Making Games vs. Working Freelance

[phoenix_rossy]

For those of you looking to go commercial, in whatever regard. 

Making Games Independently 

• Pro - Revenue stream from release until the end of time (if you market it). Average $10 a month for the rest of your life = thousands of $$$'s.
• Pro - Creative control
• Pro - Get to create a brand awareness and increase visibility, therefore revenue. 
• Pro/Con - You pretty much get out what you put in. Unless you get super lucky.
• Con - Majority of the time, a TINY revenue stream, considering the time/money investment
• Con - Budget balancing. How much do you pump into the game? Will you see a return on that investment? How much do you draw from the business to you know, eat?
• Con - Your vision is almost ALWAYS limited by budget.

Working Freelance as a Composer/Artist/Writer/Developer

• Pro - Lump sums of beautiful, bill-paying money
• Pro/Con? - Varying levels of creative control
• Con - If there's no work, you don't eat.

What are your thoughts? Do you do a little freelance work to fund your project?

I'm sure there's more. I'd like to add your thoughts to this list.

 

[TheoAllen]

I'm working as freelance. Or at least I do open commision for local people. Eat? For now, I consider my open commision as my side income. And I have a plan to make my fixed income from another thing. 

 

[Matseb2611]

As someone who is considering making creative path the main career path in life, I think I might have to go for both. Game-making is the main aspect of what I want to do, but I do realise that this will most likely start paying off in the long-term and will take a lot of time. So I've been also considering of starting to offer my services for commissions, at the very least to help me fund my game projects. It's good to make as much use of your skills as possible, and there's no doubt someone out there will have the need for them.

 

[NH97]

Im interested on this thread because i might work on this line of job and make it as my main job. Follow!

need a Professional opinion. 

 

[whitesphere]

I read that Square/Enix was trying something where they would take 5% of the revenues but would do all of the marketing/etc, and you retain ownership over the actual game.  If it's still in effect it sounds like a great deal for developers who can make great games but are just starting out.

 

[Sharm]

Here's a few to add to freelance:

Pro - Built in feedback.

Pro - The income is more stable.

Pro - Unless you do something stupid, you get paid equal to the effort you put into it.

Con - Sometimes you have to find a way to get along with people who are complete jerks.

Con - Sometimes people just won't pay you.

Con - Gotta worry about things like contracts and copyright and IP and such.  Especially if your boss is a friend.

Con - Finding your next gig is a constant part of the job.

Con - You have to keep careful track of the time you spend working.

 

[Indinera]

I am making games but then again I'm kinda a game makin'olic.

The pros:

it's total freedom, you work when you want, no deadline, no boss to tell you what you do

[SIZE=13.63636302948px]it's kinda fun too[/SIZE]

 

[Engr. Adiktuzmiko]

I'd say I'm making games as a freelancer...

Con - Majority of the time, a TINY revenue stream, considering the time/money investment


Con - Budget balancing. How much do you pump into the game? Will you see a return on that investment? How much do you draw from the business to you know, eat?


Con - Your vision is almost ALWAYS limited by budget.

1) I think so too


2) Coz of number 1, I think it gets harder. Especially when ur still starting out


3) I think that happens anywhere anyways.

 

[TheoAllen]

Pro - The income is more stable.

Con - Sometimes people just won't pay you.

These statements kill each other.

Anyway, I don't think working as freelance will have stable income. It's very depends on the project you're working on. I once got a big project and I got a lot of money. But once the project is finished or at least they don't want request something from you, then you have no income

 

[bgillisp]

I think the way to go is to start it as a side task, while still keeping your main job. If it takes off, then maybe switch over, and if not, you still have your main job for income. At least that's the way I'm handing it for now.

Though, another solution is to find a job where you can do freelance work in the downtime. But those jobs are few and far between.

 

[Sharm]

These statements kill each other.

They don't actually. If you're working full time at freelance you should have multiple clients running at the same time. If one falls through, the other one is there to stabilize it. It is much harder to set up something like that when you're making your own games. I could be assuming a worst case scenario for the game maker though, so it could be an unfair statement. It's just been my observation that game making income is much more volatile than freelancing income.

 

[saintivan]

I would add that luck is a variable for success regardless of how much time you put in, or even regardless of how good the product is; not all rubbish falls in the bin, and not all gems are valued. As for how much money I put into my game, I paid for the custom artwork to make the game world seem "real", focusing on characters and artist drawn cut-scenes.

 

[NH97]

I would add that luck is a variable for success regardless of how much time you put in, or even regardless of how good the product is; not all rubbish falls in the bin, and not all gems are valued. As for how much money I put into my game, I paid for the custom artwork to make the game world seem "real", focusing on characters and artist drawn cut-scenes.

Actually this the one that mostly concern me. "Luck. Does working as freelancer will really be able to give us a stable income? Im really not sure about this....

 

[Indinera]

Luck is always a huge factor in everything (sadly, IMO).

 

[Andar]

Does working as freelancer will really be able to give us a stable income? Im really not sure about this....

