal creative and commercial agency to the extent I can get away with. I am not about to let myself feel bound by something I had to sign in order to eat, except insofar as is prudent and serves my interests

That said, I do also think these noncompete/IP clauses can be reasonable sometimes. I wouldn't work on a commercial indie match 2 game while employed by a AAA match 3 developer

I wanted to write something to the effect of me being happy that stuff like this would not fly in Germany because...

... damn was I wrong. And even if I already read contracts very, very carefully I will in addition have something new to look for, as even so called "Freizeitwerke" (works during free time) could be claimed exclusively by an employer.

I've been guilty once or twice of forming a strong (usually self-righteous) opinion only to have it collapse before I get a chance to enjoy smugly lecturing the Internet. This is interesting. Thanks for posting anyway.

One interesting different is that in most of the US you're usually in the clear if whatever you work on isn't related to your employer's business (although that can be a bit nebulous). However my understanding is that in Germany, even if your side project isn't related to your employer's business you're still required to give them first dibs at licensing any IP you create.

It is purely a contractual question. So if your contract states rules like this - you are right. But without written agreement in the contract your employer has no rights to your work done during your free time.

At least, as far as I understand after reading up on the regulations and the text of the respective laws.

I was under the impression that corporate employed inventors in Germany actually have a limited interest in their inventions that follows them between employers. Could be it’s changed, or my source is simply mistaken, since my knowledge is back from when Kodak AG was still a thing.

I think my employer has something similar, but it ties in with the no-compete clause. That said, there's more of a gentlemen's agreement in place, and if you verbally mention it to the boss it's fine in most cases.

But having a job in industry X and a side gig / personal project also in industry X is dangerous.

Definitely don’t use employer equipment to produce work that you intend to profit from.

As always, consult a lawyer and understand the implications of any IP assignment clauses in employment contracts. That said, IP assignment clauses are generally intended to cover works related to your employment. If your day job is writing SaaS backend code in Java, a reasonable employer has no interest in paying lawyers to seize your indie video game IP. However, if your day job is writing video games and your passion project is also a video game, your employer has a reasonable position to argue that your video game overlaps too much with your work for hire and could be at risk. This can be true even without an explicit IP assignment clause, so don’t assume the employment contract is the final word on the matter.

Ironically, this means it’s safer to work a non-gamedev day job if your goal is to make video games on the side.

The easiest path might be the one mentioned above: Work a standard day job that pays well, build up a comfortable amount of savings for a decade, and then use that cushion to do what you want. The failure rate for indie game devs is massive, so plan career paths and finances such that it won’t be the end of the world if it doesn’t work out.

The author of the article, Jeff Vogel, is a few steps (25 years) ahead of you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stxVBJem3Rs (like the article, a humour-laced talk, enjoyable)

Looks fantastic, thank you for sharing!

Here's a random favorite of mine, as a thank you: https://youtu.be/_4iswqa8r-Q

Not a business talk, but a design deep dive from a genre master. Existential breakdown starts ~20:30

I had a similar plan when I started my career, where the idea was to save and self-support independent endeavors.

13 years later: I can execute the "full plan" at any time, but I find myself to have sufficient autonomy and be comfortable enough at my current position.

This plan is certainly not the highest payoff in my case, as I can't buy the toys/houses my peers have. However work/life balance is great, and I still have the option to build things without needing outside funding.

Great to hear that it can work, and has worked for you. Congrats & thank you for the inspo

Houses and toys are plentiful and of low value. The payoffs I have in mind are the great luxury of being able to afford creative freedom and integrity, and the pleasures of mastery. Sounds like you are rich in all that - the wise person's wealth

This sounds a little like the Key and Peele sketch where they plan a bank heist. The plan is to work for the bank for many years, and every month the bank will deposit some of its money directly into their own accounts.

https://www.cc.com/video/acaxis/key-peele-the-heist

17 more years and leave like nothing happened :P

> "I can execute the "full plan" at any time, but I find myself to have sufficient autonomy and be comfortable enough at my current position."

I don't know if you realize it, but there is probably a strong connection between the "I can execute the 'full plan' at any time" part of your life and the "autonomy and [..] comfortable [..] position" part. In other words: In our times there is no downside in preparing your independence and working on your autonomy except that it is a lot of work. There is no real alternative either, even and especially if you plan to be dependently employed until retirement. Once you are in a dependent position and you don't have the option to leave short term, sadly the risk of being taken advantage of is real.

