Ask HN: I'm quitting my job, will create a game – any advice?

[drinkcocacola]

Summarizing, after a nice adventure at a startup, I'm quite tired of it. My main issue is I have a lot of decision power in this company (without being in a management role), and I know that I cannot just move to another company and do what they say. I want to have something truly mine.

I am going to create a mobile game. I already have friend who is a graphic designer (and a gamer). We are pretty excited about some ideas and mechanics we've been exploring. I don't want to create "yet another RPG" that no one will play, but a "simple", entertaining game with a well defined business model and a well defined market target that hopefully will have enough traction to generate income. HN readers. I ask for advice! Some info you may find useful

- Country: Spain - Runaway $: (Just for me, for living) 12 - 18 months - Skills: Software engineer, programming mainly for Android and iOS, with a little of JS (Vue and friends) and a little of Spring + Big Data DBs.

Please share similar experiences, any advice regarding the project (still have not decided if Unity or Unreal Engine for instance) or just some encouraging words because I will need them.

Thanks!

[nicpottier]

I built games full time for about five years, straddling the transition into smartphones.

Building a mobile game that is profitable is a bit like the lottery. You need to build something great to have a chance of winning, but building something great is not a guarantee that you will win. I realize that goes for most business ventures, but I think it is more true for mobile games than most.

What captures the imagination of an audience is in large part a guessing game and a matter of luck. You can look at past successes as a demonstration of that. Flappy Bird was a hit for a bit but it wasn't exactly clear what was so different about it than so many before. Angry Birds started an insane franchise, but I'm not sure if the same game were launched today whether it would capture the same share of the market. It is just really really ephemeral.

But making games is fun, like really fun! I had more fun in those years than I have at any other point in my career. We were banging out a game a month and having a blast doing it. This was very early so we knew there was audience enough for each of those to pay the bills, but I wouldn't count on that these days.

So all of that to say, do it! But don't expect to pay the bills doing it. Maybe you will, maybe you won't, but it is very much either rags or riches with very little predictability on where you arrive.

[nicpottier]

I should add that we decided to stop doing this when we realized we were now playing the lottery for a living. We had a few times where we got featured in stores and made thousands a day but didn't take off from there and that was that for that title.

If I can offer any advice it is to focus on simple mechanics and keep production costs way down. Don't spend more than three months on launching your first title.

[taphangum]

While I agree that making games in general is a bit of crapshoot, I think that there is a way that you can increase your chance of success. Based on what I understand from creating businesses in general.

If you target a specific group people initially, and make something 'for them'. As one of them. You place yourself in a much greater position to succeed than if you had simply made a game in the abstract in the terms of who it is for.

A great example of this is the FIFA franchise. And most of the football related franchises for that matter. It seems like if you meet the criteria of making a great game, as the OP has stated, failing within these categories is in some ways, harder than succeeding.

[squibbles]

Speaking from many, many years of experience:

Cash is king. Nothing is more important than cash flow. A runway is not a development budget -- it is a loan in the form of opportunity cost. Always look for income at all times. And never, ever borrow money for the project.

Regarding people, keep active contacts with other people. Do not shelter behind closed doors. The world moves quickly, and if your team withdraws into its own bubble for 12 months, when you emerge you will find the world to be very different.

Regarding tech, Unity will work better than Unreal because a small team needs to reduce technical overhead as much as possible.

Regarding gameplay, favor simplicity over complexity.

Regarding art, maintain a cohesive and unique style across all elements of design.

Regarding players, start looking for them from day 1. It takes a long time and a lot of work to build a following. And remember, the players are not your customers -- they are your new boss.

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

As a just average Joe gamer, art style makes or breaks a game. If you pick a style, stay with it. Indie games like stardew, skullgirls, don't starve, papers please, punch club, and darkest dungeon all proved graphics don't sell games, especially on mobile. If anything word of mouth has probably helped most of those. But mostly, the art style is visually appealing and doesn't look like lazy garbage.

[tomcam]

All sound advice, from what I can tell.

Regarding your profile, when I read it I feel like I am already in the middle of a game.

