I've never accomplished anything in life. I've always given up on everything, exept for game development. I'm not a vateran, i started some months ago, and everytime i add something new it feels like a victory. I'm learning and it's one of the few things i've ever felt passionate about and proud of. I want to believe that that will be my future, but it also seems rational to think it will
Work for it like if it's your future, but be aware it probably won't. If you success SURPRISE and if not at least it won't be a huge disappointment. That's how I see it. And Good Luck in your project!
And you upload funny stuff, you can give yourself more credit brother ;-) Learn from the TH-cams that say, expect difficult times, that is the moment that you will learn more. Keep taking those small steps. I just started my first Construct tuturial, let's keep motivating eachother kay? Let's Goooo......!!!
Started out the same way and I can tell you that's it's worth believing in it! My first commercial game failed but I learned so much from making it that making new games became easier and faster and eventually I started getting clients. I am working on other people's ideas obviously but I do what I love full-time and my spare time goes to my own projects. Good luck to you on the path and stay persistent, I'm sure it's gonna work out :)
@@tobyk5091 'Follow your heart, not your fears' (don't let them stop you) I think that if you can see something in the future as if it were already there, you should probably persue it. Unfortunally our brain 'tests' us and throws stuff in our way. Believe it or not, but I got a free game that I decided I did not want cause I knew it would destract me like crazy... oupss, 30 hours later, and 2 games later, I kinda stopped learning how to program games.. Yup, life gets in the way, distractions I mean, very fast... But we have alot of future ahead of us, guess we can always get back on track... ;-)
The problem is there's no end to this idea generation - it happens all the way through development. What i suggest is that you have a cut off point early in development where you note down ideas and keep them for version 2, but it allows you to keep focus and stop the feature creep and ship version 1. You need a very rigid mindset to stay the course and finish your initial vision. Another thing i've learned is that most gamers dont miss things that arent there in the game (unless its blindingly obvious that a feature is incomplete or missing). Instead you have a far worse game if you implement 20 features but to a lower quality. The old adage "less is more" is both frightening and true.
This is proof games are ART. You can make a viable, marketable "product". Or you can make a work of art. For some people it's about trying to make a game be the best possible game it can be, time and cost be damned. For others it's about business. That said; there are traps everywhere, regardless of your objective.
Spot on! Those of us who fall into the 'Artist' category, will find it very hard, if not impossible, to ever finish a game. But there's got to be a point where we'll have to call it done, then set it free and move on to the next one.
Guess I really need to move on from my current project. Spent too much time on it and you've made me realize what I already know. It won't be a financial success. There is more to some of our pitfalls than just this. Another pitfall I see is that we are refining our craft, we are trying to learn how to make our vision become reality. Or as closely as we can. With creativity comes a dream/vision, I like glimpse. And that dream is sweet and it's the best emotion we've ever felt, and we are pursuing an attempt of giving others the opportunity to feel that emotion. I believe this is something only games can do at this point. And it's a chance for us to really understand each other's emotions. This is how I look at it. Appreciate your introspection.
@@i.r.weasel7042 I am at the point where I am not motivated to continue work on it. It didn't not turn out to my original vision everywhere and now to change it into that vision would take significant effort. And to Tims point spending more time on it isn't garaunteed to make it better. So I may spend years more on it and it just won't ever measure up to what I had intended. I think I started the project with a certain skill set, learned a lot about myself along the almost 4 years. Made a lot of good code too. I'll return later, right now I need to develop other skills. Ones this game cannot teach me.
Well if you're aiming solely for commercial success then I completely agree. Just keep making lots of small projects of limited scope and eventually they might make a profit. The "throw enough shit at the wall" strategy. But if you want personal fulfilment and satisfaction, then this mentality will just leave you feeling burned out and bored. You will stop enjoying game development and it will turn into just another job that you do to make money. Passion projects may not always result in commercial success, but they will keep you passionate and excited about what you are doing. Will it sell a million copies? Probably not. But if the main reason you're doing this is to make sales, then you would be better off working in finance.
Sorry Tim, but strongly think the opposite is true. Most people "just" fail because they either a) quit too soon b) procrastinate c) have a really shitty product & are bad at marketing too. I almost never saw anyone in entrepreneurship or business life who failed because of goals that were big or unrealistic. Almost never! .. Nevertheless, happy to see new videos of you :)
I agree that you have to dream big, but you have to start with smaller and simpler things, if you start directly making your dreams game it's almost guarantee you will fail
@@Lollburger88 In my own experience it's mostly the lack of ability to live in the moment. And that's very hard to do.. If you live in the moment a lot you will be able to focus purely on the task ahead of you and if you cant do that almost every dream is too big :/
@@Lollburger88 sounds like it :) our brains are so wired to distraction it's really extremely hard for almost everyone I know to focus on thing at the time. But if you want to accomplish great things it's the only way to do it.