Yes and no - to get a stable income as a freelancer, you need to have a reputation that gets you many customers, and that reputation doesn't magically appear.
Basically that means you have to have another form of income to eat from while building up your reputation and advertising your skills, until you've enough customers to be able to work freelance fulltime.


And you can only get a good reputation if you can work to the desires of your client, which means that you need versatility - if you can work only in a single style of artwork, then that form of artwork has to be in high demand (=commonly used) to get you the commissions to pay your bills by freelance work.

 

[boldpaste2]

Working on a commercial game is really nerve racking especially when you are poring a ton of time and money into it. The thought on my mind is always "I hope my project does well enough". Also, as a game developer, commissioning freelancers is also risky (especially if its for long term). I had a freelancer charge me for custom work when I latter found out that they were just edits to pre-existing materials. (Not from my current freelance team, they do a pretty good job.) 

 

[sabao]

I've been working in a small game dev studio for about two years now. My thoughts:

PRO: Some creative control.

It's not full creative control over a project in that you can draw/make whatever you want if you aren't producing/directing, but at smaller studios working on their own IPs, your opinion still counts.

PRO: Steady revenue.

Working for a studio guarantees you get a cheque every month regardless of whether or not the studio itself is getting any work. This may be convenient, especially compared to when freelancing where you may find yourself unable to find a project. But...

CON: Low pay.

More often than not, small independent studios don't have much money to pay you with. That's understandable. The people you work for/with may be wonderful human beings. Still, this proves to be an incredible strain sometimes when you have bills and other unplanned expenses to pay for.

CON: The hours.

Again, unless you happen to be the boss of said studio or the work culture is different, game dev involves a lot of overtime/sleepless nights. It's stressful, especially near deadlines (if said studio believes in deadlines. Mine does.). This usually leads to problems like fatigue or not having enough time to pursue other things like a social life or freelance work on the side, which I used to do so I could actually save for things I want and not just have enough to survive with. Again, this varies from studio to studio and likely from country to country.

 

[phoenix_rossy]

I've been working in a small game dev studio for about two years now. My thoughts:

PRO: Some creative control.

It's not full creative control over a project in that you can draw/make whatever you want if you aren't producing/directing, but at smaller studios working on their own IPs, your opinion still counts.

PRO: Steady revenue.

Working for a studio guarantees you get a cheque every month regardless of whether or not the studio itself is getting any work. This may be convenient, especially compared to when freelancing where you may find yourself unable to find a project. But...

CON: Low pay.

More often than not, small independent studios don't have much money to pay you with. That's understandable. The people you work for/with may be wonderful human beings. Still, this proves to be an incredible strain sometimes when you have bills and other unplanned expenses to pay for.

CON: The hours.

Again, unless you happen to be the boss of said studio or the work culture is different, game dev involves a lot of overtime/sleepless nights. It's stressful, especially near deadlines (if said studio believes in deadlines. Mine does.). This usually leads to problems like fatigue or not having enough time to pursue other things like a social life or freelance work on the side, which I used to do so I could actually save for things I want and not just have enough to survive with. Again, this varies from studio to studio and likely from country to country.

 Pro 2 - I can relate to that, to some degree. My revenue is realtively steady, except where I run promotions, there seems to be a vacuum on the tail end of it (I've just been running 10% off on Steam for the Winter sale, and now that it's ended, sales have dropped considerably).

Con 1 - Always low pay. Though the larger the company's portfolio (as long as they're marketing effectively), the higher that revenue stream, so as time goes on there should be more money to play with.

Con 2 - Definitely true. I believe in deadlines - mainly because using Kickstarter is a part of my 'business plan', and you have to provide at least a rough estimate of completion. Without some kind of cut-off point, you could carry on tweaking and editing forever (I know I could). But these are the prices we pay to do the thing we love, I guess!

 

[sabao]

Con 1 - Always low pay. Though the larger the company's portfolio (as long as they're marketing effectively), the higher that revenue stream, so as time goes on there should be more money to play with.

I think that's always the thing with startups that's so scary though: there's always the promise of more, but it's never a guarantee. I love what I'm doing, but I think where I'll be in a year hinges heavily on how well this second game we're making fares (First one died in the vine. Lots of time wasted on that one.).

 

[phoenix_rossy]

I think that's always the thing with startups that's so scary though: there's always the promise of more, but it's never a guarantee. I love what I'm doing, but I think where I'll be in a year hinges heavily on how well this second game we're making fares (First one died in the vine. Lots of time wasted on that one.).

But lessons were learned, yes? I scrapped several version of my first game before I settled on a design, during which time I was living off my country's version of welfare. So I guess since I wasn't quitting a job to go into commercial games development - it kind of worked out as my backup - I wasn't really running that 'risk' factor that comes with starting up your own company.

Then there's the added bonus of crowdfunding - my ideas had merit, so other people funded my business when I had no finances to do so. For that I am infinitely grateful. There are some awesome people in the world.