Finances of a Bare Bones Developer | Hacker News Reader

Finances of a Bare Bones Developer

gamasutra.com

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"This means that it’s very possible none of us are making anywhere near minimum wage on this project, but regardless we’re all making about the same hourly wage, a wage determined by the relative commercial success of the game."

Game industry, I do not miss you.

The saddest thing is that so many are so passionate about it. :(

Try to think of being a game developer as similar to being a musician or a painter. You can be plenty passionate about it, but it's a hard business and there are only so many dollars up for grabs. For every musician who is able to make a living off of music, there are probably 10 equally talented and passionate musicians who didn't. I think game development is turning out to be a similar business.

I completely agree. For every successful indie game developer there are at least 10 who have either quit part-way or failed to make any money.

> The saddest thing is that so many are so passionate about it. :(

That's precisely why pay is so low.

If you love what you do, it's not work.

If you have to do something else, to pay your rent, you can not do what you love.

Doesn't mean I shouldn't be well-compensated for it. I'm creating value for others, right?

Spoken like management.

there are four words you have to remember in this economy and they're either "show me the money" or "fuck you, pay me".

I prefer "I am coin-operated."

Lars Doucet's http://www.fortressofdoors.com/follow-your-dreams-or-maybe-d... seems relevant. His company made a reasonably successful indie game ("Defender's Quest"); this article talks through his ambivalence about following a passion for making games, in the context of that experience. Could work out but probably won't, and it's OK either to not try or to try, give up, and try again at something with better odds.

Edit: missing verb, missing particle in infinitive

I think that the reality that is reflected here is that most game development moved overseas a long time ago for a reason. The indie games market is too crowded, gamer willingness to pay is too low, and none of the skills required for developing an indie game are exceptionally hard to find. As such, indie game development rarely pays a living wage in the US. If you lived somewhere with a significantly lower cost of living, it might not be so bad.

I don't think that's accurate at all. Most games, and startups, are just bad ideas that can't pay for employees and stuff. The problem isn't living expenses, that's just one number you need to reach.

Developers who can't make money can't afford to make games as their occupation.

It's not living expenses alone; I have worked for a company that does a significant amount of offshore hiring. The going rate for a competent developer in India is less than $20,000 per year. In India, $20k a year buys you a comfortable life. The equivalent salary in the US is probably $100k. The numbers in China are similar (though Chinese developers are harder to work with because their English tends to not be as good).

Given this context, some of these "game dev fail" stories about making $20k from a year's worth of work suddenly turn into success stories. So imagine if you went and hired a hundred developers and started cranking out 10 games a month. Some would succeed, most would fail, but the failures can just be reskinned and sold again.

Significantly lower cost of living, or better sources of early-stage funding. Some countries have started including games in their arts or film funding, which can be a viable source of initial funds (especially in countries where the arts funding is fairly large, relative to population).

A lot of our students (I teach in a game program in Denmark) pay for the first 3-12 months of their indie studios that way. Those are typically $15k initial grants, and a possibility of around $100k-$200k follow-on funding towards production, if they're convinced it's worth funding at more than the seed level. Obviously that's not going to pay for an AAA game, but it gives indie developers some runway. The early funding for Playdead's Limbo [1] was through that route, for example, and then they sought commercial investors later. Here are this year's recipients: http://www.dfi.dk/Branche_og_stoette/Spilordningen/stoettede...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_(video_game)

Startups and businesses are identical to this? It's not like you get to pay yourself a fair salary out of nothing just because you feel you worked hard.

Startups are a gamble with a high upside. If you win you'll be fabulously wealthy and probably never have to work again.

"Winning" in the game industry simply means you get to survive to work on the next project. Even high-profile studios with great track records are financially stumbling from one project into the next, and a single failure will sink them. Nobody is getting rich here - best case scenario you make a market wage, worst case scenario you make little to nothing.

Categorically wrong.

Winning in games is worth billions of dollars - King, SuperCell, Rovio, EA, Zynga etc. Almost nobody reaches this level however there's many levels of success between bankrupt and billions where the good enough can survive to try again.