You need to set realistic goals at the beginning and beware of scope creep. Scope creep can add years of development for little or no gain. For any project - not just games.
I've participated in five game jams and I told myself that close to the submission time "NO! I'm not done yet! It needs more work!" But you have to finish something sometime. Then again, maybe a game or any other piece of media is never finished. Only abandoned.
One of those times I compeletely disagree with Tim. Quite more and more it feels like Tim just wants everyone to give up and dont look at big goals or dreams. No shit you shouldn't look at million copies, who even says that? Most people should dream for at least 1000 copies. That is more than a dream for most indie devs and that is obvious to anyone who's been in this industry for a while. Don't give up, people. Do it chill and cosistenly. Key is to keep it at constant, as a way of life.
I think his problem is too much ambition and not enough experience. He thinks his games are going to earn him $100k or more per release... but his games aren't really at that level. He's setting himself up for disappointment time and time again. He could probably make some decent free mobile apps with ads and see more returns than he's going to get trying to make PC Steam releases
It's easy to say this if you're using unity and making 2d / low poly games. Ive been using unreal engine since before UDK, maybe over 10 years. I'm making sure all my mechanics, characters, environments all match the quality of a triple A game. Obviously I cant make a city as detailed and as big as grand theft auto, and the scope for a solo indie has to be reasonable... but I refuse to make something quick and settle just because I want faster money
I think it's normal to spend years on your first game. Games are hard to make is all and take lots of time. Probably not worth it financially but art never should be done for that.
It can be done for money if you want to live out of that: have a family, a work, a stable life. But money should not be the only reason to do that. That’s the difference.
@@andreypopov3400 there's better ways to make money, they say you should never quit your day job until you've already got a stable product. Even then, it's a very tough market.
I have been cought in the loop and there's times now im cought in it for a variety of reasons, however as far as game dev goes im in a 2 man group with a friend, i told him im gonna get something done for our game i put it off and i tell him im sorry but ill make it up to you and make it good, it never happens and i want to beleive i can make something great for my friend and i I know now that i really just need to make a shitty game, and by that something that is easy for the time being, im just grateful my best friend has always been there to help and was always so patient.
I'm making something as a hobby because it's a game I've always felt needed to exist. It'll take years for me to do, but I need this to exist as something people can play. Even if it only sells a handful of copies, the real win will be seeing the people closest to me who enjoy the games that inspired it have a blast (hopefully). Of course I'd love to make money, but gamedev isn't my job and likely never will be, so in the meantime I'll work hard to give this game the best shot at success I can and expect nothing from it.
People think too sometimes too easy or have the get fast rich mentaliteit. This is the problem that everybody face. To build something up it cost time, effort and money. and it counts to every field of it. If you want to trade in stocks or setup a company or making a small art piece. it always cost time, effort and money. There is no get quick get rich out there.
Bitcoin is or at least was a way to get rich quick. The one exception to the rule which most people like to dismiss. Without all those naysayers I'd be a millionaire today.
This truth is relative to the point of view and perspective of life of each person. It is easy to say such things based on your experience. Understandable, but is not like that. It varies from person to person according to the road each one takes. Alot of factors can lead to what you say it is "truth" and you have to research not alot, but for some time to choose what is the best path for you and know that regardless the path, it always have it's disavantages along the way. You could split this videos into many aspects like: "Avoid traps tips", "road choices", "Advantages and disavantages of gamedev"... and even mix those titles i give. Cheers.
I think that you haven't finished your thought here. So what? Even if there are certain factors that show that your game will not be a success - why should you think that your new project will be better? Never thought I'd say it but sometimes a little faith is required to do stuff other people thought was bad. You can't know how much money will you get until you press "release" button, you can only estimate... Yes, sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. But only the people who truly believe in their game's success and love their own creation achieve greatness. But I'm just some guy on the internet, that's my opinion. You've taught me a lot, Tim. Don't give up on your dreams... Acknowledge your mistake, fix what you can, and move forward. You deserve it.
Good video! Many (creative) people are working in good faith on their project, spending a lot of time without any external signs of success from it - instead of staying realistic and make evaluations along the way if the existing interest for a game or a game milestone, such as a prototype or demo, justifies spending another few months or even years on it. Maybe not the main takeaway but related: putting in more effort means a higher chance of success for a very specific goal, but if this depends on external factors you don't have an influence on, and realistically there are not a lot of people that succeed with the same goal compared to how many try - you might also never succeed, no matter how much you try. This, of course, depends on how you define success for yourself, in this example let's assume that is financial success to make this your full-time gig. A possibility is to let go of the goal if it really seems unachievable, but still keep an eye out for opportunities that lead you on a similar path if you find any. Or you can still pursue it and believe but have a plan on how you will get by if it never works out. It might also be more of a grey area than purely black and white - there can still be benefits you take away from having pursued what you wanted for so long.