[patrick_halina]

I used to work for Zynga. My advice is to think about how you'll gain users. The mobile gaming world is basically user arbitrage. You buy users (via the ads market) for X, and if you make more than X, you print money. It's helpful to find a creative that gets clicks for cheaper than the rest of the market. Eg. if your ads have slots machines, then it costs $25 to acquire a user. If you find some niche, like cool cars in your ads, maybe you can spend a lot less to get users. I'd recommend testing your ads before even starting on coding a game, test out a few different branding concepts. Really successful mobile gaming companies have a tight loop between their ads and game development. It's important to get quick feedback and see how new game features affect user retention and spending habits. Note, all of this costs money! Do you have a marketing budget to acquire users.

What not to do: spend a year coding a game in your basement, then "release" it and hope it grows from word of mouth. Those days are long gone.

[bzzzt]

Maybe that's the 'most sure' way to generate money from games, but in my opinion most of those games are bland and generic. Maybe you just want money and don't care about who will play your game, but hard-core optimising your ad-gamedesign loop means losing a lot of the opportunities for fun and less traditional designs.

[tomcam]

This has to be one of the best first posts ever.

[auslegung]

I don’t want to discourage you, and I have never built a game myself, but I have heard a lot of horror stories from small shops to large shops. If you were my friend I would recommend you read about the failures of others before you and how to avoid them. I would recommend you use lean startup principles so that you get something into users’ hands ASAP. Maybe give yourself a short deadline, like 1-3 months, and say you HAVE to have a public demo by then so users can begin telling you what works and what doesn’t.

Good luck! You have a great runway if you’re able to avoid common pitfalls. And even if you never make enough money you (probably) can get another software job easily.

[cteague]

Agreed on the lean startup principles/short deadline. You've got to get something into the hands of users as soon as possible. You might also want to consider doing some design up front and making a landing page. Perhaps you can gauge interest that way and receive feedback.

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

I'm not saying this is the route someone should take, but the stardew guy made stardew solely to build his resume up while he was looking for a job.

[WhompingWindows]

Try working on the game 20 hours a week while keeping your job. If you truly love the concept and love working on it while still working full time, that'd be a good sign to potentially scale it up with your full 60-80 hours you'll be spending.

[nmfisher]

Have you ever done this though? This is how I started and progress was impossibly slow.

At some point you’re just draining yourself of every spare hour, you’re underperforming at your day job, and you’re not really moving forward.

It’s ok to do for a month or so as a litmus test, but after that I fully support diving in full time (in full knowledge that there’s a 95% chance you’ll fail).

You can always get another job.

[auslegung]

This might be ideal, but some people would not have the energy to do that much work in a week, and since the OP has a 12-18 month runway and probably can get another software job easily and quickly should they need to, it doesn’t feel as necessary in this case. But I do agree in general, and it would be wonderful to never dip into savings at all.

[at_]

I'd agree with this, as someone that is doing this (though have no intention to leave my job). WFH has made it easier than ever to find the time, which admittedly isn't easy, but turning it into a grand life decision does make for a convenient excuse to put off just sitting down and starting it

[p1esk]

this is the best advice here

[atum47]

this

[krajzeg]

Random thoughts from a solo game developer:

- Validate the idea. Try building a prototype and verifying your idea before comitting to it. You'll learn a lot about whether your game idea is fun/can be made fun, and learn the ropes of your new dev environment in a way that'll let you throw away your early code with no regrets.

- Pick Unity if you don't have experience with either. You'll get to results faster, and at solo dev scale, the quality Unreal offers won't matter.

- If you've decided on a mobile game, do some research on how effective monetization on mobile works, come to terms with how bad the options are and decide if you're still into it

- Runway seems OK for what you're doing, but word of advice: it is mentally taxing to some people to be in financial "freefall". I know this hit me hard when I made a similar decision to yours.

That said, there are a lot of good parts as well. Seeing people play and enjoy your brainchild is definitely more rewarding than working somebody else's startup or company, and as a venue for creativity, game development is hard to beat for somebody with a programmer skillset.

[vannevar]

I wrote a game with a friend early on for the App Store. I second the notion of validation. It's great you have a friend who can design graphics for the game, but prototype and test the basic mechanics before you get too wrapped up in the appearance. Using simple placeholders will speed up your iteration as you refine the mechanics. I spent a lot of time writing a vector graphics layer (this was in the days of iOS 2), and while it was very cool, it took a lot of time that could probably have been better spent trying experiments with the basic gameplay. The game was not a big success.

