@@TheMeanArena Who says dreams don't come true... I think what I meant by this comment was that the potential to achieve it generally exists, because it's known to happen
The biggest issue for me is that you have to do too many things at once. You heard Thomas talk about x revenue streams he needs to even make a living. For that reason, I have indie game dev only as a side hustle and the income streams from it are just a bonus, not something I need to feed my family with.
@@Shadefrank I think this is the biggest thing. 100% agree. It can be treated as a job, especially to keep yourself committed enough to actually finishing the project. But it absolutely should not be relied on as the main source of income, unless the project already takes off.
I feel that a really important factor in this is having a stable income while also having the time to work on games for fun, don't expect to get a lot out of each game but someday one game will get attention
The thing that makes me want to keep making games is the excitement of creating an awesome interactive story that someone else will enjoy. When I get tired of coding, making assets, or whatever I just think about the overall awesome idea I have for current and future projects and it keeps me going.
It's real for people who realize they are competing against AAA games, and do the necessary work in product quality and marketing. Some luck always helps too
*_I guess he figured out that there's more money selling the dream than the dream itself...._* Tom's course is $600, the site intentionally doesn't seem to mention it in a straightforward way so you read all the stuff and get hyped up and uses a trust-building marketing tactic that bombards you with other people's testimonials to cue in those human socio psychological feelings of becoming soft to the idea, and that's a heavy sticker. Also, he's got a poster image on the site with 2 games with total $900k revenue grossing, but his course site states that he's got over 3k students in this course. That comes out to $1.8 million gross from the course. And even at the 800 students stated in this video, it was nearly $500k. Right now, it seems that he's made more money with his course than both his games combined. I don't think that there's much of any middleware taking cuts with the course so the ratio is probably even better. And who knows how old/accurate that number is, either way, not a good look to me.
+1 to all that. Beware of people selling self-help. Especially in a world where the internet exists and people can learn almost anything for free, paid self-help services are usually just a way to prey on the unsuccessful.
As sad and anoying as it is, not putting up the price front and center is common practice in online courses and I wouldn't hold it against him that he's using proven tactics to increase the revenue for his labour. There's lots of courses out there that do it way worse, where you even have to sign up to get to know the price or where you don't get to know the price at all and can only sign up for a waitlist. For your calculations you need to consider that a lot of the participants propably were able to sign up with a big discount.
Also him getting 100k in crowd funding from both games, but him "spending all of it". He said he made them at a full time desk job. So he was getting paid, to make the game. Unless he spent $200k on marketing (which he didn't cause he used his social media following). He made plenty of money between the Kickstarter and the continuous sales. So it's really suspicious that he "spent all the money" from the crowdfunding to make the game when really it was a net profit because he was already getting paid at his regular job to make the game due to him using the computer at work on company time. It doesn't add up.
@@SirNoviTheChauvi 2:07 he said "I was making it (pinstripe) from my cubicle at my desk job". So yeah. He was at work. On company time. Getting paid to make the game. He also raised $100,000 on Kickstarter for that game... While he was already working and supporting himself. Where did the 100k go?
Ngl but for the whole time I felt like Thomas wanted to sell me something. I was instantly put off by it and I appreciated even more how honest and likeable Jonas is in his videos. So the upvote/like goes to you Jonas :D
This was a great interview. The part on personal branding I've been doing for like 2-3 years and man it a slog to try to post every day / every week and even when I was consistent and doing it, my growth was almost nothing. It's a devastating process emotionally
Thomas Brush is all about "Oh i said we but I mean it's only me, coz I'm so lonely " "Oh I definetely hire people when I can coz i don't need to do things myself anymore" Yeah... such a genuine guy (no)
Refusing to go back to a desk job, when his pregnant wife with a chronic illness is working FT to pay the mortgage - only in game dev does that sound like a heroic thing. The indie dream is fine, but we need to stop the myth of the starving solo dev (who's actually supported by their spouse, almost always a wife).
6:34 THIS part is REALLY important to anyone that wants to be a gamedev, and I'm glad that Thomas Brush is so open about it. The reason all your favourite gamedevs are on youtube (or selling courses) is because they need a second revenue stream next to making games.
The dream is real, everyone can dream. Reality on the other hand can be pretty brutal. It's definitely possible, more so nowadays, to become an independent game dev and musician. The opportunities and resources independent people have are really great. You just have to work pretty hard and learn from your mistakes. If you don't notice your mistakes and aren't open to *constructive* criticism, then you don't really have a chance tbh. Remember that your first few public projects are more than likely going to be crap, absolutely CRAP. However, eventually you'll learn and see what works well and what doesn't. Then you'll probably make a decent income.
I couldn't have said it better myself. And like you said, with the tools available in the modern day, its a lot easier then it used to be, especially if your game is small.