I was half-expecting this to be a click-baity video that I didn't really need to sit through... But I'm glad I did, because even though I'm well aware of how this scenario works, I like the way you worded it, and it really needs to be emphasized that this is a painfully common thing we can all fall into. I instantly think of Terry Davis, and how one article referred to him as something of an anti-hero because he represents that part of so many of us that attempts these insanely unrealistic goals or projects simply because a voice in our head told us to. It quickly turns into a kind of unhealthy fanaticism, so the comparison you made with religion was especially accurate.
How much better is Philiphobia after working on it for 4 years compared to if you only worked on it for 1 year? Is it just diminishing returns or is it much better because of it? Even though it meant giving up on making 3 more games. If a game is too simple, I don't want to buy it. If someone makes a game in a few months, it's just Flash game quality and I've never in my entire life played a Flash game that I'd be willing to pay for if it was paid. The best Flash games are mediocre.
As others noted, a lot of people is in the artist/creative mindset, but if you want your money back to cover development time, the business mindset, or rather their mix is probably better. At least if you are doing it full time, so it would allow you to continue making games. That leads me to the point of 4 years being too much - if you work full time, maybe, but I don't think it's that much if you are more of a hobbyist working on nights/weekends or something like half-time or less.
I used to love your weekly videos but this in this one I have to strongly disagree. some projects take more time than others specially if you are a solo developer or in a really small team. believing and investing time on improving the project sometimes is all we have and we invest in it and we risk what it takes to get it done whatever the result in the end is. It can be a huge success or a massive failure, but we stick with our beliefs and dreams until the end and got our vision to get known. that is way more valuable than a soldout team that makes games in certain "acceptable" timeframe just to make some money and jump into the next thing in a cycle of heartless projects. and also way more valuable than AAA studios that also stick to an agenda/timeframe just to deliver something passionless and even incomplete.
I noticed most people in the comment disagree with the statement but we still love tim tho just weird how his advices REALLY have reached a character ark point. A tragic one. Almost like he gave up on his acomplishments....
@@fotusknight5923 Game dev is a road with up an downs and everyone has a different road. Tim acomplished a lot and I think he is not totally aware of the magnitude of it and he should be proud. People are following him or believing in him and hearing him talk like this is almost like a turn down or uninspiring.
@@fotusknight5923 I think he might be finally coming to terms with the fact that his games just haven't been that good or had enough mass appeal to sell well. He had a lot of ambition but really no experience with making something people really want to buy.
Amazing point of view, I have also felt in the trap of beliving in non rational (unattainable) things that made me take awful decisions in my professional life, but hey there is nothing better than a healthy reality check
Hi Tim, Question for you.... Besides the physical cardgame you are making, will there be a digital version as well? I missed that info somehow but I'm pretty sure it's not digital ( yet ) I'm sure that you can make something creative with the combination: Buy the digital game, get the cardgame for free but pay for shipping or something... Get the digital customers into the real world so they can also play at a table with friends... Just my two cents ;-)
People love romance... Game development is a dream to make a top game or game out there for people to play. It's a lot work and games that are not hits. I been keeping my game development to a 6 months period max
As sad as it sounds, you're probably better to be pessimist about the potential success of your game, it will push you forward, makes you want to make it better, make it more known.
Success wouldn't be that hard if indie devs would actually work together as a team, rather than craving for solo developer glory. It's sad but true. Everyone wants to be next Eric Barone. Few months ago my brother went out and tried to find few indie devs for his dream game, he was all in for revenue share all he said that he can't pay anyone currently as he does not have funds he was also willing to do contracts with people so it wouldn't be "scam". All he got is bunch of laughs and finger pointing (why would I commit to something like that, which might end up as disaster). So yeah attitude like that towards fellow indie devs is pathetic, people just want get rich quick which is not going to happen because developing games takes years. Most of people think that it's easy as that "once you learn programing you just go out and start typing code that works 100%" and everyone who wrote a single line of code before- knows that it takes days and days to get most "simplistic things working". Well maybe not days but you get the idea. Especially when you get into writing systems that are complex as crafting, inventory, equipment, questing, reward etc. systems. So in my humble experience dangerous truth is that either you create mastermind team or enjoy years of suffering creating "crap" and short games that might or might not sell.