> as you work the job and save/invest aggressively, start building games on the side using the skills you've developed

Oh the dreams of young single childless people.

As a 50 yr old childless bachelor I can attest that relationships and offspring are the biggest time, energy and financial sinks.

Not saying it anit worth it, just that you will expend %50-150 of your resources depending on how responsible a partner and parent you are.

> Oh the dreams of young single childless people.

Two kids + wife + mortgage and I managed it.

Even better I can report: you do not need full FIRE and 15+ years of career. All the indies I know who "failed" returned to the industry with yet better jobs than prior. Ours is an industry where experience itself becomes security. Game's tooling changes slowly. While hordes are fighting for the few entry level positions every team actual wants is experienced people. Thus once you get into the games industry and stay, the jobs get better.

This is a great route for just about any kind of tech adjacent creative profession.

Source: me, who is taking part in The Quittening to test out whether it's viable or not.

lol, this exactly describes my career and entry into indie games about a decade ago. It sounds reasonable but don't do it. You'll find by the time you can create that game you've been wanting to make, graphics pipelines and technology will pass you by making your idea irrelevant. So you end up making a quick game to make a quick buck and go back into the workforce a little bit richer. [1]

If you want to make games, or software, or any product, you have to hit while the iron is hot otherwise someone else will come along and beat you to it. Even if you invest aggressively, it's better to just keep doing that and retire than waste it on that pet project you had your eye on for 20 years.

[1]: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/xbox360/958447-alchemist/video...

and yes, I realize the game I referenced was basic, had UX issues, and was more or less a cash grab on xbox360. I made it using my game engine that I spent 2 years writing, but the game showcased only took me 15 days to write. After release, I just went back to work.

Not a bad plan but I’ll share my approach since it contrasts with yours.

I worked in big tech for a few years. Hated it. My work is very important to me and I do not like working on projects where I have no creative control or autonomy.

So I started working fewer hours. I was an hourly contractor and got down to 30 hours a week with nothing more than grumbles for my manager.

I’m a generalist in my field (robotics) and “full stack”. I wrote a manifesto [1] and handed out 250 copies at maker faire etc. I wrote about my dream.

Someone shared my dream and could pay me for it. To lower cash flow requirements I only work about 20 billable hours a week. I can survive just fine on that. My billable work is part of my dream and the rest of the week I work on hobby stuff which is all also in furtherance of my dream. 100% of what I am working on is open source.

My story is certainly unique. I don’t expect you to meet someone who will help fund your dream. But I basically got very good at my craft and then found a part time work arrangement that allows me to spend a lot of time working towards other personal goals I have.

And I don’t have to stay stuck in a damn corporate office.

So yeah, instead of negotiating ever higher wages, consider negotiating ever more flexible schedules.

[1] http://tlalexander.com/static/zine.pdf

The idea of asking for fewer hours rather than more money makes a great deal of sense to me and is something I've considered. I will probably mix that into my plan once I have the experience, competence, and reputation to be able to negotiate such an arrangement. It would be ideal for multiple reasons, actually, to continue to work something like 10-20 hrs/week. One option that might work for me is teaching/tutoring, as I like it and have experience with it

Thank you for sharing your experience and for the advice!

The cool thing is that (if you enjoy doing it, like I do) you can use the extra time to learn new and interesting skills which perhaps complement your existing skillset. I mean, you may be better served by spending time with family, or with painting or cooking or all manner of things that aren't related to work. But I really enjoy programming and 3D printing and electronics design, and with this schedule I have enough time to work on endless pointless projects which have the side effect of teaching new skills or reinforcing existing ones. This makes me more valuable than if I had stayed working 40hrs a week writing hardware test code day in and day out.

My route: 5 years indie games making under minimum wage income. Another 7 years writing books about how I did that, earning even less. Year 13, stumbled into an incredibly well paying position as CTO of an innovative game dev startup and have never looked back.

Tangent on Paetron:

> you get your money as a subscription instead of a one-time thing. The second part is REALLY important.