An even harder truth is that he claims to live off his games... and sells that to his desperate audience. Absolutely disgusting. Simply imagine how many people will purchase this course. To me, it is very unhealthy to market a course with "stop dreaming start selling your game fulltime". I lost all respect for this guy. He became a sleazy car dealer, brainwashing his audience with motivational speech... Show of his wealth (film his house, riding on a 5k bike filmed by a drone to portrait financial freedom) Typical sleazy guru practices. I hope people start to open their eyes and simply find a good coding tutorial and buy a marketing book. It will cost you a lot less and you will have REAL information. Not this airy delusional stuff. People will disagree with me... that's fine... all I can do is my part in my own defunked way. There is nothing wrong with earning money or making a course. But keep things fair. This tool claims that his course is better than college or even university. The guy is delusional, capitalizing on the desperate aspiring developers. The demand for tutorials is a lot bigger than the demand for his games. Check every video and notice for yourself: everyone asks for tutorials. Open your eyes people,
Hey Kristian, it's Thomas! Thanks for your comment, and I'll try and address it :) When I first launched Pinstripe -- correct, it failed to meet my expectations. But as with any business venture, you slowly build your portfolio, and create various arms of income in and throughout it. So, here's how it played out for me, and how indie game studios might see something similar: I launched a Kickstarter campaign, while also signing a small agreement with a publisher. That was enough for me to finish Pinstripe. After that was recouped, I used that income to create my next game, although I also needed some support on Kickstarter for that one (Neversong). In and through that, I built my RUclips channel and personal brand. Around last year things really took off: my games Pinstripe and Neversong have found platforms, partnerships, and sales opportunities all over the place, including Apple Arcade and physical launches. The hard truth is that for most indies, they expect one game to be the single means of income, immediately. When in reality it's a slow drip of income that builds over time. Thanks for your comment, and I wish you a ton of success!
@@Jennifer-ju8de anyone can learn game dev for free the hardest part of this is getting exposure and getting people to buy your stuff. In all my years of doing creative things Ive made more money in one day at my real day job.
Think of this: Everything around you is a product. Look around you. The chair you are sitting on, the computer, the screws, cables and lights that makes them work... Someone is behind each of the products that you use every day. Someone made and sold that to you, and is selling that to others. The market is huge. There is a lot of space for people to sell a product. Your game is another one of those products. You need to make people see your product and that you help you sell it. Put it out there. Create an Instagram account... twitter, youtube... Use hashtags. Engage with other creators and your audience. Try stuff. Just keep searching for that thing that will make your product cool and unique. And be ready to fail and have people saying no to you. Only be stubborn when it comes to keep trying. Good luck!
I have discussed a lot about this in reddit. He is not earning money by making games anymore, he is making money by selling his course and using the 2 games he made in the past as a hype. Nothing else, he is just a marketer in game development niche. You will learn few things but his course is way too expensive for anyone and not worth of the money you will lose. You will find the information he teaches in the course elsewhere easier and you will receive way more recourses. If you will need to invest $1000+ for a course, it is better to invest these money to pay designers to create assets that will help you develop your game, this course will not help you much. The problem is not that he is selling a course, the problem is that he is stealing you, because the course is very very very expensive and he is not addressed to generic game developers but to rich game developers only. At 4:50 he said he is a capitalist, he doesn't care if you will ever develop any game with this course, he doesn't give a shit about you. Even if he sell you with discount again you will pay a lot because you will pay and taxes. If there is a demand, in few words if there are stupid and naïve people who will purchase the course and who believe they will magically develop and sell lots of games with this course then who cares? he is making money. Pay his luxury.
Damn, the part where you talked about detaching your identity from game development was a huge eye opener for me. Because up until this point, I was pretty much Mr. Game Developer. Like daaamn. If I hadn’t heard that, I’d probably get crippling depression in the future. It’s kinda difficult though, because I want to be passionate about what I create so my games aren’t soulless. But at the same, I don’t want crippling depression if my games flop. I think what I’ll do is start going to the gym more often, because being swole would be badass. That’ll be my backup personality so to speak.
This is great. You can see how much effort Thomas Brush puts into the visuals when contrasted with Jinas Tyroller. Not to diss Jonas Tyroller, but look how Thomas is using colours, cameras angle, clothes. He is a great seller of himself. And it's very professional. Very marketable. So well done Thomas. I watched his videos earlier over the past 2 years, saw the lighting and how every video is edited, and I was like "dude loves himself too much". But maybe I understand him more now, as I understand myself more. I think I've accepted that people skills are directed down avenues. Wheras most game devs would like to stay in the back ground and let thier games do the talking, some other people take thier creative endeavours into the whole enghilada. Someone like me, who is FukUgly would ofcourse like to stay of the screen, but someone who is presentable, and looks above average, and has a heavy interest in art, of course , should maximise it.
13:17 - Brush is absolutely right here. It's 100% possible to sell your game when you have no idea how to actually make games. Just look at Day of Dragons.
I'd equate the indie game dream to being similar to wanting to be a singer or artist. You CAN do it, if you were born with the motivation and appropriate talents and then also have support/come across the appropriate opportunities. Even then if you have everything and still put in lots of effort to getting the word out there etc. you still may not be recognised and will most likely end up having to do cover songs at pubs etc. to make ends meet. It's better to treat it as a hobby than as a career until you are better than the vast majority of people at it AND have the time/money to invest into making it your career.
The dream is real, the hard work that needs to be put into it to make it a reality is even more real. The most real is the tendency of many to swap their dream to be a full time Indy game dev for the dream of quick and easy money and giving up when it turns out to be neither quick nor easy.