I think that your brother was just searching in a place full of not-so-much-indie-devs. If an indie developer laughs at the idea of sharing the revenue after the game releases - he’s probably employed and can’t take any risks of not getting anything, which is understandable. The real reason why indie’s don’t team up a lot (which is a controversial topic itself, I know myself about a dozen of small-developer teams) lies within a realm of trust. I myself am making games alone (not counting my wife that help me with art sometimes) because I don’t have the people I can trust to stay at the project until the end. And it matters a lot, specifically when working with a programmer. If at some point your programming “teammate” will think of leaving the project - you are left with nothing. No other programmer will want to learn “his crappy code”, so you’d better know how to program yourself, and be good about it. And this occurs on all of the fields of your game: if your artist leaves, you are doomed to find someone who can try to mimic his style. I read postmortem-reports of developers almost everyday. And the most occurring problem for the projects to shut down is “somebody suddenly left” or “we had an inconsistency in our group vision and got into a fight based on how this game should work or look”. It happens all the time! If you’re doing it all alone - you know that you’re the only one who can leave the project; otherwise - you can just finish it yourself. Sometimes it’s not worth the risk to work with someone else. And it’s always the risk, even if you signed a very good contract.
Sorry but I've been in the indie dev scene for like two decades now and revenue share pretty much never works out. People flake, people need actual money so they end up leaving the project to take on a paying job... If people aren't being paid up front for their work, and they are working remotely, generally they are going to get tired of the project and lose interest pretty quickly. I've seen hundreds if not thousands of "help me make my game and you get a cut!" and I don't think I've ever seen one of those games get finished.
@@Konitama there are exceptions to that rule, I know a few Russian dev-teams that actually did it ("The Executioner" team for example). But you are right, they are exceptions. 95% of share-based projects fail. BTW: for my game - KingSim - I've managed to ask music composers to help me with the game for the cut of sales of music soundtrack DLC. They did, the game successfully launched and I've paid them their cut, everyone is happy with the result. Maybe the reason for that is that it doesn't take months to compose a soundtrack (especially if several composers are involved), so no almost no risk was involved for them.
The truth is, the game market is in bubble territory. Everyone is trying to make a game... Whatever you do, you will most probably overinvest time and money... It's just not realistic to think, that if you are solo/small team, you can start any project without fully investing it. You are not a big company to actually ration resources. What you have is too small to begin with in order to stay competitive.
Focus and find the good half of the people. Sometimes hard cause the other half makes so much more noice... ;-) There is a ton of good people around brother!
@@JakeSimmer of course there are plenty of good people, but there are also about equal number on indifferent people and both of them don't make much noise.
@@dreamingacacia I rewatched the vid and now I get your point. 'I wanna believe' that I will become a great person and leave all this mental shit behind... But I'm all ready so so far but still kinda think im nothing and will be awesome some day... Interesting stuff. ( I wanna believe that I can make a pipe or a whistle with a nice shell that I found on the beach LOL ) Have a great weekend mate!!
Yeah be careful of that self narrative. I think it's also down to passion and simply the enjoyment of doing it for some. I love the process of gamedev and work outside of this for my money, so no big deal but because I work at this so much in my own time, because i fucking love the fuck out of it. I don't see it as over extending. If anything at all, that extra mile is fun for me but that's me. I'd say simply do it bceause it's fun. You can work hard at it because you're ambitous and want to grow, learn. Belief is everything, your internal drive and will determines if and where you're going to get. You get what you put in. In regards to what you're saying here however, it's important to keep oneself grounded and careful not to become delusional in where you tell yourself you'd like, or see this project going, absolutely. There's a trap there. Don't put this project of yours up on a pedestal. Live life and make sure you're on top of everything else, first and foremost. Anything after that is entirely up to you. You can decide it's hopeless, or you can remain steadfast, moving forward persuing what you enjoy for the sake of exactly that. You can only get better as you go along. You get what you put in. Life is a mind game.
U r too negative.. Even ur videos have good thoughts... But ur vibes r never positive. No wonder u felt in depression. I must admit that game dev is really hard if done on a certain level... Try to be a bit more positive. Im sure it helps u in teal life too. Good videos.
I've never accomplished anything in life. I've always given up on everything, exept for game development. I'm not a vateran, i started some months ago, and everytime i add something new it feels like a victory. I'm learning and it's one of the few things i've ever felt passionate about and proud of. I want to believe that that will be my future, but it also seems rational to think it will
Work for it like if it's your future, but be aware it probably won't. If you success SURPRISE and if not at least it won't be a huge disappointment. That's how I see it. And Good Luck in your project!
And you upload funny stuff, you can give yourself more credit brother ;-) Learn from the TH-cams that say, expect difficult times, that is the moment that you will learn more. Keep taking those small steps. I just started my first Construct tuturial, let's keep motivating eachother kay? Let's Goooo......!!!
Started out the same way and I can tell you that's it's worth believing in it! My first commercial game failed but I learned so much from making it that making new games became easier and faster and eventually I started getting clients. I am working on other people's ideas obviously but I do what I love full-time and my spare time goes to my own projects.
