Going Indie!!!
by Thomas \"Man of Ice\" Lund · 11/12/2004 (2:00 am) · 15 comments
I did it!!!
Yesterday I cut the final cord to my previous life and quit my day job, meaning from years end I will enjoy the freedom of indie-ness.
My last half year has led up to this point, and I would like to share the experience with you, as well as write a few words on "what now".
My work life up till now has been very priviledged as I've had management jobs in the traditional software development business, mainly as head of development or CTO with 20-30 people under me. While the job istelf is great, satisfaction with the products made never truly was there. In my heart I've always wanted to do games and be part of that remarkable process of software that entertains instead of bores you to death (my last 5 years of work has been producing IT-security software)
In my carreer I once had the opportunity to work for a "large" game house in Denmark as a project manager for a 20 member PS2 team, but I chose a different job with my brain at that time.
Some 6 month ago I decided it was time to listen to my heart.
Having flirted with indie game dev for a few years, I decided to go half time on my management job, start up some consultancy and spend the rest of the time doing game dev - testing out the waters and attempting to start up a few projects to learn.
Culminating with IGC this year, it finally hit me how much I miss such atmosphere and dedication in my current line of work. So many opportunities here and its still in its infancy in many ways. Perfect time to enter and try to make a living.
Luck has played into my hands the last 6 month, and the consultancy work I've done until now for the public health sector is continuing at a steady pace. It pays very very well, and with 4-5 days a month consulting I can stay at my current life style while having 3 weeks a month for game dev. That level of consulting has recently been approved for the next year or so and that made me take the final decision - quit my old life.
AND IT FEELS GREAT
For the first time in many years I finally feel alive and look actually forward to work. To produce something new and fun, Its very hard to explain, but it just feels great.
But what now? What will happen, and how will I survive in the long term. Can I make a living as an indie? Only time will tell, but I already got a lot of things in the pipeline. Comming from "the real software world" I have a lot of knowledge and baggage with me from there. Getting some of these things into the game dev world is easy and could enable me an easy start.
For the last month I've had 3 interns working for me, and that will soon manifest itself into
* an ActiveX demo installer similar to ThinkTanks (already done)
* a game launcher that can grab patches from a server and update the local installation, displaying news items etc.
* a simple community system with buddylists, authentication and integration into the web
On the game dev side, IGC discussions have streamlined my thoughts a lot. Simplicity, fun, innovation are the key words. So some of the projects that I've worked on are now put back in the drawer and more simple game concepts are going into production.
I fully second what Phil Carlisle has written earlier. Do prototyping. Participate in GIDs. Use GID like processes in your own game dev. Get a game running within 1 week, see if its fun and ditch if not. Finish it up the next 3-4 month and release. At least thats my overall plan.
Current work on game dev is
* a battleship shooter game
* a fun little 3d physics game. I cannot elaborate until prototyping is done, but its a novel idea
* long term a humor and story driven action adventure. A lot of code has already been produced for this, but its a long term, slow cooking deal
Well - thats about it. My life, my future.
Wish me luck!!!
Yesterday I cut the final cord to my previous life and quit my day job, meaning from years end I will enjoy the freedom of indie-ness.
My last half year has led up to this point, and I would like to share the experience with you, as well as write a few words on "what now".
My work life up till now has been very priviledged as I've had management jobs in the traditional software development business, mainly as head of development or CTO with 20-30 people under me. While the job istelf is great, satisfaction with the products made never truly was there. In my heart I've always wanted to do games and be part of that remarkable process of software that entertains instead of bores you to death (my last 5 years of work has been producing IT-security software)
In my carreer I once had the opportunity to work for a "large" game house in Denmark as a project manager for a 20 member PS2 team, but I chose a different job with my brain at that time.
Some 6 month ago I decided it was time to listen to my heart.
Having flirted with indie game dev for a few years, I decided to go half time on my management job, start up some consultancy and spend the rest of the time doing game dev - testing out the waters and attempting to start up a few projects to learn.