Not quite. When someone horribly beats you up (or shoots you) in a game, you can still survive, reload, respawn, or even create a new profile and start from scratch. Someone can set you on fire - no pain whatsoever. AND you always REMEMBER your failures from the "previous life". So, you can freely experiment, as there are no serious consequences. You don't even age and become too old to run uphill. In real life you don't remember your previous failures, so you keep repeating same old mistakes. Youngsters are always stupid and naive. But if you think this is just a video game (and maybe it is) stand in front of an oncoming train and find out.
Excellent discussion! Recently I have been struggling with this whole idea. In particular from watching this I realise that I care too much about myself. Of course there will be failures, of course not everyone will like me or my games - and that's okay. I need to stop wasting so much time procrastinating and get going! Your channel is one of the greatest resources for game devs. The videos are entertaining, informative and leave me feeling good afterwards. Thanks for all you have made, keep up the excellent work :]
Thanks for doing / posting this interview. Really appreciate all of the comments and I think this at least confirms for me that I don't want to be that style of game developer. The marketing / social media side of things really puts me off. I am a full-time non-game dev and that's fine for me. Also, single player games are not my thing, either to play or to develop. I have created a game before for Android and it was a really valuable experience but not a financially profitable one. I have also made an online multiplayer game and that was loads of fun, still not financially profitable (but was not intended to be). I like making these style of games just for the pleasure of building something and having other people enjoy it. But these will never lead to a full-time-game-dev career - and this video helped to clarify that for me. Thank you. I'd like to hear people's thoughts on whether it's feasible to succeed financially with an online MMO that is either subscription-based or contains microtransactions (say for cosmetic items - really hate pay-to-win so I'd never make anything like that) or similar. Not yet sure if I want to take that route but I am confident I have the technical skills to do it. I do struggle with marketing so I'd be leaning heavily towards outsourcing that part or partnering with someone.
25 with a full time job with benifits and a side job as a home nurse And I’ve never been as happy as I am now that I decided to sit down and learn code and to design a game. I can’t wait to come home and work on my project Before even watching this I spent the 2 off days I had Coding a website for my projects and creating socials for the aliase I will use To start marketing my self.
Hmm, what about the saying "You are what you do every day"? That's better than "You are what you want to be", because there's so many 'aspiring' indie devs who like the idea of making a game, but don't want to actually work on the game.
so far I'm on a really good path on my journey of being a game dev, idk if I wanna be indie yet but I'm on my way, I wish I could have a conversation with one of these guys or any game dev RUclipsr bc this inspired me even more and I wish I knew these guys personally also bc they seem like good mentors
I feel like one of the most important things as indie game dev is the marketing part. Also remember everyone that the game you're doing won't be finished by watching motivating RUclips videos. Make a schedule. Make deadlines and make your game with passion. I'm about four months into my biggest project and I have my own schedule and documentation. It would never be finished without self discipline.
What an awesome interview :) As someone living in an area where there are not that many game studios (Austria), I kinda have to be indie/move to another place it really inspires me to work even harder on my game to make it one day on my own. I also just wishlisted you game and will definitly check it out once its done :)
Hey Jonas, hey Thomas, thank you so much for this video, it was really helpful. Espacially the social media part, since I'm uploading my first Beta in 1 and a half week and building an audience really helps!
But seriously, your talk with Thomas is such an important piece of advice/ information for any game developer. In fact, what you have talked about in the last part of the video applies to people's life in general. Thank you again.
The only takeaway from this is he had a desk job to pay the bills before his game career took off. It's a hobby until you finally have a successful game.
The problem with the video game character perspective is: I don't know what is the goal that i should be trying to achieve. Do even i need to achieve a goal? Why? Which goal is better? Why do i even need to achieve the best goal? Yeah, existential crisis..
The rate of change is so fast these days, if you are not willing to be the best at something, you will likely fail. Trying 50% as hard as the top developers and getting 50% of the reward they do does not exist. Unless you are lucky. Generally people don’t make plans which depend on luck.
Thanks for the informative video Jonas and Thomas. I hope I can go full time someday (I'm currently still in highschool), but even the 16 downloads my latest game got make me happy.
Never seen a content like this. Built to make you feel like you can do it. It gives you hope. This is the best content that I watched ever. Such inspiring content. Makes me wanna try again once I purchase a laptop. My previous computer broke once, and it's incredibly old. It had a 32bit OS, I could barely use Unity 5. I forgot a few practices from past in coding but I am getting it all back together and improve my skills. I am practicing more stuff in C# and once I am ready, I want to at least _actually_ succeed. Thank you for making this content for everyone including me that's interested in Indie Game Development.
I know this vid is a bit old and first time me seeing it, I just want to add these 2 people are very good people and down to earth. Sometimes when people just start speaking and say about their exp you can tell they are good people. Thank you for this vid :)
Advance of technology (at 32:02): 1991: Taking a dump for an hour while reading newspapers... 2021: Taking a dump for an hour while flipping through your phone...
For anybody who wants to understand the role that luck plays in our lives, I highly recommend training your own reinforcement learning agents, for example with OpenAI's Gym environment. It might seem like an abstract analogy, but under the hood humans are just complex reinforcement learning agents.