Exactly like startups and businesses in general.

Well, there are proportionally less successes in games because it's crowded. And you're in competition with people happy to make less than minimum wage, so good luck with that.

It's pretty much a rule in business: if you go to the shiny/fun/popular market, you'll have a hundreds of competitors and it will be very hard. If you go to a more "boring" market that competitors ignore, you have a higher chance to get the jackpot.

Your thoughts are pretty closely tied to the number of massively successful games being dwarfed by massively successful startups but they're both extremely rare and they both fight their way through tons of competition to get to the top of their fields.

Plus the bit where game developers are happy to make minimum wage while everyone else is more expensive sounds imaginary.

YC has funded a ton of companies, very few of which have/will generate huge rewards, one of which was a game company.

It's true, web or mobile startup are in the "cool/shiny" category with a lot of competition. Still it appears that you find more people willing to put up with horrible conditions and low salary in the game industry.

I know most game developers make more than the minimum wage, but I'm talking in reference to the article - that illustrates that these people exist.

"I’d like to be able to pay myself a wage of ~$1k/mo (around 2/3 minimum wage) for future projects, to accommodate a similar lifestyle."

Later: "Altogether, this is a somewhat exciting success for me. I’m making just barely what I need to keep going, which allows me to stay independent without the burden of success or wealth. Cutting so close to my bare necessities is frightening and unstable, but ultimately it’s an emotional trade-off."

That's why there was a race to the bottom in mobile games prices, and that's why you'll find 10 similar games when there should be a market only for one.

This article is about a bootstrapped startup whose product is a game - they have chosen to do this instead of a good salary, in search of a giant payday. They're being paid what they can afford to pay, not what established companies do pay.

iOS has barely more than one million apps total. That number gets a lot smaller on other platforms within reach of an indie developer. These guys and many more are not struggling because there's "too much competition" they just haven't made a popular product.

>If you go to a more "boring" market that competitors ignore

An example in the form of a digression: I live in a town in a relatively rural area of the SF peninsula. I've recently received some bids for a small job involving heavy machinery, and -- at least in this area -- suspect that owning your own business in that "boring" market provides a more reliable source of revenue with a better quality of life than 95% of HN readers who work in cubicles at tech companies.

Owner A is a fellow who owns a bay area company that does grading work. He built his own house in the Woodside flatlands, where land costs tend to run in the millions of dollars, and the construction cost including permits of building a new house may be $2M-$3M alone. Neighbors include Larry Ellison and the Steve Jobs ex-Jackling estate. It's true he's driving around a lot for bids, but many folks would prefer that to staring at a screen. It's probably psychologically and physically healthier as well.

Owner B is a fellow who owns a bay area company that does excavation and sewer work. He owns a house in Portola Valley (another affluent community, for instance home to VC Vinod Khosla, who hosted Obama recently) and a second home in the Sierra foothills. Has a stable of Porsches and eight motorcycles. Is a pillar of the community, and sends his crew out to open roads closed by storms or downed trees when the town or fire department can't get to them quickly enough.

They may miss out on the upsides of billion-dollar IPOs, but a precious small percentage of startup founders or employees will get those anyway, especially post-Sarbanes-Oxley. I'm not saying I'm going to quit http://recent.io/ to dig septic tanks, but it does put bay area quality of life in perspective.

One company of the same ilk I'm familiar with is a certain tree-cutting company in that area (I'm sure you know which one I'm talking about). They make fantastic money and have a virtual monopoly on the cyclical need of homeowners in the area for trimming branches of the towering trees in their yards, so that high winds will not knock them down onto their homes. Each homeowner needs to spend a few thousand dollars every 3 years or so for this service.

However, this family business has been in existence for 60+ years. I don't think that starting a new tree cutting business and going head to head with them will be nearly as profitable if at all, because you wouldn't have the same contacts and good will that they do. Contract work is often a word of mouth and referral business, not dissimilar to the legal world.

