Fulltime developers

Greetings,

I would like to know for no reason whos a fulltimer here and makes a living out of it. I think it is always interesting to see how people manage, what they do, etc...

I am a fulltimer myself, yet new in the games area. My turnover lays arround the 22K a year in euros. Profits not to much tough :-P but enough to pay my rents, drive a car, etc...
I work in the web industry. Now trying to get an MMORPG done, but its all hobby really, so i keep it simple.

I am a full timer but I am not living out of it... :)

I've been fulltime untill recently. Our ongoing commercial project is a bit stop and go with Flow and FlowED as filler work in between. I've found myself drifting more towards traditional illustration the last couple of months which has been a nice change.

The commercial project pays well but is too sporadic to rely on as a single source of income and when its slow the team moral can be quite hard to maintain.

Been there, done that, got t-shirts.

Although, I'm currently filling my days of ill-health with games programming to pass the time.

Im still in high school, but ever since i can remember ive been wanting to be a full time developer of some sort.

Designer or programmer, havent really decided.
I think ill choose whatever i excel in..

I am a freelance web developer, having skills in both design and development.

I'm a full time web developer, never made a single penny from making games (I've never actually managed to make a complete game before).

im not full time yet, but i hope to be soon. I work as front of house/sound engineer at a live music venue. Ive got 2 games that are quite far on in development and 3 concept demos that ive kept for future projects. so ive got plenty to keep me going. ive got to get a like minded person to share some of the work though as progress on the media side of things is far to slow at the moment.

I do general bits of programming work on contract during my spare time, as I'm still at college I can't really afford to do anything fulltime.

Software documentation?

Im a software engineer for the government. We do everything is .NET however. At home I develop with PHP, I run a few sites www.undeadgames.com, zombiegames.net, and loktar.com where I sell a few of my blitz creations (er screensavers) but I haven't been able to finish a game yet worth selling.

I'm a Game Programmer at A2M ( http://www.a2m.com/ ). Been there since 2006 and had 2 internships there in 2004. Enjoying it!

did i spell it wrong or something?

I dunno. What i meant was, whatever im good in.

full time business software for 9 years followed by 3 years of full-time game development (which is my current occupation). I've only just started to make cover my overheads from making games (for about 9-10 months), but I have a fat mortgage, family (2 kids) and car plus live in Dorset (expensive) so if I was single and living somewhere cheaper (e.g. Poland) it would've been a lot easier to make a living making games.

Developers, developers, developers! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMU0tzLwhbE

Part-timer me, mostly working on other peoples stuff. Makes me a tidy 2nd income but couldnt live off it alone.

I am. I've coded a couple games under contract, and I sell my texture generator. It sells better than one copy a day and I project that I'll make about $5K from that this year. Sales of that have steadily increased since I released it a couple years ago, and some new ads I'm running recently doubled sales. But it's still not enough to support me, so I'm currently living off my savings and trying to get a game of my own completed, which I'm hoping will sell around 10-20 copies a day and provide me with a real source of income for 2-3 years while I develop additional titles. Those numbers are pure speculation though. I'd be happy if it sold two or three copies a day, but I've just calculated that I'll need it to sell something like six copies a day to really keep myself out of the red. That's a realistic number I think, but it is a bit worrisome, since I've released other products, one of which was a simple puzzle game, that didn't sell at all. But this time I have money to advertise with so hopefully that will make the difference.

I would like to hammer that point home, though it might be a bit out of scope here.

Our comercial project can pay really well, and all in all when the money is coming in things are great, but without our housesome source of income, you start feeling drained, wondering what its about. (a large chunk of last year had us run dry.)

It's been a real learning experience. I currently work full time to sustain living, with the commercial stuff making a nice juicy bonus. I hope to make it fulltime soon, but until Flow/FlowED is complete it's not going to be an option. Then I'll really be able to test the waters. (That and right now the fact that I work full time is also a real strain on the team- thanks for sticking around guys!)

I enjoy reading success stories. People like Grey Alien deserve for things to pay off- they put a lot of effort into their work.

sswift: sell direct or via portals? I presume you mean direct sales. I've found it quite hard to get a good number of direct sales but easy to get a good number of sales on portals. Basically roughly 2.5 to 3 portal sales = 1 direct sale. Sounds like your STG is doing great, well done (I bought a copy years ago).

cyg: Hope it pans out dude, it's certainly been dragging on for a long time....

I make a living developing software. I'm 9-5ing it tho' don't know if that counts.

I aspire to being puki.

Dunno if that counts.

Otherwise, I only wish I had time to do any programming...

Self employed since 2003, mainly do apps in Delphi for small businesses plus the odd website.