The course is over 500$. You can get a udemy sale course like I did for 20 bucks. What does this course offer that other courses don't to make it worth many orders of magnitude more?
He is a charismatic person who has made few games. That is his qualification, he is not an educator he doesn't have a track record of being a great developer and there is nothing that has not been said before for free on the internet. He doesn't really claim to be any of those just cashing in the support. And advertising better than his competition.
I learnt so much in this video.... I quitted Gamedev 2 years ago, but i'm still an entrepreneur... And Thomas vision is so deep... It made me relativize so much my last weeks which were pretty hard.. It helps me so much. Thank you guys
I can't tell you how many times I've been called crazy for saying my world is like an RPG.. helps with task management in many ways, personally and professionally. Glad to know I'm not the only one!
28:04 I think it's weird how that is just now sinking in. In this day and age we hyper fixate on one aspect of ourselves and make that our identity but we're so many things
This is a great source of perspective. There is a lot to learn from the experiences discussed here. I think we all strive to achieve that "full-time indie developer success", but think little about what it would take to get there.
I have high hopes. My channel and support is slowly growing, but it keeps growing, and my game is really running smoothly already. Another few months and a playable demo will be available!
Thomas Brush, in my eyes is a legend! Me my motivation did broken , when the war in Ukraine happened, i cant bring myself to work on my indie game with title SOE 2500 aka civilization clone. Only months later, now i start to feel that i need to continue my work on my game, but i feel that my time of active development is gone, i dont know how i get there.
I don't think it is all about money but about creating an art that shows something about you which may also outlive you. and thank you both for that video. :D
The indie game dev dream is real.
Most people forget that the struggle is even more real
i see this pig at discord, twitter and now on jonas's comments
The struggle is why most people stop doing game dev as well... also hello piggy :D
Existence is pain
mr 3d-ish guy why are you every where i remember your weird 3d-ish game on reddit
This deserves pin
The problem in indie dev is not to make a game that people will like, but find people that will like your game
Very true. I'm trying to build an audience on RUclips and get constant feedback about my game as I develop it
too true
And not making a shity game of course.
then you are the true artist ?
Yeah, I know that indie games can have a hard time appealing to the masses. Especially when people are only looking at the triple a publisher's.
This is the collab I’ve never asked for but definitely needed, awesome!
The dream is real, but rushing to achieve it will destroy it entirely.
Agree
surprised to see you here dor :D
@PainiteOfficial oh hello! It's nice to see you here :D I hope you're doing well!
No, the dream "can be real" not that "it is real". Most indie's literally don't make any $$$.
@@TheMeanArena Who says dreams don't come true...
I think what I meant by this comment was that the potential to achieve it generally exists, because it's known to happen
Indie game is mostly hard because you need to attract public and you need a lot of patience to finish your game
It's a marathon not a sprint ;D
The biggest issue for me is that you have to do too many things at once. You heard Thomas talk about x revenue streams he needs to even make a living. For that reason, I have indie game dev only as a side hustle and the income streams from it are just a bonus, not something I need to feed my family with.
@@Shadefrank
I think this is the biggest thing. 100% agree.
It can be treated as a job, especially to keep yourself committed enough to actually finishing the project. But it absolutely should not be relied on as the main source of income, unless the project already takes off.
yep
@@Shadefrank I agree! Part time dev can also be a struggle though with not as much time to dedicate :(
“Start living your life like it’s a RPG”
Time to clip into the void
lmao
@@commandblock123 BEGONE BOT (i reported him)
@@JohnJohnson-od6dd more like a kid
@@Gebes I don't think he's a kid, cuz i don't think they would just comment on a random comment on an english video in german.
I try but there aren't enough random chests filled with gold on the streets 🤣
I feel that a really important factor in this is having a stable income while also having the time to work on games for fun, don't expect to get a lot out of each game but someday one game will get attention
This was super interesting to watch! I usually don't listen to podcasts but if you made one, I'm in! Great job once again Jonas!
I'd listen to that too.❤
The thing that makes me want to keep making games is the excitement of creating an awesome interactive story that someone else will enjoy. When I get tired of coding, making assets, or whatever I just think about the overall awesome idea I have for current and future projects and it keeps me going.
It's real for people who realize they are competing against AAA games, and do the necessary work in product quality and marketing. Some luck always helps too
*_I guess he figured out that there's more money selling the dream than the dream itself...._*
Tom's course is $600, the site intentionally doesn't seem to mention it in a straightforward way so you read all the stuff and get hyped up and uses a trust-building marketing tactic that bombards you with other people's testimonials to cue in those human socio psychological feelings of becoming soft to the idea, and that's a heavy sticker. Also, he's got a poster image on the site with 2 games with total $900k revenue grossing, but his course site states that he's got over 3k students in this course. That comes out to $1.8 million gross from the course. And even at the 800 students stated in this video, it was nearly $500k.
Right now, it seems that he's made more money with his course than both his games combined. I don't think that there's much of any middleware taking cuts with the course so the ratio is probably even better. And who knows how old/accurate that number is, either way, not a good look to me.
+1 to all that. Beware of people selling self-help. Especially in a world where the internet exists and people can learn almost anything for free, paid self-help services are usually just a way to prey on the unsuccessful.