I totally agree that such small business owners can make great money. I recall from The Millionaire Next Door that many of the "millionaires" profiled in that book have the unsexiest businesses that they'd been working hard at for decades, saving wisely. I do know of an electrical contractor that worked on our house a couple of years ago has a healthy, very profitable business going on. But I think there's more than what immediately meets the eye, and just going into an unsexy business for the sake of going into an unsexy business is not a sufficient condition for financial success in one's business.

Ah, yes! I know the company you're talking about. They come up regularly in neighborhood recommendations, although with the caveat that they're more expensive than most.

I think routine tree removal and trimming around here is kind of cutthroat -- which I've used to my advantage when getting bids. But, on the other hand, who would trust the lowest bidder to take care of your Prized Live Oak That Is The Centerpiece Of Your Old Palo Alto Backyard?

Luckily they lowered their rates dramatically during 2008 for obvious reasons, and I think we managed to get them to match that daily rate again in 2012 :P

    But I think there's more than what immediately meets the
    eye, and just going into an unsexy business for the sake
    of going into an unsexy business is not a sufficient
    condition for financial success in one's business.

Warren Buffet built his fortune on top of Potato Chips, Dumpsters, and Trailer Parks.

I agree that there is "more" to this than just going into something unsexy. But a key part of business success is differentiating yourself from the competition.

If you have no competition, then you win by default. Finding unsexy jobs that need to be done (ie: Payroll) gets you customers.

Yeah except the developer doesn't reap the rewards.

Employee #toolate at dropbox doesn't get shit either. Even if that person is a precious developer.

Employee #toolate at Dropbox most likely isn't making minimum wage though.

That really depends. Is he/she cleaning their office or a developer?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/04/03/how-much-do-game-deve...

Every one of your examples is more a publisher than a developer. Your point is not incorrect, but is being made about the wrong thing.

Your parent's post is quite right--you don't get rich making games anymore, least of all because the margins are crazy thin. You get rich publishing games.

Every company I listed either grew from developer to developer + publisher or is still just developing. More importantly I don't think the distinction matters as it's a natural next step if you accumulate enough success - Dropbox didn't start with a product for other businesses either.

Specifically Rovio, SuperCell, King, Zynga and Mojang owe all their success to their own games released in the last decade. (Although king used to license/publish little flash games but they pivoted past that years ago).

It's a sad affair when in order for a publisher to fund a game at a non-publisher studio, the studio has to agree to be acqui-hired (for almost nil) if the game is a success. Basically "okay, you work for us now. But... yeah, we aren't going to pay for your company what it's actually worth. And we'll fuck your dev culture to hell."

I guess you mean winning at a startup you confounded, haven't been kicked out of, and haven't had to dilute yourself to sub million. Because if you have had to do any of these, your win might turn out to be a decent house downpayment, not the "never have to work again" valley fantasy.

I think it's more about the pains of being independent, rather than just game development.

These guys are making the classic indie game dev mistake- making a funky indie game that doesnt monetize well, has no virality, isn't freemium, etc.

Game developers like these aren't professionals, they're hobbyists. They're making games like its a hobby, not a professional job. They do no market research, experiments, etc. If you run a normal business or a normal startup like that, you will have similarly terrible results.

Be a professional. Look at the market. What monetizes well? What works? Hint: it's not the linked game.

Go look at the top grossing charts in the various app stores for an idea of what type of game you should be making.

I co-founded a small game company 2 years ago. We took 10 months to make our first game and have been releasing updates for it ever since. We're all working remotely. And, we're making enough money to pay ourselves a Bay Area salary.

I love video games. I love the game industry. I started as a QA tester and worked my way up from there. I will never do anything different. You can make money making games, but you can't be an indie game developer / hobbyist. Be a professional.

You made some really good points, but the game that you developed is... a casino game (slots vacation, from your profile). No game can show all that's wrong with the game industry more than a free-to-play mobile casino game. If that's being a professional, I don't wanna be one.

Very capitalist for a socialist_coder.

I want to pay taxes and receive good benefits =)

For me, living in Germany instead of the US while founding my startup was a dream come true. I got very affordable health care, health insurance, and child care when we weren't making any money. I never had to stress out about how to pay for those things while we worked for a year without getting paid.

