Making a living from programming homebrew

[GroovyBee]

Do you think its possible to make a living from programming homebrew games on retro systems? The question arose from a recent discussion I've had and in the past I've thought about what would be needed. To make it viable I think you'd have to make around eight games per year and sell at least 100 copies of each (and more depending on console/computer media). You'd also have to sell collector editions e.g cart, box, instructions and goodies. I also think that you'd need to be a particularly talented individual to cover all aspects of the product because ethically speaking you wouldn't want to live off the backs of others. I'm not saying that a full time retro homebrew developer is a practical thing to do or that I'm going to do it either. Anyways, thoughts and opinions...

[carmel_andrews]

As I am sure you know GB....There is a market for everything, even homebrew software (aka 'fangames'), all that needs to happen is to get the majority of 'homebrew developers' to commercialise their product by selling it via retro/classic gaming/computing sites (like AA) therefore getting their creation/wares into the right marketplace

 

The main problem is though, is that most homebrewer's seem to support emulation as well and the issue there is that the emulation market has been weened on 'free product' ever since it's creation as a market, so firstly you need to ween the emulation market off, of 'free product' and get them thinking 'paid for product'

 

Also you have to include NMF (new media formats) as well GB like Sio2xxx,satan/ultrasatan, Usb memory sticks/cf devices/ sd cards etc etc since most classic platforms/systems (computer or console) support these new media's (mediums)

[Nukey Shay]

No, because there is no such thing as guarantees in freelance programming. I'd say you'd be extremely lucky to live anywhere near poverty level coding 8 killer apps per year for outdated systems.

[Pixelboy]

Take it from someone who's knee-deep into publishing homebrews on the ColecoVision: It can't be done.

 

To sell 100+ copies of any homebrew game for a retro console, you need to create a game that appeals to a large portion of a relatively small user base. Whether you're porting a game from one console to another, or creating a new game from scratch, you're looking at months of programming, debugging and beta-testing. And if you want to build a good "street cred" for yourself as a homebrewer, you need to have good quality boxes and manuals, and those are very expensive to design and print.

 

Next October, I'll be releasing 6 ColecoVision games at once, and to sell them at an interesting price, I have to sell them at cost, with zero profit margin which means I'm not even paying myself for the work I do. It's a labour of love in every sense of the word.

 

The only way to earn some real money from retro homebrewing is to offer your services to other homebrew publishers, (like me for instance). Then you only need to be concerned about getting the software done and you don't concern yourself with such things as boxes and manuals. But even then, you'll only get paid once the game is complete and 99.9% debugged. I suppose that if you considered homebrew programming your main job, you'd be able to put most of your work time on projects, and not just occasional free time, so months of development could be reduced to mere weeks. But could you really earn a living from such a work setup? Not really. I'm not a super-rich guy by any means, so if you were working for me, for example, I would likely pay you between 1000$ and 1500$ for programming (or porting) a single game, which implies that I'd be paying you less than minimum wage for all the hours you would be putting into the project.

 

People who port/program ColecoVision games for me don't do it for the money, they just do it for the love of homebrewing and the gratification of seing their work released on real cartridges, with box and manual.

[Nukey Shay]

BTW didn't Rob Fulop start a discussion like this before? IIRC, he didn't care for the outcome a whole lot.

[GroovyBee]

BTW didn't Rob Fulop start a discussion like this before? IIRC, he didn't care for the outcome a whole lot.

 

The outcome of the discussion isn't going to make me change my career.

[Nukey Shay]

It wasn't intended to. Just a mention that there is a similar thread that contains a whole lotta responses to read in case you get bored waiting for some in this one

[+5-11under]

Do the math. Assume 100 carts, CIB. If your material costs are $12 each, and you sell for $32 each, for instance, you'll get $20 per cart income to pay yourself. That's $2000 per game. Adjust the numbers as you see fit. Maybe you can squeeze a few dollars more by reducing material costs and/or increasing the price... or by selling more or creating collector's editions.

 

Personally, if the goal was to make money, I'd stay away from the ColecoVision, Intellivision, Vectrex, 7800, and 5200, and go with more popular consoles such as NES and maybe Genesis and 2600, where you could potentially sell more copies, possibly at a higher price.