Good luck to you on the path and stay persistent, I'm sure it's gonna work out :)
I think true passion can make most things work out. It’s not originality or size per say, it’s passion
@@tobyk5091 'Follow your heart, not your fears' (don't let them stop you) I think that if you can see something in the future as if it were already there, you should probably persue it. Unfortunally our brain 'tests' us and throws stuff in our way. Believe it or not, but I got a free game that I decided I did not want cause I knew it would destract me like crazy... oupss, 30 hours later, and 2 games later, I kinda stopped learning how to program games.. Yup, life gets in the way, distractions I mean, very fast... But we have alot of future ahead of us, guess we can always get back on track... ;-)
The problem is there's no end to this idea generation - it happens all the way through development. What i suggest is that you have a cut off point early in development where you note down ideas and keep them for version 2, but it allows you to keep focus and stop the feature creep and ship version 1.
You need a very rigid mindset to stay the course and finish your initial vision.
Another thing i've learned is that most gamers dont miss things that arent there in the game (unless its blindingly obvious that a feature is incomplete or missing). Instead you have a far worse game if you implement 20 features but to a lower quality. The old adage "less is more" is both frightening and true.
This is proof games are ART.
You can make a viable, marketable "product".
Or you can make a work of art.
For some people it's about trying to make a game be the best possible game it can be, time and cost be damned. For others it's about business.
That said; there are traps everywhere, regardless of your objective.
Spot on! Those of us who fall into the 'Artist' category, will find it very hard, if not impossible, to ever finish a game. But there's got to be a point where we'll have to call it done, then set it free and move on to the next one.
Guess I really need to move on from my current project. Spent too much time on it and you've made me realize what I already know. It won't be a financial success. There is more to some of our pitfalls than just this. Another pitfall I see is that we are refining our craft, we are trying to learn how to make our vision become reality. Or as closely as we can. With creativity comes a dream/vision, I like glimpse. And that dream is sweet and it's the best emotion we've ever felt, and we are pursuing an attempt of giving others the opportunity to feel that emotion. I believe this is something only games can do at this point. And it's a chance for us to really understand each other's emotions. This is how I look at it. Appreciate your introspection.
@@_nickthered If working on your game makes you happy. Just do that! Don't worry about it!
@@i.r.weasel7042 I am at the point where I am not motivated to continue work on it. It didn't not turn out to my original vision everywhere and now to change it into that vision would take significant effort. And to Tims point spending more time on it isn't garaunteed to make it better. So I may spend years more on it and it just won't ever measure up to what I had intended. I think I started the project with a certain skill set, learned a lot about myself along the almost 4 years. Made a lot of good code too. I'll return later, right now I need to develop other skills. Ones this game cannot teach me.
@@_nickthered Artists leave work unfinished all the time.
Learn what you can learn, and move on I guess.
Well if you're aiming solely for commercial success then I completely agree. Just keep making lots of small projects of limited scope and eventually they might make a profit. The "throw enough shit at the wall" strategy.
But if you want personal fulfilment and satisfaction, then this mentality will just leave you feeling burned out and bored. You will stop enjoying game development and it will turn into just another job that you do to make money. Passion projects may not always result in commercial success, but they will keep you passionate and excited about what you are doing. Will it sell a million copies? Probably not. But if the main reason you're doing this is to make sales, then you would be better off working in finance.
or any other industry lmao
This is 1,000,000,000% true.
I'm pretty sure this used to be 'game dev underground'.
Sorry Tim, but strongly think the opposite is true. Most people "just" fail because they either a) quit too soon b) procrastinate c) have a really shitty product & are bad at marketing too. I almost never saw anyone in entrepreneurship or business life who failed because of goals that were big or unrealistic. Almost never! .. Nevertheless, happy to see new videos of you :)
I agree that you have to dream big, but you have to start with smaller and simpler things, if you start directly making your dreams game it's almost guarantee you will fail
@@Lollburger88 In my own experience it's mostly the lack of ability to live in the moment. And that's very hard to do.. If you live in the moment a lot you will be able to focus purely on the task ahead of you and if you cant do that almost every dream is too big :/
@@MAKIUSO yes, or they blame themselfs all the time.. both get you deeper in the whole :(
@@Lollburger88 sounds like it :) our brains are so wired to distraction it's really extremely hard for almost everyone I know to focus on thing at the time. But if you want to accomplish great things it's the only way to do it.
You need to set realistic goals at the beginning and beware of scope creep. Scope creep can add years of development for little or no gain. For any project - not just games.
I've participated in five game jams and I told myself that close to the submission time "NO! I'm not done yet! It needs more work!" But you have to finish something sometime.
Then again, maybe a game or any other piece of media is never finished. Only abandoned.