As sad and anoying as it is, not putting up the price front and center is common practice in online courses and I wouldn't hold it against him that he's using proven tactics to increase the revenue for his labour. There's lots of courses out there that do it way worse, where you even have to sign up to get to know the price or where you don't get to know the price at all and can only sign up for a waitlist.
For your calculations you need to consider that a lot of the participants propably were able to sign up with a big discount.
Also him getting 100k in crowd funding from both games, but him "spending all of it". He said he made them at a full time desk job. So he was getting paid, to make the game. Unless he spent $200k on marketing (which he didn't cause he used his social media following). He made plenty of money between the Kickstarter and the continuous sales. So it's really suspicious that he "spent all the money" from the crowdfunding to make the game when really it was a net profit because he was already getting paid at his regular job to make the game due to him using the computer at work on company time. It doesn't add up.
@@dakotafrazier2985 wtf are u on about? Of course he did not get paid for it, he did it on the side, next to his day job
@@SirNoviTheChauvi 2:07 he said "I was making it (pinstripe) from my cubicle at my desk job". So yeah. He was at work. On company time. Getting paid to make the game. He also raised $100,000 on Kickstarter for that game... While he was already working and supporting himself. Where did the 100k go?
Ngl but for the whole time I felt like Thomas wanted to sell me something. I was instantly put off by it and I appreciated even more how honest and likeable Jonas is in his videos. So the upvote/like goes to you Jonas :D
You were right, he has always wanted to sell you something, he still does, and never will not want to sell you something.
No way! A 40 min Video! I can't wait to watch :D
If Jonas game dev career fails, he should become a journalist. Great interview!
This was a great interview. The part on personal branding I've been doing for like 2-3 years and man it a slog to try to post every day / every week and even when I was consistent and doing it, my growth was almost nothing. It's a devastating process emotionally
I have the same problem with another business I run.
An interesting thing with this dream that you REALLY need: rest.
Just rest, take a nap, a break.
Otherwise you end up frustrated.
Thomas Brush is all about "Oh i said we but I mean it's only me, coz I'm so lonely " "Oh I definetely hire people when I can coz i don't need to do things myself anymore" Yeah... such a genuine guy (no)
Refusing to go back to a desk job, when his pregnant wife with a chronic illness is working FT to pay the mortgage - only in game dev does that sound like a heroic thing. The indie dream is fine, but we need to stop the myth of the starving solo dev (who's actually supported by their spouse, almost always a wife).
Thank you for showing me that I don't want to be a game developer.
🤣 I feel the same. I'm making my game for me and if others like it then great
@@XanderwoodGameDev wow I find you alot in the game dev world!
@@ccg5656 glad to hear it 😁❤
@@XanderwoodGameDev Did you make any games?
@@XanderwoodGameDev yeah but you gotta advertise it, otherwise even people who would've liked it will never get to see it
I like the animations throughout this! In fact, there was clearly a lot of effort put into editing for such a long video. Thanks a bunch Jonas!
6:34 THIS part is REALLY important to anyone that wants to be a gamedev, and I'm glad that Thomas Brush is so open about it.
The reason all your favourite gamedevs are on youtube (or selling courses) is because they need a second revenue stream next to making games.
They scrape every value they get into something that generates income, be it experience, skill, knowledge, devlogs, or even shitposting
The dream is real, everyone can dream.
Reality on the other hand can be pretty brutal.
It's definitely possible, more so nowadays, to become an independent game dev and musician. The opportunities and resources independent people have are really great. You just have to work pretty hard and learn from your mistakes.
If you don't notice your mistakes and aren't open to *constructive* criticism, then you don't really have a chance tbh.
Remember that your first few public projects are more than likely going to be crap, absolutely CRAP. However, eventually you'll learn and see what works well and what doesn't. Then you'll probably make a decent income.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
And like you said, with the tools available in the modern day, its a lot easier then it used to be, especially if your game is small.
This video turned out to be so much more insightful , helpful and surprisingly wholesome than I thought it would be .
Thank you 😌
Hard Truth : Selling a game is harder than making it. Thomas got a publisher but pinstripe still fails to meet his expectations.
An even harder truth is that he claims to live off his games... and sells that to his desperate audience. Absolutely disgusting. Simply imagine how many people will purchase this course. To me, it is very unhealthy to market a course with "stop dreaming start selling your game fulltime". I lost all respect for this guy. He became a sleazy car dealer, brainwashing his audience with motivational speech... Show of his wealth (film his house, riding on a 5k bike filmed by a drone to portrait financial freedom) Typical sleazy guru practices. I hope people start to open their eyes and simply find a good coding tutorial and buy a marketing book. It will cost you a lot less and you will have REAL information. Not this airy delusional stuff. People will disagree with me... that's fine... all I can do is my part in my own defunked way. There is nothing wrong with earning money or making a course. But keep things fair. This tool claims that his course is better than college or even university. The guy is delusional, capitalizing on the desperate aspiring developers. The demand for tutorials is a lot bigger than the demand for his games. Check every video and notice for yourself: everyone asks for tutorials. Open your eyes people,
@Darren Munsell but is it easier to capitalize off that mocap film via logs, tutorials, and other content, as well as to build an audience for it?
