{"id":15,"date":"2023-04-21T23:32:45","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T23:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/?p=15"},"modified":"2023-04-26T21:48:55","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T21:48:55","slug":"do-you-make-games-for-a-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/21\/do-you-make-games-for-a-living\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Do you make games for a living?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>No, I don&#8217;t make games for a living. But&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As an <strong>indie game developer<\/strong>, I know firsthand that the journey can be <strong>thrilling and rewarding<\/strong>, but <strong>it&#8217;s not a reliable way to pay the bills<\/strong>. It requires a lot of time, effort and dedication, but&#8230; <strong>success is never guaranteed<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Making your game stand out<\/strong> from the crowd is an almost <strong>impossible challenge<\/strong>. There are <strong>thousands<\/strong> of new bigger titles being released every year, and <strong>developing a game is an expensive process<\/strong>: it can take months or even years to see a possible return on investment. <strong>Most indie games are not profitable, and take years of hard work to make even a modest amount of money.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"788\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-6-1024x788.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-25\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-6-1024x788.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-6-300x231.png 300w, https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-6-768x591.png 768w, https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-6.png 1270w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><sub>(eXplosive Dinosaurs &#8220;physical&#8221; edition)<\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But&#8230; it&#8217;s not all as bad as it seems. It depends on how we approach it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think that indie game development <strong>should mostly be considered as a hobby<\/strong> rather than a profession. <strong>It&#8217;s important to be realistic about the financial prospects and to approach it as a labor of love rather than a get-rich-quick scheme.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-3-1024x768.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-3-1024x768.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-3-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-3-768x576.png 768w, https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-3.png 1303w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><sub>Showing eXplosive Dinosaurs at a gaming event.<\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Does that mean we shouldn&#8217;t try making games for a living?<br>No, but we should keep our feet on the ground and our expectations in check.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Don&#8217;t make huge &#8220;indie&#8221; productions, by huge teams, investing a lot of money\/time and following market trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Create small lovely games, with small teams, in small periods of time just because you want to do it. That should definitely be the indie way.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-5-1024x768.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-24\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-5-1024x768.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-5-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-5-768x576.png 768w, https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/image-5.png 1303w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><sub>(eXplosive Dinosaurs team receiving an award at Gameboss 2020)<\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>I don&#8217;t make games for a living.<\/strong><br><strong>I make a living for making games.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Experiment, learn and have fun<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thank you for your time.<br><strong>Pablo Navarro (@panreyes) &#8211; CEO of RAWRLAB Games<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No, I don&#8217;t make games for a living. But&#8230; As an indie game developer, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rawr-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions\/42"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawrlab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}