[NoOneNew]

A. Talk is cheap. Be aware with who you align with as you will probably learn the hard way that people's actions and words aren't always the same.

B. Cashflow coming in immediately is super rare. However you distribute or make a deal, it easily takes 1 month to actually see the real, usable money. I've had a lot of deals that were "ready to go" and still took about 2 to 3 months to finalize.

C. Your mental health is your most prized, valuable possession. Avoid burnout. Sleep regularly and well. Stay to a schedule. Eat healthy. Exercise. Do not work more than 10 hours a day, no matter how badly you want to. That 18 hour sprint means you'll work 40% efficiency the next day. Plus you risk burnout. One day off a week minimum devoted 100% to fun and/or relaxing.

D. Organize and learn you will be juggling short, mid and long term goals. Dont sacrifice one too much for the others. Find balance.

E. Dont bite off more than you can chew or be too ambitious. Yes, ambition is good, but you're juggling high risk. If you make an easier game 1 to do that extends your dev time by another year in cash flow, game 2 could be grander than your current vision. Plus you have experience to help you. You might be better off build 2 to 4 smaller games that help you build cash flow and experience that all give you the skills to tackle your dream project with precision.

F. Theres a lot of shitty advice on the internet. In the end, trust your hard earned experiences over someone else's "never did it" bullshit.

Good luck.

[satysin]

I would highly recommend you not quit but perhaps see if there are any more flexible working arrangements you can come to with your current employer.

Perhaps you can go part time or take 3 or 6 month (unpaid) leave?

I wish you all the best whatever you choose to do. Make sure you post an update when you have something to show.

Also maybe go the 'devlog' route and document the process on YouTube and Twitch as those are pretty popular right now and is a good way to gauge interest and feedback for "free".

[m00x]

If he's not too tied to his job, leaving and finding another one in 6 months shouldn't be a big issue. Whenever I start looking, it takes me around a month to get a new gig.

[markus_zhang]

I work in a mobile gaming development house, so maybe I can share my 2 cents.

From the look of it, the landscape of mobile gaming is pretty competetive nowadays. I'm not sure which genre you are targeting, but from what you are describing I think it's a casual game? I strongly recommend Deconstructor of Fun to you as it covers mobile gaming pretty extensively and we have been using it for industry information from day zero. Subscribe to the newsletter and try to figure out the landscape for your genre, and see where you can find an edge.

That said, unless you have been going through a full scale mobile gaming dev from begining to end, you might overlook some aspects. For example, you didn't mention method of marketing (but do have a market target), but that's one of the key areas that contribute to the success of a mobile game (and pretty much every indie game), and could be pretty expensive if you go through some channels.

Another thing to think is how easy it is for others to copy your game. It's almost fair practice that companies start copying other games, not only the gameplay flow, but even the look and style of it. Big companies do that as well, so be careful.

Your financial looks good, 12-18 months should be good (I'd target for 2 years though), and about the engine, we are using Unity, but I guess it depends on the project and your experience. If you think the gae won't have top graphics and you don't have a solid C++ background, maybe Unity is easier?

[underseacables]

I wish you the best of luck but… I strongly urge you to keep your job.

[gamblor956]

Don't quit your job. At least not until after you actually have a playable game. It always takes way longer than you think it will. You're going to want your day job so you can bootstrap the game development.

As for engine, Unity if you know C#, Unreal if you prefer C. Unity if you like documentation, Unreal if the lack of documentation doesn't deter you. Unreal has a better networking stack.

[dinkblam]

just don't.

i wasted 18 months on creating a game. it was an awful time with millions of boring-but-necessary tasks and sales on mac+linux+windows were basically zero.

if i had a time-machine, this would be the one decision i'd reverse.

[Javantea_]

Is your game for sale or available? I'm releasing my first game now and am curious to see examples of negative results -- since all I ever see are positive results.

[nmfisher]

Don’t you appreciate the knowledge and experience you have now though? I’d never consider that a waste.

[m00x]

Just because this was your experience doesn't mean it'll be his.

