I QUIT MY JOB to make indie games - DEVLOG 13

i quit my job to make my dream game check it out our game a postmortem how to cope with failure [Music] [Music] hello and welcome back to the point-and-click devlog an ongoing series in which if you've read the title of this video you're probably thinking wow those 1 000 subscribers really went to his head but yep you read it right i've quit what was a decently paying job in the middle of a global pandemic in order to gamble my savings on this computer game a game that's still totally in its infancy and in a genre that most people have forgotten even exists have i gone mad is this some kind of early midlife crisis maybe but let me explain and you know what actually let me explain this properly this is a pretty big deal so we ought to tackle it seriously i reckon in this video i'm going to lay my cards on the table and talk about how we got here the plan my finances and budget for the year ahead and the ultimate goal getting a game over the line okay strap in because there are big changes [Music] afoot it's been a year since i started making what i hope will one day be a funny compelling and charming little point-and-click adventure game i know a year and while it's becoming a bit of a meme in the community discord server that i haven't yet done any actual game development in all that time i think i have done some pretty decent prep i've done pretty much all of my game's backdrops which is a huge time sink and i'm currently working through getting all of my protagonists core animations nailed in order to be able to hit the ground running and to build out the game at a reasonable pace once we do finally dive into unity at the same time in those 12 months this little youtube channel has been slowly growing in popularity i'm not crazy enough to think that 1000 subscribers is big by any means but i did a little bit of research and found that on average it takes twice this long to get to 1k and that's with weekly uploads so something here must be going right right i don't know but i like the little community we have here quite a bit either way and then there's my job over the past year the company i work for has been going through a lot of changes i won't get into the weeds of it here but suffice it to say that my apathy for the role and for the world of content marketing as a whole has been growing so i've been thinking it's time for a change generally and i think that general job dissatisfaction has had a knock-on effect on my productivity on the game and so it's occurred to me recently that if i keep plodding on it will take me years to get the game finished which would be fine except something happened recently i went for another job and i didn't get it i think i was in the final two but ultimately was turned down now the day before i found out about that my wife and i went for a walk and while we were walking i was saying not for the first time that if i didn't get off with this job maybe i should just take my savings and spend like a year working on getting this game made with a view to sell it make some money and repeat the whole process over and over again and grow this channel at the same time in other words become a full-time game dev the dream and as i was explaining how i'd go about that my wife stopped and asked me a simple question would you rather do that than take this new job well yeah obviously but that'd be pretty foolish wouldn't it so yeah i didn't get the job and the more we discussed it the more i realized this right now would probably be my only or my last chance to do something this crazy we're lucky enough to have savings my wife has a stable job we have a manageable mortgage on a house we're going to be in for a number of years and perhaps crucially we don't yet have any kids the stars are aligning for me to be a little bit selfish and a little bit stupid and see what happens so the following monday after that talk i handed in my notice at work and began to plan [Music] that plan such as it is is this from the end of april i'm going to be a free agent and that means two things number one i'll be able to treat game development as my nine-to-five job with the result hopefully being that i can bring several years of game dev down to just one and number two i can seriously up the frequency of these videos from one every now and then to one every single week without fail and as anyone who's even vaguely aware of the all-powerful youtube algorithm will know that definitely won't hurt this channel's growth and let's make no bones about it right as much as i love making this channel to help share my learnings and grow what is now an awesome community the bottom line is that if more people see these videos and subscribe to the channel more people might consider buying the game when it's done one hand washes the other i guess anyway i'm sure you're probably keen to know about how i'm gonna make this work financially right okay no worries let's do that [Music] so for context i'm 34 years old i've worked full-time for 14 years now and over the last few especially i've been earning okay not crazy money at all but okay for a guy with no kids and no massive overheads enough to save a bit every month and what that means is with a slightly tighter budget than i've lived on up until now and obviously without saving anything new i can live pretty much as normal for 12 months giving myself a source of fake salary out of my savings put simply i've cancelled a few frivolous expenditures like extra video streaming services and the like and worked out budgets for how i can live on between 1500 and two thousand pounds a month things could obviously be done for way less than that but importantly this is about ensuring that my wife doesn't suffer for my sins so in other words we can still go out to restaurants etc every now and then and we don't have to become hermits so i'm thinking of it kind of as if i've already run a successful kickstarter campaign that budget will also still leave me with a small safety net in the bank at the end of 12 months rather than wiping me out entirely but really by then one of two things needs to happen one i face the music and try and get myself a new job or two that i'll have found a way to make this weird pie in the sky game development dream financially