Indie Game Devs Are Poor, Right?

Hey Wow hi my name is Thomas brush I'm the creator of a game called pinstripe also game called never song those games have been released to pretty much every platform and we recently just released never song to steam to rave reviews 9 out of 10 on Steam from users he had also great coverage from compress outlets and youtubers people seem to really like the game it's been a awesome experience and I'm just so excited about letting you guys have the opportunity to play it it's actually 15% off right now so click the link in the description to check it out that really mean a lot to me so today is kind of a special video because I've gotten I got an email and it's made me think about why people choose to do indie game development and it's got me thinking about why people choose certain careers guess the psychology behind why certain people choose entrepreneurship certain people choose working a desk job they hate for decades or why people choose to be indie game developers when the majority of indie game developers don't even make a lot of money I'm fortunate in that finally after a decade of making games I'm actually making a decent salary but lots of Indies out there don't make a lot of money so I want to read this email and hopefully you guys can relate to the email but also encourage the individual who emailed but before we get started I want to thank our sponsor guys sponsors they really do help support this channel help support my studio so let's give them just a little bit of our attention and say thank you to them real quick guys this video is brought to you by gamify so if you use Shopify we just found the funnest way to generate more leads while adding gamification to your website check out gamify their app quickly lets you customize brand and incentivize games right on your website and they even have a pro tool if you have an agency and want to add another service to your offering users of pro tool have created games for the likes of Wendy's KFC and even Nissan so go ahead check out gamify click the link in the description and that would really mean a lot thank you so much game of for sponsoring this video it really helps out our chance okay so the emailer I can't say their name just because I didn't ask them if I could read their email so I'm gonna read some of the email I'm gonna paraphrase some of it but let's pretend the emailers name is Sara hello my name is Sara and I've recently decided to pursue indie game development I'm a home-schooled tenth grader and my career choice has changed many times since I was first asked what I wanted to be in the kindergarden at first it was an artist and then a game designer and this is so funny then gradually it changed to be an astrophysicist or an astronaut or even a veterinarian as my main interest changed over the years and that funny how you kind of look back and maybe when you're in kindergarten your view of yourself and what you loved might actually be more accurate than what it was in high school with all the pressure from your parents and your peers anyway we'll get into that just a second however I always had a notebook filled with game ideas and was always left wondering if my ideas could ever come to life it was last year I decided to be an artist and stick with what I knew best within that area regarding fine art commissions and that sort of stuff but I still wasn't feeling it I may have a passion for art but as for a career choice I just wasn't up to it paraphrasing here one day she stumbled across my youtube channel started watching my videos watched a lot of them and then she suddenly remembered that sort of childhood passion she had of wanting to make games so I started dabbling and creating games and I created some RPG type games and they were purely text-based I've really been inspired by you your videos and I've decided I'm going to pursue indie game development making games those are the one thing in my life that hasn't dissolved unlike my other interests it's somehow managed to stay intact right alongside coding in art so why not combine them all so I recently beginning of the month began learning to do all this stuff unity blender sharpening my digital skills and learning game making now here is the part that I really want to focus on this is the most important part of this email however I've heard discouraging words from friends family members and even my co-workers about my choice I don't plan on going to college but I do plan on going to tech school I don't see myself benefiting from college or university though my grandfather and co-workers all say otherwise I believe I know what is best for myself in these terms I'm extremely enthusiastic about what my future holds in terms of game development in art but I just wanted to say thank you blah blah blah blah I'm grateful this is great right this is really really great we found some someone emailed us asking us what we think about her decision to pursue a childhood dream in indie game development first before I give you any advice here I want to say there's a 10% chance that your grandfather and your friends are correct and here's why if you're a lazy flighty unfocused individual with very little discipline I would say go to college it's kind of like go to boot camp go do something do something that's completely outside of your interests so that you can grow and discipline and learn what it's like to actually follow through and finish