No time. They’re incomplete. Not enough free time. They’re mostly not games. Also, no time <.<.
I found that time management is the single most important skill when working on a side project, a lot more than technical expertise, since the latter can be learned rather easily through reading and practice, but for that you need time.
Love this quote but don’t believe you are mediocre for a moment.
I work full time as a systems developer, this is my income, as for writing games I started just a few weeks ago on my first game so I would be a fool to think I could make money out of it but I am really enjoying the new challenges.
If I could make money from it one day then it would no longer be a hobbie and I am sure no way near as fun, I can code when I want how I want with no pressures, I have watched some of the indie movies, documentaries and those guys are under a lot of pressure to achieve .
If people were really on here to make money they would not share their ideas maybe?
I haven’t made money yet but still lose a bit of fun since work together with a pixel slave. There’s someone who start to fix my stupid idea and it feels odd.
princec was being overly modest and nice. Fact is princec finished the games or at least some of the games they start. That is the trick. And that makes princec a better programmer.
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Not that I would say I’m a programming god (just a sex god), but in my situation, my skill and knowledge about programming comes from the fact that I have a regular job as a software engineer, and game development is a hobby.
I’m guessing that’s the case for a lot of people, we’d love to live off of game development, but reality being as it is, have to make ends meet otherwise, and do not have the time to produce marketable games.
Also, don’t confuse programming skill with the ability to make good games. You can churn out the most beautifully crafted code, capable of bringing tears to the eyes of a hardened war veteran with no eyes, and still be incapable of creating engaging games.
Game development is a very multidisciplinar endeavor, just being good at one of the parts, no matter how important, isn’t enough to come up with a good product.
Yes, I stole a quote up there. 
The problem with indie developers/hobbyists is that there are so many options, and you want to explore them all, but you can’t, and then you never finish anything.
Making a game that sells is hard. And the odds of getting a reasonable return are very slim. For every Minecraft there are hundreds (thousands?) of miserable failures.
Most indie devs are interested in the tech side (engines, rendering etc). Few can create art, even fewer understand business and marketing.
But, it can be done. Cas is an interesting case. His games are 100% focused on a very specific niche, but there are enough gamers in that niche to support him full time. His games are also extremely polished. Like, orders of magnitude above virtually every other game I’ve seen on JGO. That makes a huge difference and can’t be under estimated. And finally, even though his games are “low tech” 2D, he still requires a dedicated artist and another programmer to help.
Now, let me get back to my OpenGL engine 
No time for games, busy making tools. 
Poor little thing. Quick, dry your tears with all your KS moneyz.
I don’t sell HungerGamesBoardGame because the idea isn’t original and thus a lawsuit could arise if I tried to make money off of it. I don’t sell any of my other games because they aren’t good enough to be generally appreciated. Also, I doubt I’m old enough to legally do so anyway.
We simply don’t have confidence. Admit it, you have ever “pfft $0.99 for this stuff?” and then you silent for moments, look on your work, and poker face.
I work harder than you for less money, no need for the bitterness.
Easy to be bitter about wildly successful but unmonetised open-source projects. I cry myself to sleep every night thinking about how much money Markus Persson has made off of the back of LWJGL and how I’ve never seen a single cent, but you get over it.
Cas
Well I guess if you had licensed LWJGL it would not have been wildly successful…so you wouldn’t have made any money that way either! You just can’t win sometimes.
heh, it was a joke i’ve been making since the KS ended, usually multiple times a week on gtalk or when you stayed at my place. i know how much money’s left over after all parties take their share, and it’s not something i aspire to. I’m quite happy with how things are, and certainly not bitter
Hi Donate 
http://www.lwjgl.org/donations.php
Markus Persson
Mojang Specifications
But site have terrible donate page,
shi random refresh and sort names every time when page showed.
IMHO: but I don’t think its Large amounts of money, I hope I wrong.
I tinker with the tech only; I don’t really make/finish games and I certainly won’t sell them. Its one of the many outings of my programming hobby that fascinates me because it is so much different than web/enterprise development, mobile development or regular client side (GUI) application development.
Here’s an interesting article about how and why many game developers release their games as freeware: http://indiestatik.com/2013/04/15/why-freeware/
(via iandioch)