Sean Young, a 23 year old indie game developer founded
SmashGames when he was a freshman in college, and went on to create
Magicite and now RogueLands. If you haven't yet, you should go check out those 2 games in particular.
When I asked about how things have changed because of having successful games on the market:
"
Game development has
changed my life because it has given me freedom. I can be my own boss, make my
own work schedule, and go to bed whenever I want! I'm truly thankful to have
found something that I love doing and I see myself making games for the rest of
my life."
He started getting into programming during college, and I asked him about balancing college and projects:
"...
balancing school and
game development is really hard. Often times during class I would find myself
drawing concept art and writing out pseudo code for game mechanics, neglecting
any lecture that was going on. I would suggest to others to not be like me and
stay in school, because putting all of your eggs in one basket can cause a ton
of stress. It is always good to have a back up plan!"
In my experience, I have met many people who found college to be a hindrance. I would add my own 2 cents here. If you know what you want, take the best route to get there. If college doesn't look like the right choice, it probably isn't. Some people, like Sean, learn best by just doing. Its best to have advisers who have "been there and done that". I have an article focused on issues with colleges you can read
here. If you can't find good advisers or you don't have a good plan, then college is your best bet.
Nearly every game developer would offer this advice, "Start small". Sean is no exception. When asked about advise for other developers starting out, he offered this:
"...
please start out
small. Everyone has a great idea for the perfect game. Everyone has a dream
game that they will eventually make one day. But it is important to start out
with small and manageable ideas before tackling anything too huge. I know a lot
of game developers who have too high of ambitions for their first game, which
leads them to getting discouraged and ultimately ends their game developing
career. Start out with small simple games and be sure to finish them."
Sean's first game was called Backyard Zombies, and "it sucked". (his words) Despite that, he pushed it into the NOOK App store, Google Play and Apple's store. This game that "sucked" was pulling in almost $100 a day. This allowed him to drop the job he had at that time and focus on game development.
While this won't happen with all games, keep in mind, that even a small game has the potential to earn enough of a living that you can do this full time. Get your faster ideas out to the market now!
He completed
"10
crappy-to-somewhat-decent mobile games before creating Magicite". Magicite was a different beast all together. Being much larger, it meant a long time before introducing a new funding source on the market. So Sean did what many game developers do these days. He turned to KickStarter.com.
His kickstarter was a shining example of success. He originally asked for $1,000. He received over $16,000. I asked him about what he did to achieve these numbers:
"For Magicite’s
Kickstarter, it was really hard to get noticed. Every day I had to spam the
Kickstarter link on forums in order to get just a few views a day. It is really
hard when starting out but as long as you keep on trying it will pay off!"
If you were hoping you could just post an idea to KickStarter, and make a fortune, you're wrong. Sean and many other articles and discussions on KickStarter success talk about how there's a lot of work in marketing the campaign. Many will start with a pre-campaign party, trying to get an initial group hyped up and to share it. In Sean's case, he brought it up on forums every day.
His second major release, RogueLands, just completed it's KickStarter, another major success, having received 2100% of his original $1000 request. RogueLands is still in development, but you can find out more on the KickStarter. He told me about the Kickstarter for this one as well:
"Roguelands got a lot
of help from Magicite’s fan base when I launched the Kickstarter. I just posted
a link to the campaign to everyone on Steam, Reddit, and social media sites
which got me a ton of attention. And I was lucky enough to get staff picked
which helped a tremendous amount!"
Finally, we had also talked about the differences of working on a small and larger project, and how he was able to stay motivated.
"
Magicite was a huge
jump from the previous mobile games I had made. I think there is a much bigger
expectation for PC games than mobile games, especially if people are going to
be paying $10 for it. So I had to realize that Magicite wasn't something that I
can whip up in 3 months. I suppose the hardest thing was sticking with the
project and fighting the urge to give up. This is why I suggest to new
developers to start small, and finish your games. Had I started right away with
Magicite, I probably would have never released a game yet due to being
discouraged!"
I hope this has been inspirational to many readers. It doesn't take a lot to get started in game development. Go make your game now!
If you haven't registered yet, please do before tickets run out. Get 10% off your ticket with this code: SAGMILLER10. http://www.centare.com/mke-dot-net-fall-2015/#register
This course is about Unity 3D, and will cover some highlights of creating an RTS in it. Particularly, it will be highlighting some sections of my Lynda.com class, which should be available sometime in 2016. 