something now let's assume that isn't you if that is you stop watching this video because you need to get some discipline but if that's not you let's move that aside and let's talk about your family obviously they have your best interest in mind because that's just their paradigm especially different generations they all think differently my reason for going to college or starting a game studio or pursuing entrepreneurship my sole reason for doing all of this was freedom I wanted freedom if I was passionate about I don't know mushrooms I don't know what that is it's not her biology like mushrooms is it my ecology I don't know if I was passionate about mushrooms and I wanted the freedom to pursue that I would do whatever it took even if it meant I made ten thousand dollars a year to pursue that so a lot of us when we're in high school our parents in our and my parents were actually very understanding of my career path they actually were very encouraging but a lot of parents they think their paradigm is you go to college so you make a stable income that's the point you go to college you spend $40,000 you strap yourself to a ton of debt it could be more than $40,000 and then because you're strapped to that debt you're a slave to this job for the rest of your life but it provides a steady income right that's the point that's why we live this life I guess is to have this stable income source to support our joy right income is the foundation of our joy that to me is complete BS freedom is the foundation to my joy I don't care what my income is freedom is the foundation to my joy now this doesn't necessarily mean that I'm just a prick who wants to do whatever he wants it means that if I have a passion deep down or I'm excited about something I have the freedom to pursue it and I'm not strapped down by debt or car payments or some massive bill that I have to pay so I think it's very important for all of us all of you guys watching if you're going to pursue entrepreneurship you're going to pursue indie game development yes it could very well mean you don't make a lot of money I think it was Kotaku article in 2014 said that the average income for solo game developers was ten thousand dollars a year it's not true for me I've finally sort of solidified for me it's a six-figure income but for teams is about $50,000 per person and that's u.s. dollars all that said that's not a lot of money right so an indie game developer Sarah yourself included you guys need to understand that yes the income level is very very small the average but it also means that you're free you're free to be able to do whatever you want now obviously there's a catch if you don't make enough money you're not free you're gonna need to go find another job or else you're gonna be on the streets right so if you can build up enough of an income stream and be smart then yes you can be free and you can make games and you can explore see I love freedom in your 20s now we'll talk about why I keep talking about the 20s your 20s are typically your years you're allowed to do with them what you want now me I got married in my 20s so I still was allowed to do what I wanted but I had another mouth to take a nut meant another mouth to feed and another person to take care of but we could sort of took care of each other I have kids now so as I'm moving into my 30s now it's not all about my freedom right I actually care more about my family's freedom than my freedom so income potential gets really important in your 30s but if you are 17 years old to 29 years old and you don't have any dependencies any people relying on you why are you so worried about college why are you so worried about making money I think it's really important for you to be worried about are you pursuing things that interests you you really need to be going with a shotgun approach in your 20s you need to be trying as many things as possible and failing at as many things as possible so that you get an idea of what brings you that sense of freedom and that sense of joy and then hopefully when you find that sense of joy and that sense of freedom you can pursue it in your 30s and 40s and actually make a reasonable income from it and that's exactly what I did in my 20s I pursued a ton of different things I pursued I was in a band I was in I did a lot of music I did illustration it did freelance web design free lamps freelance coding I also did a animation I worked for a marketing agency I did plenty of things and I found that I just liked making games the most I'm glad that I got to try out all those things I wasn't locked into some career because I was strapped to that career because of debt and that's exactly what College does to you so I think your decision to go to a tech school is a brilliant move because what it means is you're not you know a slave to that degree because frankly it'll be like $2,000 a year so you should probably afford that and it doesn't take a lot of your time it might be two years two to four years to get a degree and you can lean on that degree when you need it it's great to have a small degree that you can lean on especially in an indie game development because if indie game development isn't paying the bills you can still lean on that degree when you need to to make ends meet so I think it's a brilliant move overall guys I think some generations some family members and friends they might not understand what the point of even living is it's not to make