I don’t mean to be critical, but I’ve always faced pushback working on startups/side projects, and I’m wondering how that was for you?
How many planned features did you have to cut? ;)
Seeing someone come from the corporate world to gamedev and seemingly carry over all the right lessons and keep the discipline is pretty awesome, kudos.
1. already had gamedev experience on top of tech experience
2. kept his technical scope very low for his assumed skill level (2d game, Godot engine for fast iterations, full-time focus and scheduling)
3. Was relatively stress-free in terms of his personal situation
I can understand a pretty smooth development period.
You mean from your SO?
I think most sane people don't have issues with their SOs' side projects, but they have issues with that their SOs 1) not spending enough time with family and 2) being the main income source of the family but not making enough money.
I think OP’s story is inspiring, and I’m happy to hear he had support, but I could also see a wife being upset her previously highly paid husband is working on a video game, and presumably a low salary from a publisher (if any).
When I was working on my previous startup we had a couple customers and a small investment, but I got intense pushback from a female friend who would often come and live with me. She couldn’t stand the fact I was passing on a high salary to work on something I cared about, and we weren’t even dating. The 1.5 years+ she referred to me as unemployed lol
Again though I don’t mean to be critical of OP or his dream, I was just curious about the social dynamic he encountered.
A facebook compensation package for 10 years + the pandemic rally. any trade and speculation with a 6 figure account would be multiple seven figures
its important to put these things into perspective
although there are a lot of risk averse people in big tech, irrationally afraid of not having corporate salary coming in, there are far fewer partners that base their identity on their partner being employed when the partner is wealthy already
Having a publisher helps a lot. But 4000 copies for many indies would be a rousing success (albeit, not a financial success). It is simply that competitive.
>I could also see a wife being upset her previously highly paid husband is working on a video game, and presumably a low salary from a publisher (if any).
Very true for 99.99% of indie devs. But I figure that OP's savings and RSU's (almost a deacade's worth) would easily put them in a situation everyone else can only dream of.
>When I was working on my previous startup...
I know startups are risky, but I really don't get this attitude. It might just be lack of knowledge, but once you can get a startup off its feet, the VC money from seeds easily makes up for that downtime. And unless you're the founder or are a near-founder being paid with future equity, startups can still pay very respectably. It's the time committment that you need to worry about.
The depends a lot on the startup. Many startups don't take VC money.
Of those that do, in my experience as first non-founder employee, the founders were paid very little compared with employees, on the hope of future success with their equity instead, even after the startup got decent pre-seed and seed investment. Both rounds of investment were enough to pay some key employees well, but not to pay everyone well for long enough. So the founders felt they has to continue with low pay for themselves.
Recently, I didn't want to bother with that and just went straight to building product. In this case, I built product, got a couple customers, and saw zero growth. From there, no VC would touch us, because we had no growth, and in some cases they just made fun of us.
Like myself, OP was the founder/cofounder, and it's not uncommon for family to be very unsupportive of risky career moves. Unsuccessful startups lead to divorce all the time, it's very sad and a part of startups nobody talks about