It seems like the only way you can end up as a successful game developer is if you grew up with your own computer and your parents gave you unlimited computer privileges.
ひげ
@xianc78 idk about "successful" but i started using rpg maker on the family computer when i was 10 years old :)
@beardalaxy I don't know how much RPG Maker costed back then, but I knew for a fact that my parents wouldn't buy me GameMaker Pro which costed $50 and required you to repay for every update. I messed around with GameMaker Lite, but it was severely limited and lacked certain features like scaling and rotating sprites.
There was also Video Game Tycoon which allowed you to create 3D action games and even burn them onto CD. It was in a monthly Scholastic book catalog that was given out to us in our elementary school. I really wanted it, but our teachers urged us not to buy anything on there outside of books (they couldn't prohibit us/our parents from doing so, but it was heavily discouraged), and my parents agreed with them (being public school teachers and education advocates themselves).
I think I was aware of RPG Maker back then, but I probably wrote it off because I felt like a genre specific game maker was worthless and I didn't care for turn-based games back then.
@vokainen099 @beardalaxy 2009-2010. I actually never asked for it. I just knew the answer was "no" because my parents didn't like buying things over the Internet at the time.
@vokainen099 @xianc78 you don't have to do that. there were places like indiedb and forums.
@vokainen099 @xianc78 if you keep up with it then sure. but at least for me, even though i'd love to do it as a job it's always been a hobby that i just really like to participate in.
@beardalaxy @vokainen099 It would probably be easier to do it as a job if everyone who has ever read a programming textbox wasn't making their own video game.
How would a kid approaching middle school manage to carve a name for himself while competing with budding professionals with at least college education, if not years of experience?
I dunno, man, feels like you were a bit early for that.
@vokainen099 @xianc78 idk what you're talking about with steam. steam back then required steam greenlight, so you had to have enough votes to actually get your game on the platform. sure, a lot of games squeaked by that were vaporware but i think for the most part they were at least decent quality with users who wanted to play them enough to greenlight them. i didn't have a steam account until 2015 though so i don't necessarily have a firsthand account of it.
i started with rpg maker in 2006, and there were a few different forums i would go on. of course i had no idea wtf i was doing and got a lot of shit for my horrible maps and games lol. but the more i learned the more i started helping out other people too and eventually i started making some scripts and stuff. if i actually had the drive to finish a full game i think there would have been a fair amount of people playing it back then in some of those more tight knit communities. now it's fuckin massive and a lot harder to get recognized, plus i haven't really been super involved with the community for the duration of my current game's development. not nearly as much as i was back then.
@beardalaxy @vokainen099 Steam Greenlight didn't appear until 2012. Until then, Valve handpicked what games would appear on Steam and the only way to appear on there as an indie was if you had a "proven track record" (i.e we're already successful on other storefronts like Desura or Green Man Gaming, or on places like NewGrounds). Valve actually did receive heavy criticism for it even though it meant quality over quantity.
They made the greenlight to automate a process where they almost always were going to say yes anyway, and besides the community and early gameplay influencers were eating the shovelware like candy and valve wasn't going to stop them if they were bringing in money.
Had you told them "I released a game on a forum once" and they would have given you approval. Valve was bent on growing during that time, they needed to act fast before the likes of Ubisoft and Epic realized they were being cut off from digital distribution, while competing with Microsoft (Yes, there was Windows Games Live once)
@vokainen099 @beardalaxy
>How would a kid approaching middle school manage to carve a name for himself while competing with budding professionals with at least college education, if not years of experience?
Like I said, I was stubborn, inpatient, and naive. I also felt that if I didn't have my dream game created in time, someone else with the same idea would make it.
What I should've done was accept that I wasn't going to make professional quality games at the age of 10-12 and just make simple 2D games and have them published on YoYoGames. Maybe I could've gained some experience from that, and who knows where I would be right now. But like I said, I was stubborn and thought of myself as a child prodigy when all I had to show for it was memorizing all the keyboard shortcuts on Windows and having access to GameMaker.
Besides, the "cool" phase of the gaming industry had already come to a close in 2008-2009. Since then, it's all AAA-sandbox galore and random indie devs that come and go. Maybe you could have made some money jumping on the train of the early indie scene, but then? Corporate game dev career and indie game dev career are basically mutually exclusive unless the indie game dev can sell an ip and maneuver into a corporate position through contract obligations.
Don't be too hard on yourself, man.
@vokainen099 @beardalaxy Yeah I know. Anyway my original point in the OP was that although it doesn't feel like it. These viral indiedevs actually have at least a decade of experience, and they were probably in various gamedev or modding forums back in the day. And that's why those who only started to make games after graduating college are struggling.
I'm not complaining, but I see myself in this in-between because I later learned how to actually program in middle school and high school and I learned to appreciate actually creating something rather than to compete with the professionals. I didn't have enough time to do it as much as I wanted, but I did enjoy every bit of it.
@xianc78 @vokainen099 it would also probably be easier to do it as a job if i wanted to make someone else's games instead of my own