hackernews client

Two and a Half Years in GameDev

89 pointsposted 14 hours ago

19 Comments

YesBox

12 hours ago

Nice read. Makes me excited to build a video game company/be surrounded by creatively driven people.

I've been developing a city builder game "Metropolis 1998" [1] for over 3 years. My life has been constantly pulled in two or more different directions (e.g. creativity/artistic expression vs. logic/software). Most of the time the environments that allow these forces to thrive are incompatible with each other.

Since working on my game, I've been in a happy place where I get to go full throttle on both of those. I've created my own engine and I am designing the game, directing the art, handling sound design, marketing, UI, UX, environment design, etc, etc.

[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/

My Steam page is perpetually far behind the current state of development: https://x.com/YesboxStudios

pyjarrett

9 hours ago

I played an incredibly amount of SimCity 2000 and SimCity 3000, and Metropolis 1998 looks *amazing.*

thom

10 hours ago

Been following development of this! The game looks great, and the work you've put into the simulation side really seems like it's paying off. If it's not too nosy to ask, how are wishlists etc going?

melvinroest

11 hours ago

I'm currently diving deep in making music (EDM), but this comment makes me feel that I might take a crack at creating my own game. Joining logic and creativity like that sounds like fun!

qiine

11 hours ago

nice work ! like the aesthetic

I am always impressed by what solo devs can achieve.

MrGilbert

10 hours ago

Oh, that‘s you? I played the demo when it first came out, and really liked, what I saw. Cannot wait for the final version!

dejobaan

11 hours ago

Rooting for you, as always!

spacemadness

11 hours ago

“Early access… usually happens just 1–2 years before release.”

I had a good laugh at this. So many titles have taken money and silently failed or seem to figure they can stay in early access indefinitely. On the plus side early access seems useful to smaller devs that are close to finishing but need a bit more cash and free QA. But is also a bit of a scam the way is it’s used for many others unfortunately. Find a genre with a passionate fanbase, make a prototype, collect some cash and fade away.

Any way, not to suggest it’s a bad writeup as I enjoyed reading about the author's experiences.

fullstackwife

10 hours ago

I feel that a childhood dream of the author came true, and it is a success, but the prose of reality in a large studio is discouraging.

bob1029

10 hours ago

I found the smaller the studio, the more discouraging the experience can be.

There are certainly some advantages to being in a smaller company, but there are also gigantic downsides. The biggest one being that you have no budget. You are effectively competing with every other solo indie developer with a Unity install and a Steam AppID.

Being in a AAA studio means your impact is substantially reduced, but it also means that the project you are working on would probably have more ambition and excitement around it.

At this point, I'd much rather work on some dirty, boring tooling for the Battlefield team than be responsible for the entire game engine on a 3-man team.

Indies & small shops can release genre-defining titles, but the experience as a developer in this context is statistically very, very bad compared to AAA - even accounting for parties like Microsoft taking a flamethrower to the entire segment.

dfxm12

9 hours ago

but the experience as a developer in this context is statistically very, very bad compared to AAA

Which statistics? Almost every article I've read about game development describes AAA game studios as a horror show of workplace exploitation. I seriously doubt this.

meheleventyone

8 hours ago

AAA these days is not nearly as bad as it once was and smaller teams aren’t magically immune from bad management or workplace exploitation. In particular where studios are scaling after success or larger funding can be a pinch point as the leadership. This is common in startups as well where the founders often expect a similar level of commitment from people with much less equity.

rcurry

10 hours ago

It’s funny, I don’t know anything about the industry but back in around 1999 I was working for a trading firm and we used to love hiring talent out of one of the big game companies - they’d be like “You mean I get paid the same money and I don’t have to sleep in my cubicle?”

theshrike79

7 hours ago

In a small studio you either need to have someone with deep pockets funding it or always have your next job lined up for when the money runs out.

Large (and/or profitable) studios can afford to try new game ideas and have them fail and nobody will get fired.

aschearer

8 hours ago

Enjoyable reflection. Resonates with me.

Making games is incredible but also very challenging. That’s part of its appeal. Highly recommended.

user

9 hours ago

[deleted]

koakuma-chan

9 hours ago

> About 3 years ago, I joined a GameDev company, without any prior experience making games or hands-on exposure to this industry.

How is that possible? There was no competition at all?

qiine

6 hours ago

this is surprisingly not that uncommon

koakuma-chan

5 hours ago

Can you elaborate? Depends on the country I guess, but generally any game dev job posting has hundreds of applicants.