One of those times I compeletely disagree with Tim. Quite more and more it feels like Tim just wants everyone to give up and dont look at big goals or dreams. No shit you shouldn't look at million copies, who even says that? Most people should dream for at least 1000 copies. That is more than a dream for most indie devs and that is obvious to anyone who's been in this industry for a while. Don't give up, people. Do it chill and cosistenly. Key is to keep it at constant, as a way of life.
this
Said everything!
Tnx guys. Indies are the future! WE make the future for ourselves.
I think his problem is too much ambition and not enough experience. He thinks his games are going to earn him $100k or more per release... but his games aren't really at that level. He's setting himself up for disappointment time and time again.
He could probably make some decent free mobile apps with ads and see more returns than he's going to get trying to make PC Steam releases
It's easy to say this if you're using unity and making 2d / low poly games. Ive been using unreal engine since before UDK, maybe over 10 years. I'm making sure all my mechanics, characters, environments all match the quality of a triple A game. Obviously I cant make a city as detailed and as big as grand theft auto, and the scope for a solo indie has to be reasonable... but I refuse to make something quick and settle just because I want faster money
I was wondering what Amuq means and then I realized that the video is flipped and you're wearing a Puma cap.
Sounds to me like a round-about way of saying, "take a few steps back every so often and assess whether you should stay the course or change course".
I am working hard of my life goal to become not just a game dev but to own my own studio someday
I think it's normal to spend years on your first game. Games are hard to make is all and take lots of time. Probably not worth it financially but art never should be done for that.
It can be done for money if you want to live out of that: have a family, a work, a stable life. But money should not be the only reason to do that. That’s the difference.
@@andreypopov3400 there's better ways to make money, they say you should never quit your day job until you've already got a stable product. Even then, it's a very tough market.
I have been cought in the loop and there's times now im cought in it for a variety of reasons, however as far as game dev goes im in a 2 man group with a friend, i told him im gonna get something done for our game i put it off and i tell him im sorry but ill make it up to you and make it good, it never happens and i want to beleive i can make something great for my friend and i
I know now that i really just need to make a shitty game, and by that something that is easy for the time being, im just grateful my best friend has always been there to help and was always so patient.
I repeated this loop a dozen times fyi
I'm making something as a hobby because it's a game I've always felt needed to exist. It'll take years for me to do, but I need this to exist as something people can play. Even if it only sells a handful of copies, the real win will be seeing the people closest to me who enjoy the games that inspired it have a blast (hopefully). Of course I'd love to make money, but gamedev isn't my job and likely never will be, so in the meantime I'll work hard to give this game the best shot at success I can and expect nothing from it.
People think too sometimes too easy or have the get fast rich mentaliteit. This is the problem that everybody face. To build something up it cost time, effort and money.
and it counts to every field of it. If you want to trade in stocks or setup a company or making a small art piece. it always cost time, effort and money.
There is no get quick get rich out there.
@@Lollburger88 True!
Bitcoin is or at least was a way to get rich quick. The one exception to the rule which most people like to dismiss. Without all those naysayers I'd be a millionaire today.
This truth is relative to the point of view and perspective of life of each person.
It is easy to say such things based on your experience. Understandable, but is not like that. It varies from person to person according to the road each one takes.
Alot of factors can lead to what you say it is "truth" and you have to research not alot, but for some time to choose what is the best path for you and know that regardless the path, it always have it's disavantages along the way.
You could split this videos into many aspects like: "Avoid traps tips", "road choices", "Advantages and disavantages of gamedev"... and even mix those titles i give.
Cheers.
Pretty much spot on Tim, always enjoy a new upload now that I've found your channel like 2 months ago and watched pretty much every video lol.
I think that you haven't finished your thought here. So what? Even if there are certain factors that show that your game will not be a success - why should you think that your new project will be better? Never thought I'd say it but sometimes a little faith is required to do stuff other people thought was bad. You can't know how much money will you get until you press "release" button, you can only estimate... Yes, sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. But only the people who truly believe in their game's success and love their own creation achieve greatness. But I'm just some guy on the internet, that's my opinion. You've taught me a lot, Tim. Don't give up on your dreams... Acknowledge your mistake, fix what you can, and move forward. You deserve it.
Good video!
Many (creative) people are working in good faith on their project, spending a lot of time without any external signs of success from it - instead of staying realistic and make evaluations along the way if the existing interest for a game or a game milestone, such as a prototype or demo, justifies spending another few months or even years on it.
Maybe not the main takeaway but related: putting in more effort means a higher chance of success for a very specific goal, but if this depends on external factors you don't have an influence on, and realistically there are not a lot of people that succeed with the same goal compared to how many try - you might also never succeed, no matter how much you try. This, of course, depends on how you define success for yourself, in this example let's assume that is financial success to make this your full-time gig. A possibility is to let go of the goal if it really seems unachievable, but still keep an eye out for opportunities that lead you on a similar path if you find any. Or you can still pursue it and believe but have a plan on how you will get by if it never works out. It might also be more of a grey area than purely black and white - there can still be benefits you take away from having pursued what you wanted for so long.
