I just want to know how many of you have ever or do now program games for money? It seems like most of us are just doing it for the love of it…
Jonathan
[quote]most of us are just doing it for the love of it…
[/quote]
Given the low salaries, poor job security, and generally inadequate project and product management, I’d say that also describes many if not most of the preofessionals too 
Did it, but didn’t enjoy it very much. As a hobby, it’s by far more fun…
Am painfully slowly trying to build a business around writing games. Failing badly.
Cas 
[quote]Am painfully slowly trying to build a business around writing games. Failing badly.
Cas
[/quote]
And there I was thinking you’d given up and gone back to the day-job permanently…
I didn’t manage to get the grant proposal I mentioned off in time (too busy with other stuff) but if you’re still:
- serious about trying to make a full-time business here
- not tied completely to your current business plan
then give me a call sometime soon (preferably this weekend or later). There’s a couple of months till ECTS, which means there’s time to have some good stuff ready, and be able to take it to the business people who will be there (FYI to everyone else: ECTS is basically the only show in the UK where games are bought and sold by publishers and distributors; although it’s somewhat similar to E3, in some ways it’s more similar to GDC in the amount of real business going on)
Depends on the cost of the “game” ;D I work on large-scale projects pretty everywhere from small footprint devices up to large simulation systems (ie CAVEs, powerwalls etc). It’s 3D graphics development at all levels from the basic OpenGL code cutting up to full application development. As such, it’s not a Quake-style game, but sometimes it sure feels like a game when you get to play with some random tank simulator in a CAVE
I have worked on games for a living in the past, and am hoping to do so again in the (very near) future. In between I have a day job which is not related to games at all, but at least I get to use Java
When I was making a living at it, it wasn’t much money, although it seemed like a lot at the time. Plus the hours were long. But is was a lot of fun! There’s nothing that quite compares with shipping a finished, best-selling game with your name in the credits!
have you done that? shipped a best seller?
And can I get an autograph plz?
DP
I program for a living (if you want to call what I do with cobol ‘programming’…) and I know I make WAY more than I ever would in the games industry. It would be fun to do gamedev all day, but the cut in pay wouldn’t be worth it.
[quote]have you done that? shipped a best seller?
[/quote]
Yeah – though it’s been awhile… The game was AD&D: Pool of Radiance – the original “gold box” version in 1988 for SSI on C64 and PC. Had worked on some other games before that in the '80s (Orbiter, Sub Battle Simulator) which did well, but weren’t best-sellers. After Pool of Radiance shipped I was pretty burnt out from the 100-plus hour “crunch-time” weeks, and went from games into corporate databases and such. But then a few years ago I decided it was time to get back into games, and I’ve been working on the transition ever since.
AD&D: Pool of Radiance
Did you do that??
I’m not worthyyyyyy
:o
Mmm SSI … - half my youth just flashed by me :o