Currently doing my 2nd game in BMax which hopefully the portals will take up. If not I'll try again and if that doesn't work then I'll abandon the idea of games as extra income :p

So all the stuff in your sig isn't programming ;-)

I already have a real job. /ducks

So all the dirt-flinging that goes on around here doesn't apply to us part-timers hehe.

Definitely. He's got a wife, 2 kids, etc...and his only income is games. I might sound a bit negative at times but man I really wish you the best of luck with your games. Taking care of the family is priority #1 always.

Thx. In fact *anyone* who puts effort into their lives (work and home) deserves for things to pay off. Also having a family means you have to make careful choices...

Grey:
Well I'm going to TRY to get the game on portals.

sswift: well it really depends on the game type. If you are making a puzzle/casual game there absolutely no reason it shouldn't make it onto the portals with enough polish/quality. If it's more action oriented or "Indie-obscure" then clearly you'll have to develop your own market. Reflexive will take action games though if they are nicely done, shooters and strategy etc. Anyway, good luck.

It's whatever you're good at!

Sure. Unfortunately people seldom get what they deserve.

haha, what except when it's a punishment? Here's the thing, even if you don't get what you deserve, don't feel bad, re-formulate your plan and try again until you do.

Hahah, not getting what you deserve isn't always a bad thing. :o>

To quote one of the world's greatest thinkers; "You tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is 'never try'."

You guys will go far! ;-).

I've been making games professionally for a good 20+ years now. Mostly for big publishers (EA, Rockstar, etc), some big licenses (Star Wars, Star Trek, etc), some big original franchises (Strike series, Kain series, etc).

Just recently, I've decided to get off my ass and finally do games for myself again, hence diving into BlitzMax.

I still have a day job doing this stuff for a living (currently @ Reflexive), but hopefully I'll be able to go full-time indie after a few games, like my hero Grey! ;)

I dont have much time to do this since im still in highschool, and have a buttload of homework and a life to occuppy my time. i hope to get better in the summers etc.

Twitchfactor: Well I'm not really Indie any more as I program games for BFG. Although I'm only contracted by them, not employed so I still run my business where I sell my older games and do affiliate sales, adsense and so on. Anyway, I hope you get to make a game soon! ;-)

@Twitchfactor, hey cool man. So what your doing for these guys? coding, or modelling,..?

I do my living of programing in PL1 for the 3090. Also some C# and VB.net for windows. But most of the time touring with my band (I'm also a musical producer). the advantage of being a PL1 coder is that you get well paid, and you can decide your working time each day.

..im fulltime coder, but not games related but CNC stuff...my free time is however, fully occupied with game coding on game Im working with few artists Im paying full time(in Asia you can do it cheap in comparison with Europe)..

Was reviewing my sales charts after adding in some up-to-date data and thought I'd blog about how much money my games have made me. If you are interested, read this (I've laid everything bare):

http://greyaliengames.com/blog/can-you-make-a-living-developing-casual-games/

my god! I thought for a second they were the total revenue figures! Not per hour. It's going to be interested to see how much difference seeling through the big portals makes.

What were your freeware games?

What's those hourly rates work out at in gross revenue? And what's left after HM Revenue & Customs been nibbling at it?

andy_mc: The freeware games are all in Blitzplus and are linked to in the article: http://www.greyaliengames.com/free.php. Only 2 are complete: Tetroid (pretty neat) and Shroom Eater (funny). The other two are incomplete but playable as demos. Iron Fist took by far the longest.

If I worked faster perhaps my hourly rate would have been higher but I like to get it all correct. Quality sells. Plus I was learning an awful lot. Many hours not logged were playing casual games, reading about casual games, going on Indiegamer, reading relevant blogs and news etc.

GfK: (You asked... I wouldn't post normally as some people find it crass plus it'll probably give some lamers ammo). Anyway, excluding Fairway Solitaire, gross revenue from that lot is only £11373 for roughly 18 months of work. So not very much at all. However the figure keeps on rising, in fact I'm due some more money very soon. Expenses for those games/framework are £2208 which includes hiring artists/musicians, buying BPlus/BMax/IDE, buying sound effects and stock photos/art, marketing, domain names, Software passport, Photoshop Elements etc. Some of it's reusable but most isn't. Oh plus I spend some of the proceeds on a Mac Book Pro.

Bear in mind that I also did a lot of IT consultancy work in this period to boost my income plus my partner worked. However, I still needed to get out loans (but we also did up two bathrooms in our house).

