A question asked before, but I'll ask it anyway

No, it's NOT, "When is Blitz Max coming out?"

Basically, I'm sick of working for a living and I want to seriously start thinking about making money out of games. I'm not talking millions, just enough to get by while I'm trying to build a career elsewhere. It seems from some past posts that people have made quite a bit from games written in Blitz; I just wanted to get a quick poll of how possible it is. If I thought I could put simple games together and make £600-1000 a month, I'd go for it (and who wouldn't?)

Who here has experience of indie publishers enough to say what kind of deals they are apt to give? (I realise you may not want to go into specifics about your own deals) Let's assume for now for the sake of argument that I could come up with, if not Half Life 3, then something simple and fun, most likely single player, most likely action-ish with an element of strategy, most likely not AAA graphics but also not ugly as an ass's ass.

Of course my main game project is complex and will take ages, but if I had a financial impetus I'm sure I could force myself to limit my scope and be efficient.

I know this is kind of a 'how long is a piece of string' question; just chewing the fat.

I'm pretty sure most games writers would call it work.

Well, you know what I mean. I'm sick of having a day job that's nothing to do with what I'm into.

Yep I agree. If you do what you love for a living you never have to work another day in your life!

From a little experience youd be working pretty constantly to earn that much in a month... i know a very tallented programmer whos come up with some fantastic web-games... and to get by he does have to work pretty much non stop.. i dont get much time to chat anymore myself either :(

Marry a wealthy woman...

Write games at your leisure...

Unfortunately my bird's skint. And anyway, to marry a wealthy woman surely you have to be a strapping gigolo, not a drippy programming dweeb like me.

Damien, thanks. Good to know that it's at least possible - at the moment I'm very busy myself, designing ads for the Yellow Pages, so if I could be very busy instead doing something I enjoy and working for myself, it's a good trade off...

The human way. Turn your hobby into your job so you end up hating it...

It no less the work doing game programming than what you do now. Make no mistake about it.

After years of working as a freelance programmer doing more mundane work, I now make enough enough from my regular clientele to have the time and resources to work at launching a game effort. It took years and lots of "go hungry" days to get where I'm am.
My advice, "don't sell the bicycle shop Orville". Stick with your job, build a *paying* clientele on the side so you can later "leave" your job and still pay the bills. Then, work on games.

Yep, I realise it will be hard work. Yes, I'm not silly enough to think that I'll quit my job and instantly the world will be a better place. I'm more asking specifically about people's experience with indie publishers.

It seems to me that several months ago, quite a few members of this community were less than impressed with Indie publisher options.
The only Indie house I know of that seems to be on the level is over at www.garagegames.com They will publish games written in other systems besides Torque if their good enough. Void War is an example. Might be worth a contact.

Yeah, I've checked them out before... Wonder how much Aerial Antics, Think Tanks etc have made, and how long they took to create?

You might ask. I believe the guys that did them still frequent the Torque forums and I know for sure there is a special forum just for Think Tanks.

Okay, I'll do just that. Were they both programmed in Torque? I was under the impression Aerial Antics was a Blitz game...

www.gdse.com/servlet/gdse.news?id=1021

I just found this - it seems Torque is going to be able to develop for XBox Live... I seem to recall reading on here that indie developers were being frozen out from Xbox. Bode well for BMax?