Now that we are making money, I'm happy to pay more for those things.

And, it's nice to know that if we went bankrupt tomorrow, I could continue to get those social services at a price I can always afford.

Video games are (or can be) art as well as business.

And artists in any medium, if they want to support themselves through their art, are a business too.

Some (stereotypical, not video game) artists do make art like it's a business, focusing on what will make them the most money. Sometimes it's good art too.

But most good art isn't driven mainly by what "monetizes well".

100% agree. But my point is that if you want to talk finances, don't talk about it like it's an art project.

You can always make a game that makes money first, then make your artsy game later. That's our plan.

If Notch had done what you said Minecraft would never exist.

Special cases do exist, but for the vast majority of people who want to be developing games, they need to be treating it like a business, not like art.

You can always make a profitable game first, then use that money to make your 2nd artsy game.

"I estimate that my living expenses over the 20 months of development were around $13k"

$650 a month? My utilities, insurance, and food budget easily exceed that, nevermind rent. My first job paid $35k/year, which was comfortable enough (in San Diego), but I was living paycheck to paycheck.

The problem with budgets like this is that they work for some people, not everybody, and set up artificial expectations (i.e. in terms of crowd funding or other capital). I am definitely an advocate of frugal budgets, but there is a line. I don't see $650 month working when you have a wife, kid(s), dog(s), mortgages, and/or car payments - but then again many independent developers are wise enough to not take on those things. I have all but the mortgage, and I consider my burn rate of $3k/month pretty frugal.

Yea that was a shocker for me too. Maybe that works if you are staying in your parent's house basement, but I just can't see anyone anyone in the US pay $650 for living expenses.

Also very much depends on where you're at.

There are a lot of small towns in America where you can rent for $350 or $400 per month.

I lived on a $50 per month grocery budget when I was 21 (maybe $75 today). Worked a part-time job that paid for my apartment, and worked as an entrepreneur the rest of the time.

I think it's pretty amazing how low your bills can be when you're really young, have no family, and little to no concern about health issues (I had no health insurance for a decade, never had a single health issue either, which is purely luck / genetics).

Yep, I can see it working in some situations. I'm glad I had health insurance though - I had appendicitis in my late 20s and the surgery cost $20k-$25k, most of which was covered. Its easy to think that nothing will happen when you are young, but it can and often does. :)

maybe not in a city, but I've lived in a rural area on less than $1000/month and I still know people who pay less than $300/month for rent.

after rent, having no car (bicycle) and no data plan cut things down even more.

only real issue is lack of medical insurance.

How do you live in a rural area in the US without a car?

I guess 'living' is relative...

was not rural, bit lived in the centre of a small city (60k persons)

was 5 minutes walk to nearest grocery and 5 minutes bike to work. Though in the winter I would walk (half hour) because biking on ice is deadly.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever had expenses under 1200$/month (also San Diego) even when I lived with my parents.

Rent here is 400$/month minimum - and that's sharing a room or splitting a house with 4 friends. Not counting utilities.

Food budget alone should be at least 400$/month as well if you're eating a meager 13$ of food a day.

You'd be amazing if you had less than 400$/month of car expenses including payment/repairs.

Then there's everything else. Health bills, insurance, internet, Netflix, etc.

You've never been poor.

$2-3 / day for food is doable (Cali groceries are a bit more expensive so maybe $4 here). Cut out all but the cheap meats. bread and veggies are super cheap (corn can be 5/$1 when it is in season)

no insurance. no internet (libraries are great). no car.

I never had expenses above $1000/month (not counting the month I paid $1000 to buy my first car) until I moved to the bay area and started making six figures.

Fairly sure we're not talking about the theoretical bottom limit here.

But I think the original commenter was commenting on the feasibility of the original article, which goes down to the minimum limit.

Netflix? That is categorized next to health bills? :)

I don't really understand why programmers go into game development?

Is it predominately the ultra low-end of programmers or something? It seems crazy to me that someone would take something like half the pay and way worse treatment/hours just to be in a specific industry.