Because I have a limited company and pay myself a tiny salary (which I get taxed on at normal tax rates), I also pay out dividends which are taxed around 20% and any profit left is subject to 20% corporation tax. However, I manage to put lots of different expenses through my company to bring down the profit so it's not too bad. Having said that, next year I want to paying a MASSIVE tax bill because it means I'll have been making LOADS of money ;-)

Reflecting on it, sure that figure is rubbish in terms of a normal "income" BUT it's been made ENTIRELY from making games, which is my dream. Since I started Fairway my income has shot up anyway and 2008 looks to be very fine indeed...

@Grey Alien, sounds like youve got a network :) nice to see your numbers. I wish you the best of all and hope you can work less and earn more ;-) take care for the Fam.

I wonder how mike of Retro 64 is doing. His visitors (if its true) doubled over the last year.

Thanks.

Probably since Mike stopped just selling a few action-oriented games and then turned his site into a Reflexive affiliate site. Then he sold it to popcap (I think).

I'm not talking to you anymore :-P

I have one bathroom and the toilet is so small the door hits the seat of the toilet if the lid has moved slightly forward. X-D

HAHA. lets say i have still some room for 2 small legs, but i know what your going through mate.

Actually we have 3, one is just a cloakroom (so loo and sink downstairs - good for the kids), the other two are proper bathrooms ;-p

Anyway Cyg, I've been there done that renting crappy flats 10 years ago. Rejoice in the fact you are young without a wrinkle or grey hair in sight!

Yeah. The drawback is that you're a PL/1 programmer. :o>

AUUGHH! >.<;; lol.



But... I have grey hair. (*a* grey hair.)

lol. Thing is, i'm really happy with this house- the flat however, was a living nightmare. literally, the walls were alive with brown/green stuff. But I could fit in the toilet :-) where I am living now the place is huge, but I think they compensated for the extra space by making a really small loo.


WOAH, sorry for derailing haha!

o.O

Most people are happy to just sit on the top.

the joy's of bedsits
i have to share the bathroom (thankfully we have 2) with 6 other people
and some of em think shared fridge = shared food
remind me to grate rat poison on some of my stuff

rejoice with the one grey hair... I have none, they've a tendency to fall out before that stage.

I'm a full time coder/scripter/unit/system tester - mainly in c - yep good old c.

My weapon of choice is blitz - but its not for my employer - yet!

Haha!

Indeed. Im still seeking for air.

I'm just a hobbiest, not really full time, just something to pass the time/have fun. I'm a Freshmen in high-school, with high ambitions in the future, but who knows, i may end up flippin' burgers :D

I'm probably the youngest on this site, but hopefully I can get into computers when I can. I'm split between developement, programming, and graphic design (or make my own company where I can be all at once :P).

I am one of the younger ones too
Chwaga are you younger than 16?

and then there is that 6th grader with the temper :)

Same here.

Im 15, by the way. Im pretty sure im not youngest.

Sigh I remember when I used to be the youngest on the forum... Think I must have joined when I was about 12 - 13... Well at least I was one of the youngest.

I mean by no means am I old, But you know I used to like being the youngest made me feel special!

Sorry for the random off topic'ness was feelings nostalgic.

A 6th grader?? with a temper???

I was 7th grade when i joined here i think, 6th grade I started programming with python, I'm in 8th ATM. Though, right now I'm taking a leave of absense from blitz to learn VC++

Lol, i thoughd this comunity was 21+ :-P

....siggghhhh...mannn....im freaking old....im grandpa, im oldtimer here :) ....anyone older than me here? Im 37...

you're not old, we're just abnormally young, uber-nerds, that kinda stuff :)

won't be long untill there's 6th year-olds hacking computer systems (like in ender's game...don't read the sequel, it sucked)

The average age is right around 30. There's been a big poll in the past, see
http://www.blitzbasic.com/Community/posts.php?topic=58752
It lists birthday, age, and country of origin for 162 forum members resonding to the survey.

but 162 responses from how many members total?
i wouldnt call it accurate now

10,809 at the moment.

Still, the number of *active* forum participants is much lower than that.

Either way, I don't think that there is a huge reason to suspect that those 162 responses would not be representative of the community as a whole.

That thread is out of date - I'm 33 in a couple of weeks.

@Flameduck:Completly agree. It's not the funniest language or environment in the world. Just two years ago I had the time to go for a coffe everytime I compilead a short mod, or even a simple parser application...

I'm a bit late to this thread but...

I'm a C# developer of web sites and Windows apps. I love my job. I've been doing it for almost 15 years now. I've actually been running a development company, with three friends, since August 2006. So far, so good.

GfK: Cripes yeah it's out of date. I'm certainly not 30 any more. Will be 33 in the summer.

How has self employment been going Milky Joe? What type of sites and systems do you develop? Have you ever used PHP?