sustainable now that second one's not going to be easy it itself basically comes down to a couple of factors firstly how much freelance work i can pick up without that freelance work taking over my gamedev efforts and secondly any extra revenue related to this here youtube channel now let's talk about that briefly to become a youtube partner and start making advertising revenue you need to surpass 1 000 subscribers which i've done but you also need 4 000 watch hours which i'm only about halfway to in the time of writing aside from that though i think you really need to have more than like 100 000 subscribers to earn any real money from adverts all of which is why at some point in the near future i will be doing the cringy thing and setting up a patreon for this channel patreon is a funny beast at the best of times and i know that it's mad to set up my stall and ask strangers for money during a global pandemic that's put us into something of a global recession but it's not a plea to everyone that watches rather a specific type of viewer by which i mean if any regulars here are comfortable enough with their finances to spare a few quid a month to support the channel without noticing it gone then rest assured that that option will be there for you within the next couple of months why the delay well i'll do a short video about what i've got planned for that when the time comes but the key thing is that we'll be talking about a lot more than just get your name in the credits type stuff as patreon rewards there'll be two different unique and patreon exclusive content uploads from me each week alongside the weekly devlogs one video and one audio which may end up being far too much of me in your life but there we go the long and short of it is this if for some reason you do like listening to me waffle on then there will soon be the opportunity to get a bit more of it each and every week i'm also going to look into streaming my game's development on twitch maybe once a month or every couple of weeks just to test the waters there and see what happens more than anything else because hey if i'm going to be sat at home talking to myself i may as well broadcast it right now just to be super ridiculously clear i am under no illusion that any of the above will amount to any more than a bit of monthly pocket money if that which is why it's probably worth me reiterating the overall goal here [Music] now [Music] the bottom line is unless i can find a magical financial solution it's likely that i'll be back in a full-time job by april next year and i'll have depleted quite a bit of my life savings in the interim but that's fine because here's the thing by that point even if i don't have a finished game i'll be a hell of a lot closer to having one than i will do otherwise and hopefully i'll have a youtube channel that's even more thriving than it is now that's if i don't bore you guys with updates along the way [Music] if i just plod on like i currently am it'll be five years at least before this game sees the light of day i'm just getting too impatient for that and the longer we go the higher the risk that i'll just stop so it's time to turn this marathon into a sprint now i know what you're thinking it does take years for people to make games couldn't i just get up at 5 a.m and do game dev before work couldn't i just work harder and faster or you know i obviously don't want it enough if i'm not willing to hustle and grind yeah maybe and i know that at least a couple of you here have found inspiration from the way i talk about making this game at a slow pace and in my spare time as part of a normal life so i really am sorry if this sudden change might be disappointing for you but to be honest this is about more than just a case of wanting to save time when it comes to game dev it's about much more than that really i don't want to be the guy who suddenly turns all schmaltzy with the motivational quotes and posters but i recently came across this little graphic on reddit and it's been playing on my mind enough to drive this whole change this decision really is a coalescence of a few different things which i realize is exactly the kind of thing someone says as the end-to-end life crisis but it's true the goal here is about doing what's scary and trying to make it work for the sake of my own personal happiness but look at the end of the day i know i'm very lucky to even be able to give this a go i'm a white middle class dude in his 30s with a mortgage savings and a supportive wife just in terms of the where in the world were you born lottery i am insanely lucky and i know this is a lot of people's dream because it's also mine so even if this does turn out to be stupid in the long run i've got to give it a go i think i owe it to myself to try at least and i owe it to the kid version of me to do what i reckon he would think is a cool thing although his perception of cool might be somewhat unreliable so look i hope you can follow along over this pretty scary but monumentous next year and if you're making your own game in whatever capacity i hope we both make it no matter how long it takes or under what circumstances anyway that's it from me thanks very much for watching and liking if you're so inclined if you enjoyed this then you may well be making a point and click game yourself in which case you'll probably love our community discord server it is a safe space in which seemingly any question you have can and will be answered by some of the friendliest people on the planet and often within a couple of minutes i hope to see you there if not look no worries perhaps i will see you in the next one which will come around a lot quicker than the last few bye [Music] you

Channel: The Point & Click Devlog

Views: 1,918

Keywords: Point and click, adventure game devlog, devlog, point and click devlog, adventure game studio, adventure creator, make an adventure game, adventure games, point and click adventure games, indie games, indie developer, gamedev, game development, solo developer, solo dev, wadjet eye, wadjet eye games, indie dev, point and click adventure game, Quit my job, fulltime gamedev, indie gamedev

Id: uEI0rO_PNuo

Length: 15min 55sec (955 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021

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