 

My 2 cents,

5-11under

[PkK]

Do you think its possible to make a living from programming homebrew games on retro systems? The question arose from a recent discussion I've had and in the past I've thought about what would be needed. To make it viable I think you'd have to make around eight games per year and sell at least 100 copies of each (and more depending on console/computer media). You'd also have to sell collector editions e.g cart, box, instructions and goodies. I also think that you'd need to be a particularly talented individual to cover all aspects of the product because ethically speaking you wouldn't want to live off the backs of others. I'm not saying that a full time retro homebrew developer is a practical thing to do or that I'm going to do it either. Anyways, thoughts and opinions...

 

It is possible, but now programming for those old and uncommon 8 bit systems we're discussing here. The Atari / ColecoVision /whatever 8-bit system market is just not big enough. It's probably not really different for 16 bit systems these days. However it should be possible when programming e.g. the Dreamcast or some newer and still more popular system.

 

Philipp

[youki]

Or create 5 or 10 "prototypes" for your game and sell them....

 

You will get more money than if you sell 100 cart of non-prototype.

 

I think if you are really productive and able to develop games on multiformat NES, ATARI 2600, GENESIS , C64, ATARI XL ..etc.. You have more chance to live from homebrewing , but you won't be rich...

[+Random Terrain]

. . . but you won't be rich...

He's already rich:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDej3riTOS4&rel=0&fmt=18&showinfo=0

[HammR25]

8 games a year is one game every 6 weeks. A new game every 6 weeks and sell 100 copies of them and do that for several years? There's no way. E.T. was allegedly done in 6 weeks and it was considered to be extremely rushed.

[accousticguitar]

8 games a year is one game every 6 weeks. A new game every 6 weeks and sell 100 copies of them and do that for several years? There's no way. E.T. was allegedly done in 6 weeks and it was considered to be extremely rushed.

I think a good programmer could do it. johnnywc programmed Avalanche in 1 week. That would never have been done back in the day.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/110393-avalanche/page__p__1335273__hl__avalanche__fromsearch__1#entry1335273

[carmel_andrews]

8 games a year is one game every 6 weeks. A new game every 6 weeks and sell 100 copies of them and do that for several years? There's no way. E.T. was allegedly done in 6 weeks and it was considered to be extremely rushed.

I think a good programmer could do it. johnnywc programmed Avalanche in 1 week. That would never have been done back in the day.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/110393-avalanche/page__p__1335273__hl__avalanche__fromsearch__1#entry1335273

 

 

 

 

 

Didn't activision do an adaption of 'Avalanche' and call it 'Kaboom'

[HammR25]

A person would also have to churn out 8 good ideas a year. They can't all be Adventure II.

[+Gemintronic]

You'd have to target the same market as the "Indie" guys do: PC and modern consoles. Wrap your game in an emulator and sell it for 360, Wii, iPod, etc..

 

I wonder if the RasterSoft guys turned a profit on Frog Feast yet

http://frogfeast.rastersoft.net/

[youki]

A person would also have to churn out 8 good ideas a year. They can't all be Adventure II.

 

If i do only that, i can do one game a month. I think quiet good games. But surely not very original game with new concepts.

 

I'll take already proved gameplay mecanism that i'll put in new game for console that does not have yet this type of games.

[+Gemintronic]

A person would also have to churn out 8 good ideas a year. They can't all be Adventure II.

 

If i do only that, i can do one game a month. I think quiet good games. But surely not very original game with new concepts.

 

I'll take already proved gameplay mecanism that i'll put in new game for console that does not have yet this type of games.

 

That's a reasonable strategy but.. these systems have been out for so long the genres not represented are probably because it's damn hard to do for that system. Note the lack of RPGs or side-scrolling platform games for Atari 2600.

[youki]

A person would also have to churn out 8 good ideas a year. They can't all be Adventure II.

 

If i do only that, i can do one game a month. I think quiet good games. But surely not very original game with new concepts.