I agree that this is often good. Especially for some types of creators. However I think a lot of people have abandoned the store model when it would suit them well. For example I run a lot of RPG campaigns and like to grab maps often from people on Paetron. However often I only need a couple of maps for a specific campaign or one specific map that I like from the backlog. I think you can usually subscribe for one month and grab what you need, but Paetron doesn't make this obvious and it is certainly awkward. I have no interest in subscribing to an artist whose next map is likely not relevant to my campaign. If these people had stores I would be buying maps frequently, but they don't so I pass them by.

If you are making content where most of your audience is going to appreciate every post (for example producing entertainment or information) then the subscription makes a lot of sense and is hugely valuable. However I see this model being used even where a substantial portion of the potential audience likely has interest only in a small section of the work and I suspect that choosing only this model is closing off potential additional income.

I can see why Paetron doesn't offer setting prices for individual posts or similar, the subscription model is lucrative when it works. However there is definitely a missing piece in some situations.

A good way to do this is to make a Patreon where you drop content each month, and for old content make it available on Gumroad for the price of a month of Patreon.

I've had similar issues with people who make 3d models for gaming and I find it super frustrating. I just want a model of a Dwarf cleric and maybe other models in the future, but I don't want to subscribe to you.

Fanbox has a pretty interesting model for this, when you subscribe to a creator you only get access to posts up to a month prior (as well as all future posts), and to get access to specific previous posts the creator can make available bundles which you can buy for a one time fee. It reduces piracy and encourages prolonged subscriptions rather than subscribe->download all->unsubscribe.

There's an impedance mismatch here, common in both artistic and technical activities though not universal:

The artist/ technician does an activity - for which they need to be duly compensated or else they're going to have to do this for a few hours once in a while as a hobby, since they work in the Mill for sixty hours per week. This activity has some product you can capture, maybe it's a painting, a poem, a noise, an algorithm, a mathematical proof...

The audience would like to benefit from copies of that product. And we live in the 21st century so we can digitally copy many of the above things essentially for free. The audience would gladly pay even though copying itself is free, but... how much?

Unfortunately there is no relationship between how much time you spent making the Product and either how many people want copies of it, or how much they're willing to pay for them.

So you can't build something that matches these two things together. Patreon matches the reality for creators. Trudy and Doug write a comic every week †. They would like money, Patreon subscribers like me give them a few grand, and they continue to write comics. Would I like a comic about Grier, or indeed, about Oglaf himself? Too bad, here is a comic about... pirates? This model suits a lot of creators very well, and after all the idea is to support creators.

In contrast some of the print-on-demand or PDF-download RPG sites are closer to the audience's model. If I'm willing to pay $5 for a roleplaying game that's kinda like "Starship Troopers" I could buy 3:16. I don't care what else Gregor has done, or what he's working on now, but 3:16 might be interesting, it's less than $5 I can pick that up.

If you, as an artist/ technician, have bursts of interest and can't handle commitment, then that's great, Patreon isn't for you, when you make something put it on a per-product site and I hope you have some other source of income when inspiration doesn't strike.

My sister makes actual things, she's an embroiderer (and a lecturer, but we're talking about how to get paid for the art side of things). So, that's simpler, if you want a thing, she can make it, and that'll cost you money. So long as you don't waste her time specifying a thing and then not wanting it once you find out it's expensive, this is cool. Photographs of embroidery exist, but clearly a JPEG of a sixty foot wall hanging is not, in fact, a wall hanging, there's no mistaking the two.

† Oglaf: https://oglaf.com/

For anyone that is not aware oglaf.com is very NSFW. You may want to edit your post to make that obvious.

I think Patreon works because people don't expect something in return by default, they just want to support someone or someone's work they're a fan of. It becomes one of those background / thoughtless payments, something left on until the person paying needs to save money or doesn't like the creator anymore.

It's where the business market is at as well, allowing e.g. Microsoft or Adobe to no longer have to force themselves to release new versions with stupid features to make more money than they ever have.

I pretty much learned English from Jeff's games, so it's partially his fault now I'm here to annoy all of you.

It seems you also picked up on his sense of humor. ;)

My experience is that Kickstarter and Patreon combine nicely. Patreon lets my wealthier fans fund the process of drawing whatever weird shit the Muses ask me to draw; Kickstarter helps me get all my fans together to make sure I have enough pre-sales to pay for a print run of a graphic novel or art book or whatever. And no, I don’t draw pictures of corporate characters getting it on.