Having made games for 30 years, I can tell you that a big part of it is a love of making something fun. I get to make something, and then play. Joy comes from playing and I am very joyful.

Can't you do the same without programming it though? I don't think I could have fun playing a game I programmed for someone else.

I think it is like why people become artists or musicians. Poor pay & very little recognition (except for the 0.1%) but it's fun to create something with your own two hands and see your vision slowly become reality.

Some people like making web applications. Some people like making game applications.

Not necessarily low-end, but some people want to work so badly on video games that they accept these conditions.

Because enough programmers accepts them, there's no need to pay them more/give them decent conditions.

For me it's challenge, there arn't many other programming jobs which involve such complex realtime systems, and touch on just about every field of software engineering and computer science. And you have to deal with that as a single programmer or on a team of programmers.

To build a game requires realtime (i.e. do all these things in 16.7 ms, non-stop) graphics, input, deterministic simulation, and networking. It also touches on AI, UI, databases, algorithms (match making), systems programming, file formats (compression, fast loading, etc), procedural generation, SIMD programming (shaders), programming languages, tools development, distributed systems, assembly (in optimizing), etc. And then architecting all of those different parts to fit together.

Programming websites (full stack), enterprise software, and desktop applications all bores the shit out of me, by the time my internships were done with each of those I couldn't wait to stop doing it, even though I was offered cushy high paying salaries to stay on, I wouldn't be able to bare doing that shit day in and day out.

This. I get to think about a bunch of different problems, some of them interesting, some of them difficult or impossible to solve, with a team of malcontents and nutballs. It's like being on a crew of pirates who stress about implementing k-d trees, matchmaking, deploying dedicated servers, build systems, scaling everything appropriately and doing it all as fast as possible. And at the end you ship something which is hopefully magical, possibly something that is shit, either way you have a giant party and tell awesome stories.

Games is a a glamour industry like music, movies and fashion. In all of those industries you see the same dynamic. Legions of very poorly paid people, lots of people making literally nothing. They just want to be part of it and to get their shot at the big time. Meanwhile a tiny percentage "make it" and get massively rich.

For every person in the Beatles there are massive numbers of people in bands who never make a dime. Similarly for every developer who starts a game company like Id that make serious money there are massive numbers who make little or nothing.

>Is it predominately the ultra low-end of programmers or something?

Actually the opposite is often true. Certainly those who have any amount of success are often exceptionally good programmers. As one boss at a non-game software company once put it after we hired a former game programmer to make software for oil refineries, they are the jet fighter pilots of programming.

I'm a part time indie developer. For my last game, Antigen, (http://antigengame.com) I got to do the following:

Work with procedural graphics algorithms. I invented several original techniques which I don't think have been used before. That was immensely satisfying. (for example, check out how I made the sprites: http://richardjdare.com/blog/2013/03/toxin-advanced-sprite-t... Or watch the trailer video to the end and try and figure out how I did the title screen animation!)

I learned a ton of algorithms and mathematical techniques I didn't know about before. AI, collision detection, geometry etc. All of these things being beyond the skills of an ultra low-end programmer I think :)

I learned how to do sound design, how synthesisers work etc. In previous games I used someone else's effects but in Antigen I did every noise myself from scratch.

Now, at my day job writing Java web-apps, the most complicated thing I do is calculate VAT, or figure out in what order I should call the functions of someone else's API! I often feel detached from the work, like I am just doing it as a favour. But when I work on my games I feel like I am doing what I became a programmer for; I am completely in the zone, surfing the edge of my knowledge and creativity. It lets me satisfy my love of the arts and sciences at the same time.

You're absolutely spot on regarding the challenges in game development. The problems you have to solve in game development are one of the kind. Very different and interesting compared to your typical business programming.

Good to have transparency for others interested in doing something similar. It would be interesting to see a total number of hours invested to release v 1.0

And any learnings that might have sped up the process?

As nice it is to see some hard figures, the numbers are disheartening. They say it's possible to make some side money during college, but don't even think about trying 10 years later :/

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