Jesus, you're an honest man Tim. You're a stud. Keep it up.
I was half-expecting this to be a click-baity video that I didn't really need to sit through... But I'm glad I did, because even though I'm well aware of how this scenario works, I like the way you worded it, and it really needs to be emphasized that this is a painfully common thing we can all fall into. I instantly think of Terry Davis, and how one article referred to him as something of an anti-hero because he represents that part of so many of us that attempts these insanely unrealistic goals or projects simply because a voice in our head told us to. It quickly turns into a kind of unhealthy fanaticism, so the comparison you made with religion was especially accurate.
We are pushing it
You are totally right again.
How much better is Philiphobia after working on it for 4 years compared to if you only worked on it for 1 year? Is it just diminishing returns or is it much better because of it? Even though it meant giving up on making 3 more games. If a game is too simple, I don't want to buy it. If someone makes a game in a few months, it's just Flash game quality and I've never in my entire life played a Flash game that I'd be willing to pay for if it was paid. The best Flash games are mediocre.
As others noted, a lot of people is in the artist/creative mindset, but if you want your money back to cover development time, the business mindset, or rather their mix is probably better. At least if you are doing it full time, so it would allow you to continue making games. That leads me to the point of 4 years being too much - if you work full time, maybe, but I don't think it's that much if you are more of a hobbyist working on nights/weekends or something like half-time or less.
Great advice!
Great video!
I used to love your weekly videos but this in this one I have to strongly disagree. some projects take more time than others specially if you are a solo developer or in a really small team. believing and investing time on improving the project sometimes is all we have and we invest in it and we risk what it takes to get it done whatever the result in the end is. It can be a huge success or a massive failure, but we stick with our beliefs and dreams until the end and got our vision to get known. that is way more valuable than a soldout team that makes games in certain "acceptable" timeframe just to make some money and jump into the next thing in a cycle of heartless projects. and also way more valuable than AAA studios that also stick to an agenda/timeframe just to deliver something passionless and even incomplete.
I noticed most people in the comment disagree with the statement but we still love tim tho just weird how his advices REALLY have reached a character ark point. A tragic one. Almost like he gave up on his acomplishments....
@@fotusknight5923 Game dev is a road with up an downs and everyone has a different road. Tim acomplished a lot and I think he is not totally aware of the magnitude of it and he should be proud. People are following him or believing in him and hearing him talk like this is almost like a turn down or uninspiring.
@@fotusknight5923 I think he might be finally coming to terms with the fact that his games just haven't been that good or had enough mass appeal to sell well. He had a lot of ambition but really no experience with making something people really want to buy.
@@Konitama bingo
Amazing point of view, I have also felt in the trap of beliving in non rational (unattainable) things that made me take awful decisions in my professional life, but hey there is nothing better than a healthy reality check
really useful insight tim!
Hi Tim, Question for you.... Besides the physical cardgame you are making, will there be a digital version as well? I missed that info somehow but I'm pretty sure it's not digital ( yet ) I'm sure that you can make something creative with the combination: Buy the digital game, get the cardgame for free but pay for shipping or something... Get the digital customers into the real world so they can also play at a table with friends... Just my two cents ;-)
People love romance... Game development is a dream to make a top game or game out there for people to play. It's a lot work and games that are not hits. I been keeping my game development to a 6 months period max
Smart guy - great talk, Your games look really polished btw, great work
Dope video bro!
So basically hope for the best, prepare for the worst
As sad as it sounds, you're probably better to be pessimist about the potential success of your game, it will push you forward, makes you want to make it better, make it more known.
Success wouldn't be that hard if indie devs would actually work together as a team, rather than craving for solo developer glory. It's sad but true. Everyone wants to be next Eric Barone.
Few months ago my brother went out and tried to find few indie devs for his dream game, he was all in for revenue share all he said that he can't pay anyone currently as he does not have funds he was also willing to do contracts with people so it wouldn't be "scam". All he got is bunch of laughs and finger pointing (why would I commit to something like that, which might end up as disaster).
So yeah attitude like that towards fellow indie devs is pathetic, people just want get rich quick which is not going to happen because developing games takes years.
Most of people think that it's easy as that "once you learn programing you just go out and start typing code that works 100%" and everyone who wrote a single line of code before- knows that it takes days and days to get most "simplistic things working". Well maybe not days but you get the idea.
Especially when you get into writing systems that are complex as crafting, inventory, equipment, questing, reward etc. systems.
So in my humble experience dangerous truth is that either you create mastermind team or enjoy years of suffering creating "crap" and short games that might or might not sell.