Kickstarting the funds for the entire creative process of a thing is risky as fuck. Scope creep happens. External events happen. It’s become the norm in some fields like games but it is risky as fuck no matter how many projects you have taken to completion.

The author did a great GDC talk about being an indie developer in the brick and mortar, pre-steam days. He talks at one point about how people had to buy a shareware cd from some kiosk, then phone him, argue about the price, mail him a cheque or money order, then wait for a cdrom in the mail to buy a game from him back then, but he made it work and is still going

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stxVBJem3Rs

As a related tangent, Vogel (and Spiderweb Software) were responsible for many enjoyable hours in my youth playing through Exile III and Blades of Exile. I appreciate the world building and storytelling that he's done throughout the years, even if the newer game interfaces and graphics feel clunkier.

Totally agree. I spent a lot of time when I was a kid playing through each of the Exile games and their Avernum remakes. I’m in the middle of playing through Avernum on the IPad, and I love the setting of being outcasts sent to an underground cave system. The game it self is old, but it is still a good story.

I wish the iOS Avernum HD was still available.

Do you mean something else than this? https://apps.apple.com/de/app/avernum-escape-from-the-pit-hd...

I looked it up today and it was available, also the other five Avernum games.

Ah, I didn’t realize it was iPad only. I searched on my phone and didn’t see any results (though I played it on an iPad years ago).

Speaking of busking, how could you leave out YouTube? It might not be particularly useful for indie game devs, and you might not like it, but nobody can deny that YouTube is currently the most well-known place on the planet for people to sing, dance, do crazy shit, or maybe just film their cats and make money out of it. YouTube even has a system that allows channel owners to collect recurring donations, somewhat like Patreon.

It would be cool to know the % of active uploaders that make money on videos

It can depend in part on what you mean by make money, and what the purposes are.

If you mean greater than 0 revenue from YouTube, probably the majority of content creators that try to do so will. (There are people who simply use it for video sharing, and have no interest in monetization at all).

If you mean make a profit after paying themselves even a fraction of minimum wage for their time? Probably a fairly small percentage, although I know of plenty of creators who post content on YouTube more as advertisement for their main revenue source (such as streaming on Twitch, taking commissions on some form of artistic endeavor, etc).

In some cases the marginal time costs of putting a video up are negligible compared to performing the activity in the video, and the videoed activity was something they were going to do anyway. That can make doing YouTube profitable more easily, even if the activity in question is not profitable overall.

For example, somebody is going to spend 200 hours sculpting something (might be their hobby or perhaps somebody commissioned it from them), and they decide to set up a camera so they can create a time-lapse video of them doing it and upload to YouTube. In that case they only need to make enough to cover the time to edit the video together to make recording and posting to YouTube start to become profitable.

I really, really enjoyed the writing style. It made me smile, it made me laugh and it also showed potential way of making money for artists/indies on the net.

For me it also showed how the net created new gatekeepers (be it app stores, patreon, kickstarter or any other platform) that feel like the new lords while creators still are but the serfs (albeit with a little bit more freedom to choose ones lord).

I have mad respect for anyone who is willing to take the risk of not being able to eat, on the hopes that strangers will support them, in order to do what they love.

The widely embraced alternative is to take the risk of not being able to eat, on the hopes that strangers will support what your company is doing, in order to do something you hate.

It doesn't even have to be something you hate - but it's something that's not yours.

A few caveats:

- In most civilized countries (the US being a notable exception) there is a degree of legally mandated job security, so the likelihood of losing your ability to put food on the table from one day to the next is reduced if you work for a company.

- Most companies (startups being an exception of course) already have a working business model, so the likelihood of people suddenly not giving them any money anymore is also reduced.

- Some people (me and many other developers included) actually do like their job - maybe not all parts of it, but generally speaking...

Most Patreon artists I've seen have transitioned to Patreon from other platforms, such as from Youtube or from releasing early versions of their side projects.

I think most people have a job next to their Patreons right until they make enough Patreon money to live reasonably comfortably. That definitely makes the whole thing less risky. You need to have a passion for what you do in order to make it that far, though.

Like this guy? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27915846

Classic :-D

Reply on news.ycombinator.com