@Darren Munsell it all started with crowdfunding, and spread to platform partnerships, publishers, and game sales across all platforms.
Hey Kristian, it's Thomas! Thanks for your comment, and I'll try and address it :) When I first launched Pinstripe -- correct, it failed to meet my expectations. But as with any business venture, you slowly build your portfolio, and create various arms of income in and throughout it. So, here's how it played out for me, and how indie game studios might see something similar: I launched a Kickstarter campaign, while also signing a small agreement with a publisher. That was enough for me to finish Pinstripe. After that was recouped, I used that income to create my next game, although I also needed some support on Kickstarter for that one (Neversong). In and through that, I built my RUclips channel and personal brand. Around last year things really took off: my games Pinstripe and Neversong have found platforms, partnerships, and sales opportunities all over the place, including Apple Arcade and physical launches. The hard truth is that for most indies, they expect one game to be the single means of income, immediately. When in reality it's a slow drip of income that builds over time. Thanks for your comment, and I wish you a ton of success!
@@Jennifer-ju8de anyone can learn game dev for free the hardest part of this is getting exposure and getting people to buy your stuff. In all my years of doing creative things Ive made more money in one day at my real day job.
been waiting for a Jonas video love ur content
Thank youuu. :)
I'm at the beginning of my game development career. I will return to this video so many times. So many valuable realizations. Thank you, both of you!
Think of this:
Everything around you is a product. Look around you. The chair you are sitting on, the computer, the screws, cables and lights that makes them work...
Someone is behind each of the products that you use every day. Someone made and sold that to you, and is selling that to others.
The market is huge. There is a lot of space for people to sell a product. Your game is another one of those products.
You need to make people see your product and that you help you sell it. Put it out there. Create an Instagram account... twitter, youtube... Use hashtags. Engage with other creators and your audience. Try stuff.
Just keep searching for that thing that will make your product cool and unique.
And be ready to fail and have people saying no to you. Only be stubborn when it comes to keep trying.
Good luck!
@Just Neo Hahaha. sorry about that. Good luck completing a project I guess :P
I have discussed a lot about this in reddit. He is not earning money by making games anymore, he is making money by selling his course and using the 2 games he made in the past as a hype. Nothing else, he is just a marketer in game development niche. You will learn few things but his course is way too expensive for anyone and not worth of the money you will lose. You will find the information he teaches in the course elsewhere easier and you will receive way more recourses. If you will need to invest $1000+ for a course, it is better to invest these money to pay designers to create assets that will help you develop your game, this course will not help you much. The problem is not that he is selling a course, the problem is that he is stealing you, because the course is very very very expensive and he is not addressed to generic game developers but to rich game developers only. At 4:50 he said he is a capitalist, he doesn't care if you will ever develop any game with this course, he doesn't give a shit about you. Even if he sell you with discount again you will pay a lot because you will pay and taxes. If there is a demand, in few words if there are stupid and naïve people who will purchase the course and who believe they will magically develop and sell lots of games with this course then who cares? he is making money. Pay his luxury.
Damn, the part where you talked about detaching your identity from game development was a huge eye opener for me. Because up until this point, I was pretty much Mr. Game Developer. Like daaamn. If I hadn’t heard that, I’d probably get crippling depression in the future. It’s kinda difficult though, because I want to be passionate about what I create so my games aren’t soulless. But at the same, I don’t want crippling depression if my games flop.
I think what I’ll do is start going to the gym more often, because being swole would be badass. That’ll be my backup personality so to speak.
I'm crying right now. Thanks for this video, Jonas and Thomas, thanks!
The indie game dev dream IS real, it may be hard to achieve but anything worth getting to is hard to achieve.
Its awesome how this conversation about game dev translates nicely to almost every other hobby/profession (sports, music, or even stocktrading...)
"the problem is not how to make games , the problem is to find people who like your game"
I have a new found respect and love for Thomas after watching this video, thank you so much! I feel super inspired and drivin!
loved this so much, it’s beyond scary starting out and this just helps answer so many questions and build so much excitement
Luck is a HUGE part of any success but you need to be in the position to capitalize on it which is where the work comes in.
This is great. You can see how much effort Thomas Brush puts into the visuals when contrasted with Jinas Tyroller. Not to diss Jonas Tyroller, but look how Thomas is using colours, cameras angle, clothes. He is a great seller of himself. And it's very professional. Very marketable. So well done Thomas. I watched his videos earlier over the past 2 years, saw the lighting and how every video is edited, and I was like "dude loves himself too much". But maybe I understand him more now, as I understand myself more. I think I've accepted that people skills are directed down avenues. Wheras most game devs would like to stay in the back ground and let thier games do the talking, some other people take thier creative endeavours into the whole enghilada. Someone like me, who is FukUgly would ofcourse like to stay of the screen, but someone who is presentable, and looks above average, and has a heavy interest in art, of course , should maximise it.
f to me :'(
Brilliantly put, I also got the same impression of Thomas a few years ago but hes definitely improved and grown on me.
This was a very pleasant listen. Thanks for the podcast. Hope you can do some more in the future! :)
Don't be nervous Jonas, your army is here for you!
/salute
O7
13:17 - Brush is absolutely right here. It's 100% possible to sell your game when you have no idea how to actually make games. Just look at Day of Dragons.