a lot of money money doesn't bring you joy obviously I mean that's a cliche at this point but having a nice big house and and plenty of car payments that doesn't really make you happy or bringing you joy the things that bring you joy are you being able to express yourself especially those of you who have very salty expressive personalities I can imagine it's torture not being able to share that with the world in the form of some art whether it's game development or illustration or animation or filmmaking so I would prefer personally I would prefer living a poverty-stricken life as long as I was free to express myself so again your family might be right Sarah they might be right and you need to acknowledge that when they say that you're not gonna make a lot of money and it's not gonna be a profitable industry you say yeah you might be right I could make $5,000 in a year but let me list out the benefits and then here's where you list out the benefits you say I'm in my 20s I have plenty of energy I have plenty of time to make mistakes and mistakes are gonna make me stronger give me a thicker skin and they're going to these mistakes are going to going to inform me of what I do love but I also might be making a lot of successes so failures lead to success but also you might just have successes you might release a game that makes you $10,000 and then your family's gonna go whoa I didn't you could do this and that was me with my dad my first game I made was called coma and I just released it on newgrounds.com had 8 million plays and I remember getting lunch with my dad at Cracker Barrel and he said hey you just made $10,000 off this game maybe you should try it again I had no idea that this was possible his view of what was possible was changed it's kind of like I don't know tick-tock I don't understand tick-tock I guess I'm too old for tick-tock but everybody loves tick-tock I'm not gonna sit here and tell everybody that tick tock is stupid and it's a bad decision or maybe you shouldn't be spending your time doing tick tock there's something there that I don't understand and hopefully I can learn what it is and it's I guess it's our job to tell older generations or people who don't understand the kind of industry that we're in or that we're interested in it's our job to try and explain to them and also prove to them why it's worth our time but again Sarah you might not make any money as an indie game developer you might fall flat on your face and fail miserably and quit and then go to college but I say that's totally worth it because now you did it now you know that that wasn't a path for you and you won't be I guess guilt-ridden for the rest of your life that you didn't pursue it additionally your skin's gonna get thicker you're just gonna be a totally different person if you pursue something as strange and bizarre and risky as something like indie game development or entrepreneurship entrepreneurship makes it makes Giants out of small people because it requires so much effort and so much brain power and so much I guess manifestations of confidence that you didn't think you had and I say that that's way more valuable than going to college now I went to college I got a degree so there's plenty of positives in regard to going to college one of the main negatives is the debt fortunately I don't have that debt because my help pay for my school well I learned discipline right so don't forget that you need to be pursuing discipline and that's why I love that you're going to be going to a tech school because you're going to learn that discipline while you pursue indie game development with a free spirit so there's never a place for only free spirit there's never a place for only wisdom I think you need to be able to combine both of them I think you need to have a very bipolar sense a bipolar entrepreneurial sense which is I need to be a leader and a disciplined leader at that but I also need to be a free spirit I need to be the seventeen-year-old that's learned a lot of life lessons but I also need to be that six-year-old that was creative and had passion and and was unhindered by family or friends opinions of me and you need to learn to live in that strange juxtaposition it's difficult but I'm gonna tell you if you pursue it and you fail or you win regardless the end result is you're smarter you're wiser and you have a thicker skin and your peers probably want that again guys my name is Thomas brush never song just hit steam it's got a 9 out of 10 from user reviews I would love for you guys to check it out it's 15% off at least during this actual moment of time if you're watching this video in the future I'm sorry it's not 15% off it might be 20% off or 90% off but right now in May on May 26th 2020 it is 15% on subscribe click the like button leave a comment I'll talk to you guys later bye [Music]

Channel: Thomas Brush

Views: 50,568

Keywords: indie game dev, game dev money, indie game money, indie game business, Make Money From Game Development, How To Make Money From Game Development, game development make money, game developer tips, game developer tip, indie game development tips, indie game funding, game publisher, solo game dev, self publish games, funding, career change, self employment, stay at home, work from home, Thomas Brush, game dev career, entrepreneurship, follow your passion, dreams, college advice

Id: zzQtqw9x5bo

Length: 17min 58sec (1078 seconds)

Published: Fri May 29 2020