Culminating with IGC this year, it finally hit me how much I miss such atmosphere and dedication in my current line of work. So many opportunities here and its still in its infancy in many ways. Perfect time to enter and try to make a living.
Luck has played into my hands the last 6 month, and the consultancy work I've done until now for the public health sector is continuing at a steady pace. It pays very very well, and with 4-5 days a month consulting I can stay at my current life style while having 3 weeks a month for game dev. That level of consulting has recently been approved for the next year or so and that made me take the final decision - quit my old life.
AND IT FEELS GREAT
For the first time in many years I finally feel alive and look actually forward to work. To produce something new and fun, Its very hard to explain, but it just feels great.
But what now? What will happen, and how will I survive in the long term. Can I make a living as an indie? Only time will tell, but I already got a lot of things in the pipeline. Comming from "the real software world" I have a lot of knowledge and baggage with me from there. Getting some of these things into the game dev world is easy and could enable me an easy start.
For the last month I've had 3 interns working for me, and that will soon manifest itself into
* an ActiveX demo installer similar to ThinkTanks (already done)
* a game launcher that can grab patches from a server and update the local installation, displaying news items etc.
* a simple community system with buddylists, authentication and integration into the web
On the game dev side, IGC discussions have streamlined my thoughts a lot. Simplicity, fun, innovation are the key words. So some of the projects that I've worked on are now put back in the drawer and more simple game concepts are going into production.
I fully second what Phil Carlisle has written earlier. Do prototyping. Participate in GIDs. Use GID like processes in your own game dev. Get a game running within 1 week, see if its fun and ditch if not. Finish it up the next 3-4 month and release. At least thats my overall plan.
Current work on game dev is
* a battleship shooter game
* a fun little 3d physics game. I cannot elaborate until prototyping is done, but its a novel idea
* long term a humor and story driven action adventure. A lot of code has already been produced for this, but its a long term, slow cooking deal
Well - thats about it. My life, my future.
Wish me luck!!!
#2
11/12/2004 (2:11 am)
Money comes from my consulting work. Enough to build up a war chest and also stay at my current level of life style. I'm very very lucky and fortunate that I can do this, even if there is no guarantee in the long run. But what tech job these days has "job security"?
#3
I'm on a similar path as you although at an earlier stage. I just opened up a home based business and while keeping my day job in IT, I'll try to get some projects going so that I can quit and devote more time to game deving.
Nick
11/12/2004 (2:27 am)
You've chosen the best path! I wish you great luck on being a full time indie!I'm on a similar path as you although at an earlier stage. I just opened up a home based business and while keeping my day job in IT, I'll try to get some projects going so that I can quit and devote more time to game deving.
Nick
#4
Not going to wish you you know what, don't want to jinx it :)
Make us proud !!
(a few seconds pass)
Where's the game ? ;)
11/12/2004 (3:08 am)
Break a leg, and the french version, a resounding "Merde" !!Not going to wish you you know what, don't want to jinx it :)
Make us proud !!
(a few seconds pass)
Where's the game ? ;)
#5
11/12/2004 (3:25 am)
Good luck Thomas, i'm happy for you.
#6
11/12/2004 (3:59 am)
Sweet! Congrats :) Less excuses to not GID now, eh ? ;-) 
#7
11/12/2004 (4:08 am)
On the phisics game : are you planning to coding a self phisics, or you will to integrating an existing one ? (I mean ODE or TOKAMAK, all of them are free)
#8
@Gabor - I'll actually use the rigid shape resource for at least the prototyping. I think it has all I need (basic newtonian) and it works over the network. I want to keep as simple as possible, and rigid shapes have worked for me before.
11/12/2004 (4:14 am)
Thanks all.@Gabor - I'll actually use the rigid shape resource for at least the prototyping. I think it has all I need (basic newtonian) and it works over the network. I want to keep as simple as possible, and rigid shapes have worked for me before.
#9
Regarding a comment you made:
What do you plan on using, and is it something you may be offering to the community (as an add on or resource?) I would be highly interested!