Its so cool that you got Thomas for this Topic!
Two of my favorite game devs in one video!😄 (You see this Army thing works😂)
Dev army😑
I'd equate the indie game dream to being similar to wanting to be a singer or artist. You CAN do it, if you were born with the motivation and appropriate talents and then also have support/come across the appropriate opportunities. Even then if you have everything and still put in lots of effort to getting the word out there etc. you still may not be recognised and will most likely end up having to do cover songs at pubs etc. to make ends meet.
It's better to treat it as a hobby than as a career until you are better than the vast majority of people at it AND have the time/money to invest into making it your career.
The dream is real, the hard work that needs to be put into it to make it a reality is even more real. The most real is the tendency of many to swap their dream to be a full time Indy game dev for the dream of quick and easy money and giving up when it turns out to be neither quick nor easy.
Gotta say, "Life is a massive RPG" is a pretty nice quote :D
You know what.
You may be correct
Life is actually an MMORPG.
@@arsenal4444 Its not pay to win. There is a lot of grinding and most people just dont like to grind.
Not quite. When someone horribly beats you up (or shoots you) in a game, you can still survive, reload, respawn, or even create a new profile and start from scratch. Someone can set you on fire - no pain whatsoever. AND you always REMEMBER your failures from the "previous life". So, you can freely experiment, as there are no serious consequences. You don't even age and become too old to run uphill. In real life you don't remember your previous failures, so you keep repeating same old mistakes. Youngsters are always stupid and naive. But if you think this is just a video game (and maybe it is) stand in front of an oncoming train and find out.
@@cinegraphics You’re dark.
Excellent discussion! Recently I have been struggling with this whole idea. In particular from watching this I realise that I care too much about myself. Of course there will be failures, of course not everyone will like me or my games - and that's okay. I need to stop wasting so much time procrastinating and get going!
Your channel is one of the greatest resources for game devs. The videos are entertaining, informative and leave me feeling good afterwards. Thanks for all you have made, keep up the excellent work :]
Thanks for doing / posting this interview. Really appreciate all of the comments and I think this at least confirms for me that I don't want to be that style of game developer. The marketing / social media side of things really puts me off. I am a full-time non-game dev and that's fine for me. Also, single player games are not my thing, either to play or to develop. I have created a game before for Android and it was a really valuable experience but not a financially profitable one. I have also made an online multiplayer game and that was loads of fun, still not financially profitable (but was not intended to be). I like making these style of games just for the pleasure of building something and having other people enjoy it. But these will never lead to a full-time-game-dev career - and this video helped to clarify that for me. Thank you.
I'd like to hear people's thoughts on whether it's feasible to succeed financially with an online MMO that is either subscription-based or contains microtransactions (say for cosmetic items - really hate pay-to-win so I'd never make anything like that) or similar. Not yet sure if I want to take that route but I am confident I have the technical skills to do it. I do struggle with marketing so I'd be leaning heavily towards outsourcing that part or partnering with someone.
Thomas Bursh is straight up the bob ross of game dev. His voice is so calming in his tutorial videos.
Its so fun and wholesome to see game dev youtubers doing a collab to help us aspiring game developers
25 with a full time job with benifits and a side job as a home nurse
And I’ve never been as happy as I am now that I decided to sit down and learn code and to design a game.
I can’t wait to come home and work on my project
Before even watching this I spent the 2 off days I had
Coding a website for my projects and creating socials for the aliase I will use
To start marketing my self.
Hmm, what about the saying "You are what you do every day"? That's better than "You are what you want to be", because there's so many 'aspiring' indie devs who like the idea of making a game, but don't want to actually work on the game.
DONT MATTER IF IT WASN'T REAL JONAS MADE THAT SH*T REAL TODAY BOY! CONGRATS ON RELEASE MAN!
I love this video. listening to it in the background as I'm wrapping up a game for my first game jam. Thanks for taking the time to put this together!
so far I'm on a really good path on my journey of being a game dev, idk if I wanna be indie yet but I'm on my way, I wish I could have a conversation with one of these guys or any game dev RUclipsr bc this inspired me even more and I wish I knew these guys personally also bc they seem like good mentors
I feel like one of the most important things as indie game dev is the marketing part. Also remember everyone that the game you're doing won't be finished by watching motivating RUclips videos. Make a schedule. Make deadlines and make your game with passion. I'm about four months into my biggest project and I have my own schedule and documentation. It would never be finished without self discipline.
What an awesome interview :) As someone living in an area where there are not that many game studios (Austria), I kinda have to be indie/move to another place it really inspires me to work even harder on my game to make it one day on my own. I also just wishlisted you game and will definitly check it out once its done :)
Hey Jonas, hey Thomas,
thank you so much for this video, it was really helpful.
Espacially the social media part, since I'm uploading my first Beta in 1 and a half week and building an audience really helps!
Nice information, thanks to Thomas, and thanks to Jonas for preparing the nice questions
One day, trust, won’t be easy, will be hard work, but one day
But seriously, your talk with Thomas is such an important piece of advice/ information for any game developer. In fact, what you have talked about in the last part of the video applies to people's life in general. Thank you again.
