Need money...

Hi,

I am a university student and I need to make some money for
some bills and rent etc.

I have blitz3d, photoshop and blender experience. I want to
do something computer related and freelance preferably.

So far I thought making;
-Low poly model/texture packs
-Website graphics
-Blitz3D programming (but no ones paying I think)

I can make a game but as it takes a lot of time until you
sell it and make some money, it's out of the list.

Do you have any tips or advice or maybe job to give me?
Anything is welcome, thanks in advance.

In truth, your easiest solution is getting a job - part-time job - evening job.

You'll be lucky to make the same money from your PC in a short space of time.

I'd have to agree to be honest. Writing games is a longer term way of making money. Getting a weekend job is the quickest way to get some cach together. I worked at a Computer showroom while at uni, it was good fun at times, and I got to keep some geek merit badges for it.

I agree too. Want money? Get job.

I'd love to break away from the building sites, up at 6am, currently driving around 100 miles to get to the contract and back! And when I'm there, its freezing, today, it was minus five degrees celsius! OMG

I had more skins on than a bob marley reefa! :)

So developing full time, working in the house is a neat idea, I'm dying to do it, but... mmmmm

So, good luck if you try! ;)

Here in the Bonn/Cologne area (web design) agencies are always hiring freelancers for projects. It's probably the same where you live. Read the newspapers or call them. It won't hurt if you actually have something to show them; people usually don't buy the cat in the bag.

heh, that's not cold..

Do you have examples of your work?

In which area? Blitz3d? Modelling or 2D?

..how much time you can spend in B3D programming, over some eventual project, having in mind that you are a student?

It depends on the project. If I like the project and if I
am experienced on that kind of project, then programming
becomes primary and being a student secondary in my life.

For example I made a 3D platform game last year for the
national Turkish tv. It was not a small project but I made
it in 15 days working 6 hours a day.

I have similar experience, I work in McDonalds part time as solution, sounds stupid, at least it helps.

o.O

Think your priorities are all wrong, tbh. You aren't thinking long-term.

Do you know how to program ActionScript 3.0 in Flash CS3? Maybe I could have some work for you, especiallly since you live in turkey I'm betting you would not charge too much ;)

The sad truth is that most (if not all) of the people that have had programming in Blitz (any version) as their primary occupation would have made more money working in McDonald's, certainly on a "per hour" basis, most (if not all) on an annual basis too.

There have been several threads where this has been discussed by people who have really done it (Gfk for example) and have been very honest about their earnings and revenue and it's just not worth it and it's a very uncertain way to make money.

By contrast more or less anyone can get a part time job paying 6-8K and continue with your studies as long as you are prepared to work hard.

I agree with Gfk BTW your education is the best thing to concentrate on right now. Your sabotaging the next 40 years of your life to have a more comfortable 2-3 years, it doesn't make sense.

Part of being a Uni student is being poor, I used to live on less than £40 a week when I was a student which was pretty dire and very cold but it's worth it. If you graduate and work hard you can easily work you way up to a job earning £30K-100K; without one your're likely to be stuck earning less than £30K for the rest of your life.

If you really are hellbent on programming to make money then write a useful application or suite of applications, which you then sell cheaply but be aware that the market space there is incredibly crowded unless you can find a niche. But your probably going to be waiting at least 12 months to get some money coming in. I'd just bite the bullet and get a job.

Darkheart

The problem with these nice/1337 art jobs is that there are 19280493 people trying to get there, and the amount of vacancies is roughly 0.1% of the amount of ppl applying for it..

Hey, I'm a Brit, if we get one inch of snow over here, I fret! ;)

http://www.mcdonalds.com

haha.

I beg to differ. I think it sounds very sensible. If I had the option available, I surely would have done something similar while I was writing some of my games. Not only for the money, but because I think it's nice to have some work which is a little more physical and little less cerebral ( with no disrespect to McDonalds employees ) as a bit of a change from programming. I'm actually quite convinced that you can be just as productive working part time on programming if it's combined with something non-programming as you can working fulltime on programming.

I don't think having any paid job is 'stupid'.

To answer the original question, really....just go get a job. Any short term schemes to make money won't work, and probably end up costing more money to set up than you would get back from it.

Me and a housemate (when I was at uni) had a few money making schemes, the only one that worked in any kind of short term time scale, was when he bought import games from japan and sold them in the UK on ebay. This was all good until games companies cracked down on it a little, and the london bombings happened, and it stopped. Plus you need some startup money to do it, which ends up leading back to having to get a job.

Getting a standard job is a nice way to meet people that arn't at your uni, and have other things to talk about with.

lol sometimes I wish I could go back to Highschool and do the things I do now. I make around $300 yearly off of screensavers, and over $1000 last year off of my web sites. Which dont get me wrong is good money but if I was in HS even College it would of been much sweeter.

Anyways it took a while to get to this point, school, part time jobs, then the military, and finally now Im a software engineer. You have to do a lot of developing and refining (In my opinion anyways) before you can make something of quality that you expect people to pay for.

Honestly though if you are looking to get money fast, the easiest way is to make a nich web site. Probably the best and fastest at the moment are flash game sites. I've made roughly $500 off of one of mine since last August.

End of last year I gutted my house of all sellable gadgets. No choice, ran out of cash.

If you are that desperate do the same thing. I actually do *not* own a computer monitor. I still don't! the only things that survived were my GFs PSP and my laptop (which I dev and make money with at times.)

Just get a crappy job, better than nothing, you just have to bite your lip if you get an idiotic boss who has the power to enforce the rule that they know more than you on you.

You have to be very creative, very smart and everything if you want to make a living from art. One Idea I had not so long ago is: sell your models and textures on ebay EXCLUSIVELY to the highest bidder. Some companies may find it useful, rather than to hire expensive specialsts. Just let them know about the auctions. Of course, must be 2008 AAA content.

Hmm, thanks a lot everyone. I guess I'll find some part time job as a waiter at a café.