 

I'll take already proved gameplay mecanism that i'll put in new game for console that does not have yet this type of games.

 

That's a reasonable strategy but.. these systems have been out for so long the genres not represented are probably because it's damn hard to do for that system. Note the lack of RPGs or side-scrolling platform games for Atari 2600.

 

If you take console that had a relative short commercial life time but a correct user base , there is still lot of thing to do.

 

I think to the Colecovision, Atari 5200, Atari 7800 , Intellivision, Lynx , Jaguar.

[potatohead]

Maybe it could be a supplemental?

 

Get one of those mind-numbing data entry "work at home" gigs, and automate that without telling them

[S1500]

Quick answer: no.

 

From what I've seen here, you can get considerable debt, ie negative income, from trying to make homebrews when things don't go right.

[Bill Loguidice]

It depends on what your parameters are for "making a living", i.e., how much is enough, particularly since you'll be a type of independent contractor and will have to pay your own taxes (typically quarterly), though you will be able to write off quite a bit in operating expenses. Given the volume of homebrew games sold and the amount of work it would take to write enough games, I don't see it as a remotely practical way to earn a living, even if your annual salary requirements are extremely modest.

 

I've been contracted to write three books so far with major publishers, two of which have been published, and each of which is targeted to the "niche" of videogames. I'm also presently writing and producing a feature film documentary (also targeted to videogames) for an independent film company. Beyond that, I've written and been paid for articles/features on topics like videogames and also on subjects targeted to medical journals. The reason why I bring all of that up is that those activities are not that much different from the suggestion in this thread for earning a living from homebrew game development. I can't earn a living doing any of those activities - even if I tried to do it as my full-time job - and I think it's analogous to what you'd run into trying to make it strictly on homebrew. So what do I do?

 

I have a full-time job that pays the bills. It pays me quite well. My wife also earns a comparable salary (she also co-authored one of the books with me and may do another). We put those main jobs first, because that's what supports our family and keeps us in the lifestyle we want, and ALL other freelance activities are just that, freelance and subordinate to our main jobs. We have the creative outlet and ARE NOT under any monetary pressure, which means we can only take the freelance jobs that we want. If one were ever to hit it "big" (whatever that means), so be it, but again, we're not under any pressure to sell x number of copies of anything. The creative process comes first, which I think it has to in low margin activities, again, which I think is applicable to a homebrew publishing scenario.

 

I've know I've had arguments on LinkedIn from certain individuals who self publish books who claim they earn a PRIMARY living from doing so, which, if you know anything about the business is highly unlikely (I don't self publish, obviously, though there's nothing wrong with it in theory, just the idea that you'll be able to sell sufficient copies on your own). Only later do I find out that they're living in what essentially amounts to a shack in some remote Mexican village. Under that scenario, I suppose a four figure income MAY be sufficient, but the reality is it wouldn't be a lifestyle most would want to exist under.

[vdub_bobby]

The real key, I think, is that it just isn't possible to release enough games in a year. HSW famously took ~6 weeks to make E.T., which is about the pace necessary to release 8 games a year, and he was working full time, and he didn't have to physically build the cartridges or print manuals or ship the games or go to conventions to sell it. And the game didn't turn out that well in the end!

 

There's no way you could do that many games a year, year over year.

[youki]

The real key, I think, is that it just isn't possible to release enough games in a year. HSW famously took ~6 weeks to make E.T., which is about the pace necessary to release 8 games a year, and he was working full time, and he didn't have to physically build the cartridges or print manuals or ship the games or go to conventions to sell it. And the game didn't turn out that well in the end!

 

There's no way you could do that many games a year, year over year.

 

You have to take in account that now we lot of better to tool to create game. The productivity is totally different that the one we could have in 1982.

 

Emulator, cross-compiler, high level language , graphic tools , conversion tools etc..etc.. all these thing we have now that they didn't have back in time. Or at least not as easy to use than today.

[Blackjack]

Maybe.... just maybe. If you we're the most prolific atari coding guru that ever lived, and sold blood plasma weekly. It's too bad really, I'd like to see some guys making their living at this.

Edited September 22, 2010 by Blackjack