I think that your brother was just searching in a place full of not-so-much-indie-devs. If an indie developer laughs at the idea of sharing the revenue after the game releases - he’s probably employed and can’t take any risks of not getting anything, which is understandable.
The real reason why indie’s don’t team up a lot (which is a controversial topic itself, I know myself about a dozen of small-developer teams) lies within a realm of trust. I myself am making games alone (not counting my wife that help me with art sometimes) because I don’t have the people I can trust to stay at the project until the end. And it matters a lot, specifically when working with a programmer. If at some point your programming “teammate” will think of leaving the project - you are left with nothing. No other programmer will want to learn “his crappy code”, so you’d better know how to program yourself, and be good about it.
And this occurs on all of the fields of your game: if your artist leaves, you are doomed to find someone who can try to mimic his style.
I read postmortem-reports of developers almost everyday. And the most occurring problem for the projects to shut down is “somebody suddenly left” or “we had an inconsistency in our group vision and got into a fight based on how this game should work or look”. It happens all the time! If you’re doing it all alone - you know that you’re the only one who can leave the project; otherwise - you can just finish it yourself. Sometimes it’s not worth the risk to work with someone else. And it’s always the risk, even if you signed a very good contract.
people are better off with their 'crap' then working on someone's dream project for free lol.
@@deusxyz or you should say: "People are better off with their crap than working on someone's CRAP"
Sorry but I've been in the indie dev scene for like two decades now and revenue share pretty much never works out. People flake, people need actual money so they end up leaving the project to take on a paying job... If people aren't being paid up front for their work, and they are working remotely, generally they are going to get tired of the project and lose interest pretty quickly. I've seen hundreds if not thousands of "help me make my game and you get a cut!" and I don't think I've ever seen one of those games get finished.
@@Konitama there are exceptions to that rule, I know a few Russian dev-teams that actually did it ("The Executioner" team for example). But you are right, they are exceptions. 95% of share-based projects fail. BTW: for my game - KingSim - I've managed to ask music composers to help me with the game for the cut of sales of music soundtrack DLC. They did, the game successfully launched and I've paid them their cut, everyone is happy with the result. Maybe the reason for that is that it doesn't take months to compose a soundtrack (especially if several composers are involved), so no almost no risk was involved for them.
The truth is, the game market is in bubble territory. Everyone is trying to make a game... Whatever you do, you will most probably overinvest time and money...
It's just not realistic to think, that if you are solo/small team, you can start any project without fully investing it. You are not a big company to actually ration resources. What you have is too small to begin with in order to stay competitive.
THIS is why I subscribe 💯
I want to believe in the goodness of humanity, but most of the time I'm disappointed.
Focus and find the good half of the people. Sometimes hard cause the other half makes so much more noice... ;-) There is a ton of good people around brother!
@@JakeSimmer of course there are plenty of good people, but there are also about equal number on indifferent people and both of them don't make much noise.
@@dreamingacacia I rewatched the vid and now I get your point. 'I wanna believe' that I will become a great person and leave all this mental shit behind... But I'm all ready so so far but still kinda think im nothing and will be awesome some day... Interesting stuff. ( I wanna believe that I can make a pipe or a whistle with a nice shell that I found on the beach LOL ) Have a great weekend mate!!
Great content
Yeah be careful of that self narrative. I think it's also down to passion and simply the enjoyment of doing it for some. I love the process of gamedev and work outside of this for my money, so no big deal but because I work at this so much in my own time, because i fucking love the fuck out of it. I don't see it as over extending. If anything at all, that extra mile is fun for me but that's me. I'd say simply do it bceause it's fun. You can work hard at it because you're ambitous and want to grow, learn. Belief is everything, your internal drive and will determines if and where you're going to get. You get what you put in. In regards to what you're saying here however, it's important to keep oneself grounded and careful not to become delusional in where you tell yourself you'd like, or see this project going, absolutely. There's a trap there. Don't put this project of yours up on a pedestal. Live life and make sure you're on top of everything else, first and foremost. Anything after that is entirely up to you. You can decide it's hopeless, or you can remain steadfast, moving forward persuing what you enjoy for the sake of exactly that. You can only get better as you go along. You get what you put in. Life is a mind game.
I don't want to sell a million copies, I want to live from my work
Exactly
That's the hard part. 99% can't even get to a livable income
Great video, I totally agree. No need to spend years on your first game.
nice ;D
Am I the only one that believes the single reason people fall for the Nigerian scammer is greed, and not truth?
U r too negative.. Even ur videos have good thoughts... But ur vibes r never positive. No wonder u felt in depression. I must admit that game dev is really hard if done on a certain level... Try to be a bit more positive. Im sure it helps u in teal life too. Good videos.