The only takeaway from this is he had a desk job to pay the bills before his game career took off. It's a hobby until you finally have a successful game.
Great to hear such an honest and open conversation between two developers, thank you!
Great video, thank you!
wonderful video man, I watched it fully. make more videos like this:)
hi jonas, I recently found your channel and I just wanted to say that you are one of the best game dev channels and you helped me a lot
The problem with the video game character perspective is:
I don't know what is the goal that i should be trying to achieve.
Do even i need to achieve a goal? Why?
Which goal is better?
Why do i even need to achieve the best goal?
Yeah, existential crisis..
You guys helped me to make my decision a lot. I shall take less time taking a dump and spend more time doing my game. Thanks!
We should make a game jam were the theme is "create a new flash player"
I just spent 40mins listening to this and I thought it was a 10mis video 🤦🏽♂️ That's how engaging the content is. 🔥🔥
The rate of change is so fast these days, if you are not willing to be the best at something, you will likely fail. Trying 50% as hard as the top developers and getting 50% of the reward they do does not exist. Unless you are lucky. Generally people don’t make plans which depend on luck.
it even gets difficult for the next generations
Thanks for the informative video Jonas and Thomas. I hope I can go full time someday (I'm currently still in highschool), but even the 16 downloads my latest game got make me happy.
Never seen a content like this. Built to make you feel like you can do it. It gives you hope. This is the best content that I watched ever. Such inspiring content. Makes me wanna try again once I purchase a laptop. My previous computer broke once, and it's incredibly old. It had a 32bit OS, I could barely use Unity 5. I forgot a few practices from past in coding but I am getting it all back together and improve my skills. I am practicing more stuff in C# and once I am ready, I want to at least _actually_ succeed. Thank you for making this content for everyone including me that's interested in Indie Game Development.
I know this vid is a bit old and first time me seeing it, I just want to add these 2 people are very good people and down to earth. Sometimes when people just start speaking and say about their exp you can tell they are good people. Thank you for this vid :)
Thank you guys! This was awesome.
Mentioning the elephant in the room... HUGE RESPECT FROM ME!
Advance of technology (at 32:02):
1991: Taking a dump for an hour while reading newspapers...
2021: Taking a dump for an hour while flipping through your phone...
For anybody who wants to understand the role that luck plays in our lives, I highly recommend training your own reinforcement learning agents, for example with OpenAI's Gym environment. It might seem like an abstract analogy, but under the hood humans are just complex reinforcement learning agents.
So wise! Thank you, this was a pleasure to listen.
"You're not defined by the people that define you"
That might be his best quote, hope it sticks
I'm excited to see how much impact this video will have on my live...
I remember when I first started game development, I went to Jonas and asked him to do blender videos 😅😂
15:58 - "Probably the most important skill you need is communication..."
Basically, whatever you would do for your SIM to make them rich, happy, fit, and famous, you should also do for yourself.
The course is over 500$. You can get a udemy sale course like I did for 20 bucks. What does this course offer that other courses don't to make it worth many orders of magnitude more?
He is a charismatic person who has made few games. That is his qualification, he is not an educator he doesn't have a track record of being a great developer and there is nothing that has not been said before for free on the internet.
He doesn't really claim to be any of those just cashing in the support. And advertising better than his competition.
This is such a great interview. Love both you guys!
Finishing a game is part of the first step to being a indie game developer. Networking is really a major step into having other venue opportunities
I learnt so much in this video....
I quitted Gamedev 2 years ago, but i'm still an entrepreneur... And Thomas vision is so deep... It made me relativize so much my last weeks which were pretty hard.. It helps me so much. Thank you guys
I can't tell you how many times I've been called crazy for saying my world is like an RPG.. helps with task management in many ways, personally and professionally. Glad to know I'm not the only one!
Thomas' T-Shirt fits to the topic.
28:04 I think it's weird how that is just now sinking in. In this day and age we hyper fixate on one aspect of ourselves and make that our identity but we're so many things
Yay! My two favourites having a chat!
Indie game developers are entrepreneurs. You need to wear many hats. The biggest fan has to start with you.
I do games as a hobby and I will release my first game on Steam in some weeks. Lets see if I can leave my full time job to focus on this :O
Good luck! Releasing it is already a huge step
love these types of videos you make! Keep up the good work
Ill let you know if its real after I release Dwerve next summer lol. (fingers crossed)
We are all hoping for the best for you
This is a great source of perspective. There is a lot to learn from the experiences discussed here. I think we all strive to achieve that "full-time indie developer success", but think little about what it would take to get there.
Love thomas brush. Probably my favorite indie game dev
I have high hopes. My channel and support is slowly growing, but it keeps growing, and my game is really running smoothly already. Another few months and a playable demo will be available!
I don't even care what the verdict was, I'm not listening, your youtube vid will not stop me
Thomas Brush, in my eyes is a legend! Me my motivation did broken , when the war in Ukraine happened, i cant bring myself to work on my indie game with title SOE 2500 aka civilization clone. Only months later, now i start to feel that i need to continue my work on my game, but i feel that my time of active development is gone, i dont know how i get there.
I don't think it is all about money but about creating an art that shows something about you which may also outlive you.
and thank you both for that video. :D
Love this. So much good stuff on here! Thanks for putting this together.