[beningrad]

Don't make the mistake of dismissing game design. Spend way more time than you think is proper on non-digital paper prototypes and greybox digital prototypes. Get your half-baked games in front of people and watch where and how they struggle, get bored, have fun, lose interest, etc.

All the best engineering, art, audio, marketing, and polish in the world won't make a game more fun. Stickiness comes from game design and game design comes from iteration.

[friendlybus]

Adding to parent, the premise of your game is very hard to change after you've started. You will think of new ideas that you will have to axe as you progress, so get a non-digital prototype you know has appeal. It will keep you on track.

[yarcob]

Whatever you decide to build, make sure to get people playing your game as soon as possible. Don't wait until some specific milestone, show it to people immediately.

The biggest mistake that people make is waiting too long before showing people what they are doing, and after they put in months of effort they are disappointed that nobody seems to care about their stuff.

If you can't find someone who will play your really rough first proof of concept, then you probably won't find people who will play the finished game either.

(Also, just because someone will try one version of the game, doesn't mean they'll be your beta tester for ever. You'll need to find new people to try your game all the time. If your game is good it should get easier.)

[speeder]

So, I am one of the cofounders of Kidoteca, where we got some family members to invest and we released a bunch of games.

1. Kidoteca never turned a profit, mind you over time the revenue is not terrible, but investors lost their money basically, games are still for sale and still generating revenue but too slowly to be useful.

2. Many bigger investors are wary of supporting such business, because they got scammed (games in general have some fraud here and there, mobile game industry, has rampant fraud, IP theft, actual physical stuff theft, and a bunch of other crimes, corruption, government espionage... it is just nuts).

3. If you still want to try anyway, knowing all that... there is a whole industry named "hypercasual" games, where you create a simple game, and publish through some platforms, and if the game is successful, they help you spread it further and share the revenue with you.

4. DO NOT attempt to make PC/console-style games on mobile, you will lose money, people that want "real" games do it on a Switch or PC or a Dingoo (a cheap mobile console from Korea) and so on.

5. As much as I wish selling games directly were a good business model on mobile, it isn't, people just want free stuff, so you have to rely on freemium or ads, sadly for Kidoteca case both of these models are terrible considering our target market (kids below 6). One of our competitors that had success, did so by having the game be the advertising in first place, ie: the game purpose is make the brand known, and then they get money selling cartoons, toys, t-shirts, etc...

[WhompingWindows]

How do you plan to execute better than your competition? Keep in mind, any great game idea you have will be instantly poached by others who know how to execute quickly.

[jek0]

Game publishing is a numbers game. Most games go unnoticed, very few will break even, only "lottery winners" will make real money. The stores are full of well executed games with original ideas that you/we never heard about and never will. Games in page 1 of each category will make money, then there is those from page 2 to 10000.

We've spend a year and a half building a game that made us just over $1000. You increase your odds by having a name in the industry: known game designer, known franchise, known publisher, something that will put you in the front page of gaming websites for a few hours, but even that is just a push, no guarantees. You can also go for a quantitative strategy: build lot of small simple games. This last strategy worked better for us.

Make sure you take this decision knowing that failing is by far the most likely outcome. That's the hard truth about the game industry.

Sorry if those are not the encouraging words you hoped.

[closed]

Best advice I got in a similar situation:

Don't plan to do any work in the first month.

I ended up doing a ton of cleaning / organizing my apartment. Straightened out finances. Started journaling. Tried things like taking freakishly long walks.

After a month I not only felt ready to work, but also that I had prepped a lot of useful habits!

[tb303]

Tell your friend in design they aren't allowed to create any original content. They have to do everything using stock or readily available material. Build a proto. If the proto has any legs or fun, you've got something. You don't need to quit your job to know this yet.

[butz]

You might want to watch this for inspiration: Short Hike Post-mortem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW8gWgpptI8) about single developer struggles. Of course, this is one of successful stories, so your mileage might (and will) vary. Give yourself tight deadlines and see if you can stick to them. Do not be afraid to bail out early, if you see that game development is not working out. I'd suggest keeping your daily job until you at least have minimal working prototype of your game and get positive feedback.

As for games on mobile platforms, be prepared if you will create something new and unique - it will have dozen of clones on day three after launch.