Employed vs. Indie: The Curse of Financial Fasting

It has been a solid month since I was laid off. My wife and I hashed out the finances. We re-budgeted all of our spending. We moved pieces of our lives around. It seems I was left with a decision between two things:

1. Hunt for a job in the industry
2. Stay at home to raise my son and develop games on my own

Initially it was the first option, no doubt. I'm young; 24, and inexperienced; this past job was my first in the industry, straight out of college. We discussed Gearbox, iD Software, and Robot Entertainment since we live in DFW. I checked Gamasutra's job boards, trolled my LinkedIn groups. We talked about moving down to Austin where the indies live, going to California with the head honchos, or even to Salt Lake City because I had a lead there. We talked about the score of unfinished GDDs and development timelines I have sitting in a folder on my desk. We talked about my degree in game design, my growing library of C# and Unity books, Kickstarter, and "that one guy you met who ..." We talked about "what do you really want to do with your life".

We did not talk about going outside the industry. 

That's the main reason I married my wife. She believes in me. "You need to do what you love!" she exclaimed so easily. She is a market researcher so she works from home and makes a solid commission-based living. She's very good at her job; driven, inspired, she is one of my top role models.

So it seems we're going with door number two. I am absolutely terrified.

Door Number Two

So how possible is it, really, for me to bring one of my ideas to life? I spent the last year and nine months on the publishing side of the industry, so I have extensive knowledge of how and why games never see the light of day (always boils down to money). This resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy filled with failure, starvation, and divorce.

I coined this life-choice "Financial fasting" because I am willingly choosing to make less money compared to other options. Yes, this huge risk could have a big payoff. Statistics on the financial success of a dev's first title would imply otherwise, but it is still possible. Regardless I stand by the bleak outset that my first game won't make any money, so therefore this path leads not to fortune.

But it can't be all bad, can it? What exactly do I have going for me? Let us see:

1. Modest scripting knowledge in the Unity engine. I know the basics and where to go to solve any problems that come about. After finally finishing Unity 3.x Game Development Essentials (Goldstone) cover to cover, I can read other's script with relative ease plus get around the engine.
2. Very experienced in the backend of a game's release: project management, costs, distribution channels, politics, licensing fees, legal stuff, marketing, PR, QA, etc.
3. Passionate academic game designer. Good for doing stuff like, "Make a black and white game about the color orange."
4. Connected to a few badasses in the industry.
5. Married to a supportive sugar mama who is also smokin' hot!

No, I've never made a video game. No, I'm not fluent in a programming language (although getting close in C#). No, I don't have any money. I also have no idea what I'm going to do for art/sound assets due to the previous point and I can't make them myself.

But it's really all I ever think about; every day. It can be quite stressful.  Is this the same for all indies? Is this why they forgo things like food, relationships, and hygiene to develop a game that will most likely flop financially? It's a curse! 

I bet every developer considers this at some point in their career: "Can I do this on my own?" Most indies are created when a large studio goes under, like so many little planets settling into orbit around each other when a star goes supernova. And when those planets cannot sustain themselves, they break apart into comets that hurdle through space to crash into other planets or stars to start the process over again. Can a comet become a planet without ever moving, without all the violence?

What drives a person to do this to themselves? We've all heard the horror stories, although I've yet to see the movie. The plight of indies reminds me of the old masters. Seurat in his pointillist masterpiece, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" suffered a great deal for this piece. He lived in a very, very small room where this giant canvas had to sit corner to corner diagonally, pretty much taking up the entire space. For over 2 years. Not to mention it was rejected, despite how he went every single day out the the park to sketch the inhabitants. Why did he do this?

Imagine if more people who suffered from the indie curse were not victims of their circumstances. Imagine if more indies were sponsored similarly to fine artists. Imagine if more indies had crazy hot spouses to shoulder life's burdens so they can do their work. What types of games would we see?

I never believed in testing the water. It's time to jump in, head first. If I have learned anything from my parents it's that the advantage of youth will keep me from drowning. I have been hard at work on planning out the project: polishing the GDD, re-organizing the development timeline; today I finished up the base for my concept reference libraries for when its time to shop for talent. You can never, ever plan too much!

This is easily the second most terrifying-yet-exciting thing I have ever experienced, second only to having children.