11/12/2004 (5:26 am)
Congratulations man, great to hear! I'm in the same situation myself--independent consulting can pay outstandingly if you can get the gigs! Just bank on a -lot- of downtime between contracts, and keep that warchest stuffed. I ran into a 15 month dry spell 3 years ago that caused some very tricky bill balancing (pay one this month, the other next month, etc.), so just keep your pipeline active when you can.Regarding a comment you made:
Quote: a game launcher that can grab patches from a server and update the local installation, displaying news items etc.I've been researching what's available out there for a couple of months now, and not really found much useful yet. NSIS (what GG is using for the new installers) DOES have some functionality that implies it can do an "auto-updater" style of functionality, but documentation and examples are slim to none.
What do you plan on using, and is it something you may be offering to the community (as an add on or resource?) I would be highly interested!
#10
The game launcher system consists of 2 parts. One is the game launcher client. It has 3 basic functions - start game, update game and display news. News and updates are fetched from a backend server. The client is coded in C++ with wxWindows and once done will be available on Mac, Win and Linux. Internally it uses crc32, ssl, webservices and zip libraries + some data files for layout, data validity etc. The client is done and runs.
To simplify things and not run into too much trouble, it updates whole files only. No patching of files. It does roll-back though on errors and reports errors back into the server.
Server part is a J2EE server that has webservice interfaces. It also (will) have a webclient for managing the updates and the news bulletins displayed in the client. Those are formattet in HTML. Using J2EE enables you to scale in clusters out of the box. It uses MySQL for now, but all code is database independant, so anything can be used that has a jdbc driver. The server is done, but the webclient needs to be coded yet.
The system supports multiple games, so you only need 1 server for all your games.
It is developed for my own use, but I'm thinking about add on / code pack where you get sources and all for a reasonable amount of money. No definite plans yet. System is done for own use in 2-3 weeks or so. Probably needs some testing on Mac+Linux as that hasnt been done yet.
Its not TGE only - can be used for anything basically. Main concern has been TGE (thus the platform choice) though.
11/12/2004 (5:57 am)
@Stephen:The game launcher system consists of 2 parts. One is the game launcher client. It has 3 basic functions - start game, update game and display news. News and updates are fetched from a backend server. The client is coded in C++ with wxWindows and once done will be available on Mac, Win and Linux. Internally it uses crc32, ssl, webservices and zip libraries + some data files for layout, data validity etc. The client is done and runs.
To simplify things and not run into too much trouble, it updates whole files only. No patching of files. It does roll-back though on errors and reports errors back into the server.
Server part is a J2EE server that has webservice interfaces. It also (will) have a webclient for managing the updates and the news bulletins displayed in the client. Those are formattet in HTML. Using J2EE enables you to scale in clusters out of the box. It uses MySQL for now, but all code is database independant, so anything can be used that has a jdbc driver. The server is done, but the webclient needs to be coded yet.
The system supports multiple games, so you only need 1 server for all your games.
It is developed for my own use, but I'm thinking about add on / code pack where you get sources and all for a reasonable amount of money. No definite plans yet. System is done for own use in 2-3 weeks or so. Probably needs some testing on Mac+Linux as that hasnt been done yet.
Its not TGE only - can be used for anything basically. Main concern has been TGE (thus the platform choice) though.
#11
11/12/2004 (6:20 am)
Congrats Thomas! I'm sure you will kick some butt! 
#12
11/12/2004 (6:31 am)
This all sounds great. Good luck! 
#13
11/12/2004 (7:19 am)
Congrats Thomas...see you round irc
#15
Congratulations! It's very exciting to see more and more people going full indie and it sounds like you have some really cool projects lined up
11/13/2004 (12:25 pm)
Hey Thomas,Congratulations! It's very exciting to see more and more people going full indie and it sounds like you have some really cool projects lined up
Torque Owner Israel Lazo
I have token the same decision some time ago, but with not good results...
Good look in your Life 2.0!!